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Jun 2023 · 277
I'm on my way
anilkumar parat Jun 2023
Hi there, I say
to the dusty weary stranger
At the ramshackle shanty
Perched upon a precipice.
As he sips tea
Steam rises silently from the cup
He looks up
And he says Hi
Letting out some steam

Where from, I ask
Guessing he was from down south
He slurps lazily
And replies in one miserly word.
And I see I was way off the mark
My eyebrows knit in knotty defeat
My instincts have blunted
I grunt at myself

Where to, I ask
He gropes around in his shirt pocket
A cigarette appears, slightly crumpled
He lights up, squinting his eyes
The smoke is acrid
I smell it's long-forgotten male scent
He drags, the tip glows bright
He opens his mouth in a stylized 'O'
Blows rings in a fibonacci sequence
I suddenly crave tobacco
But I wait
He hasn't replied...

On the far hill I see
A tiny car
Careening off the road
Tumbling in slow motion
Ricocheting here and there
Disappearing
In a golden flash
And a plume of smoke
He drags on the *** again
Lets out a plume of smoke
And points at the far hill
And its winding road
And the plume of smoke
Rising wispily skyward

I crave a smoke all the more
I say to no one:
Play it again, Sam
Play it once, for old time's sake.
He starts whistling
A long-forgotten song
He gets up to go,
Starts trudging down the road
I pick up my satchel
And start climbing.
Ahead of me on the snaky road
There's nobody.
anilkumar parat Mar 2023
Fly away my dear li'l butterfly
on those golden gossamer wings
May you set aglow every peak high!

Don't look back dear, don't you even try
to scan my sad face for tear's springs
Fly away my dear li'l butterfly

I won't let you see my tear-filled eye,
the deep anguish that farewell brings.
May you set aglow every peak high!

Now, dear child, let's wave a goodbye;
Go, ride every wave, break all strings
Fly away, my dear li'l butterfly

May every kid you touch also fly
with you, wonder, sprout their own wings
May you set aglow every peak high!

Your goal's set, your aim is the sky
Yon horizon's where glory springs
Fly away my dear li'l butterfly
May you set aglow every peak high!
Feb 2023 · 380
Camel trail
anilkumar parat Feb 2023
Friends! Remember my camel,
that loafer with a permanent grin?
he's been a-chewing a-ruing, ruminating,
upon the yonder and beyond a-pondering

His reins hang loose, his saddle's dusty
his bit is chewn his blanket's musty
his coat's crusted with the scars of Time
he's forlorn for no real reason or rhyme
he's footloose as ever, he just has to wander
in search of all the oases of the yonder

You should see his gait as he kicks up the clods
when he plods, he plods and plods and plods
and when he saunters, it's quite a canter
he and I, we argue, disagree and banter
I think I'm his master but he thinks otherwise
I wish i could rein him in but i know it's unwise
and so i let him have his wayward ways,
together we tread this crazy maze.


(Just last week I tightened his saddle
and he took me to a land
all-green-and-no-sand
where it rained and sploshed
and we both got sloshed...
when the clouds parted and clear was the sky
he was much younger and so was I
he sprang in the air like a kid newborn
there was spring in the air, I too was airborne
the grass was washed, so was the moss
gone from his hair was all the dross
he stopped grunting, he sang instead,
full of Malayalam thoughts in his head
we went to gaze at elephants
(loved their finery but not their chained legs)
we heard drums in their elements
well into the nights we pranced
in ******* raptures we tranced
and woke up  lazy by mid-afternoons
with heads so hazy and postpartum blues)

He and I, we've had many a fight
o'er who's the one wrong and who's right
he's been calling every oasis a mirage
I say none of them's a camouflage
he's adamant that it's all an illusion
that I'm tripping and under a delusion
I say I hear him bleat like a goat,
I touch his rain-washed mangy coat
I see him, like a ship, heave and sway
I smell him from quite a mile away
yet I ask myself if all this is not Maya,
if even mirages weren't of realms higher.
Feb 2023 · 218
After the eternity
anilkumar parat Feb 2023
We mate
like two snakes entwined
raw passion wrestling with raw power
dancing to dominate
we hiss, we kiss
we roll and coil
we set the grass on fire

And then,
the big bang of nothingness,
endless eternity...
until we slither away,
our separate ways.

The sky blushes a deep red
so does the lotus
as some crazed cockerel
shatters the silence into
a thousand shards.
Dec 2022 · 129
Untitled
anilkumar parat Dec 2022
This is such a shrill silence
where a thousand thoughts
clamour and wrestle
in the fine dusts of time,
their grunts and roars merging
into a steady drone
like a metronome gone crazy.

I hear the blood coursing through my veins
the air entering and leaving
the food and the whisky
being churned into slurry
the hair being tousled by
some unseen hands.

I hear the atoms and molecules conspire
they want a new universe
a new everything
a new I
I hear them quarrel, collide, coalesce
I hear long-dead stars wink.


how long will this last?
will I wake from this reverie
like a startled rooster
or will i sink into the vast oblivion
of this beautiful nothingness
where I will hear every little reverberation?
Dec 2022 · 159
Someday soon
anilkumar parat Dec 2022
Inside our silken cocoon
it's always two in the morning
dark and throbbing silence within,
chaos  without.

And I'm always hungry,
my whole being
forever snuggling caressing,
snaking, searching, seeking
soft mounts and peaks...
Ah your hair your hair!
jasmine -scented serpents
all over my face and chest
writhing in ecstasy!

