Works of RK

Sometimes,  life drums itself into a crescendo. The high notes bleed you and the low notes depresses you  When you decide to change your skin You realise that you got it all wrong! You will hurt  Your loved ones will hurt  And you will see red,  Everywhere.  Who ever told you,   That it will be easy Lied to you.  Whoever told you That it will be tough Lied to you too. Nobody outside of you Will ever have a clue.  And if you pull through Whatever you go on to become May or may not be What you ever wanted to be. A puppet on strings invisible As you dance to your present death Everybody else out there Is just watching you And probably Having fun. 

It was a roller coaster life Until it was not fun anymore   Whirlwind tours Large, life changing projects Lots of love Lots of attention Until it was a party no more. When it rained And the grass was green again When it was springtime And the Vishu flowers Bloomed again I could sense her call In the increased longing Of my lines now gradually filling With pathos and loss I looked at the work-bay So antiseptically clean! The computer screen With a background That now had no new stories to tell! And I looked out of the window And saw a million cars Being driven To now meaningless places For now meaningless reasons. I closed my eyes and she spoke to me... Through the pollen and the petrichor Through the call of the fisherman And the song of the paddy field worker I could hear the evening drums from my village temple Now beat closer home than ever before The deity would visit me in my dream And ordain: Follow me home, follow me hom...

You appear more often in my dreams these days  Some really strange and some most inexplicable. Today, I saw you crossing A dark and lonesome wood Filled with translucent creepers  And monstrous trees with fangs And then the woods, they morphed And took on strange forms Of shapes I could not comprehend. And then there were other dreams. Here, I am holding you close, and there I find myself crying for you, as you suddenly turn into the wind and the rustling of the leaves and the fire from fireflies turning into dragons. Here I drown in your dark broody eyes, and there you look at me, from behind ancient ruins of broken homes and stairs that run into dungeons and mazes... And starless skies  And empty white spaces. I don't sleep well these days In me, you don't sleep well these days.

I don’t want to be here anymore The ageing paint and the dripping taps The fading chairs and the dirty Oven That now no one cares for Reminds me of you Their hellos, their smiles, And the way they look at me as I walk in And walk out Alone Burdens my soul… I don’t want to be here anymore And I don’t want to be there Where the table you sat on is And the plate I served you in Is Where an old safety pin Sits next to a lock of your hair And a book of mine From a time I do not now Remember I don’t want to be there anymore Not here Not there.

Hold on to the lean fingers Of your old young mother's hand And stop trying to make sense Of the justice in this all When the school bells ring Find a little pebble to break Go help your father Climb a hundred stairs Look down the cavity in the walls But don't fall, don't fall May your never experience hunger Let there be junk from the day before Served with the kindness Of strangers who offer The big lord, gold Cry little child cry Let the concrete in the Sethu ' s* site Never run dry. You cry. You cry. * A rich man.

I read that there was a fire in Andover, near Boston. I pinged her and saw the double tick An hour later, a message, I am safe, don't worry. The heart beats in such distant places. People die long before they are dead.

Can I borrow you From a Feynman’s Future And hide you in my memory corridors Forever locked In blocks of eternal presentness? Can I be with you Without actually having to be For that would require of me To consume time Grow old and die I don’t want to fight Entropy I just want to be In space outside of time Just you and me

You live in those places in me From where memory is first born Where thoughts unfettered by fate And untouched by destiny Takes birth on its own free will And lives on with a single desire The desire to be one With you. Nothing else that matters Matter.

In the little moments of conscious clarity, between muddled minds, huddled bodies and cluttered spaces of my everyday living, I keep going back to the time we met last and said our last goodbyes. If I knew that you would move into the mist and be one with the fog and the darkening caves; If I knew that the somersaults of your mind would exile me into the realms of the unknown, and that you would take my place, my face and my being in you and consume it to an ancient memory … Maybe I would have held you back a little closer. Hugged you a little tighter, smelt you a little longer, allowed your entangled hairs to ease out of my fingers, a little slower. Maybe, just maybe, I would have gone for that one last kiss...

