AMPAT VARGHESE KOSHY

 

AMPAT VARGHESE KOSHY

 

A Place On The Body

 

When she disrobed

I could see all the times on her body

The infant, the child, the young lady, the woman

Where in eternal lines to time she kept growing

But she said find me a place on my body

Standing before me unabashed and free

I had always been bad at geography

Parts of her body were metaphors for me

No place suggested itself to fancy

Placeless, she stood in her nudity before me

No space could bridge her or bind her when naked

She touched every place and was infinite like space

Expanding like the universe and lovely

If I touched her with even a finger

I touched history and all its layers

Her eyes were from the North of the fortresses

Her lips were the South

Her breasts were some West

And the jewel between her thighs

East of the explorers, all topsy turvy

Her thighs were fountains

Her nipples were standards

Surreal was no new word for me, confused

No words being able to describe her beauty

Her tresses and everything best described madly

She was all place and each move spacious

Small as quantum and large as a galaxy

What can you say of a place on the body

When place was all that bewitching poetry

 

 

A Haibun: Monsters Under The Bed

 

I close the monitor at night. When I wake up in the morning, the white lights light up as if smiling. As if in. Greeting. Under each silver key. The dot-like black ants come out, from the circuitry inside. Why are you in there?! I ask. I am amazed by their answer. We thought it is someone's bed, and the crumbs of food we take in for our parties under it makes our nights a pleasant revelry with these artificial lights to make it bright as day like the moon and the stars do it for you. Monsters, I think! Just not under my bed, but my keyboard!

Miniscule black ants

Come out from asdf

Go into lk

 

 

The Statue Of The Bronze Boy Seated On A Globe Reading A Book With A Magnifying Glass

 

Far away the building nestles

It is a school where young minds go.

I sit here brassy, bronzed and brazen.

I have blue-green claavu on my dress.

I am symbol. I am mascot.

I am dwarapalakan.

My seat is the whole wide world

Globe as chair and in my hand

Is the world as text or book

In my hand Holmes' clue-finder

I have been sitting here for ages

I may sit here many more

What I read is blank pages

What I see through the lens is convex and complex

Enlarged by any who stands behind

My message is about freedom

Though they've fixed me here in one place

Learning makes one travel the earth

Not to be cooped up in a building

And even the poor can journey forth

By the magic of the letters

Wander everywhere far and wide

Dreams can be magnified

And the globe can be your throne

I am in a uniform

I am but a little child

I am of an indiscriminate race

But to read and be literate

And to see things clearly

Is a great power, we do see

A little knowledge can go a long while

Kings and rich men fear learning

Knowledge is power and capital

Come, students of the world,

Whatever your gender or race

Religion, caste or creed

Recognize your potential

Know that to mastery age is just a number

At a young age, you can learn more than others

Your mind is keener, your eyesight shaper

And the whole expanse of the universe or earth

At your feet lies and awaits. Your grasp

Is in it, and who said that

To achieve something

That lasts forever

One must become aged first?

 

 

Part I

 

When angels dance on their heads

If angels danced on their heads

Would they be wearing skirts or smocks

Or tunics or white or silver robes

Or golden ones or nothing much?

Would those tumble to their heads

Revealing their private parts

Which they may or may not have

Do angels darn, wear underwear?

And if they dance on 'their' heads

Whose heads would these be?

On a pin or on the heads

Of some unsuspecting folks

Or on the heads unspoken of

That grow in size when blood goes there?

That would be a raunchy feat!

 

Part 2

 (Inspired by Marshall G. Kent Sr.)

 

For an angel to dance on its/his/her head

It has to put away its lyre and harp

It has to unpin or tear off (ouch!) its wings

And fold them away or store them away

carefully in a closet or wardrobe

And pretend it is not all feet

When it comes dancing on its head

But the joy, unknown

of Seeing things upside down

brings its smile on , and melts all its frown

and heavenly ditties escape from its lips

So red, so cherry, so hep and hip

You want to kiss it.

 

 

 Beware The Pharisees And The Legalists

 

A shadow always falls across the page.

The shadow of guilt he should not have

or she

of a Christian who was not discipled well

by those who were not born again

who is made to feel he or she did

sins of commission

he or she had not done

or left out things he did not need to do anyway

sins of omission

Guilt unneeded which he or she becomes set free from

only when he finally meets his real Maker, Lord and Saviour

if he or she is lucky, if not; then woe betide

those who made him or her feel guilty

as they are Pharisees who burden human beings

and deserve to be thrown with stones tied to their necks

into the nearest ocean

for becoming stumbling blocks to such children on their way to heaven

who would otherwise be happy, free, and not guilt-ridden

 

AMPAT VARGHESE KOSHY

 

AMPAT VARGHESE KOSHY: Dr. Koshy A.V. is presently working as an Assistant Professor in the English Department of Jazan University, Saudi Arabia. He has many books, degrees, diplomas, certificates, prizes, and awards to his credit and also, besides teaching, is an editor, anthology maker, poet, critic and writer of fiction. He runs an autism NPO with his wife, Anna Gabriel. Two of his co-authored books published in 2020 were Amazon best-sellers in India and USA, namely, Wine-kissed Poems with Jagari Mukherjee and Vodka by the Volga with Santosh Bakaya.