Drink the Light

Fort Kurupam 2012 (written on 24th October, 2012)

Return from Viswanathapuram
Vijaya Dashami

Breathe into earthen cup
The Dasara moon
swirls
in the Earl Grey.

Solar systems
Pranayam
And it disperses
into galaxies

Drums and the dancing moon
Flux
As i drink the light.

Then write.


By V. Shruti Devi (quill-o-the-wisp)

Limtum

Written on 1st Nov., 2004
Found that clear pool
tucked amid the hills.
Clarity
and darting fish
where a green deep
feeds a clamouring curent.
Waded through water,
staff in hand.
Slithering stones
and a brainful
of stories
of flashfloods.
A cloudburst
on the hilltop
would have me flailing and faltering
on the altering 'scape.
Preserve this, I say,
for me to replay.
Who?
A one-time wader
Yet no invader
- there's life across this brook
to meet, greet.
Limtum, then.
A culvert for that beat.

Weavers' Street 08

On a spin
step in
to looms.
Floor to sunken floor
Ribs and arms, wood.
Walls sprout hooks, embed rods
Person pushes pedals, bars
on counted thread,
girl deftly flings the spool
and gets it right.
Flesh and stone, teak and bone,
Organic.
(Written on 6th Dec., 2008)

Nirnayalu

Neeku, naaku, prati aaku.
prati aaku, prati panta
prati panta, prati vanta, prati manta
meeda cheyudaaniki nirnayam
eppudu wochestaadi
aa udayam?

(i wrote this in 004. It is a verse that wonders when the dawn that enables you and me to make decisions over crops, leaves, food and fires will break.)

Causes

People's rights
to Land
in a mess.
Pretentions to solve
wouldn’t absolve
of hypocracy.

Causes for discourses
on mineral resources
Abundant.
Siting to citing;
river-bed or death-bed.
Rationalization
points
towards
Nationalization.
We’re still watching….

18th Jan., '09

A Journey

15th Jan, 2009 (about ’08)

Nasik
and the surging
waters
-ashes
transported.

Thereafter,
steep climb
for mortals.
Stairway
to Kapaaleshwar
equivalent
to having
toured
twelve spots of light
of which two
were
in the vicinity
-a radius
of a few hours
as wheels roll….

Triyambakeshwar, Grishneshwar
Aurangabad.
Once, touched three stones-
the mudra,
disc jockey of the world.

Ellora
-masses
of stone and dirt
transformed.

A miniature Taj with variations
-Bibi Ka Maqbara
not macabre
as the name might suggest.

ROOKERY

Many-shaded squares on a durrie
Coalition-era chess mat
Hop-scotch the talk
Pitthoo ban gaya
everyone’s game
Kho kho gaya
Catch and blame
Kabaadi wallahs wheel their carts
Rocket launchers gather parts
Spokes and tyres
Dying fires
O to be an ember
And not a flame

Formulae

Picture-perfect
resolutions
On and off
-the records.
Olympian grit
the tooth
of the matter.
Victories wrought
from more things
than this world
ordinarily
dreams of.

Puri On My Mind

Big wheels are turning
by the shore today
Hands pull chains
The Saalwood moves
Leaves
Issues
Non-timber forest produce
Trees of yore.
The DNA of a peahen
might
Run through these feathers
Unruffled.
An island breeze
swirls in,
and brackishness
harbours rare species
aqua-guarded
by the mind’s lagoons.
Remembering
the poet
on a moonless night
Purna Chandra
on his celestial journey
this day
would write
-seize the light

dappled

succour

for

the masses

plights

of fancy

and other-wise

the collective

the noun

and a barn

or well,

a book, a note, a flick, a vote

- flickers

of light

discerned

Of doormats and flying carpets

O pressed flower
what status
quo
is this.
Generations
inherit pages
-lettered, seemingly unfettered-
Volumes
bear down
and keep you as you are.
-Bound
to be.
-Keep on the bonnet
And stay with the sonnet-
The buzz has set some free
to trample the air, board a wishing chair
to seas and creeks
and deeper notions

Borra Caves

shimmering walls
the mind unwinds forms
from stalactites, stalagmites
silicon glistens
to the swinging torchlight
which was a mashaal
three decades gone

ladderways
connect old pitfalls
deities reside in stone
light streams in from above
thousands surge in to worship
-on one day,
not charged by the powers that be
-free.

auspicious yellow
trickles past,
handed out
to women from beyond
the cordon.

the sound of bats,
-an overheard cluster
and honeycombs.