Why does it rain in little drizzles And not just pour it's heart out All at once and for all time, into all places Into the roads the canals and the drains Why does it not rain, like rain? Why not just roar And with a thunderous wail Cause a cloudburst Break a Dam Deluge a city Annihilate Why does it not rain like rain? If only I could think of you, Just once Instead of having to think In drizzles and drops and sobs And in between shadows And all this chaos If I could think of you For the last time, Like a cloudburst And then In one brilliant tragic flood Be washed away and be gone Forever, With all this slush And all this mud.   Listen to this poems here

The dawn was breaking across the horizon. I could see crimson orange streaks of sunlight getting scattered in the morning mist. This was the time she generally got up and walked to the kitchen. The time when, with ruffled hairs and a wrinkled nighty, all dark and broody, she would look out of the balcony and breathe in another day. A day that would be broody or cranky or happy, depending on what mood she woke up with. The Sunlight that streaks across the clouds of an oncoming monsoon would also be shining down her windowpane just now. Just now, she would also be looking up at the sky. Just now, she would also be alive in some other part of the world, thinking about everything but me. I watched the sun hang in there for a moment, as if asking of me to move ahead and stop thinking about her. And then I stopped thinking about her, and the day moved on.

Were you two really close once? I don't know. Never really thought about it that way. I always liked to believe that I was close to her. But then I will never really know, right? And now? And now I know that I am not. I am no longer a moon, and she no longer is my Sun. From where I live now, she is more like a distant star, and I, a satellite, unhinged.

As you move from being an institution in my mind to just another person, all those definitions and all those expectations, too, transition through time. You for me Are like an old world Talkie Where once, small town movies Played to uncouth rustic folks like me. I romanticize my pain And I glorify my losses. All movies that played here In my mind, Were blockbuster movies And all actors Were characters From my little life with you. Once we down the shutters For long enough in time Time would cure me Of my countryside memories Of whistling of the trains And the running in the rain. I will remember you Like I want to You will forget me Like you are wont to.

If a drop could color an Ocean You my dear, Would be that drop And my life an endless                                Expanse of you.

  In the little lies I tell myself Lying awake late into nights Between sheets as cold As your last remembered gaze I find myself thinking about you In endless hellish loops. Wind in your hair The Sun in your eyes The gloss, the glitter And the sudden burst Of laughter... And then everything Turns bitter If only there was one Death Like the last blip  On a matrix like screen And then N.o.t.h.i.n.g...

These Tribal colors are alluring. Bright reds interlaced with dark of the greens. The beads, the shimmer of coarse native silk and the anticipation of making a sale, in Pinky Das' eyes! Madam will be very happy, she said. The stole will go well with the beads . I keep buying stuff Imagining That someday you will walk in And ask for them. I keep living Forgetting That the leather case from last year And the mustard silk batik from last month Remain cocooned in their shells Awaiting redemption From their misery Of being with me.

I looked at the rampage on the pages. Words scribbled in search of redemption And stricken off by sins of despair. Surely, this is not the promised road to Elysium. Nothing would grow Out of these half bled out pages and an ancient pen. I have to go out into the world and seek my redemption. - - - - These open windows Let streaks of sunlight drift in Reeking of her light

The earth is so withered  From its longing for you The reeds of your memories Have shriveled dry and bled Into parchments of forever tales. Now my dear, There will no longer Be any death for you

When it was time for her to go, it was also time for me to let go. Once an irritant is washed out, they say you can start seeing better immediately. All that stupid tears and all that rubbing of the soul, until your eyelids would cry out, no more, no more.  And then, just like that, one fine day, I wake up, and she was gone.   As the train chugged out The tracks cried out in senseless creaks of half despair Hear the poem here