I breathe you in
and let you out
in delicate rings
that float away
in vanishing wisps

Someday soon
will we, my dearest,
shed this cocoon
and seek the light together
for flowers and nectar?
Nov 2022 · 186
Or me, maybe?
anilkumar parat Nov 2022
I couldn't touch you
Even if I wanted to.
Under that curved glass lid
Maybe you were just asleep
Breathing a steady relaxed breath
After weeks of heaving and rasping
Maybe those were droplets from your nostrils
Not signs of refrigeration.
That red flag draped over you,
Cold, dead, not fluttering at all,
Seemed incongruous and pointless
Because those comrades gathered outside
Were whisking ennui away with flat jokes...

Did anyone really mourn for you brother?
Except the woman silently sobbing
In your dark bed?
Or your son and daughter
Reflecting on your sunny smile?

Or me, maybe?
Jul 2022 · 91
The wait
anilkumar parat Jul 2022
As crickets chirp-chirp
In staccato bursts
Weaving this web of silence
I wait immured
Within my own walls
To see if this darkness will fade

All I hear
Is the silence of the night
Her sighs, her slow breath,
The rise and fall of her soft *******
I dread this lull
That, like heady wine,
Pulls me into the whirlpool
Of drowsy sleep

Am I dreaming that I'm asleep
Am I asleep or awake
If only this web were a trampoline
I'd jump like a newborn kid
And prance and bleat in unbridled joy
But for now I simply wait
Within my own walls
For that demented rooster
To crow and crow and crow
And rouse the lousy lazy sun
To shine for one more day
Jun 2022 · 154
Sleepless
anilkumar parat Jun 2022
moonlit silver night
like a spider
weaving
this fine web of silence
around me

trapping in it
tiny pearls of dew
forlorn calls of lonely koels
suppressed sighs of yearning
tormenting thoughts pacing about
sobs buried in drenched pillows
pleasure escaping in moans
as nails titillate

dark inky night
doggedly weaving
to the cricket's staccato rhythm
this fine web of silence
around me

trapping in it
remembrances
of things past and forgotten
of humiliation and angst
of jubilation and smiles
of tenderness and love

Every time I try
to curl up in this cosy silence
the raucous cockerel
rips it to shreds
letting in golden streams.
May 2022 · 169
Kerala
anilkumar parat May 2022
The earth here is red my friend
Because if you dig it up
You'll find the congealed blood
That was spilt in so many silly battles
Over ownership and honour and faith
And that blooms today as roses
And hibiscus and a thousand other flowers

The earth here is red my friend
Because it's already clotted
And waiting for more to be interred
While they wail and mourn yet again
As vendetta spawns vendetta
And ****** cockfights fuel the thirst
For more blood, more gore

The earth here is red my friend
Because her lust for blood is insatiable
And yet look how she clothes herself
In a luxurious glimmering verdant silk
Hums one of her sweet birdsongs
And smiles at you, innocently
Beckoning you like a coquette.
anilkumar parat May 2022
The pompous black crow
In his black tuxedo,
a silly top hat, shiny black shoes,
and dark shades
strutted up to me the other day,
tilted his head and asked
"Hey Mister, How do you do?"
I was new in the neighborhood
I didn't want to offend Mr Pompous,
so I replied meekly
"I'm fine, thank you, how do you do?"

Then another day  when the sky was pregnant
he came to me dressed like a spy
Eyes behind dark shades,
dark trenchcoat, collars turned up and all.
I wasn't sure if it was dark grey or black
Because i remember wondering
When dark grey became black
Anyway, he wore a hat
And he wore boots
And he strutted up to me
And asked me rather gruffly
"Hey Mister, how do you do?"
I said i was fine, thank you and how did he do
And he went away.

And then one day he came to see me again
When i was in my flooded garden
Rescuing drowning earthworms
He seemed ruffled, wet and miserable
In a dark but tattered raincoat
(Was it dark grey or black?)
And he looked at me sideways,
shook himself and asked
"Why aren't you indoors,
don't you know its gonna rain
for the next five days too
and there's a red alert?"

I said I was fine, thank you and how did he do
And besides, was his raincoat dark grey or black?
And the frogs and toads laughed in derision
And they couldn't stop laughing,
they are still laughing.
May 2022 · 121
The silence of the songbird
anilkumar parat May 2022
Half hidden
under his motheaten blanket
the moon
pockmarked and sullen
distilled the night
over and over again.
All around,
a brooding silence.

Only his still growled
like distant thunder.
And from  time to time
his fire crackled.
All else was still.

Then
slowly
little droplets
started falling
clear as drops of tear
And i raised my head skyward
and pushed my tongue out

Heavy and heady drops.
The ***** stung,
tasting vaguely
of suppressed sobs
of unrequited love
juvenile fantasies
****** dreams.
And a hint of birdsong.

I guess the rogue
had wrung the neck of
my songbird
and tossed him into the still too.
Because now
only a lone insane rooster
crows repeatedly
as darkness fades.
Mar 2022 · 226
Tomorrow's sun
anilkumar parat Mar 2022
My skin has been
too tight, too old, suffocating
too rough scaly calloused
you dont know my struggle
trying to rupture it
gasping from every pore
writhing sweating shaking
silently screaming.

In the dead of the night
struggling shedding moulting,
I shall emerge breathing free
young and shiny
a new me
in my new world, new skin.
in my newfound sheen,
I shall at last smile

Tomorrow's sun too will smile
on greener canopies
and verdant vistas
on gurgling streams
and sloping roofs
on shoeflowers and 'mukkootti' and 'thumba'
and on happily jobless cicadas
with their day-in day-out whirrings
and on idle summer koels
with their throats drunk from
too many sweet mangoes

Tomorrow's sun will smile
on men glistening with sweat
celebrating life
with the heady rhythms
of a thousand chendas
and caparisoned elephants
in ancient temples
under ancient banyan trees
and my ancient deities
will exult goose-pimpled
at the ancient crescendos
of the thousand drums
and I'll be goose-pimpled too
in my new young skin
with its newfound sheen.