Outside,
the Gosthani flows and seeps
partly imitated
by a railway track.
Inside,
a giant seam of stone
has clicked the jigsaw
into place
for the moment
which is
a few hundred years

Spotted

Poachers
of delicacies in wine
Their Delinquencies
-ambassadors
of the fluffies.
Self-appointed
peerers
through tints of scarlet
(tinctures from ravaged hutments)
juggling hats and plumes
floating in bubbles
spewing
conservation priorities
and perfumes.
Fanciful insights,
marketable bytes,
Mangling contexts,
colouring texts.

From a vantage point: Eliot's Beach on 26th Jan

spray paint
by the sea
-psychedelic perch.
long-tailed kites
parallel the sand
-a mid-air zone.
scattered below:
vendors, spenders,
pakoda time.
roots, berries, nuts
shaken, garnished
-multitudes frolick
neath a tricolour
untarnished.

Who's Who

Jalebis
-lessons
in fries, cartels.
Spirals
-prices, priceless fumes
Sinks
-the notion's carbon:
untold, unfold
Criss-crossing ways
-hunters, gatherers
Stalk,
Exchange.
Land for paper, water for steel
Heavy Metal
-no combo meal

007: odds and ends

rang in with a bang
party hopping: 1-2-3
and a 2nd round.
restoration, rennovation
relatives
and the Republic
-tri-coloured fare
preceded a ten-thousand strong affair
-and there hangs a thread.

over-ruled
under-estimated
talked about
and debated.
Curly scripts
-another one crawls,
can read more lettering
on remote walls.

fitness fad
bone-to-bone
machines and metal
-honing.
retaining the edge
-resisting cloning.

reconnected.
went wireless.
also peered into the relentless
perches
of now wigless
fantasy.

star-spangled baithak
-a galaxy-view.
diversification.
consensus.
holding ground.

decisions and time
crafted
into non-events, saunter through
expertly unclaimed
unacclaimed, perhaps even awaited

a bird's word

Rare stakes
endangered passions
buffered zones.
the heat is up
there's eider down.
Glasses clink.
Peers
through chinks
and raises
to dispel the masses....
(Tickled by some pickled wits
exotic strays lose charming ways
-now turned to wolves
and generate loathing.)

non-conventional energy

Today
makes it.
Enrolment
w.e.f.
ten years ago.
First, at the bar
Racing, pacing
Supreme theme.
Precedents, collars
coats, then dollars.
Subsequently,
Crafting, drafting- ejusdem generis.
Appearances.
AIRS and cases,
glorified sharks- Noscitur a sociis
Cut to
the wilderness
-sanctuaries,
parks.
People's voices
the choice is
pre-meditated- ut res magis valeat quam pereat.
Chamber-practice-analyst-teacher-
Which is the undefining feature
-can't be serious
about
expressio unius est exclusio alterius.
Lawyers all,
bound to hammer out some lines
to mark the passage of such times.
Assurances
a decade
not decayed
m' lads and lassies
leave ye all
to pontificate
about
Contemporanea expositio est fortissima in lege.

stick flick

Taps into
pools
of wishful thinking
of the collective consciousness.
Fresh as groundwater
(-waves of cyanide, fluoride and other activity
recede in this bubble).
Seamless weaving of textures
fabricates a vision.
Some sold out...
we watch from the ground
-chhabees rupaiyah, tax deducted
packed.
Evolving strategies
Registering a swansong
of a Chanakya.

circulars in motion

The starkness visible
-luminaries
on one, two, three
and other Hidden Acts.
-see how they run
straight into the finishing line
chasing after unclear crumbs
-their tales chopped off
with the eagle's splice.
Except
there's a nation behind.
Changing track...
From nursery prints
to finer print
From iambic
to vent-a-meter
Pent up and gone
Or step-by-step.
Lunar eclipses
herald rebirth
-A sickle-moon
rising.