Three Poems by Santosh Bakaya

 

His heart is a Honeycomb

Brushing away strands of hair from his face,
he feels the surge of adrenaline rushing.
Gushing.
His heart is a honey- comb,
buzzing
buzzing.

Blushing, he smiles at the memory of those moments,
which, on hindsight, were not frivolous.
A hook- beaked bird is permanently perched
in his nightmares. He shoos it away, it refuses to go.
Is it devising monstrous ways of torturing him?
He tries to snap eye contact from the bird,
but it continues watching him with a smug conceit;
a vehemence in its body language.

His attention is diverted by a nightingale clearing her throat,
polishing her notes, creating new ones.
Cupid waits in the shadows with a quiver of arrows.
The sunflowers stand up straight
in rows and rows of golden elegance.
He speaks, voice horribly wobbly.
But the spiffy sunflowers turn their heads towards the sun,
sheathed in perky smiles.
He waves goodbye to those dust motes of yesteryears.
They wave back, a tad wistful.
The sunflowers straighten their spines and beam at the sun.
No longer sagging and stooped.

His heart is a honey- comb,
buzzing
buzzing.

Beautiful and strong.
Now nothing can go wrong.
Now nothing can go wrong.

The Incongruent Tune

The bedraggled woman under the bridge
looked wistfully at the cradle moon,
lulling her emaciated child to sleep.
A sigh escaped her lips.
An incongruent tune floated to her,
travelling across bushes and brambles.
She flailed her arms trying to catch
scrambled chunks of memories, hovering all around her.

All around her, cicadas chirped and trees swayed
to their own esoteric music. Softly, she stroked
the contours of that absence, that howling vacuity
roaring in her mind, and almost choked.

Her mind was a cauldron, bubbling.
The lamb tethered to a pole in her village courtyard, bleated,
creating ripples in her heart, that was beating lackadaisically,
under the bridge, where she sat with grimy bundles and cartons,
which she called home in this raucous, mad city.

Ah, home! She sighed, in sync with the remote bleating
of the lamb in her village.
She missed her thatched hut, and parents. Old and gnarled.
And also the gnarled banyan tree which they said,
was hundred years old.
Her memories also seemed to be hundred years old.
Ancient and creaking. She groaned in sync with those creaks.
The bedraggled woman under the bridge.

The emaciated child let out a roar,
stretching its arms towards the moon,
looking expectantly towards the bedraggled woman
under the bridge.

The Fire of Life

The moon made grotesque faces
smirking at me through the window.
Was it trying to hint at something?
Something strange coming my way?

Banshees shrieked at the tops of their voices.
Their agonized screams calloused my ear drums.
Was Death going round in circles?
Round and round and round?
Jumping through circles of fire?

Was life slipping out of me? Or just taking me for a ride?
Well, wasn’t life a rickety ride anyway?
Going up and down, caught in a turbulence.
Jumping, stumping folks by its weird antics.

I could see tongues of fire everywhere.
‘Fire on the mountain run-run- run.”
Who was humming this childhood chant?

I was stunned. What did I see? What did I hear?
Loud thunder! Three silhouettes appearing and chanting.
“We weird sisters,
hand in hand,
swift travellers over the sea
And land,
Dance around and around like so. Three times
to yours
And three times to mine,
And three times again
To add up to nine
Enough! The charm is ready.” *

Would I now be thrown into a bubbling cauldron,
to suffer a fiery annihilation?

‘Fire on the mountain run-run- run.”

Ah, the night was over.
It had played strange tricks,
scaring me by its nocturnal histrionics.
Was I still alive, despite the sisters’ charm?
Yes, I was! I was! I was!
The thunder had stopped.
There was a ball of fire in the East.
The three sisters had crept back into the pages of Macbeth,
taking the fiery cauldron with them.

But there was a fire in my belly.
And an inner flame that no evil charm could douse.


I WAS ON FIRE! I WAS ON FIRE!
The fire was in me!
*Macbeth Act 1, Scene 3

 

 

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.

Part of her column, Morning Meanderings in Learning and Creativity website, is now an e-book.

She has penned twenty five books across different genres.

Authorspress: 

Where are the Lilacs? [Poems, 2016]

Flights from my Terrace [Essays,2017 ]  

Under the Apple Boughs [Poems, 2017]  

A Skyful of Balloons [ Novella, 2018 ]  

Bring out the tall Tales [short stories with Avijit Sarkar, 2019 ] 

Oh Hark! [ Award winning long poem, 2022]

Songs of Belligerence [ Poems , 2020 ]

Runcible Spoons and Pea -Green Boats [Poems ,2021]  

What is the Meter of the Dictionary ? [Poems, 2022]

A Sonetto for the Poetic World and You heard the Scream, didn’t you ?[ With Dr. Ampat Koshy, 2022]

Only in Darkness can you see the Stars [ Biography of Martin Luther King Jr, Vitasta , 2019 ] 

Collabortaive E- Books:

Two collaborative e- books : Vodka by the Volga [ with Dr. Koshy, Blue Pencil, 2020  ]

From Prinsep Ghat to Peer Panjal[  with Gopal Lahiri, Blue Pencil, 2021]  have been No # 1 Amazon bestsellers.

Other collaborations:

Mélange of Mavericks and Mutants[ With Ramendra Kumar, Blue Pencil, 2022]

For Better or Verse: Passion. Profundity. Politics [ With Ramendra Kumar and Ampat Koshy, AuthorsPress, 2023]

The Catnama [ With Dr. Sunil Sharma, Authorspress, 2023]