By: Mahathi

TATTERED DIARY
A knot after a knot, one more and more!
Before he felt the ease of loosening
umbilical cord, he saw through opened door
a waiting world of tangled mortal strings.

He simpered at the lady suckling milk
and beamed a knowing gander at the male
to realize anon that, he’s of their ilk.
First smiled but never stopped the wail.

Began the shakled human’s frantic race
in labyrinth of life through dangling threads
of human bondages ready to brace,
ensnare, fetter and choke until he bled.

This’s just a chapter in the book of time,
a tragic comedy, with vapid wit …
that ends with death, a birth again to rhyme
… leaving behind a tattered diary in whits.

###

NESTLING
When still a nestling, I learned to flutter wings
to soon return to roost… my mother’s lap.
When young it was freedom-I flew with winds
across and too against. I stopped to flap
my wings sometimes and dipped to pick some fish
or insect. And often I strayed wayward
until I’s tired, when felt silence a bliss
and crooned in semisoun looking skyward.
I know these woods from end to end…not more
When I behold the infinite expanse
I wonder where can be the golden door
to world beyond, and how to join that séance
where the Masters of the universe explore
the mysteries of occult transcendence.
I know one thing-it’s not a distant lore;
well nigh-behind my own material fence.
My claws but itch to scrap that true wisdom,
my belly aches and feathers yearn to hatch
the hiding egg of cosmic conundrum.
My flesh is vain and senses cannot catch
even a glimpse of splendid halidom.
It’s time from worldly lures I now detach.
May be I hear one day that gentle hum
of Guru’s voice, that helps me break the latch.

###

CLEOPATRA
And there Cleopatra…oh so ambitious
wasn’t satisfied being a queen, just a queen
of Egypt… threw her dragnet wide & vicious
with bait of beauty and waited long and keen.

Lucky was she…the aging Caesar whale
that ruled oh half the world became her prey.
The whale wiggled in her embrace, turned pale,
and danced mad to her sleights of dirty play..

And when one brutal Brutus butchered king,
towards the able Anthony she turned
her peers… first time to relish love and swing
on heart-hammock. Didn’t see her throne got burned!

When seized Octavian’s legions; couldn’t fight!
Still dreaming, dreaming… died to cobra’s bite.

###

CALENDAR
The big ben clanged twelve times, dingdong, dingdong.
I tore the sheets and threw into the bin.
That space is now empty. I laughed along
with wall enamel “Yeah…you’re dead…I win!”
I heard her demurs, moans and prolonged sighs
of joy, nostalgia and some distress.
I didn’t turn head. Nonsense, all lies…
she never delivered her promises.
I looked athwart. She was wiggling a bit.
Some keen cockroaches crept out, looked around,
as insects started gnawing it to whits.
She’s crying now with crackling sounds aloud.

I hanged a new calendar to the nailhead.
She hummed “I swear good days!” My face turned red

###

IT IS ALL IN MIND
(Rondeau)
It’s all in mind, cowered as stiffled cry…
that glowing truth peeping through veiling lie.
I’m like a ruffled rainbow, like a cloud
disjected all along the yonder ploughed
and like a wanderer blinded of nigh.

There’s something else, to muse, beyond the eye,
so blended well, like deep sorrow with sigh.
This enigma, this doubt and choking shroud,
It’s all in mind.

Alas the silver spirit, with charry dye
all ov’r is vying hard to reach the high
of cosmic hill. Can she wade through the crowd
of vain desires? Well, well, the bodes are loud
and words from the God, the Savior never lie.
It’s all in mind.

###

THE FOE-SEXTET
(Sestina)
Behind the rousing silvery milky way,
they say there lies a carnivore black hole!
I never saw, but take that as the truth.
When slip into the lewd desires we deep
a stinky catacomb awaits for you!
Beware O men, beware, beware of lures.

Beware O men…not just the carnal lures
but anger too destroys your sacred way.
Ye know, the simmering you; can nev’r be you…
but a dancing dumbwit, in a devil’s hole,
whose muse and sanity are buried deep
below the heaps of riven piety and truth.

Alas, money is some men’s lasting truth!
They neither run after the worldly lures
nor try to dip into their psyche’s deep!
For them money is goal, money is the way!
They’re misers caught in narrow money hole,
who relish no friendship and love in you.

O’ friend, those bursting obsessions in you,
are born to veil your grow’ng wisdom and truth.
They’re burning wild fires in your heart’s dim hole
that keep kindling desires with fueling lures
inside your bosom pure, till char the way
to sacred destiny, in noesis deep.

Your airs aren’t cool zephyrs but peck they deep
the hearts of others. Sans qualms, play thus you;
through face, grimace, through gait and every way
you act. Another man’s innocence lures
your arrogance. You search and show his holes
and laugh; but never learn your hole’s foul truth.

Here everyone got pain and joy… that’s truth.
You smile at all, but envious in deep
of your sour heart. This jealousy makes hole
in mind and muse; but never can find you
until it putrefies to rot and lures
the doctor’s bill or hell’s Avernal deep.

(Desires, anger, miserliness, obsessions, arrogance and envy are considered as the foe-sextet (అరి షడ్వర్గము) by Hindu philosophy, that hinder your spiritual growth.)