You'll see me, maybe
in my folded-up mundu
walking freely among the paddies
or languidly swimming in the streams
I shall sing like the koel
whirr like the cicada
I shall kiss all the flowers
of my new home
and bring you its bouquet, maybe.
or maybe I shall sit still
under an ancient banyan
and pretend I'm an anthill.
Mar 2022 · 171
It still wouldn't be you
anilkumar parat Mar 2022
Woman, Oh woman!
I've tried and tried
to peel you tenderly
layer by layer
hoping to see all your glory
but I know it's futile
you'd just evanesce
into thin air
and all I'd get would be a whiff
of your lingering fragrance.

Woman,  I've tried and tried
to rain on you
with gentle sun showers
hoping to rouse you from languor.
I've touched you, tasted you
I've tried to hug you
for eternities that burst like water bubbles
I've tried sharp logic
to see what's inside of you
but all I'd get would be
some finely chopped confusion
some teary eyes
and some of your juices

Woman, oh woman!
I've tried and tried
I've eyed you, I've weighed you
I've measured you, sized you
I've sketched you, shot you
painted you over and over
in black, in white, in all shades of grey
and in a seven million hues too.
I've finally even thrown words,
wet gooey words,
onto my potter's wheel
coaxing them with clumsy hands
to mould your voluptuousness
your curves, your smile,
your love, your strength,
your fiery impatience
your very core essence--
but all I'd get would be
a limp blob
of pathetic poetry.

I've tried and tried
unraveling, deciphering you;
a mere likeness, a semblance
is all I'd get of you
but no, it still wouldn't be you.
anilkumar parat Feb 2022
Moonless inky sky
Somewhere a lonely dog howls
Batwings flutter by


Moonless inky sky
Treetop silhouettes swaying
Lonely koel calls


Moonless inky sky
Dark clouds wrestle and rumble
Lightning blinds the eye
Jan 2022 · 190
Leaving the threshold
anilkumar parat Jan 2022
Yesterday wept bitterly
at the threshold
when I left her,
gently prising my fingers free
of her clutching hands.

Will I see you again, she asked.
Maybe, I mumbled
and I stepped out
into the twilight.

Tomorrow stood there
waiting like a bride
shy, tremulous
drawing little rings in the sand
with her toes.

I hurried towards her.
I was aware of the sand
slippingawayfromundermyfeet
like the last grains
hurtling down the neck
of a ruthless hourglass.

Come to me, my love, I whispered
as I grabbed her hungrily.
Jan 2022 · 249
Lonely upon the hilltop
anilkumar parat Jan 2022
How lonely were you
in that solitary grave
atop the hill
where
the wind whistled
now and then
tousling the dry blades of grass
and moulding the rusty boulders
into eerie shapes
where
the vague echoes
from the valley
and from the hills beyond
merged into
the silence,
the stillness

After that life of love
of tumult and adulation
I bet you'd come
to love this solitude
this quiet place
to rest in peace
while the wind erased
your name from
the headstone...

Until they brought the rest,
shovelling every now and then
and chanting from the book
and then throwing
clumps of sod
disturbing you
with their muffled sobs
which the wind brought back
a century later to me, now.
Jan 2022 · 201
Mawphlang, the sacred grove
anilkumar parat Jan 2022
Am I guilty of
violent sacrilege
crushing the sand under my
tourist sports shoes
stepping on the serpent-like roots
sinewy snaking smooth
and the moss, the moss,
the green shroud of timelessness
that covers
canopy and floor,
roots and trunks,
rocks and anthills
and the hundreds of
dolmens and menhirs
fallen or standing
but inviolate
in this Mawphlang,
this sacred grove?

Am I violating
a solemn vow
breathing of its air
thick and sweet
and delicately scented
by a thousand ferns and shrubs
and rhododendron and rudraksh trees?
When I even take a breath
am I ripping a silken silence
that only crickets and hornbills
are permitted to weave?

What is that strange call
that brings me here
among these mossy stones
from a time that now
I seem to remember?
Dejà vu? I ask myself
And the whispered rustles of a
windless motionless grove
reply

I have come home.
Tonight, I'll play with my folks
in the grassy grounds outside
where no tree grows,
where men may walk.

I have not transgressed.
I have merely crossed
the bridge of time.
Jan 2022 · 234
Well of things lost
anilkumar parat Jan 2022
The well in my city house
is old, decrepit and closed.
its water is black and stagnant,
its breath stale like an old man's.
like mine.
Nobody draws from it anymore
and it's ready to be interred forever
deep into the earth where it belongs
like me.

Long long ago, maybe,
it wasn't a city well.
Maybe
When it was a village well,
young girls with oiled combed plaited hair
and flower garlands sang
as they crashed a tin bucket
into the cool water
letting the bucket fill
then crashing it again
then letting it fill
then again and again
playing with the water, the well,
before drawing
And the pulley screamed in laughter
at the fun of it all.
So innocent.
And the lone bored catfish
came up from the depths
and rolled his eyes skyward
in righteous indignation
at the prankster girls
and their loud happy giggles
and their flying pigtails.

I wish i could lay my hands
on a grapnel
and dredge that well.
My village well.
For memories
For lost and forgotten things
like tin buckets
like little toys
soggy paper boats of hope
sighs of despair
lazy summer months
carefree days
long lost friendships.
I wonder though
if any grapnel can latch on
to wispy wistfulness.
Jan 2022 · 129
Where are the little birds?
anilkumar parat Jan 2022
Raucous cacophony
reigns the treetops
these days
The air is full of  squabbling,
of incessant ranting
all through the day
as a hundred, a thousand herons
harangue and harangue

I mourn the loss
of true birdsong.
The silly chatter of
pesky parrots,
the carefree trills of mynas
talking to themselves
the chitchat of sparrows
the soulful serenades
of pining cuckoos
I miss their music
I miss them
I miss their silent interludes

Will they return
to the canopies
to resume their lives?
to sing through the day?
to tell me of their little worries
of their love affairs
of their growing nestlings
and their nests?

