Poems written in April2014

Contents
Souvenirs Mist Butterflies Tree In the eyes, the dream Narration Earth day Cracked Gold Song Turbans Childs inventory Uncle Old stories Peristalsis Torque 1 2 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Tinsel Inside Stuff Physiognomy Of Death Lamppost Hand holding Laundry Outlines Unplugging Crowd Decline and fall

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Souvenirs
All the times we had passed through Stay embalmed and available, pickled Sun- dried like meat pieces preserved For all those unending vegetable days. We have our passions still simmering. Fates are toothless to chew and claw From wizened faces, moonshine gone From our thin pates, now bald moons. Lucky we had pickled earlier moons And preserved them for a future use. And now we flaunt them as keepsakes Souvenirs to show bored neighbours We had been there, fort ruins and all. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: souvenirs

Mist
I seem going down in my eyes And all your gestures are trying To match bodies with my own . Eyes smiles are failing to match Your mind with my phonetics. My lips drift away in the sands By wind sailing to differentiate The sea from overhanging sky. In the mist are vague contours Of people and shrouds of them Walking towards me and away Like wind that wanders in mist Or a rain that comes in walking On the road ,as gusts of a wind As people and daughters about, People and mine from a womb, And white robed figures in long Tails hanging from their necks. My mind recognises sovereignty Of the foot, functioning on own. The fly does not walk its texture Nor does the song set it tapping A ghost foot declaring rebellion, Preferring to join them in a mist, As if parts are wholes themselves.

Butterflies
A poet, before her dying, thought Of butterflies on mass migration From where they wouldnt return, Very natural thing for their wings To die and fall off from falling sky, That were monarchs of all survey. All poets have butterflies in eyes. A full blown poetry book may yet Launch them on the wings to fall Into waiting laps as beauty tokens. Before a rich ripe uncles dying Book might not see a days light. Wings are folded round a body On way to a misty evening land From where will be a no return And the wings will just drop off On way, in the never ending sea. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: butterflies

Tree
We try to re-live our moms Memory over this very tree Bending solicitously towards The neighbours house wall. It favours him by its richness Of sap and fullness of fruit So green it will turn yellow Or end up as pickle on table By when the cuckoo shall tire Of calling the rain from sky. Back where she took to sky She is a tree now full grown With ripe mangoes dripping Like rain ,on soil freshly laid For her to take roots and fly, Held by the earth and its sky. So I believe as belief stopped When she was river from boat And the quickly flowing boat Did not allow us to look back And find her in rivers eddies. So I believe she is now firmly Rooted to the earths eddies Where roots plummet deeper And deeper as memories fade And then we are trees like her.

In the eyes, the dream

Rilkes father had no moustache The brows touch,and in the eyes A dream, the youthful filial dream By a poet who looked for dreams In vintage photograph creatures. Like Ariel spirit who sang for you To vanish and be gone for ever Singing of pearls that were eyes Of dreams that made his pearls Five thousand rupees for a string, In a pearl bazaar of four towers Far from oyster hosting oceans. We are looking for dream fathers Without a moustache, their brows Duly touching and knit in thoughts From far off space, soft to touch Like pearls solidified from dreams Found in old photograph creatures. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: in the eyes, rilke's father, the dream

Narration
The grand narrative shall go on Briefly interrupted by an event. You see the narration resumes Quickly after the event ends. The wooden posts that enclose The festivities are pulled down, As temporary skies after event, Leaving maps of earth filled holes. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

Earth day
We are of the earth in a pot That will break in mid -river We do not look back to see, Speeding away to see pieces Re-form earth we have lost And regain in rivers of time. Our earth-pots had waters That smelled of the desert And a moon in our women. Earth pot had holes of light From which the oceans fell As sprinklers on days earth For lugubrious trees to rise. We are an earth that breaks In shards of our gone times To be preserved in museums And re-forms as tiny lamps Holding all our earth hopes , A sun rising on a new earth. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: earth day

