Sarala Ram
Kamal is a bilingual (English/Malayalam) poet/translator from
Trivandrum. By profession she is a freelance graphic designer and also works as
a DAISY Technology Trainer for the visually challenged. She has published a
book of poems called “The Unfurling: Wordflies and other poems” and translated
a book of short stories and a epic poem into Malayalam. Her poems have appeared
in many national/international anthologies like The Indo-Australian anthology,
The Scaling Heights etc., Amaravati Poetic Prism, Magnum Opus etc.
Hope
we
have been looting the green
from each other
we
drilled the lungs
of our own mother
we
poured hot lava
into her breast milk
we
– selfish … greedy … aggressive …
divided
the family
we
didn’t stop there!
digged
each others’ roots
felled each other
drown together at the end
in the ferocious mud-river
now
…
the
fish wants to escape the water
the
birds want to escape the sky
in
such evolution
they become machines
life
escaped into oblivion
love
married colourless silence
the
sky is so bleak
it
would have been the rising morn still
had
we hadn’t painted the sun
pale grey
I
grapple the hope with dreams
colourful,
and
keep
the sun rising within
my closed eyes
a
hope
for
the
spillage
of
light
dawning
again
…
When
I know I am in love with you …!
I
never felt your absence nor doubted it
For,
if you’re absent, then I am absent from myself
When
my eyes yearn to see you, they burn
And
paint you in everything they fall upon
I
fall silent in a garrulous crowd
And
waft along with a clouded head full of you
Accidentally
unexpectedly if you come
I
go berserk in my head and quiver
I
postpone the sleep every night
To
stay awake with you; a warmth beneath the skin!
I
walk as if lost in a wild wood
Feel
sad if someone wakes me up in between
There
is joy while I search you
Day
after day after day after day…
At
times when you come tough and rough
I
feel more joy in knowing you, anew
From
my deep passion you start lilting
Across
my imagination’s floor; I feel alive
When
I know I am in love with you,
dear
“Poetry”, I know I am alive!
Grandma’s
wrath
Dark
is the world, with tight lips
Even
the crickets and frogs failed
Utterly
to cut the iron silence
I’m
the only one, and a weak moon, up
In
this land of (once upon a time) kera*
(Now
of rubber, pepper and cocoa)
Once
the hills in the east were crowned
With
green giants like teak, oak, mahogany…
With
their deep and wide-spread roots upheld
The
land like huge ramparts around a castle
Now
rubber and spices nidificated in hearts
With
uncanny promises of feast in silver plates
There
used to be the young brave girls
With
their water bustling down westward
To
splash and bubble in the Arabian Sea
Who
disobeyed grandma’s order “don’t
Go
out to play in dark nights in this world”
The
merchants from concrete jungles
Tricked
them away; they loved the young skin
To
make vanity purses to flaunt their diamonds
Grandma
fumed; in her fury she opened
Her
water-mouth, giant. In her fury
Houses
of gold and clay, purses of diamonds –
And
few old notes - all washed away.
The
sun hid behind the Himalayas
Peeped
in only now and then in fear
The
mountains crumbled like bread loaves
Came
down tumbling like Jack and Jill
Grandma
is still angry, she will be, forever:
For
she is a mother who lost her kids
I
hear my breath, my heart beat, and feel
Her
grief, for I am a mother!
Voices Within-2020 :: Setu, February 2020
"Hope" is smashing!
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