Amid all that bitterness
Do i hear a dainty twitter?
Jan 2022 · 128
Once again
anilkumar parat Jan 2022
The year's dead
still warm but still, stiff
his garlic-and-beer breath
his putrefying innards
his bloating torso
threatens to belch forth
any moment now.

Put him on a cold stretcher
push him into a freezing box.
if you feel like looking
just one last time,
lift that gruff shroud
of sad unpleasant memories
and peek at his ashen visage,
his death scowl, his unseeing eyes
whose lids refuse to close.
don't grimace or shiver
it wasn't his icy finger
touching your spine.

Let's freeze him fast and hard
until he's a log
let's toss him then
into yesterday's pyre
and burn him
into fine ash.
let's scatter him
upon the unrelenting waves
on the shores of time.
let's take a dip together, then.

When we rise from the waters,
let's give ablutions
to a thousand suns.

Once again.
Dec 2021 · 153
Despite myself
anilkumar parat Dec 2021
Often
I keep quiet
I purse my lips
Even allow myself to grimace
From the effort to resist
The temptation to name
The thought that wells in me
Despite myself.

I wear this silence
Like a shroud
Because the unnamed
Is magical, mysterious.
Because to name would be
Violent sacrilege
To voice,
Wanton transgression.

Under the shroud
I boil bubble froth
In terrible unrest
Like a druid's cauldron
And yet I refrain
I hold back
I don't want to break
The torment
Of imminent release

But I'm as human as you are
Because sometimes
Despite myself
I let go
I burst
I sing and cry
I join the celestial chorus
Warbling chirping tweeting
And my voice
Adds ink and pink
To my sky
Dec 2021 · 195
Who's this?
anilkumar parat Dec 2021
What am I but a speck
of insignificant dust
that floats aimlessly
in the infinite skies
of the cosmic mind!

A bubble that bursts
even before it grows to be one
A thought that's still not a word
A note that's still not a sound
An infnitessimal bit
of the tiniest...

That am I
that spans all
Space and Time
And every other dimension
that's yet to be named
yet to be conceived
infinite and eternal
This now, That then,
and both ever.

To you, my dear,
I appear, maybe,
as a footloose Camel
grin, ****, beard and all.
An unkempt shaggy nomad
smelling of travels and travails
and seemingly carefree
stubborn and eccentric.

Trust me, I'm not me--
at least that's what I think.
(For that matter neither
are you you, I suspect)
All you need is maybe, like me,
to look upward and gaze
at the nightsky
at stars long dead
and meteors dying
when you're already yesterday.

I won't blame you even for a moment though
if you think I'm so and so
who graduated in Chemistry
but went on to be a journo
and then a merchant,
and somewhere in between,
a loving husband and a dad
and a demented wordsmith
tinkering with ideas
with hammer and tongs.
I'd rather give you the benefit of doubt
for I'm seeking the truth myself!
Dec 2021 · 260
In the gallery of my heart
anilkumar parat Dec 2021
In the gallery of my heart
hangs a lone naked lamp
that sputters and swings and smokes sooty
as if buffeted by unseen draughts
and it casts shadows distorting
upon its mirrored walls.

If you were to enter ever,
If I were to let you in,
or if you stole in like a thief
when I was weak for a blink
you'd be stunned-bored-
intrigued-saddened by what
a little boy picked up on his lonely road.

Tiny shiny marbles chipped and split
-And bits of toffee wrappers
-Collages of smiles from sepia-toned faces,
derisive guffaws, frowns and sneers
-And gently billowing tapestries woven
from strands of happy memories
-Magic carpets that swooshed crazily
over fantastic surreal realms
where people wore nothing but
their emotions and desires
-And books, yes, books of all variety
little ones, big ones and yettobeopened ones
-And clocks and watches that kept
their time to strange metronomes.
- And in a dark corner, a trashcan
of dashed hopes and stillborn dreams.

You'd hear my mother call my name,
and bits of truncated babble,
you'd hear flutes as if from afar
and streams gurgle
and birdsong and sighs of longing
If only you'd listen,
you'd hear the calf call out to his mother
eager to **** at her udder
and of course the music of the night rain
ravishing the Earth.

I warn you.
You'd be bewildered
by the swing of the lamp
You'd lose your way
among the swinging shadows
not knowing for sure
If you were for real yourself
or just a mere shadow;
If you were a figment of my imagination
or I yours.

If molten clocks and midnight roosters
don't scare you,
If unspoken guilt and silly peccadilloes
don't haunt you,
maybe you'll survive
my chamber of mirrors.

And if you think even for a moment
that you saw in the mirrors
a thousand grinning camels,
Well then, you're surely my friend.
You can walk in any time again
and explore my gallery
without permission.
Dec 2021 · 111
Ya Devi
anilkumar parat Dec 2021
O mother
of all entities,
thou art but pure desire.

I feast my eyes
on this big vermilion dot
on this plate of pickled mangoes

I reach out
My finger tip stretches forward
To touch that dot.
What moves my finger upwards?
What makes me open my mouth?
Why is there that gush of water?
What is that which thrusts my tongue tip out
In expectation of an ******?

That moment
tantalisingly eternal
tantalisingly fleeting.
that touch
of the fingertip
on a million buds.
that one moment, o mother
is when I know
satiation and desire
are both you.