Cracked
Lest thirst should seek water We give much to future eyes. Water will flow in mud dams The upstream flows drowned By speeches,on long routed Roads fleshed with rain mud That smells like new monsoon Coming from south-west hills. We wear our palms on board And lotuses smell fresh mud. This monsoon is treacherous On cotton in the cracked land. Minds go cracked like the land And bodies disappear in fans. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: cracked

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Gold
We like to think of the midnight sail Amid light sounds of a boat paddle On nights waters on gentle breeze As a moment of eternity lost to time With some gold added to it as in love. We do not like strokes in television Watching, staring at a clock fixation As if smiling for ever, a frozen smile Not moving shadow on face ,flitting As if a white cloud passing on a hill And soft sunset hue added for gold. Poets like to add gold everywhere. Our stroke of luck does not happen All the time ,in the television or out. This sort of a smile is just some ice, A frozen Arctic waste on moms face, Fixed for ever and there is no gold, A worn sunset with no talk of dawn. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: gold

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Song
A creak cannot be a song Unless it be at a midnight When the arms of the tree Coalesce to belt out song A soft moony wooden ditty A painful friction,cats purr Love,with no subject-object. Object is no love but wind. You get windy like doors Banging shut for a nothing Their stoppers stopping Short of love expressions. Words fall somewhat short All for sounds to take over In crucial moments of love Like death that is a sound. Death is an act of love said Without sound,just a poof. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

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Turbans
From the sleepers I get up and go Past dreams by their inert bodies Careful not to brush fragile winged Butterflies of their eyes enacting Fierce war dramas behind the lids Their butterfly movements in sync As in choruses of some tragedies. Now I survey bodies and turn back To remove their turbans as trophies For my own dearest sister who took A private fancy for their many hues. At dawns crack , bodies will get up And go, their colored turbans gone, And their swords drawn for a battle With below- the- turban knowledge That dreams are gone with turbans. (From a scene in the great Indian epic Mahabharata) Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: turbans

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Childs inventory
To know when to order new ones I must have their proper inventory. The stars shine up there endlessly And have been, since I came here. I shall now make their inventory Night after night,strewn like salt On sea shore, left drying in pans. Since I came , stars have changed A lot against the dark sky, behind The well where the waters glisten And rope and pail wait out a night Ready to bring up the fallen ones Shining by default in well waters Dropped by somewhat loose sky. My fingers are tiny , not that pointy For the counting and I often forget Where I stop and where to resume When I have to do my home work, In between and run up to the roof. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: child's inventory, inventory

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Uncle
Time is to cease to be an uncle A lecturing dad , a senti brother To he who stares from a photo, In grayscale rolled shirtsleeves . Uncle & nephew will jointly stare At the bottom of the starry sky In due course ,below the house. Nephew will join him by and by. While uncle was at it ,in his life He had bitten his sarcastic lips About the world and its maker And you nephew were peculiar. Nephew now asks uncle to wait Till he reaches a house bottom So they will jointly stare at sky Making fine sarcasm together. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: uncle

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Old stories
They come back with a vigor Seeming new but old stories That happen again and again Just the language of thought Frm old skulls, not very far When their seams come apart As if to admit starlight inside Or for geodesical knowledge. We were there another time The old brick walls with moss A flower creeper in crack sired By a birds chance dropping Or the terribly busy antlines Crawling as if they were fates Calligraphy on our foreheads Across our skullplates, where Stories are writ to repetition. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

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Peristalsis
This way our tunnel moves Down and further ,to gravity And against,this way our fate Wills it through Its dark grief, Accidents of human history. Inside is the dark tunneling That moves through our stuff A monster of thirst and hunger Where everything is pushed Like a relentless juggernaut A snake that slithers as bodyA body to a daily conclusion. When a daily conclusion fails The snake is massive stone. It turns afraid in snake folds Of final conclusion reached Too soon,a logical dead end Where the snake forgets tail In a forked head,now a stone. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

