My second experience with the Calicut University B-Zone arts festival produced two poems out of me,and to state a sad fact for me,thats all that there is going to be. The first one passed the selection test,but the second one did not impress enough. But I still post it because I feel that even though it did not fare well on comparison,they show in a small way that I have grown as a writer/poet. So,here goes.
By the way,we won the B-Zone. Again. :)
1) Yesterday.
I Search;
In the unreachable abyss
Of yesterdays.
I have dropped moments like marbles
Making no noise
As they roll away.
I look at the final knots of lifes rope
Wondering where the rest had gone.
The last few leaves left to fall
In the autumn of life.
Before death's winter would clothe me
In his cold blanket
And lay me to rest
In some dark alley of the earth.
I grope in the dark depths of yesterdays,
Hoping to lay hands on some memory
That Time forgot to take with him.
Some leftovers from the Past,
Anything,forgotten or cherished.
Days spent under the warm sun,
Or in the bosom of a loved one;
Days spent cursing the Time,
And how it was too plenty ahead.
Moments burned to ash
In the fire of life;
Scattered to the winds
Or left to flow in the tides of past.
Yesterdays appear before me
Like some tantalizing mirage
Like some beautiful child
Who smiles,but runs out of my grasp.
Chancing upon an old lost love
And looking into his eyes
Going back to my old playground,
I search,but they have diffused
Into the dust,
Walking away to infinity.
Days of unblemished laughter,
Holding my father's hand,
Sleeping in the crook of my mother's arm.
Youth was short,beauty shorter
Deep lines encroaching my face
Every fresh day,and
Dimples washed away in a tide of gloom.
But I forgot to look at how
I was strong of limbs
My hands not yet blue with veins
My legs not heeding commands
Of some unknown outside force;
But soon I lost them too
Standing helpless before life,
Who,like some harsh mentor,
Exacts demands and punishes me
For disobedience.
I look back time and again
For the lost pearls of yesterdays.
But they allude me,
Choosing to hide in some corner of Time,
Forever lost to me.
2. The Fall
(the topic was "water death" but I decided to name it thus, and based it on the Mullaperiyar issue)
The Water is going to die.
Like some huge ancient beast,
A century old,
He stands on his time-eaten legs
Swaying ever so slightly.
Holding onto his old limestone wall
Gasping for breathe,for air.
The village watches in mute primeval fear,
Its thousand eyes following
The slow rocking of the ill giant
Their hearts going cold,
As the dying giant looms taller.
The tremor of his faltering steps
Passing through their soil,and their souls.
The Water is going to die.
As he crumbles,his life snuffed out,
It will fall,the mighty corpse
On their hearths and their children
Unable to run,bound to the earth
By Time and Tradition.
Life standing still,to let death pass through.
A thousand makeshift tents
Surround the ailing Water
Their small voices thrown like stones
Onto his heavy,tired head
Faint echoes of the tornado down South
And the arguments of the chiefs
Over his spot of cremation.
The Water is going to die.
His ancient mother the Nature
Takes him into her bosom;
Trying to soothe his pain,
Holding his cold,sweaty hand.
But before her tear-stained face
He smiles,and slowly decays.
The wind strokes his damp hair
Kicked up by the fall of a hammer
From somewhere up the great North
His eyes quiver expectedly
And he licks his parched lips.
But the wind dies out,
His brow bathed again
In the sweat of the coastal sun.
The Water is going to die.
But the medicines are too expensive
Voices ring out from the makeshift tens
Demanding that the giant go slowly
To the earth;
- The rats have scourged the treasury,
And the money-box eaten to dust.
The small masters of the mighty beast
Who holds his fetters in their hands
They do sadly regret his poor health,
But the times are bad,so perhaps,
He could work a little more?
They shake the dying beast to his feet
His eyes blind with pain,his ears gone deaf
In the gushing roar of his death-knell.
The Water is going to die.
