FIVE POEMS
Poems of Angst
Bsm
Murty
The Mask
Who are these people
Who surround me
At this late hour
With their faces masked
In weird grimaces
Ogling with green glinting eyes
Their bat-ears protruding wide
Swaddled under their dark cloaks
In their hairy nakedness
I seem to know them
Each one of them
At one point of time
Beyond the present
In the labyrinths of the past
I have often seen them
Lurking in dark alleys
Peering into half-shut windows
Mumbling cabbalistic syllables
Scratching their pubes
Spitting out venom
Singed by their own flames
Of pride, envy and hatred
Burning to ashes
To nothing.
‘ISNOTNESS’
My
presence is in my absence;
In
my being, my cessation.
I
am because I am not.
I
am not because I am.
All
you know, you don’t know.
You
see only what you don’t see,
Hear
what is not audible,
Touch
what is ephemeral,
Smell
only the déjà vu.
I
am untruth’
The
whole untruth,
And
nothing but the untruth.
Yes,
I am all, I’m everything.
Because
I am nothing at all.
Whoever
says there is no God
Knows
not, because God Is;
Because
his ‘isnotness’
Is
impossible to prove,
Because
what you don’t see
Or
believe, also Is.
The
invisible
The
inaudible
The
untouchable
Is
the whole reality.
The
Wall
‘Something
there is that doesn’t love a wall’
It
stands there silent and enigmatic.
Between
desire and fulfilment.
Who
raised it? This ugly wall?
How
come it stands here brazenly
With
its pockmarked face –
Hard,
stony, savage, harsh, pitiless -
Grimacing
with criss-crossed shadows?
Rugged
with malice and contumely.
It
divides. It hides. It shuts out.
Blocking
tear-filled eyes,
From
gentle solicitous emotions,
Choking
sighing sorrows,
From
piercing its concrete barbarity.
Snuffing
candles on vigil
For
those who perished in pain.
Will
it be there forever –this wall -
Indestructible,
undemolishable, perpetual?
‘Something
there is that doesn’t love a wall’
That
stands forever silent and enigmatic.
Between
desire and inertia.
IT
What's it
Down under.
It's it
But what's its name
Why cant I say it aloud
Shout its name
From my rooftop
From the hill top
From the top of the Everest
What's it after all
Why all this cover up
All this pretence, hesitancy,
Shame, prevarication, euphemism
Why this obsession, this fear, this dread
This sense of guilt, of sin
In saying its name aloud
In speaking about its being
Why not bring it into the open
Into the sun, into fresh healthy breeze
Caressing its thick eyebrows
Why not let it sing
Its song of freedom
Freedom from millenia of slavery,
Torture, assault, bruising, mutilation
Why not break that iron chain
That has shackled it
From ages gone by
Let’s bow our heads to it
Let’s sing a paean for it
Let’s worship it
It made everything possible.
The
Pitcher
I
am an earthen pitcher
Lying
idle in a pitcher-maker’s backyard.
As I
look around, I find many pitchers
Lying
around me, some of them
Have
their necks broken.
Others
appear misshapen.
Hardly
any are perfect in shape.
I get
worried about myself:
Am I
all well made?
Free
from all defects?
Round
and sound in shape?
How
can I see myself?
They
are all looking at me.
Am I
in good shape?
Is
nothing wrong with me?
How
do I know?
Who
can tell me?
Only
the pitcher maker perhaps.
