Works of RK

Growing up, I would throw small pebbles across placid water bodies and watch them bounce and skate over the shimmering surface. If I had competition, we would count the bounces and both the winner and loser will nurse a sore shoulder by evening. Neither the lake, nor the pebbles cared, and the universe, like a quantum experiment, was both the observer and the observed. Or maybe we were being played and they were the audience. To all the pebbles and the lakes that survive...thank you for that space... in time.

The circus came to town I could see the posters of acrobats and hippos and giant wheels On shaky ancient auto- rikshaws Driven by incorrigibly happy Poor people. For some years now, I have felt like the joker  Looking at a gallery full of fools Wanting to believe That what they see And live Is not sheer drudgery  But liquid entertainment.  I think Joaquin Phoenix fucked my world view Forever.  And before that, there was the Matrix Or even, Joseph Heller Or maybe it was Gabriel Garcia Marquez  Or even The Bhagwan who declared In his infinite wisdom That the infinity of our souls  And the divinity of our beings Are sullen By the circus  Of life.

Every now and then Through unguarded moments and glances She would give me a peak into her soul   Her panic room doors were steel And over the years Every new scar of hers was reinforced With new layers of Kevlar  And when she felt like laughing aloud  She would guard her mouth With her beautiful little hands So that I would not see That the little girl living within Could still laugh... and cry. 

I remember a moment from our childhood,  when I and my sister tried to lift papa by his arms.  We might have been really young because it felt like moving a mountain...and we were happy that our dad was like a mountain.  Unshakable and towering! Early in the morning,  before getting ready to take a fight back to town, I laid down next to him and wrapped my arms and legs around him. The flu had run him down. He was tired and barely speaking. Our lion was unwell. He ran his fingers through my arm, caressing them tenderly,  his very own skin... on me. He stopped at where I had burnt myself recently and circled the healing wound with his fingers. He drew a long sigh, as if he was singed too. A little later, he seemed to struggle with the weight of my legs on him. I gently moved my legs off him. And I could feel him breathe easier. It is just a flu,  my mind told me,  but my heart would not stop crying. I felt like all Sons and Daughters everywhere...I...

It has been raining for three straight days now It has something to do with the constant sound Of rain falling on the windows and ledges On drooping leaves And tin roofs That springs forth sudden bouts of existential sadness From the very dungeons of my being It is almost as if I have lived many lifetimes And yet There are seeds in me that are yet to sprout And await the causality of death To cure this cycle of inconsequential living! ---- Readers: This is not a poem on Depression. As per Indian scriptures the life that we live is an illusion and full of existential strife. Spiritual journey begins with the appreciation of existential sadness beyond temporal joys and sorrows.

I visit her chat window now and then And it feels like an ode to a Tombstone    And as I walk among the dead lines That were once alive with our love I can feel the grass of time grow  Steadily, under my very feet. Maybe next year, on her birthday  I shall scroll through here again  And until then I will leave these lines here As an elegy To what was once living And breathing But is now very dead. 

I knew an artist once She would paint through those parts in her That bled from neglect   In here frames, There would always be a woman Who will always be engulfed In flames masquerading like oysters Or tresses Or even Dresses For a decade or more She would paint me in dark colors She would scratch me with her palette knives And write on me with her pens And often, she would step back a bit And look at me like I were her Art. You smile still! And she would start all over again.