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 May 2016 Babu kandula
ryn
Eddy
 May 2016 Babu kandula
ryn
I'm stuck in this eddy.
And I'm such a poor swimmer.

I get swirled around.
Like a little helpless fly
caught in a wineglass.
Unbeknownst to the drinker.

I'm stuck in this eddy.
And I'm such a poor thinker.

I allow my mind
to get swashed around...
Like a lone sock
in the washing machine.
Lost without its other.

I'm stuck in this eddy.
And I'm such a poor survivor.*

So I just submit
to the will of the currents.
Like an empty bottle.
Stuck head down at the neck,
in the bathroom floor trap.

Sink or float...
I can do neither.
 May 2016 Babu kandula
ryn
Older
 May 2016 Babu kandula
ryn
My mirror hangs stoic,
as silently it absorbs all it could with unbiased eyes.
All it receives under the day's sun.
Yet it never stores...
Not memories recent...
Not images perceived from the distant past...

My mirror
exists in the now.
It gives me only the present.
It reveals unequivocally the ground
upon which I stand.
It divulges only in the brutal and honest truth.
The kind of truth photographs could never tell.

Today it showed me what I've been seeing
with eyes half shut.
It showed me that,
I am older now.
Older than I was yesterday.
Older than I was a second ago.

Every wrinkle told a silent tale.
Every tale left quiet scars.
Every scar sang requiems of past mistakes.
And every mistake costed me my youth.

My mirror showed me that...
I'm older now because I've learnt much.
And I'm learning much more
because I'm older now.
An old photograph of myself inspired this.
Too fast a ride life is, to capture those stray tender notes,
that fall on your ears, eyes, nose or tongue, at times
the madness of sensory road rage, hits you and run
yet, you stop on your track, unawares,  shed a tear.
While passing through a curved bridge you look down
at the flow that just usual, to naked eyes, who knows?
the current may hide secrets that won't meet the eyes
but float ,  when it reaches further down at the sea.

As I walk along this street, at mornings and evenings,
at times when my eyes fall on her familiar face
I see grief swarming like a colony of bees around
a queen , on her face, when I smile,  she shows
no emotions, as if asking "Why should you be kind?"

Then one day, I see her, parking her car and line up
to get a bottle of whisky, as if it's urgent than ever
seeing me pass, she comes face to face .swarming
bees of grief for a while fly up, I see her ghostly grumpy face
and she pours  her grief out as if the world knows it,
"I can't sit holed up day and night,memories are a cloud
but too heavy to carry around,I fight with them day and night"
She held my hands and the street vanished we were in a dark room
enveloped by a smoke of grief that chokes, whoever comes in,
"I found an escape route, at last,look at the balloons!"
She ran to untie a bunch of huge helium balloons,
and through a dark window she soared up and vanished.

I still see her car parked in utter squalor, at the square,
near the martyr's column, a metaphor of grief for the world to see
while passing, eyes go up to see a bunch of helium balloons descend,
with the skeleton of  grief, of a woman lost  in  whisky haze.
the first time
that our eyes met
we clicked.
my heart felt a flutter
when our hands collided
and when I saw my reflection
residing in your pupils
for a single shining moment

I no longer felt alone.
follow me into
all of my goodbyes.

they're all meant
for you.
If you're ever on the riverside
where the sun beats your head
you would see the old man
selling hats of palm leaf
but you care not to notice him
having already smelled the sea
and too keen to cross the river
travel southward on the island
till the saline wind scalds your eyes
your skins itch to jump into the waves
yet the man with the palm leaf hats
would not cease to tell you
how burning would be the sun on the sands
and so badly you need to protect the head
by parting bucks that mean nothing to you
but a world to the mouths he feeds
and before you stamp on him a final no
she has one atop her hair
beneath which her eyes flutter like butterflies
her sun rouged cheeks untimely blush
and two born anew lovers
merrily head for the sea
having bought romance
for forty bucks.
 Apr 2016 Babu kandula
r
Night,
I love you
like a bride
loving her body,
the madman
the desert,
like the horse
loves its shadow,
the sad the lighthearted,
I love you like
a wanderer his ballad,
a poet his dark room,
like the moon.
After fifty years
I slipped into the school.

Madame Bela was visibly pleased
The classroom was too empty
Now I've one to do maths with


No less happy was Auntie Aloka
My favorite student is back
She lifted me up and said with a kiss
So vacant felt my class of English
Without a boy from olden times
Sweetly singing nursery rhymes


My eyes searched her and before long
Miss Jaya spoke in her softest tongue
I'm so glad to see his face
Sans him Bengali class was all emptiness


And there he was the only Sir
Amiyo Baboo the sports teacher
Isn't this the boy never won my trust
For always being in every race last


Fifty years haven't changed a bit
Either their age or their spirit
And surely the fun was doubly more
When I stood before the school mirror.
 Apr 2016 Babu kandula
ryn
Amplified
 Apr 2016 Babu kandula
ryn
Every response received.
Every nuance perceived.

Every phrase heard and said.
Every word written and read.

Every thought conceived.
Every emotion bereaved.

Only gets quietly swept under...
Where they moil and fester.

Fought to suppress
I really have tried.
But anxiety has made plans
to have EVERYTHING
AMPLIFIED.
Anxiety attacks debilitate.
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