POEMS
CHA-An Asian Literary Journal September 2014
Muse India Nov-Dec 2013
Muse India Jul-Aug 2011
Indoors due to rain and illness
Reading Hour Jul-Aug 2011
I
From where I come it doesn’t rain so easily.
The pot in the sky doesn’t tilt so readily, so often.
It fills to the brim collecting drops.
Drops into drops
strengthening against a hasty plunge.
One... two... and three days the breeze cools
morphing into a storm now
and then raising sand to eye
shingle to shin.
Joy mounts, strangers smile
rising prices become a joke
frail men sitting in parks laugh
talking politics and daughters-in-law.
Four... five... six days
the clouds bunch up, tentatively.
Summer afternoons turn dark evenings
laughter and song flow
like on the arrival of a married daughter.
No forecast, no weatherman is heeded.
Today it will rain! Is a greeting, salutation, goodbye.
The rain god turns in his sleep letting out a grumble
miffed at our persistent, unending celebration.
His stingy palm opens. Some jewels drop.
But the storm rises too soon
dispersing the clouds
like carrom pieces shot sharp.
Some more he releases and
the tap dance below gains momentum.
Gurgling, he sits up, his smile flashes.
The heat of the earth rises to peter out.
We’re out barefoot
dancing awkwardly, unashamed
we soak till we become the rain, the feet tire.
Returning to dry clothes
wet hair, hot tea, power cuts, we
have our eye on the rain.
The window is open
the wet patch forming under it, unbothersome.
We watch the rain fill
roads, ditches, gardens, trees.
In your land of easy, everyday rain
pampered leaves
unlimited cool breeze
dust storms unheard
I want to stand under the monotonous shower
and raise my arms
so a sudden storm may gather me to it
and blow me away unseen.
II
Tell him to rain those words too
which I can bring collected in my palms
to show you.
This illness, every bout of it
composes that state
of neither here nor there
of half being, quarter...nil
it wipes away the mundane
food, Facebook, missed call
the ceramic frog chuckles in the empty house
a neighbour’s table walks in through closed doors
a belief that had sunk
turns light and rises
above doubts, uncertainties and other obscuring names.
I scribble dazed and dozing
so I remember when it drowns again
heavy with reality
chained around its neck.
Words surge and flow.
They are for the world.
For you, illness is not enough
For you, I shall have to die.
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