A Patriarchal Carnivore

The crows circle over the dead rat,
And gather, cawing together;
As one they tear apart the carcass
Freshly crushed by wheels-
One with a two-colored flag.

And as each gets its fill,
With a satisfied caw, it climbs
Away, to scout for more,
Alive, dead or rotten-
Smitten, torn or plainly swallowed.

From dawn to dusk,
The ministers survey,
Search and watch out,
And in between

The ways of the loin,
The peck with their beaks also.

And the black crow-
He stands atop a bust,

Clawing in, and looking out for more,
Maybe fresh, young and tender,
Or ever so slightly greyed,
Or the old lady who is just too frail.

The lust struck eyes prey for more,
And pick out a scurry and swoop
To rip
And to rip and rip to ignominy.


A swoon gathers,
And pleasurably eaten,
The remains stay,
Till the storms cover it away.

There he flies our majestic crow-
And all hands feed this ancestor,
He who held vows on his sacred thread,
He whose land, they took upon his death.

P.S:- Title courtesy Srini

Summer

And a summer walks in;
He's all but the scorn,
The scorching disdain of
The late night worker,
Drowning his sorrow,

Working a rage and flipping stones
At empty houses, haunted,
Till they are knocked down
To rubbish, and paid to be
Taken away.

The summer is here.
There't's bloody boiling
Away whatever is left,
Melting the tar,
Glaring through rear view mirrors-
Brighter than truck lights on a highway
At night, brighter than far away cities,
As bright as ever, as bright as May.

The stupid streets of the city,
They let their tongues out like strays,
And the dogs hide under the cars,
Till they're chased away from their slumber
By boys who find more use for stones
Than knocking down mangoes
In the house with shady tales.

The sea drives on, knocking back
The waste,  fighting the shores
On which foreigners played soldiers
Like children, breaking each other's
Holds, stealing non-existent thrones,
Knocking down churches,
History and a little bit more.

The burning is here,
Like a flaming education-
On life's cruelty through
Deprive and thirst
For smitten dreams,
Waiting to be polished
Till they shine like bloodied antique,
On which generations cut their fingers.

The summer is here,
And there are no songs on it.
The cool breeze no more walks,
And the bells continue to toll,
And the sweat wets the ropes of toil.

Someone else

Narrow roads on which
Kings once upon a ' trot;
And the dry river,
Stops, like a flag at windless
Half mast-

Oh! a little water,
Not plenty, was all we asked.
Damned, dammed,
No winds blow with 'em
Carrying clouds to shed,

And the rusty brown graze,
Flattened, all but a swallow to look,
And kites to circle over
The toil- recoiled,
Spun into a chest,
Buried with knots
Of safe harbour,
From times of prosper.

The long road,
Savvy not a bend;
Whispers of a strange daughter,
The anklet of war
And deep burnt scar,
What do you want to be?

And a summer shall follow.
It will burn,
It will sweat out
In ignominy of heated rage;
It will kill the sacred mornings,
The dreams of childhood,
And make you walk out as
Not young any more,
Into that which holds none,
Only that which makes
You seem someone else.

Now

The city walks, jumps and slides,
Brakes, skids and falls off,

And passes,
Over bridges, under subways,
Past red lights, cutting lines and lanes,
hitting cyclists,
Banging trucks;
howling over, Tugging,
frightening joggers,
Skipping hitchhikers,
blinding eyes,
and bashing and crashing
Into broken dustbins.

Screaming horns, screeching tyres,
Panting old men, audis, and
A little kid making balloons out of
Carry bags.

Slow margazhi mornings-
Ordered sounds,
Sung-hummed over
Temple speakers;
Shattered coconuts,
Crushed lemons,
Violins, voices and
Venerated odes-
Love poetry,
Hugs and kisses,
To a flutist.

Segments and narratives,
Grace, beats and unhinged 'quence,
Blazing eyes, drunk panache,
slapping thighs, broken strings-
The noted nuance, brazen,
unbound-blastic,
No bourn, no borne.

Bhajans and Adhans,
Howling wind, sleepy dogs
With half open eyes,
Unlit roads,

Emanating elan,
Staccato poise;
Flashing, dip and dim,


Footsteps on a stage,
Dark cold sky,
Days to go to thai.

A whisper in the dark

A whisper in the dark,

The spirit of turmoil

Looms large.