I bow to that you, o mother!
Dec 2021 · 159
Ma Nishada!
anilkumar parat Dec 2021
When the night bled,
little streams of silver light
trickled down my hair and beard
and despite my inferiority
I glowed an ethereal glow.

When I roamed the Earth
my gait heavy with guilt,
my head glowed
like a bobbing ball
through the dark labyrinths
of sleeping groves.

A swarm of termites
followed me all the way
to the grotto of silence
by the lotus lake
where I sat
lost
still
silent.

And they salved me
and covered my wounds
cocooning me within their mound
that smelt of the Earth and my tears
and I sat there
lost
still
silent.
for eons.

Until that morning
when a monstrous twang
pierced my heart
and brought
the Sarus crane down
writhing in agony
while his mate wailed.
and I cursed the hunter
to his own eternal hell
of regret.

When the crane died
words were born
in metre and rhyme
and I emerged
from my earthen mound
of silence,
singing.

In pain,
in empathy,
I found my voice again.
Oct 2021 · 95
The Hourglass
anilkumar parat Oct 2021
I love the hourglass,
Its voluptuousness, its curves.
The way it reminds me
Of love handles oh so soft
And the hours of lascivious indulgence
Of sighs of passions
And fleeting moments of exquisite delight.

And I hate it
For its inexorability, its adamance.
Not one grain of it
Can be lured to pause, to linger
As it hurtles on
To join the growing heap below
In unseemly hurry to yell at me
That my Time's up.

But beyond love and hate
Truth lies.
And beyond pleasure and pain
Death lives.
When Time stops,
Eternity begins.
Or doesn't it?
Aug 2021 · 195
Despair
anilkumar parat Aug 2021
Into the crusty inkwell
of my tears,
I ****** my quill.
I probe, I scrape.
Almost frantic,
again and again,
as it comes up dry.

The quill is blunt,
its tip is in tatters.

I hear the loud ugly scratch
as it furrows the paper
in futility.
I draw a blank.

It looks like I'm done.
My words die unwritten.
My thoughts are stillborn.

Oh why can't i cry anymore?
Aug 2021 · 195
The seashell
anilkumar parat Aug 2021
He didn't know it when he started
bleeding memories from all his pores
in little droplets that evaporated
and made their way to that faraway place
where all lost things go
when they lose name and meaning.

Bleached, blanched, drained of emotion,
he became an empty nest
whose bird had stopped singing
and was nowhere to be found.
He just hung there all day long,
gently rocking to and fro
as if swayed by a breeze.
not uttering a word, not crying.

Only we kept crying over his loss
and we kept searching.
Until one day, he stopped rocking.

Much later, while walking the beach,
I picked up a shell from the sands
and from a childhood habit,
I held it to my ear
and i heard the ocean and its waves
and i was reminded of him.
anilkumar parat Jul 2021
Every time i chase
a  thought or emotion
in its carefree fantastic flight
and try to clothe  it
with motley syllables
and myriad words
I'm not quite a poet,
No sir, not quite!
And so i cry a bit
because i know
I'm catching a butterfly
and crushing her delicate wings
and like a ******,
laughing in joy
at her anxious agony
as she flutters and dies,
petrified in the sticky amber
of my words.

If only i could sing instead,
like the cuckoo outside my window!
he never ever chases them,
he just lets them soar
on the wings of his notes
far into the inky silent night.
And those thoughts and emotions
start singing sweet songs
of love and angst and pain,
of lust and loss and longing
of betrayal and separation.

And lying in bed sleepless,
I listen.
And I cry.
Jul 2021 · 253
Yesterday's tears
anilkumar parat Jul 2021
I lay sleepless again last night,
listening to the silence of the falling rain.
It was a still, steady downpour
devoid of all fire or fury,
drained of every emotion,
as if the heavens cared no more
for me or my long-dead dreams.

No Zeus, no Indra
unleashed terror,
the clouds wrestled
but made no thunder
the heavy dark sky
just sobbed silently
like a poorly paid mourner.

And yet somehow,
even those false tears
seeped down deep
way below the humus,
soaking what lay interred,
long forgotten.

When the day dawned
and the sky smiled,
I saw the magic
of fresh rain lilies,
thousands of them,
dancing in the breeze.

On their pink cheeks,
I saw yesterday's tears.
Jul 2021 · 264
All on a sudden
anilkumar parat Jul 2021
Age crept up on him in stealth,
careful not to tread upon a dry twig
in the garden of his memories,
careful not to disturb
the butterflies, the bees,
the tiny hummingbirds and koels,
which, drunk on nectars,
in happy abandon,
sang their songs all day long.

His ears, once, were keen,
picking up every note, every tone
every trill, however shrill.
and he swayed to the music
and sashayed on occasion
as he walked through his garden
humming their songs
and caressing those flowers.

And now that the tumult of youth
had left subdued
and speed gave way to grace,
he could now detect
that his breathing was louder
than all that music,
that he heard it above all else
like a loud metronome
which only he could hear.

He'd now lie awake often,
listening to the night rain
come roaring down in fury
and leaving soon after
and then the raindrops from the roof
drumming merrily upon the puddles
and he'd also listen, above it all,
to the sound of his own breath
beating a slow rhythm.

Then, just like that,
came a day when,
all on a sudden,
the sun froze in mid air.
and so too, the butterflies
and the hummingbirds.
the flowers wilted and drooped
and silence fell upon the garden
with a terrible crash.
and above that crescendo,
he heard his own rasping breath.

he heard nothing more.
Jul 2021 · 277
The Rainbow
anilkumar parat Jul 2021
The rain was a gentle lover today,
so tenderly caressing the earth,
kissing her all over,
with little whispers.

