Poetry

flickr photo

By

Santosh Bakaya

Why Curse?

Time is running out;

why waste time in analyzing snide remarks.

Let me not be a cynic, frowning.

I am content with sitting on the ferris wheel of life

and enjoying the turbulent ride;

taking a leaf from skeletal kids, reeling under dearth

warming my cold heart with their gurgles of mirth.

My eyes hunt for that light,

though damaged, bruised and lopsided,

still a light, glowing valiantly in the night.

Why grieve for what I don’t have?

No, I am not rambling; I don’t believe in gambling.

Life is catching up with me with its shambling stride.

So let me think of this world as beautifully imperfect.

Why curse?

Things could be worse, and circumstances adverse.

Let me sing along with Leonard Cohen,

“There’s a crack in everything, which is how the light gets in.”

Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.”

So, let me woo the chaotic imperfections and grin;

wounded, and bruised.

Let me squeeze fun out of nothing, and throw my frowns in the bin.

A Dizzying Brew

Those were indeed the days

now blazing luminescent in dark nights.

Chatting to the birds, in incongruous words.

A merry crew, concocting a dizzying brew.

Squeals of delight welcoming a drifting feather

in that weather when even the winters were warm

with mom’s fiery reprimands.

“Don’t you grin, so insolently, wear your socks,

wear your mittens. Come on, you are caught, I know

you are hiding those kittens under your cot.”

Ah those innocent delinquencies!

Asking us to follow those unwritten

rules of discipline.

“Dinner at eight, not a minute late.”

“What indeed is the use of a book

without pictures or conversations?”

Alice wondered, as we blundered

from one escapade to the next.

Our book was filled with so many pictures,

so many conversations.

“Look, guys, there is a white rabbit with pink eyes.”

“Your eyes are defective, it is only me in disguise.”

At times, like Alice pretending to be two people.

Well, there seems to be only pretense now.

Does not one body hide two people; the good the bad?

So much simplicity, so much innocence. All gone.

Now the present chaos and the confusion makes no sense.

Running the rodent derby, helter – skelter

and those juvenile words lost

under a welter of new words.

Only a new lexicon of belligerence

making sense

in this senseless world.

Alas.

Santosh Bakaya

Dr Santosh Bakaya, academician, essayist, novelist, poet, reviewer, has been widely published, winning international acclaim for her works especially Ballad of Bapu [A Poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi], Flights from my Terrace [A collection of essays], Where are the lilacs? and Under the Apple Boughs [two volumes of poetry].

Besides figuring in many anthologies, she has edited three anthologies of poems and short stories:

Umbilical Chords: An Anthology on Parents Remembered

Darkness there but something more: A collection of eerie Tales

Cloudburst: A womanly Deluge [a compilation of 28 lyrical voices from India]

Recipient of many awards, she has been invited to many literary festivals and was recently a delegate from India to SAARC SUFI FESTIVAL [Jaipur].

Her novella A Skyful of Balloons will soon be out.