Followers

Monday, October 6, 2008

കവിത/five poems by m k harikumar

An earthworm

An earthworm that ponders,
what life after all is,
needs to be given the freedom
to put across its opinion.

Is it what our poets doing?
Or, how could they speak on this line
When they themselves find their lives
Steeped in perpetual misery.

As they stay sunken shoulder deep
In their own world of beauty,
Incomprehensible for them too,
How will they settle the problems of others?

I am one among those poets,
who imagine that misinterpreting
the freedom of the earthworm is poetry’.

Our poets’ sense of freedom,
Anyway, has gone stale already.

The first letter called “Λ” (*meaning ‘don’t know’)

It is a great thing to be
The first letter* and meaning negative!
For, everybody needs a ‘no’
As a sign to feign or deny
Simply saying no and nop!

But we must realize one thing:
‘No’ is fed up.
Playing accomplice to any rogue
and plotting for all his obscene no’s,
no now feels enough is enough.

Scheming with indecency
Has its own limits, you see!
So ‘no’ doesn’t like to be
pimping anymore, nor is it ready
to play accomplice to any.

Rather, no wishes to be alone
And feign ignorance
By saying ‘no’, nop’.

*The first letter of the Malayalam alphabet, equivalent to its English counterpart, ‘Λ’ is now taken to mean ‘don’t know’ or ‘no idea’. Being a first letter of a language and meaning a negative response are juxtaposed here to make an interesting aside.

Line bridge looks for a job

A line bridge!
Interesting to think of it,
But it’s really hard crossing it.

The bridge doesn’t know anything
But it gives all who come by
real tough testing times.

For, it is believed
that people who cross it
Happens to get a rare relief.

However, the line bridge is now
In a dilemma.
The reason is simple.
That nobody crosses it now.

After all, a line bridge too needs a prey.
And if the prey has got a human frame,
it would rejoice and be much pleased.

The line bridge now remains
Beckoning all to cross it by.
But, no one bothers to make a try.

But a line bridge needs a vocation, too.

A moment

A moment:
That’s the only truth.
It’s there in this moment,
But, not in the following one.

The one at hand makes us think
That life is real closer.
But the one that follows
goes without showing us
Any sign of acquaintance.

Every moment is changing
But we cannot cope.
We aren’t chameleons.
If only we could bottle-up
this moment, we’d be free.

Still, man changes
under the slightest cover of a leaf.
Such chameleons are malayalees*.

How much have I changed myself!
Where do I have time these days
To think of my near and dear ones?

I am just an oblivious blogger!!!

Birds

Tearing the day-sky apart
The birds took flight.
A never-ending flight!

Is it the inner spirits
which stay muted in everyone,
that they are trying to re-generate
Out of some non-traceable force?

They could not raise their heads,
Due to the fever of that passion,
Instead they just held them out.

And the feathers of melancholy
They shed out in their flight,
Kept traveling along with them
like scorch-marks of time.

Flying and flying and flying
What did they communicate?
May these feathers they shower
not get disfigured
in this mortal world of existence.

What needs to be up
For yet another flight?

The sky?
The feathers?
Or the mind?


trans: jayaprakash panicker

കവിത/The pangs of colours - poem by m k harikumar

Indistinguishable are some hues
For, when I take one to be blue
Others claim it be violet.
All my claims about brown
Have simply got faltered.
They were all but green.
And it’s this very green
That’s puzzled me most.

Assuming some to be orange
I went rushing up to one.
And I got back in the same vein
As it was pure yellow!

Now I go farming my own colours!
Blacks and blues, reds and yellows.
And their use! Only as per needs.

Now I pleasantly realize
That it makes great sense
Producing one’s own colours.
Cost effectively, of course,
To meet one’s own needs.

After all,
Is colour blindness a crime?

കവിത/The recital of the crickets-poem by m k harikumar

Those scripts crickets read out
en masse at night have run out.
For them, may be, these recitals;
A sort of somber remembrance.

And at night, before every supper,
they dish out a little of their share
for all those departed camaraderie:
a tribute to those olden times.

It’s uncertain; who all would come by,
and recite and go away. Don’t know.
Lovely woods got destroyed
It happened, the other day too.

Now, the muse of poetry
In humans looks lifeless;
their verses stale, and their words?
It’s ages since they went rusting.

No matter whatever we utter
It all goes stale sooner.
Still, the crickets out there
give no break to their prayer.

കവിത/Frogs’ covert musings- poem by m k harikumar

The identity of frogs
Is a class apart!

Just the onset of summer
Leaves me panicky:
A fatigued and frantic me
Would change the diet,
take too much water
and fret for medicare.

But, Frogs?
They stay much safer
Deep under the soils’ cover.
They get prepared
To face any draught
Much in advance.

And the advent of first rainfall
Is an event for them to celebrate
And extol the rest of the world
that they had been safe.

For them climate changes
are auspicious times
for meditating still deeper.
Do we ever ponder over
what these frogs meditate about?

Of an exotic tour?
Or about courting a new love?
Could it be about scribbling a poem?

Whatever it is, alas, we humans
Can, in no way, be as superior as frogs.

കവിത/Bow down -poem by m k harikumar

We shall have to revere all idol forms
And bow down before all homesteads.
We may ingenuously worship all humans
And adore every vermin down the streets.

Then only shall we identify
the ‘Godliness’ that we carry
deeper in us as we move by.

ആത്മാവിന്‍റെ അംബരാന്തങ്ങളിലേക്ക്‌ ഒരു കിളി

ആത്മാവിന്‍റെ അംബരാന്തങ്ങളിലേക്ക്‌
ഒരു കിളി പറക്കലിനെ അനുകരിക്കുകയാണ്‌.
പറക്കുക എന്നത്‌ ഒരു ആവശ്യമാകാത്തിടത്തോളം
ആ കിളി പറക്കുന്നത്‌ ഒരു അനുകരണമാണ്‌.
സകല വ്യോമങ്ങളെയും
അത്‌ കീറി നോക്കി സ്വയം പരിഹസിച്ചു.
പറവ പറക്കലിന്‍റെ ഇരയോ അനുകരണമോ ?
പറന്നുകൊണ്ട്‌ ആകാശത്തെ
ഒരു കളിസ്ഥലമാക്കുന്നത്‌
ഏതായാലും മനുഷ്യന്‍റെ ആത്മീയതയല്ല.
വളരാനോ കൂവനോ
വേണ്ടിയല്ലാതെയും ആത്മീയതയുണ്ട്‌.
അക്ഷര ജാലകം