And when I started watching
like a ******,
he pulled a veil over me.
and I saw, first,
the river below me,
then the green canopies,
the distant jagged skyline
with its stacked matchboxes,
then even the blue sky
with its hanging clouds,
all merge like a phantasm
into a grey cataract...

When he was finally satiated,
he lifted the veil
and before me she lay
in languid rapture.
and from her wafted
the strange, delicate, fragrance
of her sated desires.

And even as I watched,
the grey sky, as if nothing had happened,
adjusted her curls and pinned a bow on it.

And I gave them a knowing smile.
Jul 2021 · 334
Night Rain
anilkumar parat Jul 2021
With a sudden,mighty, silent roar,
the rain ravaged the earth
in a carnal frenzy
that gushed forth in torrents.

Soaked to their bones,
the streetlights stood mute,
their blood draining
in little yellow streams
that snaked their way
into the river.

And the river?

The river, she lay splayed
in lascivious languor,
her body shuddering
at the sudden onslaught
in the dead of the night
until the rain, spent,
slid silently away
like a thief.
Jun 2021 · 328
Maybe I won't
anilkumar parat Jun 2021
When this thing sploshed down
upon the earth
like a blob of icky egg white,
many of us were snared in it
like flies in a spider web
panicking, gasping, in frenzy
until we surrendered
in sheer exhaustion
to the unseen predator.

and when everything ground to a halt,
some of us took to cycling,
or to jogging or walking.
some walked away silently
into the all-round twilight.

My pen has kept writing through it all,
scrawling upon paper sheets,
chronicles of my own insanity.
Maybe I'll read them out to you
one of these days, my love,
if i don't crumple the sheets
and throw them away.
Or maybe i won't,
because what he writes
may seem insane to you as well.
Jun 2021 · 289
When my Camel grinned
anilkumar parat Jun 2021
When i went cold turkey and quit smoking,
my wife was obviously happy and secretly
sad.
Even though my kisses didn't reek of tobacco anymore, it was as if her husband wasn't the same anymore.

Every once awhile, I'd catch her halt doing her chores and wistfully glancing my way
And i could tell she was wishing I'd light up
once again, like old times.
It broke my heart to see her so.
Because, you see, I'd quit only for her sake,
because she'd asked me to.

So one day after dinner, as used to be my wont, I lit up.
He was a Camel.
And he was grinning at me as i put him between my lips in the corner of my mouth
and i struck a match
and lit him up
and dragged him deep
into the pits of my lungs.
It appears he wasn't used to it there
in the dark dingy maze of my bronchioles
So he rushed out sputtering and coughing.

So i jumped on his ****** back
and we started sailing across the Saharan sands.
And we sailed for days on end,
him swaying this way and that,
with me doing likewise,
as if both were buffeted
by the same angry winds.
he wasn't thirsty, but i was,
until we came to this charming little oasis
with its signature palms,
a well, and belly-dancing Bedouin girls
who charmed the wits out of me
with glance-darts from their kohl-lined eyes.

One of them slaked my thirst
and then gave me a poncho
and she giggled when i draped it over myself
but by then , my Camel was gone.
and with him the desert too.
and i was back in my own house
and my wife was eyeing me strangely
she had a question to ask
but instead of being asked,
it just hung there in the air
like a smoky question mark.
so i didn't give any reply
to the smoky unasked question.
I just grinned at her
like my Camel.
and kissed her on her ruby lips.
a long amorous lingering kiss
and she was happy again.
because my kiss reeked of tobacco
like in the good ol' days.

God knows where my Camel is now
but i guess he's thinking of our trip
and grinning to himself.
Jun 2021 · 200
The world can wait!
anilkumar parat Jun 2021
No, i won't let you go.
I won't, my dear.
I'll just lie here
spooning you.
for just some more of those
moments of eternity.

I know you're only pretending
to struggle free.
I know you want to
let your languid warmth
seep into me
into my skin
into my soul
as i entwine you like a creeper
as i caress your softness
and search for your buds.

The world can wait.
let all those birds sing away
and let all those tender pink
mango blossoms
sway in the morning breeze,
spreading their delicate fragrance
to calm worried souls.
let the orange skies turn gold
and the leaves at our window
a shade greener.
I just don't care.
all i want now
is to lie here lazily
knowing that i have you.

So don't pretend to struggle free.
just let these moments linger
for just a little longer
until a rude doorbell
or a loud street vendor
breaks our reverie
and brings our magic carpet
crashing down, my dear,
into the madness
of yet another day.
Jun 2021 · 261
The Road Trip
anilkumar parat Jun 2021
The morning was cloudy
when we set out on a long drive,
just the two of us,
our car laden with much luggage
and a pile of dreams.
That was long ago,
the 'once upon a time'
of a distant era
when they shook hands and hugged
in farewell,
when they didn't wear
cloth masks that hid their fears.

Overcast skies turned,
as we drove on,
into blazing blinding horizons
bereft of clouds
and brown barren landscapes
bereft of green.
and we thought
we'd turn brown too--
we, our car, our tires,
our breath, our thoughts--
merging into all that
aridness.

But soon we drove into
winding hairpins,
up and up and up,
then down and down
into verdant vistas
where, whizzing past us,
were fat cows with big udders
and their happy calves
and paddies
and green leaves with their trees
and pregnant streams
and men and women
dreaming all their dreams
and we thought
we'd soon arrive.

Did i fall asleep at the wheel
or am i still in a dream?
Or was some spell broken
at the stroke of high noon
when dreams turn into nightmares?
Or did we time travel
into now, into here,
into this strange new era
where fear reigns
and masks rule?
where the only remnant
of our past is Death
and the pain of separation?

