All this talk of love, love lost
Joys and sorrows -
Of inexplicable thoughts
Of death; worse, fear of death –
Its fine for a solitary afternoon
Or a late night when you have
The freedom to brood…
All you have to do is to regurgitate
The stale memories.
Though the utter pointlessness of the exercise
Hits one like a blast of cold air
And one shudders as the blizzard
Of loneliness shrouds the self.
Once in a while you have to clean your system.
Empty the Recycle Bin,
Clean up and defrag the disks.
Files accumulated over the past
Move crumpled into the bin
And then to oblivion.
It would be nice
To have a hard disk instead of a brain
Where fungus-ridden memories grow maggots
Eating into my soul.
My home, oasis in the middle of concrete desert.
'Still at the old house?', they ask me -
Little do they know I am so proud and smug
That I live in the hand- me-down decrepit
Where my grandmother and other ghosts linger.
I see them; there he is, my father, hopping down
From the coconut frond to nibble the leftover rice
There she is, my mother, the bossy Jungle Crow
Trying to edge out the squirrel.
Grandmother comes in the evening, hooting,
Espying from behind the tree leaves
Muttering to herself, uttering inaudible curses
At me, her grandson, that impractical dreamer.
They are all there, cousins and aunts
Maids and men, children and dogs.
They come as they wish,
At the click of the mouse -
History is on.
Switch off History
At the next.
At a click are gone -
Memories,
Love, longing
Rage, Sorrow
The moments you spent -
With me.
No, the next will not
Bring them back.
I shudder to think -
If in real, as in that virtual
You would flick - me off
With a click.
Dear reader, if perchance you happen upon here now,
Move on, with a casual click to somewhere else -
I have nothing to offer, other than a word,
On a pair of dead pigeons.
Move on then, but with a briefest thought
Of the beauty of life that linger even in death
Of the parting of ways that you and I will, one day
Remind yourself that this is how it all ends,
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Pigeons that you fed
Pigeons that cooed, cozy beneath your roof,
Pigeons that rose with a flutter
To the sky as blue as their wings.
That's all, my dear reader, move on, as I did -
But before you do, step aside as I did
Gently picking the memories up and laying them
Looking through old albums, reliving,
Moments captured long ago,
I sense me smiling
Sometimes wincing,
Sometimes unfeeling,
Sometimes marvelling and then again
Flipping past, lest pain infiltrate my mind -
Suddenly, I stop, shocked, realizing
That they are just images -
They don't exist - no more, never again.
How silly is it of science
To say that senses are only five!
How insensitive is it of science
To censure those beyond the ken!
Eyes screwed up tightly
Head turned sideways abruptly
Lips clamped firmly
Trying to shut in momentarily.
Would it, please, go away
Images, sounds, the smells,
Words uttered, heard, this sense
Of pain, wrenching my heart?
Time exists only in our minds
In the recesses of memory
Facts of past and fictions of future
Time stands still only for those
Walking the streets of Cochin
Walking back in time.
Walking over my footprints
Walking, tracing, remembering.
Remembering shadows of a spent youth
Remembering lights bright and empty streets.
Remembering an open window, a shut door
Remembering light filtering thru leaves.
Gone- the room, the hotel, the lane
Garbage piled up where geese once honked.
Gone- the shops with fruits and cakes
Gone- the girls with shy smiles and love.
A stranger to faces rushing by
Strange indeed, the memories bidding bye.
Did I ever live here, doeth my breath linger here?
Did I ever stand in this shade- why, only a stump is here!
Sunday- the day when you can be
Yourself- and not let be ruled –
A day to do what you wish to do
And not what others want you to do.
Sunday – the day one could read
Even the most insignificant ad
A day you need brush your teeth
Only when you want to eat.
I have a little duster, of soft
Synthetic bristles – to dust
The books, tables or the shelves
And an old torn shirt to swipe them clean.
There’s something about cleaning,
Dusting, tidying up and swiping.
A fleck of dust, a blotch of stain,
A crack that weren’t there before.
Pause awhile, butterfly,
Alight here, on this wilting Rose.
Young flowers, I know, are beckoning you,
But stay with me, just for a while
And leave me with memories fresh.
There! Now you poise, ready to take to wings
You flutter – and a petal
Falls.
The time is nearing to leave.
File – save as – give a name
And it becomes a part
Of my documents
Hidden behind a password
Which I only know.
In the recesses of my hard disks
C:\ My documents\ Kottayam, or-
Some other name that I decline
To tell you.
Later, in a lonely night
I will access the file
And glance through it
At random.
This flower, that face
This light that flicker in the darkness
You can feel it with your tongue-
The more you feel it
The deeper it delves
Into the crevasses of your teeth
Entrenched, stuck
It becomes part
Of your molars or wisdom.
The surreptitious search
for a toothpick -
even a matchstick to ease
the discomfort -
to poke
to probe
to dig
to dislodge
to divest, finally