Dr. santosh
Bakaya
THERE IS A LAYER OF
MIST IN SKY’S EYES
Was that light
seeping through the blinds?
Ah, hallucination!
Mere illusion!
There is no light,
only darkness
Dismal, brooding
clouds peer around
Creating a grating
cacophony
Someone squirms in
agony
Sightlessly.
The lakes have
lost their shimmer
With every day,
hope becomes dimmer.
Clouds rumble in
staccato bursts of impetuous interjections
Pouring forth
their bottled up wrath and intense frustration.
A banshee shrieks
in an orphan’s nightmare.
Dark and dreary is
the curfewed night
But rain falls
with uncurfewed might.
And a vulture’s
eyes shine bright
A mother throttles
her sighs
And, there is a
layer of mist in sky’s eyes.
The winds howl and
the lakes rage
And the caged bird
has fallen silent.
The sunbeams still
suffuse the sky blue
But hush, danger
still lurks in corners
The blind grope
through dark alleys
Dust motes float
with a forlorn air
In an eerie corner
peace cowers
Over everything
else, violence towers
Between life and
death, silhouettes walk the thin edge
Unseeing eyes
fixed on the spikelets of wilted flowers of the sedge.
A feather severed
from wings
Drifts orphaned
And no bird sings.
Under a skeletal
tree, an emaciated cat licks her wounds.
A mother throttles
her sighs
Ah, look, there is
again a layer of mist in sky’s eyes.
NIGHT WATCHED
COCK-EYED
Night watched
cock-eyed
Frowning at the
street, tangled with busy people.
Busy dragging
overstuffed suitcases, cartons of knick- knacks
Slivers of
memories escaped from wall –cracks
Chasing them.
“Take us along,
take us… “, they beseeched.
Howled and
screamed and screeched.
At the cock-eyed
night, they frowned back
With squints in
their eyes [Or maybe tears?]
Ploughing on,
hobbling and recoiling
Lugging, and
hauling, incessantly toiling
Reluctantly
exiting homes, blood boiling
Shuffling feet,
muffling their sobs
Holding fast to
their memories
Under their arms,
next to the rib cage.
A boy clutches in
his tiny hand
Just a crumpled
page with squiggles.
A chortling
toddler rides side –saddle
On his mom’s hip,
joyously looking forward to the trip.
Eyes filled with
swamp, chilled to the bones,
Hiding their
groans
Some board flimsy
rubber boats
In disheveled hair
and shabby coats.
Battling high
winds and rough seas
Jumping off a
dinghy, and then crossing under a fence.
Nerves taut, eyes
streaming, bodies tense.
A father kisses
his daughter, walking through a rain storm
Hair disheveled,
sad and ill of form
Hobbling as though
on arthritic feet
Slumps against a
rock
Holding his
daughter next to his throbbing chest
Sagging with
beleaguered acceptance.
She slips into
fairyland and closes her eyes.
The father sighs.
The night watches
cock-eyed.
I COME FROM THE LAND
OF FLOWERS
I come from the
land of flowers
And a love that
overpowers
Straining to touch
the moon, the clouds and the stars.
Warbler dear,
perched on that barren tree
Why are your
chirps, ah, so melancholy?
D’you miss the
daffodils which hasted away too soon?
Or mourn that
back-slapping bonhomie,
Of that bygone time,
the cheery camaraderie
When you dissolved
in ecstasy, perched on the luxuriant tree?
Don’t let your
ears ring with screams of throttled dreams
Sing of the
pageantry of meadows and cascading streams.
The scintillating
grandeur of Chinar’s magicality
The sunlight on
the mountaintops and its playful vivacity!
Collect twigs of
those happy times, chirp metaphors of peace
Sing not of
mountains cowering in fear, or the primrose wiping a tear
No more of
strawberries taking to their hearts the color of gore.
See, how baby
conifers stretch their tessellated arms,
Streamlets babble,
feisty wavelets ripple and roar
And frisky cubs
nuzzle each other
In their juvenile
bid to erase those memories of gore.
Remember, I come
from the land of flowers
And a love that
overpowers
Straining to touch
the moon, the clouds and the stars.
Dr. santosh Bakaya
Sanely insane, a
pathological procrastinator, a die - hard believer in martin luther king’s
dream and john Lennon’s 'imagine', dreaming of a day when there is ‘nothing to
kill or die for’, and ‘all the people sharing all the world’, Santosh Bakaya
has been critically acclaimed for her poetic biography of mahatma Gandhi,
ballad of bapu,in may 2016, she was conferred with the universal inspirational
poet award by pentasi b friendship poetry group and Ghana government. In august
2016 , she received the Dr. Yayati Madan Gandhi
international poetry award for
ballad of bapu and has also won the reuel international award [2014] for
her long poem, oh hark! , Many of her poems have made it to the highly
commendable category of destiny poets, a UK based poetry website, besides
having figured in many international anthologies. Her latest book, where are
the lilacs, a collection of peace poems, is also winning international laurels.
She lives in jaipur with her husband and university going daughter.
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