Maybe we'll wake up
and resume driving
maybe this is only some
resetting of Time,
some reboot to crush
a bug in the software
that charts all our maps.
Maybe we'll see again
the simple things we knew
back then,
when we knew
how to smile,
how to hug,
to love.

Meanwhile,
we stare.
at a rotating circle
that keeps saying
loading...
loading...
loading ...
Jun 2021 · 187
Mother, don't smother!
anilkumar parat Jun 2021
Let go, woman.
He's not yours.

After all, you're just a piece
of wet soil
where a seed was sown.
and you don't even know
by what magic
the seed became the tree.
neither do you know why
it was this seed
and this tree
nor why it was you, who,
in that ecstatic moment,
begot the seed.
you'd be stupid, wouldn't you,
to think the tree
belongs to you?

Remember when
his pink tendril-like fingers
clutched and clawed
at your *******
and he suckled you
and you thought
you were feeding him?
woman, he was just
laying his claim
on his right to grow.
your ******* hurt, you lost sleep,
you fretted for him.
So what?

Woman, let go.
Please.
Remember this.
That string was meant
to be cut.
He was destined
to fly free
to strange distant lands
into adventure, danger, discovery,
on the wings of winds
unknown to you.

You can't ever lose
what was never yours.
So, woman,
Just let go.
Jun 2021 · 232
Your name
anilkumar parat Jun 2021
I could think
of a hundred words,
to call out to you, my dear,
But not one of them
will be enough
to really tell you
how much you mean to me.

And so i call out
your name.

In it,
is the fragrance
of so many years
spent together,
of moments so precious
that they won't happen
in a million more years,
of memories that make
silly meaning to just the two of us.

In it,
is the warmth of your
slender, delicate hands
that i so love to hold and stroke
and weave my own fingers into.

In it,
the tenderness of your hug,
the oceans in your eyes
as they gaze into mine,
the silence of a thousand words
we left unspoken,
the heat and steam
of so much passion.

No word, no language, no endearing term
will quite be enough, my love,
to tell you really how much
You mean to me.

And so i call out
your name.
Jun 2021 · 281
The Mask
anilkumar parat Jun 2021
He was busy debauching
when his world
was plunged into pestilence
and his frenzy froze
and he bobbed about
for months on end
like a stiff black corpse
in a tank of formalin.

Then they put him out to thaw
for a short while
and he emerged flailing
from deathlike slumber,
one limb at a time,
quite like a zombie
howling for revenge.

So they dunked him again
and then again
and gagged him
and silenced him
with multiple masks
that masked his own
carefully cultivated mask.

And so now his visage
has mutated.
he scowls, where once
he smiled.
when he speaks,
no voice comes out
except muffled laments
for friends and lovers
uprooted and thrown
into blazing bonfires
without so much
as a waved goodbye.

But his eyes
O my god , his eyes!
How they speak
a new lingo
quite seemingly strange!
is that a glare
or is that a glimmer?
is that anger
or, as i suspect,
a glint of hope?
May 2021 · 360
Dawn again
anilkumar parat May 2021
In the beginning was a trill.
that didn't quite belong
to the silence enshrouding the night.

then another, as if in reply.
then a tweet, a trill, a tweet again.
a chirp this time, replied with another,
as the chorus grew.
(Arise oh Lion among men!
Perform your Divine duties!
The eastern sky has begun to blossom,
O great son of Kausalya!)

a  pair of ears,
a  pair of eyes,
then the rest of him
was born again
in the darkness

and he knew he was both
the prince and the ten-headed one
and many others besides,
witnessing his very own fantasy,
his fear, his shame,
his throbbing lust,
seemingly anachronistic
in the gray morning.
and suddenly remembering
yesterday's sums
and its remainders,
it's untotalled accounts.

he now knew
the always new harmony
of trills and tweets
from a million eons.
he'd been witness
to so much birdsong,
to countless metamorphoses;
some noisy, most silent,
like gray turning pink-orange-golden
like friend-turning-foe
dimple-turning-wrinkle...

for one more time,
he was here and now again
before fading
into the twilight haze
of a stolen snooze.
May 2021 · 318
nothingness
anilkumar parat May 2021
i swerved off the desolate highway
for no reason at all
or so it seemed.
i was no more in control;
my will had no power
over the steering.
the car was now truly off the road,
which receded far
into a grey horizon
and i could feel muddy ruts
shaking me and my car
which kept rolling on.
i could see i would soon bog down
yet the car kept going
over huge squishy ruts
with me in it, silently panicking,
for i now knew.
i was never in control.

* * * * *

what do you do when you know
that you're not in control?
when you know you're spiraling
like so many fireflies
like so many planets, stars, galaxies
into a fiery fearsome maw
that swallows everything
into a nothingness
where nothing reigns
where love, hate, thought
where hard arousal, thirst, hunger,
pain, laughter, words,
lose all meaning
and become,
like my steering hands,
totally powerless?

what do you do then, my friend?

except watch senselessly
like the imbecile that you truly are,
when,
one by one,
all those people you loved
all those meanings you held,
swerve off the road
and spiral frighteningly
towards that gaping maw
of nothingness?

what do you do?
Apr 2021 · 1.1k
don't stop
anilkumar parat Apr 2021
tickle me.
taunt me, torture me.
with your eyes,
your fingers , your nails.
your lips, teeth, tongue.
your breath.

be relentless, ruthless.
play like a cat would
with a hapless li'l mouse.

don't stop.

until my skin
breaks out
in flaming goosebumps.

until
i arch and bend.
like a bow,
taut, tense.

until i explode.

and with me,
this phantasm
and all it's nightmare
of pestilence,
of sorrow, despair,
of death, distress, desolation.

if only for mere moments.

don't stop.
Apr 2021 · 207
The Grim Reaper
anilkumar parat Apr 2021
Scything the blazing sky
in slow deliberate circles,
he casts a gloomy shadow
like a silent looming spectre
upon the teeming hordes below
running helter skelter
in mortal fright.