But he slowly abides his time
Turning spiked wheels in their pivots,
Its thump-thump matching
The rhythm of a million beating hearts.
Seeking release from his chains,
In a grand,sardonic Death.
By the way,we won the B-Zone. Again. :)
1) Yesterday.
I Search;
In the unreachable abyss
Of yesterdays.
I have dropped moments like marbles
Making no noise
As they roll away.
I look at the final knots of lifes rope
Wondering where the rest had gone.
The last few leaves left to fall
In the autumn of life.
Before death's winter would clothe me
In his cold blanket
And lay me to rest
In some dark alley of the earth.
I grope in the dark depths of yesterdays,
Hoping to lay hands on some memory
That Time forgot to take with him.
Some leftovers from the Past,
Anything,forgotten or cherished.
Days spent under the warm sun,
Or in the bosom of a loved one;
Days spent cursing the Time,
And how it was too plenty ahead.
Moments burned to ash
In the fire of life;
Scattered to the winds
Or left to flow in the tides of past.
Yesterdays appear before me
Like some tantalizing mirage
Like some beautiful child
Who smiles,but runs out of my grasp.
Chancing upon an old lost love
And looking into his eyes
Going back to my old playground,
I search,but they have diffused
Into the dust,
Walking away to infinity.
Days of unblemished laughter,
Holding my father's hand,
Sleeping in the crook of my mother's arm.
Youth was short,beauty shorter
Deep lines encroaching my face
Every fresh day,and
Dimples washed away in a tide of gloom.
But I forgot to look at how
I was strong of limbs
My hands not yet blue with veins
My legs not heeding commands
Of some unknown outside force;
But soon I lost them too
Standing helpless before life,
Who,like some harsh mentor,
Exacts demands and punishes me
For disobedience.
I look back time and again
For the lost pearls of yesterdays.
But they allude me,
Choosing to hide in some corner of Time,
Forever lost to me.
2. The Fall
(the topic was "water death" but I decided to name it thus, and based it on the Mullaperiyar issue)
The Water is going to die.
Like some huge ancient beast,
A century old,
He stands on his time-eaten legs
Swaying ever so slightly.
Holding onto his old limestone wall
Gasping for breathe,for air.
The village watches in mute primeval fear,
Its thousand eyes following
The slow rocking of the ill giant
Their hearts going cold,
As the dying giant looms taller.
The tremor of his faltering steps
Passing through their soil,and their souls.
The Water is going to die.
As he crumbles,his life snuffed out,
It will fall,the mighty corpse
On their hearths and their children
Unable to run,bound to the earth
By Time and Tradition.
Life standing still,to let death pass through.
A thousand makeshift tents
Surround the ailing Water
Their small voices thrown like stones
Onto his heavy,tired head
Faint echoes of the tornado down South
And the arguments of the chiefs
Over his spot of cremation.
The Water is going to die.
His ancient mother the Nature
Takes him into her bosom;
Trying to soothe his pain,
Holding his cold,sweaty hand.
But before her tear-stained face
He smiles,and slowly decays.
The wind strokes his damp hair
Kicked up by the fall of a hammer
From somewhere up the great North
His eyes quiver expectedly
And he licks his parched lips.
But the wind dies out,
His brow bathed again
In the sweat of the coastal sun.
The Water is going to die.
But the medicines are too expensive
Voices ring out from the makeshift tens
Demanding that the giant go slowly
To the earth;
- The rats have scourged the treasury,
And the money-box eaten to dust.
The small masters of the mighty beast
Who holds his fetters in their hands
They do sadly regret his poor health,
But the times are bad,so perhaps,
He could work a little more?
They shake the dying beast to his feet
His eyes blind with pain,his ears gone deaf
In the gushing roar of his death-knell.
The Water is going to die.
But he slowly abides his time
Turning spiked wheels in their pivots,
Its thump-thump matching
The rhythm of a million beating hearts.
Seeking release from his chains,
In a grand,sardonic Death.
