poem by m k harikumar

Oh sunset, are you
an art or revolt?

Oh how aged are
the sobs
that you carry within
you?

The chronology
of memoirs
in which human
souls stroll;

The pictures you
painted with
ancient myths;

An anonymous
voice from somewhere
asks “why you are
in chronic grief?”

It spreads like a
shooting pain
from deep within.
You are the sole
witness to all the
lust, passion
and orgasmic
ecstasies;

Life drenched
in dreams
withers on the way side.



As you mutely
chant vedic mantras
they turn into a collage
of true life portraits

A breeze gives wings
to the broken pieces
of the past

The grief of the
sundown turns
into immortal
temptations of
existence
dried up by oceans.

The distressing repetition
of romantic images;

You always flee;
your journey itself
is your doom;

Your entire words are
just statutes of beauty
which helps you to hide
from haunting
alphabets;







Are you putting
out the fire of
our sexual passions?
They were just within
our grasp,
but shattered
during the sky-splitting
festival fireworks

Why are you silent
even to miserable
lovebirds like
the two of us?

The voluminous
glossary
and depressing
color schemes
in your silence;

Are they your
creative self or not?
Why do you
gather strands of darkness
and bring them back always?

What is there
in your eyes?

Are they
monuments
of beauty
demolished
by history?

Are you letting your
silence devour the
agony and ecstasy
of others?

Oh sunset why are
you knitting
the night clouds



Will you lend
your garments
to cover my nudity?

The paddy fields
celebrate your gloom.

Are you packing off those
who lost their
smiles in the streets
blanketed by blood


An axe is heading
towards you;

Are you going to hide
once again in the echoing
spiritual hymns
mounting from within
the temple walls?

Who accompanies you
in the journey across
unknown galaxies?
Birds or bird flights?

trans:saj mathews

poem by mk harikumar

When Mukundan blew the Konch

Mukundan blew the Konch
releasing a sound bird;
which flew away afar

The he blew again to see whether
the sound bird he blew out
from the Konch
can come back to its source

But this time also the sound bird
flew out from the Konch only to vanish
somewhere

He wondered whether the long
arms and legs of the sound will ever
come back for their original
hideouts in his soul

Even in half sleep
he blew the sound birds;
And the Konch had an infinite
reserve of them

The Konch is either sound
or strength or speed
each time, he wanted
to trace where the sound birds
have glided
away from the konch

In fact konch on its own was devoid of sound;
It only has a human soul behind it

And even the human soul doesn’t possess
the sound;

The sound birds take birth
only when the human soul
and the Konch join together

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