Poet
in Riot
On a quiet lonely night
Low shouts of the beginning of a riot
Are heard from the middle of a city
Sprawled distantly
Slowly the shouts become distinct
Familiar voice of everyone since long
Can be recognized
That’s full of absolutely strange excitement
After the riot begins
Every person runs separately in great rush
And the mob humming like wild bees
Keeps following
In the hands of the mob
There are weapons
Like rusted swords and sticks
And sharp knives and country daggers in a village
Or anything up to rifles in a city
One by one the parts of single person
Caught in the grip of the mob fall limp
Getting blood it wriggles
Like a bird about to fly
On the deep slope of terror
The tremulous hearts keep rolling
The rising tumult stops at my door
“Pull him out”
“Burn that bastard alive”
Such shouts begins for me
With that a herd of fox
Pass trembling over me
From foot to head
I pull my legs close to my stomach
Close my fists tightly
Begins to collapse limitless deep
Scratching that cut through and through
With abrupt bang on the glared floor
Someone from the mob
Holding at my neck
Help me to get up
Waves of the mob wrestle with my body
Ripping my skin off
The mob tries to search
The hereditary color of my blood
Breaking the walls of the house
The mob sniffs in every brick of the house
To search the provincial scent of the soil
The mob peels off the skin even of my language and tastes
the accents
At last turning back
It searches for all the useful things one by one in the
house
Taking aim the mob smashes
The transparent glittering chandeliers
Preserved by me for so many years having innate pull
Trampling over the scattered pieces of glass
The mob begins to run once again
Leaving red impressions of bloody feet behind
For the generations to come
*****
Skin
Can’t Cover Everything
Skin can’t cover everything
It only covers
The skeleton
Wrapped with flesh
Which dangles even in a college laboratory
It covers pointed teeth inside the jaw
But it can’t cover
All the sharp intentions behind them
It doesn’t allow to speak out
The tumult within
It can’t even cover
The terrible silence spread afterwards
Though it has no eyes
It makes gestures
It calls even from a distance
Hundreds of flint stones are hidden in it
It is made of mica layers
It is an alphabet scattered all over the world
Of a mutual language
Not confined in any script
Even after playing all games
It stays dry
And is enthralled by itself
It has many colors
It is the balancing thing for our shape
Its brilliance is glittering, dull
Matured by sun and rain
It tries with all its strength
In making us stand
As a human being
But it can’t cover
Wild animals
Hidden within us
Waiting to commit all crimes
*****
All these Noises
Chirping of a sparrow
Struggling to build a nest
Miaoing of gently taking steps of a cat
As its brushes against the leg
Untimely irregular crowing of a crow
In front of the door
Pattering of hailstones along with rains
On dry hard earth
On the backyard floor
In the midst of the clamor of hens
The pretentious sharp crowing of a full crested cock
Different sharp sounds of different hooves
On the dry fallen leaves
In the receding sun, smeared with dust
Collective tinkling of bells in the neck of cattle returning
home
Booming in slow rhythm of a pigeon
From the trees along the desolate street going distant
Tick tacking of a woodcutters axe on a trunk
From the plantation of Eucalyptus or Teak
Swishing of a wind
Lapping of water that has become rare
Only the cuckooing is heard
From behind the leaves of a mango tree
Open cries after seeing dark clouds
Of free peacocks
Roaming through the relics of an old fort
Scattered among dark green trees
Blooming of gruff croaking by hundreds of frogs
In the dark after dazzling rain
Creaking of a joint inside the body
Wordless monologue going on continuously
Getting hold of these noises
One by one
After becoming savage
Stabbing them
By
Gangs of cluttered musical
instruments
*****
A
little mouse entered her toys
She has played a lot
And tired, has quietly slept now
All her toys are scattered all over the room
By now even her toys may have gone asleep
Like the world gone to sleep when it is night
Her school bag is lying in the middle
All things in it are scattered around
In a compass box
Are many broken pencils
A scale, an eraser,
A separate box of color pencils
She doesn’t yet properly know the alphabets
And yet has so many books of colored pictures
Animals, number and alphabets
She has got up gently from all these bits and pieces
And is quietly asleep
I know, the map of these scattered toys
Is firmly impressed on her mind
And when she awakes
She will expect everything
At its appropriate place as it should be
A little mouse has entered
Her toys
Its glimmering eyes
Watching the colored toys
Wonder through scattered toys
Though the softness of its being small is seen on its fur
Its eyes are sharp
Its eyes and teeth are busy
It gropes with its sharp teeth
The hardness of her bat in her toys
It has tried his teeth deep
In the white shoe of Barbie
Also the well shaped elephant trunk
Which it can easily bite off
The tail of the tiger is curled
In its hind legs
So it is safe
But the tire of the ambulance
Is certainly going to be injured
It is not interested in small utensils
It is slowly going towards books
It is going to gnaw at the alphabets in her book
In this way it will even dare
To assault her language too
Wherein the words are yet to be placed in a right order
So far she has seen animals (even people)
Only in colored pictures in the book
All of which, dipped in colors
Have appeared in books after wearing
The veil of language
She is yet to come in touch with real animals
That’s why with confidence
She has slept carefree
Leaving her entire world in the open
And a real mouse
Has began to gnaw at her toys
Which erect her world
*****