By: Mahathi

I LIVE AGAIN
At sixty plus, I start living again.
I fall in love, explore new love, attune
once more my rusted old romantic vein
and pull out of the clouds, the silken moon.

Mistake me not, there’s no running behind
the belles in vain, no building dunes of dough
for future diems…no blind wagers, no hind
vision…it’s just a search for nascent cue.

It’s fresh and newest new, like climbing steep
the aesthetic hammock, like swimming free
in phantom cerulean and peeping deep
into the soul-niches, for big and wee.

I live again before the final swoon
relishing every trice as bonus boon.

###

BROKEN GLASS
Its brittler than a heart, this piece of glass
…when kissed a heartless rock slivered with clanks
and wine this, thinner than the tears, alas,
gushed out anon, towards the gloomy banks.

But there is more in bottle, and more tears
in eyes; ready to fill me more, and more
to spill, till vision blurs, deafen the ears
and seeps this poison deep into the core.

A seesaw state; between sweet memories
and oblivion, like hiking up the hill
and dribbling down. There’re painful reveries
and mirthful nightmares… wow they’re all and nil.

This’s living too, though not it’s living right.
But for lovelorns, nothing is left of right.

###

AT A POETRY FESTIVAL
(Shakespearean sonnet)
Some poems are like serious statements and some
like tedious bank ledgers. Some taste sapless
like dry rhizomes and some like sticky chewing gum.
Some real nightmares and some ripe absesses.

But poets are different from common hordes.
In glitzy habiliments with risible rage
and dry simpers they draw daggers of words
and quake like possessed sorcerers, on stage.

Some shun idiom, some can’t handle humour,
for many pun is puzzle, rhyme riddle
imagery a spook and rhythm, clamour.
But four-floushers are blessed, whom fame huddles.

I saw Shakespeare’s ghost fleeing with frozen ears.
I stopped and gave hankie to wipe his tears.

###

YOU ARE NEAR
(Shakespearean sonnet)
I smell your fragrance, feel your breath…so near,
so close, so warm like brushing rosy skin
… like soul probing another soul austere
and like two trembling lips, pouting ov’r chin.

Oh something weird happens to me always.
I drink waters from dry mirage and buss
the far full moon and forget how my days
pass on, and live in such wild muse’s snugness.

A fictitious fiction it seems to me,
as truth fails to convince my love’s logic.
Distance and time, my heart denies to see
…may be I am a fervid maverick!

Am I unique… nay, nay, there’re such a ton
…but none can explain this phenomenon.

###

WAR and PEACE
(Shakespearean sonnet)
Some faces vanish, some remain alive
And some paint red melancholy on skin.
The time adds new pages to her archive
And waits for rain to wash away the sin.

The poisoned sky retches for months and birds
That fled, return to find their burnt down homes.
The brooding winds echo the clanks of swords
As fires keep dancing on once-healthy loams.

As earth struggles to gulp the stinky glut
Of scattered human meat, the weather wears
The scars of ended war. The aged robot
Shuts heaven’s doors controlling flooding tears.

The silent wails of dead are drowned in sleaze
Guffaws of Lords tasting a toast for peace.