He swoops down at will
picking his prey at random,
leaving the rest
who wail and lament,
if only for a few moments,
before resuming their habit
of scratching the earth
for a few worms or grain.
Feb 2021 · 290
Bits and pieces
anilkumar parat Feb 2021
When the sky burst,
sending down a hail
of cold glass marbles
pummeling the hard earth,
we were in the curio shop, my love
caressing a dusty watch,
holding an alabaster vase,
once dear to some soul departed.
we were struck by wonder then,
at the fusillade.
do you remember?

When shafts of light
pierced the tall canopies
creating dancing shadows
'pon the forest floor
and showing us
here a mushroom,
there a pinecone
we were just inside
the tiny wooden temple
but not really praying
we were struck by wonder then
at the silence, my love.
I know you remember.

When the rain stopped
and the little island
was drenched in sunlight,
we were spread out
almost exhausted
on the silver sands
looking straight up at
our own sky
wanting each other again
but that lone pesky parakeet
screeched in protest
we laughed at the interruption,
didn't we, my love?

We had to force our way
to the gurgling stream
and dip our feet in the
Ice cold waters,
sit down on the smooth rocks.
we were in company then
but the baboons
didn't really mind it
when we held each other
and kissed.
We were mildly surprised then
that they let us be,
weren't we, my love?


Here we are again
sipping tea together
blowing into the cup slightly
and breathing in
the aroma of the brew
in a daily ritual
that's shorn of all ceremony.
I am wrinkled now; so are you.
not that it matters,
either to you or to me,
as we sit here together
sipping silently.
And we smile suddenly
at a moment shared
but never really spoken of.
Jan 2021 · 268
wont we?
anilkumar parat Jan 2021
like a smithy's bellow
my chest blows and puffs
stoking the embers of life
which burst into flame
with every other stroke
roaring in mild anger
yet playfully dancing.

my limbs lie dead
my face too
not even a hint
of movement
to punctuate
Life

and yet im soaring
through labyrinths
gliding, sliding,
sidling, sailing
seeing all,
touching all,
living.
here and now.

and at this very point
I am.
and at the next
and the one following
in the continuum.
I see you
everywhere.
and i know you
as i know myself.

how about you
my love?
have you been
through your own labyrinths too?
soaring, sailing like me
looking for me
at every momentary stop?

I know this
and i think you do too
that somewhere
at one of those points
we meet.
and then
nothing else matters.

we'd be wide awake then, won't we?
Jan 2021 · 328
The River
anilkumar parat Jan 2021
When the river was young,
he'd often sit on its banks of sugar sand
smoking a cigarette
lazily watching
the slow, languid, eddied
swirls that Time made
as it made its way,
rather clumsily.

Sometimes from the far bend
a tree branch would come afloating
like a bad memory,
twisting and turning in the current
with some silly bird trying to balance
and figure it out from all angles

Random voices from the far shore
cicadas chirping in the lazy afternoon
from the thick undergrowths
overhanging the flowing waters
an occasional splash by some bored fish
a silent bubble bursting
cackling waterfowls
And yet he would hear his own breath,
joining in...

The waters were slightly warm then
and gentle
and caressing
when he went for a dip
and a few strokes took him
to the little islet in the middle
and aimlessly back again
to break out in little goosebumps
from the cool breeze on his wet skin.

The river's old now
muddied, wrinkled and scarred
no more voices from the far banks
no waterfowls cackling
not even lazy cicadas
only his own breathing
heavy with the sighs
of longing.
of loss.
Jan 2021 · 253
The game
anilkumar parat Jan 2021
Wisps of an unfulfilled dream
Floated around in the air
Pale, gossamer, fading, formless
Like a word in its womb.

He drew a laboured breath in
But his heaving chest
Couldn't expel enough
To move the wisps away.

Tired eyes closed their lids,
Fast wearying of it all
And opened once again
Checking if they'd gone.

No, they hadn't ;indeed no
For they were playing it too,
The waiting game
To see who'd go first.

One more rasping breath
Drawn in long and laboured.
Then a grunting wheeze
And still the wisps lingered.

And so the game went on
Long into the cold night 'ntil
there was left no more,
Not a wisp, not a breath.


Anilkumar Parat
Apr 2020 · 105
The Virus
anilkumar parat Apr 2020
Stop it oh Ringmaster,
Stop it you fool!
Can't you see it's pointless
To crack that whip any more?
Your stupid beast has fled in terror
Back to his cage,  trembling.
Where once he used to pace
In majestic pride ,
He now cowers in a corner
Afraid,  very afraid.
He's not half the miserable beast
He's already been.
For he seems to hear
A whip deadlier,  a whip unseen.
Every now and then he shakes
In mortal fear of his new fear!
His new Ringmaster is mightier
And way too nastier
'Coz he cracks a whip
That's frozen time, stopped everything
From meaning anything.
Neither night nor day nor love nor lust
Has any more to it now.
Look how he's forgotten
To urinate to defecate to fornicate.
The meat you threw yesterday
Lies untouched in his cage.
Is it that he's hungry no more
Or has he forgotten he's hungry?
Look how he trembles at every footfall
Of even the scurrying rats!
Of every whiff of air even,
Of even his cagemate!
No. He won't dance anymore
Not to your tune,  not to anybody's!
His time's up,  his show done.
He's figured out he's only a sucker
Running from fear to fear
Whip him hard but he won't budge
You don't scare him no more.
This new whip,  unseen but lethal
Is now his new master and Lord.
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