The Ramblings of a Forgotten Wordsmith
Sitting
on that rickety bench, he remembers it all.
Eyes fixed on the butterfly perched on the lantana hedge.
The gall of the raucous raven snatching a piece of bread
from the meek sparrow’s beak. The cheek!
The unadulterated braggadocio!
Soul- stirring verses splatter him, masquerading as raindrops.
Moonbeams fill the vacuity, dewdrops remove the ambiguity.
His heart throbs with a quiet turbulence.
Hiding the thrumming refrain of pain, he
smiles.
Mesmerized by a cloud looking like Santa Claus fallen on bad days,
He takes shelter behind the sun rays spreading resplendence.
Raindrops falling, the birds calling.
What does one do with the lexical dearth of the literate?
The wit and whimsy of a wordsmith gone unappreciated?
He resiliently clings to flimsy hope and word- relish.
Is the writer in him about to perish!
Snowflakes of memory, drift around falling gracefully on the ground.
A short story finds its way into his cluttered head.
What does he see Through the looking Glass?
Tweedledum and Tweedledum grinning rudely, poking fun at him.
With glee unadulterated, they smile- the brutes!
Is their battle over the rattle over?
He finds something stirring,
awed by the alluring greens, a peacock preening
Life is nothing but a scrambled egg.
What made him think of eggs? What notions!
He comes to fisticuffs with some seminal emotions.
Hush, he hears something in the thickets
Are the crickets at it again? Is the
forest drunk?
He sees spectral figures dancing a doomsday dance.
What is a doomsday dance, he wonders, a gnarled finger on parched lips.
Is he whimsical or merely profound?
Or just a stinking skunk!
Once again, the dejected wordsmith creeps into the darkness.
And is lit!
The Rooster of Memory
Cock a doodle dooo.
The rooster of my memory coos. It
often does.
I had seen this rooster strutting on
the road near the Dal Lake,
a hen and four chicks in tow.
They still crow from some corner of
the mind.
Yes, they do. Walking in an organized row.
Cock
a doodle dooooooo. A raven flying low.
An exotic butterfly in tow. .
Then I see the magnolias of memory
in full bloom,
dappled in today’s sunlight.
I glimpse a bunch of new -born
kittens under the staircase.
But, who are those rabble- rousers? Are they roosters too?
Cooing away to an audience new?
“Hey Ho! Let us nurse those grudges
Revenge! Revenge! Revenge!
Bring out your weapons! Daggers, guns
and spears.
Let us assassinate characters, and blot those tears.”
Was
it some post- modern narrative?
Who were these folks choking on different points of view?
I closed my ears to the cacophony,
moving my eyes towards a particular spot.
I had my own narrative.
Just a few days back, I had noticed
a bulbul pair
making a nest in the overhanging flower pot
in the neighbour’s balcony. The eggs had hatched.
I guess they were three of them. A
terrific threesome!
Or perhaps a frisky foursome. Chirp chirp
chirp chirp.
They wanted food. I had no business
to intrude.
So, I left them to their own devices, and their fragile strength.
Don’t you dare rage against the oxymoronic usage.
The rooster and I are on the same page,
flaunting a vulnerable strength.
Cock a doodle dooo.
The rooster of my memory coos,
merging the past with the present.
A pastiche of sorts-. The latest
breaking news.
And Time Scurried Past
The other night, I saw time scurrying past,
caterwauling, bawling its guts out.
Cartwheeling, unfazed by my turbulent feeling.
I caught it by the neck. “What the heck!”
It pleaded.
Did you say that I am talking through my hat,
and we can never see time pleading like that!
Oh come on! It pleaded – Honestly, it did.
I heard its pleas- tremulous and woebegone.
You know, oft, when I am about to hit
the sack,
time has often beseeched me, kneading its wrinkled hands,
“Let
me make a comeback, let me, please.”
Reluctantly, I have opened my eyes a crack,
to see it slumped on the chair,
holding its face between two gnarled hands.
“It’s not fair, it’s not fair”, it
mumbles.
Ah, it pains that the sylvan time is no more,
only a dystopian clime reigns.
On
the wall, the hands of the clock go
tick –tock- tick- tock, knocking time
off its perch.
Hiding its tear streaked face, it races, blundering
towards a lost world. And that time is
no more.
I
brace myself to face another day.
Another time, singing an off- key rhyme.
Is
that a woodpecker pecking?
Or two sparrows necking in the dark?
Time staggers past me, flustered.
Precious memories stumbling- tumbling –
rumbling – grumbling, cluster around me.
While I fumble with my chaotic
thoughts,
time beams, or so it seems, happy
at its miraculous comeback, disguised as memories.
Do I really Matter?
The other night, I saw myself gazing
at the glistening blue of the lake,
and a few brown colts grazing in a meadow.
I was yet to get over yesterday’s disaster
of trying to master the villanelle. So, I was frowning too.
In love with the 20th line, did not want to delete it.
As if it read my thoughts, it kept coming back.
Back with a bang!
It resolutely perched itself on the table, its voice a treble,
pleading: “Please don’t delete me. I
beseech you.”
My eyes refused to leave the lush green mountains,
ears riveted to the refrain of the happy breeze.
It reveled in singing off- key songs. Oh, what songs!
I bent down on my knees, tangled hair tickled by the breeze,
experiencing a sobering sense of my own smallness.
Do I really matter? I asked the chattering
birds.
Chirp- chirp- chirp.
They went on in reassuring tones.
You matter! You matter!
Speckled feathers, changing weather.
You matter! You matter!
“I matter too”.
Shrieked the twentieth line.
I was at the end of my tether.
Why had the birds suddenly started chirping?
I looked around with a wild-eyed ire. What was up?
“You matter! You matter!” They kept up their chatter.
“I matter too”. Reiterated the
twentieth line.
My mind and heart were with the last
doughnut in the fridge.
I almost saw my dad in the photograph in the room smiling
at my thoughts. I looked sheepishly around.
Dad frowned. I frowned too.
So did the twentieth line.
“I matter. I matter.” The chant went
on. I drifted into sleep,
flummoxed how to do away with the twentieth line
creeping obstinately into the villanelle.
Ah, the elephantine narcissism of lines.
Santosh Bakaya - Winner of International Reuel Award for literature for Oh Hark, 2014, The Universal Inspirational Poet Award [ Pentasi B Friendship Poetry and Ghana Government, 2016,] Bharat Nirman Award for literary Excellence, 2017, Setu Award, 2018, [Pittsburgh, USA] for ‘ stellar contribution to world literature.’ Keshav Malik Award, 2019, for ‘staggeringly prolific and quality conscious oeuvre’.Chankaya Award [Best Poet of the Year, 2022, Public Relations Council of India,], Eunice Dsouza Award 2023, for ‘rich and diverse contribution to poetry, literature and learning’,[Instituted by WE Literary Community] poet, biographer, novelist, essayist, TEDx speaker, creative writing mentor, Santosh Bakaya, Ph.D has been acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, Ballad of Bapu [Vitasta, 2015], her poems have been translated into many languages, and short stories have won many awards, both national and international.
Only in Darkness can you see the Stars [ Biography of Martin Luther King Jr, Vitasta , 2019 ]
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