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Torque
Mostly are facts, a birth That cannot be refuted Or wiped off from eternity. A creature became itself In the floatsome air fluid To dance as the arc on seas To bring a being into being The fishtail would be gone. A tadpole would forget tail To be a normal swimthing. A tube goes the way down Matters of mothers gravity But somewhere facts are twisted. Alphas are sigmoid,in beta version. A version stays permanently beta In tortuous path to food and drink The tubes sigma turns volvulous Facts are twisted to suit designer A making defect from perfect hand Or a frivolous experiment to truth. Now can you undo a few birth facts? Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

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Tinsel
This is how the mind conects After the hard nights bargain With a sleeps dreams in rags Now mere recalled landscape. Body finally connects things Of a mind,its bits of darkness Its interstices ,its pausebreaks, As body thinks itself to fever. Bodies pause for their wholes As noises go flat, turn smooth In a new landscape of words The poetry that does not realTake place ,only sound tinsel, Tinsel the sound is Godlawful Many sounds and nightluminous A temporary fireworks in sky Not to be mistaken for all time. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

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Inside Stuff
We cant make all this public The inside stuff, a monologue. We speak under our breath As tubes go long and deep Inside a stomach and below Where speech dies in thirst And a breath air turns sticky As monsoon of recent earth. We are the insides of nature A skys overtures to the body That has a sky and an earth Become one in single breath Inheritors of recent real man, A soul dying to be mere body, A body since changed to sky. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

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Physiognomy Of Death
His death is difficult proposition for us Its countenance is our matter of space, Wedged between two chunks of time A vast plenitude, a richness of texture. We carry on discourse as if he is in room Sarcastic about others talk in the room Below window of an oppressive summer. We pretend its ongoing through the long Shadows of an April, the cruellest month To pretend otherwise ,breeding marigolds For eighty plus men, hanging their boots. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

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Lamppost
I deserve all the respect Due to my advanced age. I bend slightly from age As light turns out heavy Under the yellow flood I nightly garner to drown Walking people and dogs Who eat their shadows . I have never disciminated Between man and beast, Susbstantial or a shadow, While distributing my light. One- night moths rise from Earth to make wise halos Round me on rainy nights. But this is between us two. I cant forgive the mongrel For its utter lack of respect Shown me , night after night. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: lamppost

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Hand holding
Will you please hold my hands Said she at the edge of the bed As if it was her precipitous cliff And gravity was down pulling. She would know ,as in her time She had done her handholding For others, locking their fingers In hers, so they would not fall off The edges , in their eerie dreams. This time round , hands are not Locked in position, in a firm grip And it is now any time they will Loosen for gravity to do its work. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: hand holding

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Laundry
We beat our common stones Jointly and severally owned. Our laundry washing spirits Are completely perked up like Goosebumps at a temporary Excitement, recent feel-good. A rhythm of beat is the thing. Detergents are freely mixed. They smell of fresh lemons Taken off their trees to hang On a sun drying clothesline. We have left all our currency To remain in the shirt pockets. That is for their nice laundry. We are looking for our hangups We wear always on our sleeves. We shall give them a nice beat Once they are off dirty sleeves. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao

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Outlines
I barely see the outlines In the darkness of trees. The sun caresses them The nape of their necks Erect in a stranglehood Of his overflowing hair. Hair makes fine outlines In the dusktime of wind When it removes traces Of unique face identity. The faces shall disappear After they turn outlines Under a suns hegemony. The sun takes them away Abolishes them quickly In the darkness of trees. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: outlines

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Crowd
Crowd turns midnight tide For politicians of many hues Submerging minds like sea When the moon is high up. It breaks too, when it does With flotsam, against sands Digging heels in crab holes As moon is down in dumps. The beauty of a crowds face Is no longer in the ballgame When there is a moon in sky Turning ugly when it is down. It is in an electronic machine Where all else is swiped off Except the anger to shout no, A roar heard every five years. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: crowd

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Decline and fall

After the decline has started The empire is a wooded black, Trees stopping to grow except To shed tears of yellow leaves. Old fools imperium declines And falls, a false empire that is Never there, beyond the flickr, Past its outer circle of flame. Flames dying fragrance mixes With flowers on Gods images Their smell is one with its dying, A decline is complete and fall. Filed under: a poem a day by A.J.Rao Tagged: decline and fall

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