Carried away

The girth of the grandmother's waist
is too large for little hands of the child.
He tries to lift her in a seeming pretense
but with serious effort.
Amused, she laughs, pats him
and arranges his tie
carried away by the breeze.
And the school bus is never late.

Not very far

Reality is a rope
that burns my palms.
And I climb forever.
Moments, the empty corridors
in a train, move in full force
like the vocal chords of a lost voice.
Things are pushed aside
to a corner of solitude.
To a circle where
I see myself grappling.
The falling rain is incessant
feeding the streams of doubt
that rejoin into oceans.
The windows are many
but the view is one.
Even pushed against the wall
I can't see that very far.

Another smudge

The boatman of Vaitarani
rows over flowing stories
between life and death.
He writes them down with an oar
dipped in everyone's blood.
Tallying, good and bad
is none of his business.
A boat and an oar at his hand.
That's his reality.

The starts he knows
are full of noise
The ends, every time he assumes
to be little different.

But he rows on
and writes on.
Another sludge in the river.
Another smudge on the paper.

A December

The city wears a shawl
of wintry loneliness.
Quick steps all around
pierce the condensing darkness.
Doors swallow the bodies in a hurry
and souls are left behind for a moment
as if making sense
of the journeys till the threshold.
A solitary car pummels down
the beams of light
in its tussle with the looming mist.
The mid-night moon reaches out
to no one in particular
through a fronded cloud.
And what is present in real
measures for eternity
the vastness of absence.

Never gone

Wounds are never gone
without a trace into oblivion.
The smooth table that I am writing on
has scars of the many attempts
to tame the life it once held.
A branch is broken off like a limb
and the sore void of its shoulder
stares now with a Cyclopean eye.
Violence, in all its active and passive forms
is varnished with meaning.
And transacted like this table.
Supported on the four legs of reason.

Our necessity and comfort
till undone by death.
And then the wait for a new claim.
A new owner who might lay
hands on this and eat it
like a hollow wafer
filled with sadness and life.