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.