Skeletons from the cupboard, One Public Holiday Afternoon……..

From my arm chair I could see my study

where my twelve year old daughter was rummaging in my cupboard,

perhaps looking for an old comic .

The music running in the stereo seemed to pause for a minute

as she found my old poetry book…..

I have never felt so naked.

There was something obscene about she holding that book.

That medium quality two hundred page not so eco friendly artifact

that had acted as a vessel into which I poured myself day in and day out.

Mothers and daughters should not read one’s poetry.

There is something obscene about the whole thing.

I saw her flipping through the pages,

torturing me with her occasional pauses.

I tried to read her as she read me like a book,

while my racing heart beat provided the background score.

Yes, I had loved at one point.

Yes, I had anger long long ago.

Yes, I had believed.

I had desired and I had dared to desire.

I had spoken. I had rebelled.

I had written.

I wanted to tell her.

But I did not.

The poet whom she was reading would have told her.

But I am not that guy, am I ?

This work by Rakesh R is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 India License.

Stage Fright

Up on the stage ,
I began to admire the strippers, their unlimited courage.
Every word I spoke ,
was a button opened , a clasp undone.

Oh, I felt so so exposed.
All those faces staring up at me
The poor me, my whole being sweating from the heat of the spotlight.
My arguments revealed my politics.
My jokes outlined my innermost fears.
I realized that to speak was to give myself away
And I decided to shut up and save my modesty.
Doing a pretty good job , am I not?

This work by Rakesh R is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 India License.

The autumn of a patriarch : A tragedy

Every Napoleon meets his waterloo
and he met his in the form of forty kiloes of flesh and blood
that made up a village girl of sixteen.

At seventeen, she turned a gypsy.
She rolled her liberty into a triple joint and blew
Concentric circles of smoke
At his bearded face.

The smoke lingered in the homestead
and he coughed and spluttered ,
He , in his armchair in the verandah…………….

This work by Rakesh R is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 India License.

Hearsay

I was told I am a man,
that I am supposed to be brave,
strong, bold , daring………..
I agreed.
But I can’t help my shivering knees,
when a street dog snarls at me…..

Then I was told I ie. We 
(or do they mean ‘some’ ?)
oppress females.
I didn’t agree.
Worse still, I defended myself.

I was told I am superior,
nearer to God and such and such…
I looked smug.

Then they told me I/we 
(or ‘some’ , as they clarified)
was chauvinistic , communal bigots.
I looked blank.

They tell me stuff
and I listen.

Perhaps I should start speaking……….


This work by Rakesh R is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 India License.

What Poetry is…………

Poetry,
is that tramp of a girlfriend,
who leaves you to wake up alone and naked ,
after a wild ,wild night

Months pass….

You answer an early morning knock,
dizzy eyes,
to find her outside the door,
bags and rumpled hair

You remember the last date.

But !

The wild glint of her glance,
a chilli in her eyes,
the seductive locks of her wild hair,
and her perfectly bloody mouth,

sucks you in …………………..


This work by Rakesh R is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 India License.

Do you know me ?

I have always been around,

prowling the shady corners of history.

Always a familiar character

in the nightmares of the innocent masses.

Named , several times over 

by my many surrogate fathers, 

They called me by various names:

for a long time , I was a pagan,

the barbarous savage,

an eye-sore to the “official” eyes.

At some point , I was the communist,

“ A spectre that haunts Europe”. 

Now , as always , I am many,

Multiple and all pervading.

I am the Muslim in Newyork,

London or Delhi who stoops more

With the innocent burden of each succeeding blast.

I am the suitclad Brahmin

bound by the triple threads of history

to an electric chair of historic guilt....

I ….am….many more…. 

And I will always be there.

You may not know me by my name.

But you will always know me by the huge nametag

which you write and hang around my slim neck.

This work by Rakesh R is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 India License.

9/11 , 26/11 , 7/8 , X/Y , so on and so forth.....

“Where were you when history was made?”
The old TV punchline slept in my mind 
And woke up one fine day to ask me :
“where were you on 9/11
When the running story of our species was rudely silenced ?”

I was in my early teens,
in my shabby shorts,
a glorified refugee in my uncle’s house.
I was eating when the clippings came on air :
The impact, the collapse, the smoke, the chaos, the terror.
I hadn’t heard of the twin towers.
But the visuals took the taste away from my dinner.

It was the collapse that amused my cousin.
As the cement and glass shattered with a bang,
The toddler jumped and cheered and clapped his tiny hands.
Everyone laughed.

The sight stayed on in my mind, 
accompanied my future and soaked into my past.
My past , our past
The past of a generation bred upon
Guns ,bombs , Bonds and so on.
.
We are all cheering infants…..
We , who witnessed
“the war on terror”.
We , who sipped our morning tea
and read about 7/11, 8/11 and so on and so forth.

Two days back,
I glanced at The Hindu with sleepy eyes
And read about Assam blasts.
I jumped from the bed and ran,
For I didn’t want to miss my breakfast.

This work by Rakesh R is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 India License.