poem by m k harikumar

Mist

The misty crest of Munnar melting apart
in to clouds, sky and ocean

It becomes whiter and whiter resembling
the ever-depressing sense of separation
and gets toned down in showers

In the township, the mist
is both spiritual relief
and refreshing for the tourists

Among the tall eucalyptus soldiers
who are yet to wake up from dreams,
the clusters of mist become puzzles

The epic expanse of the mist
escorts the well disciplined
regiment of tea plants parading on the slopes

The eucalyptus trees are like sentries
in the sacred woods of eternal love

The echo-point in the woods
keep on reverberating the words,
“I love you”

The wings of swans vanish
bidding adios

The nuptials of affections
dig tunnels into the past
where carcasses
of forbidden love lie scattered

The packets of “tata tea”,
the invisible embraces of Kannan Devan hills
stretching out from the green
slopes of Munnar

The abstractness of memories
vomited by pain and
the glistening wilds which
wipe away the fearsome grief

Now there is only mist,
the language, the ritual, the religion and the god

trans:saj mathews

poem by m k harikumar

Have anybody seen me?


In the splitting moments
I tried in vain to become a tree

The mind tree of my past
have collapsed into pieces

The thought that I am not still alone
rise from the depths of the heart
and just fades

The arrogance of rotten corpses,
school friendships that have become
dried up rivers

No, never these trees, these sculptures,
sunshine nor the soil
will ever identify us

They all have gone after
newer terrains of human
thoughts

No one wants to refresh
their acquaintance with
this soul swollen with pain

Are the twigs of trees en route
contain the essence of self cooked
agonies

They chain us again and again
in the labyrinth of endless queries

The life truths extended by twigs
The momentous emotions galore

The eternally mute chemistry of those
Who seek pleasure in multiple directions

I have not yet learned anything

Longing to grow in the sprouting tree
of infancy I ended up kissing
the ripe surfaces of grief
when my infancy, adolescence,
those boats that have left its moorings
grow as branches of my freedom
I seek myself in mystic plateaus

Have anyone seen me?

trans:saj mathews

m k harikumar poem

Flowers yellow, leaves green

The poets were debating on the sequence of death;
Who died first whether the poet or the poem?
He stood there listening to the wailings
of both the poets and their verses

Inside there were chairs
with swollen belly,
tables that have gone crazy,
sensual shadows
and junk of books,
even as the sales and discussions
went on an on

Then he got scared of death
He was not ready to
become a corpse

Instantly he felt the urgency
of poetic metaphors
to break away from the confines
of the bookshop

In a trance he recalled the days when
snake charmers, poets and teachers
were suffering for want of lovers
It flashed back how the poetic talent
in his molecules began to blow apart
since ages

And how love was orphaned
denied of the right to survival and fortunes
The poet in him was born by chronicling
the erosion of culture and meanness of the past

He tried his best to see that the carcass
of his desires did not turn into poetic imageries

Meanwhile even his corpse
was on the look out for a safe haven
outside the world of verses
to avoid molestation,
and to escape from
the lusty glare of the poets

The trees and insects resorted
to futile rituals to possess
the life of poets
but got back nothing but grief

He couldn’t resist the temptation to
hold on to his moral right for existence
outside the realm of history.

The debate of the poets went on unabated

As the book of night remained wide open
they began unwrapping
the cartons of lust and liquor

trans: saj mathews