Neither indoor nor out,

It sways like the branches of a tree

Under streetlight shadows;

Like one who sat there to learn,

And then conquer better terms,

Of words to make freedom,

Bound by conspiration, 

Discontent, quiet,

A vindictive reservation.

The masses cry,

And call for a hanging,

A flogging, a quarter,

To fill the despair,

Of hopeless gods,

Who beat chests,

And bloody sacred grounds,

For votes of power,

To veto oaths of ancestors.

A whisper in the dark,

The spirit of turmoil,

Looms large.

Crows

Yellow sunshine morning,
Wet crows on telephone lines,
A gathering,
For yesterday's waste to be laid out-
The scavengers' party,
The ancestral right,
For the souls they carry,
In their deep caws.

Even as they scurry house to home,
They stand still on terraces calling out,
A friendly date, the pigeons dare n't
Steal, the squirrels keep away.

The black crows of Mambalam,
They eat away stale rice,
And at times let the rats
Win the race; and they saunter
And drop away on your best dress.

At times they prefer cars,
And sit on top of a tree
In the house where there was a murder,
Cawing and cawing,
At all times of the day and night.

At times they prefer politicians,
Dead or alive,
And then one comes back to shout at night,
All that he did wrong,
As if a penance for his previous life.

Memories

Silly imitations,
Words spelt as they sound-
Childish babbling-
Whispers of confidence,
Told with clutched hands.

Broken crayons and torn papers,
Danglers that spin around slowly
Over an empty crib; The light through
The window is horizontal and slim.

What you knew once are no more,
They are but another in the looking glass,
An impression like the lady on the moon,
Etched through fond tales by fonder aunts.

Memories are best served
In warm blankets and pillows,
With a silence creeping in,
Loneliness, a fetching.

Strange city

Oh! strange city become stranger.
Pull the blanket over your face
and tuck youself tight,
For what I wish to see is no more there.

Stranger city, I am afraid
That I do not know you.
That the loved one you were once,
You are no more.

A little you grew but  what I liked you outgrew.
Oh! strange city you have become stranger.
The ones I care for are no more here,
the people I miss are no more near.

You shoved as you took in a little,
the shore line has creaked a while
and the small town you once were-
the warmth has become hotter and hotter.

Now I cannot but think you are a stranger,
With folded hands you appear weirder and weirder.
With a flourish you have become bigger,
Oh! strange city you have become stranger.

Parceling my dreams ahead

An ever growing void-
Like the gap between summers
In the vestigial memory,
Which burns out like
The mosquito coils during storms.

The talisman, worn out by sweat,
Breaks- and you have nothing
To hold it together, no knots
That can mend a dead thread.

Overcast skies linger,
Memories of laughter,
Anger and an ebbing promise
Of better things hangs like
A mist in your favorite hill station.

Days spent staring out of the window,
Have gone away, your urge to leave,
To move away, from the city
That made you who you are;
But you hold on tight, reluctant,
Living through another day-
One more day. Again.

I want to pack my dreams
And parcel them ahead,
Hopefully, they won't be lost
In transit, decaying in a light-less corner,
Of a pest infested warehouse.

TO whom, I wonder I shall send it.
If you do get it, hold it for me,
Let it not be damaged.


The Light Shines The Brightest

A new day

A sea breeze tickles;

Under the bright street lights,

A dog, stretches and scraps.

Memories of drizzles,

Of thunders, of storms,

Some of nature, some within. 

The bright yellow of a laburnum,

The promiscuous flames of the forest,

And those faded plastic roses-

That tell tales of summers gone by,

Of winters that never were,

But for that muffler, lying forgotten,

In a moth ball filled corner,

Between old pillows and sheets,

From times without a colour TV.

School day mornings,

Of emulsifying prayers, 

Told rote by a hapless generation,

Caught in times, forbidden,

Hoping to rub away the marks

Of religion, belief- reluctance,

To accept anything taught

By people who exchanged roses,

And could not freight

Romance of a distant culture,

Which in crude, hoped to sell

Skin and mindless banter.

A silent light switches on-

Early morning prayers at midnight;

Gods saunter and relive,

Days of mortality,

Of sojourns and nostalgia,   

Like those refuse to believe, in

A higher being, sins, curses,

Cruel tricks, litany, devils,

Coincidence and submission.

 .

They are but a poster on the wall,

A mark of yearning,

Among the miserly triads of a trying faith.

As the lights go off,

A lighting strikes, far away,

Stealing a life,

In the blink of an eye.

Those days are gone,

New ones, now await.

The Light Shines The Brightest