By: Mahathi 

KITE

I kept staring
at the straying kite in the sky.
The snapped thread is choking
in my tightened fists.
The rolling down spindle over the slope
is slowly releasing the colourful thread
…like unwinding memories.
I felt a sweet taste on my lips,
eyes became bleary
and the dunking kite in yonder blues
looked blur.
The spindle kept rolling down
like the unstoppable time wheel
and the thread reached almost its end.
I looked again at the sky.
The kite is still within my sight.
The cruel winds
are tearing her freedom flight
and the humid air is bearing her down.
“Where will she land?” I wondered.
“Can a kite retrace her snapped thread?”
Shall I wait for some more time
…or for ever!
My legs demanded a retreat
and heart whispered to wait.
I am still there on the cliff
of dilemma; I too dangling
… like a kite in the storm.

HOW CAN I DESCRIBE

(Petrarchan sonnet)

Didn’t see thee Lord with eyes, nor smelled thy scent.
I never heard thy voice nor touched thy skin.
But felt thy grace in deep silence and din.
How can explain this all in world’s accent?
I try a word, a phrase, an apt comment…
I search for idioms, and try to spin
neology in burning earthly klin
to invent cant or expression, nascent.

But human school is all about the tight
Study of gathered dust into a tome.
They read and breed in hearts the gnawing blight
Of blasphemy, that soots the benign light
Inside and miss the cues of prompting Om!
Aye let me save for now this odd insight

I AM

A worsted suit never suited me,
In colourful kurtas
I look like a gawky macaw!

Amidst the grand elite
I’m a petty ‘petit bourgeois’

To scoot on gaudy routes
is not a pilgrim’s attribute.

I wish no ugly faux pas
Hence to old ways I withdraw;
be they crass, dross
and cause great loss.
And now…
I am what I was!

INNER CRY

I walked for long under the greeting stars,
through fanning woods and on the silent hills.
It’s all the same for heart with bleeding scars
of buried wounds behind a thousand sills.

Scorned memories are shameless customers.
They keep revisiting my censored muse.
The scarecrow planted at my heart, stammers
too low, as green pods fall for plumage hues.

The frantic mind-monkey switches the boughs
with baby thoughts nestled to bosom her
to shun the scrolling past on garden brows
and body seeks succour from deep slumber.

But wish, that day, when all my struggles cease,
I’ll be wrapped by a pall of memories.

LONE DOVE

That one last dove was standing on the spire;
with darting eyes and head espying sides!
She kept watching the crackling bones in fire
around the mosque! Is she or not afraid!?

She never heard such sound nor saw such dense
vapours with noxious smell of nitramine.
It seems she’s saved by the bliss of ignorance,
to stay alive to watch that ghastly scene.

An year ago, she broke out of the shell;
on this same spire and this’s her home, her world!
Some times she perched on nearby temple bell;
pecked some Prashaad and played with other birds.

And often flew a little far to kiss
the cross on Baptist church and hear the choirs!
She thought, like her, the world was fair with bliss!
Can any God enjoy such cruel satire?!

With fright her claws tightened around the stones.
“Is there a religion to kill, Allah?!”
She moaned. “Isn’t there one God whom everyone owns!”
The crescent Moon mumbled: “This’s not my law!”

I WAIT WITH SMILES

Into my dreams he comes and hugs me tight.
When I awake, he slips into my heart.
He flashes like a star at dim twilight
and at midnight dips like a meteor hot.

On moonless nights while walking all alone
pensive; deep dwelling in his thoughts, I feel
his hands around my waist… smell his cologne
and sense his slowly grasping bosom steel.

I ask the glow’ng fireflies, beseech the deer
and beg the owls standing on sandy mound
whether they saw my beau, afar or near
and eavesdrop for his silent footsteps’ sound.

He’s miles away, I know behind my piles
of muse. I feign poise veiling fading smiles.

###

 Sathyanarayana, who writes with the pen name mahathi is an Indian English poet. So far he authored 9 poetry books, which include three epic classics viz. FINDING THE MOTHER,  HARE KRISHNA and OCEAN BLUES-, THE GANGES AND OTHER POEMS AND RHYME, RHYTHM AND IMAGERY with more than 5000 metrical verses of many styles in them. His poems and articles were published in a number of print and web journals.