PANKAJAM KOTTARATH

 

PANKAJAM KOTTARATH

 

An Introvert’s Diary

 

I may be cut from a different cloth

But that is what I’m intended to be.

People speak for long, yet so little,

audience receptive or not.

 

I often breathe solitude,

perform an inner journey,

listen to the tumultuous whispers

of the rampant tides

till the whirls settle down by itself

to perceive and reflect;

and I’m glad if the world stops to listen,

till such time don’t be judgmental.

 

It’s a quest in earnest, a hunt for serenity

words dilute its intensity.

Call me reserved, shy, introvert or cynical,

my blissful ignorance, as you may call it,

helps my mind to come out of its knots

shut down in the dark caves of fear-

the fear of rejection

when butterflies flit in my stomach.

 

Cowering to escape from negativity, fall or fail to that

when I juggle to cope up, smile at me with your eyes.

Try to recognize that I too long for company

and here I pour out my heart in poetry, bare and open.

 

 

Let Me Be At Peace Within

 

They say absence makes hearts grow fonder

I ponder, you are quite a distance yonder

A world where I can’t come or wander

As chill in the wind wraps, let’s saunter.

 

I pine, come and make your presence felt

Touch me like rains falling on the soil

Like fish in water your scent I want to inhale

This worsens my doom; my cravings are futile.

 

Let time be at standstill till we meet

Let ‘s laugh together to keep away our fright

Let’s propel and praise the sublimity of passion

Else we get stuck to our past without salvation.

 

 

Love when abundant, distance doesn’t matter.  Does it?

Wherever I look I see you, whenever I want you are there.

Presence in absence is like joy in pain, or a joyous pain.

God, I believe you are there in stones, but you are not a stone.

I worship you embedded in the stones, let me be at peace within.

Can a swine be blamed if it can’t appreciate pearls cast before it?

 

 

Loneliness

 

A blanket of sadness

lurks in the past,

locks up senses

in its clumsy folds,

has dark caves in it,

unlit corridors

lead to wilderness;

veils future in deep wells

flooded with fogs of ambiguity;

memories set out

with begging bowls,

dreams die gasping for breath

and present penetrates

through a screen of gloom.

 

© Pankajam Kottarath

 

 PANKAJAM KOTTARATH

Pankajam Kottarath: Pankajam  is  a  bilingual poet and novelist   (English and Malayalam), settled at Chennai, India.   Her poems, book reviews and articles have been published in national and international journals/anthologies. She has authored 25 books, 23 published, including 13 books of poems, a translated poetry collection in French, three fictions in English and six books in Malayalam.     Three books on literary criticism    discuss her works in detail.  A book of critical essays and research papers on her poems “Poetic Oeuvre of K Pankajam” has also been published.  She is the recipient of many awards such as Rock Pebbles National Literary Award 2019 .  She can be reached at kp_bhargavrag@yahoo.co.in