Poetry: Bhaskar Pitla

Bhaskar Pitla

The unsaid

Most of the time
when we are speaking, we mean
the opposite of
                          what we are saying


At times, and
most of the times
language hits a wall.
And tongues can only do
so much - thoughts explode
in our mouth, form fissures on our face


these wrinkles
are nothing - sentences
that are dead


And most of the time
when we are listening, we listen
what is not written
but a tyranny of words
looping in our brain


the folds of the creasing
hide the meaning – almost
                               of what’s left
unsaid

Submerge

Memory fades in the waters of
Kanyakumari. Remember? when
we met, following the north star we
reached the southern tip. Perched
precariously like the sun balancing
on the horizon
 Slowly,
             Slowly,
                            Slowly…
we caught the thermals of the
windmills they say ‘take you
places you want to be’. Floating
 onwards like a dream.

Nothing
stays the same in these whirls
of the sea. Our only hope is
our skin, every pore the colour
of dusk, gleaming effervescence
with every breath, as the supple
waters soothe our souls and winter
flakes the greenest trees.

Shackles

The sky is a monologue, a shifting continent of hues.
Nothing is linear, not even the gaze
Even if ‘consequence’ is ‘because of’
I map my world from the ‘TV news’.                                     

The feet are always grounded
And only when in somatic sleep
To which direction, do they point
Depends on which corner the bed you keep

Silence is also a vibe - nomenclature of the deaf
-  sights and throbbing blood in veins.
I’ve only heard the grey thud of rains
Wonder how white snowflakes sound

The window becomes my alma mater
Open shut and open close
And hands that keep you rooted to the shore
Still, the waters haunt you evermore

Knowledge comes in black and white
And even through the way tongues roll.
I am stuck in a language, a hand full speak
But only which, I can call my own.

Many places left to be seen.
Many poems to be bought home.
What do you write, when the skin hasn’t felt?     
And the mind hasn’t left this quotidian drone.

The hinges in the head now weak
Eyes meditate on the door.

Why Continents Collide

Our bodies are two continents severed by time
moving slowly towards each other;
the oceans between us sinking, the trenches
getting deeper. The landscape of our skin
shudders with this approaching.
Mountains forge and veins converge
like rivers charting a new course.
A current runs through the rough
churning out relics, insignias of distinction
blur – even a catastrophe is beautiful.
It will be long after dusk and dawn
cast their uneven light, a new continent forms
a million years it maybe, to discern how
we fit like a puzzle – this longing.

Prayer

Still your mind. Watch
the tree. The tree

is our temple, bow
down to the tree.

Watch the tree. Still
your mind. The tree

is our temple. Bow
down to the tree. Hold
it’s hands, branches long

S-ilent
   W-inds
        I-nvoking
             N-esting
                    G-ods
                        with the tree

Afternoons & Now

I don't know if we ever live again
all we have are these quiet hours only
these sultry moments of Now. These afternoons

where nothing moves, the quiet dissipation
of our languid hours, slowly melting like
ice cream - butterscotch flavour is it?
Taste these moments, the salt inside them

salt makes everything taste so good. Snowflakes
are salty or are they sweet, taste them anyway
snowflakes don't last like these afternoons

when nothing moves, afternoons staring
at the sea wondering what moves
oceans - this world is made up of water
of salt, of dreams and the sweet taste
of kisses on afternoons like these

the way I see it
the way you see it
the world doesn't see quiet
like the way we do

everything stays
when nothing moves.

Setu, October 2018