After Your Voice Has fallen Silent/ Ampat Koshy

 

PHOTO ©Reenaprasad

 

After your voice has fallen silent
everything has become grey
I listen daily
for it to return
as for the song of the swallow
and the beat of wings
of beautiful insects neither seen nor heard

Younger than me
but so much better
All I can do now
is praise your métier
and wait, wait so anxiously
piteously eager, you do not know how much
for you to return
looking often in, through windows
while tears wet my eyes
and the morn itself
seems to tarry
not dawn

Lycidas, where art thou gone?
‘Tis not elegy but ode I wish to pen and perform
©Ampat Koshy Dec 5th 2015

To Death

To Death
I know you never went away
You are at the corner where the pines sway
But I will never turn that way

In the last train compartment, you wait
The final whistle, a flag waves a green bait
But I will never turn that way

Eyes in memories plead, love mirrored I see
time and again they say we are meant to be
But I will never turn that way

Your despair gathers its forces storming my sky
Grounded, my earthing begins to lug me up

But I will never turn that way
Life loves me, within me, lives everyday

Parting isn’t easy

©Reena Prasad

A Poem with Wings

July 21st 2015
A momentous day, a book was being released from its first wrap and poets, editors, friends and publisher gathered at The Upbeat Restaurant, Bangalore to set it off on its maiden journey. The Significant Anthology held a fluttering mass of talent amidst its pages and set off to find its destination in the hearts of readers and to make its way up in the highly competitive world of English Literature.
But something set this book part from all others namely the love that had gone into its making, the faith that poets and debut writers had bestowed upon it and the cause of autism from which it took birth. As one of the Editors, it was one of the happiest days in my life and one of the saddest too for I could not be there at the launch but love has a way of reaching out and bring the stray back into the fold.
A messenger landed on my fingers and though wonder struck at first, I became the recipient of a delicate butterfly’s attention as it settled itself on my hand and explored and hugged my finger tips with the tiniest of feet. A omen of goodness instantly bringing me good vibes about our marvelous book!

Do enjoy the video poem made to commemorate the butterfly landing as well as our book launch!

Never Let Go

 

Never Let Go

I want to go to sleep
to wake up in your arms once more
to grow up super slow this time
and savor every touch of yours
never more in a hurry
to reach the end of a long, lazy yawn
But I look at you curled up, contained
in the small screen of my mobile
a small sleeping figure in white
and I wonder why is it that I want to
mother an 80 year old
through a whatsapp message
to hold your hand in my palm
and help you walk like
once you did for me
to admonish that careless step
to tell you again and again
to take care of the small things
and the big will take care of itself
Wisdom dawning too late
but I don’t want you to grow anymore
or go anywhere where I cannot follow
Call it a mother’s anxiety or a daughter’s plea
but for me it is the only prayer I now know
©Reena Prasad

Loyal to Life

Loyal to life
I have never learnt to divide
and I refuse to believe
there are none handicapped like me
but where are they?
I have never been ‘flexible’ in my loyality
Have never been pushed to a wall
Never had a gun put to my head and asked to choose
or to shoot
But if ever I had to
Was forced to make a choice
between ‘us’ and ‘them’
whoever it be on the ‘other’ side
I would be dead
before any innocent could die because of me
Where I am
there are people all around
just people, mere living beings
no boundaries
All these deaths
Such a ghastly disrespect for life
Surely there was One who could kill himself
before he let his hands kill another?
©Reena Prasad

Touch

Touch

My skin abhors touch
It forbids it
The tactile glove to explore a crater raw

The python moved his scales
rearranged them, heat dissipating through their mesh
I wasn’t cold though, my blood bounded against his
scales and skin leaping
his tail spooning my waist as he left 
his weight invisibly tattooed on my scapula
Touch me there, you can feel a snake grow

The faintest of butterfly feet on my fingers
with none of the former’s assuredness
Tremulous, a tender quiver of questions
and I am silenced, turned inside out, raw
Explore, suck, kiss, lick, flick
how many feet does a butterfly need to string me along?
With the last it kicked away my fantasies
reducing me to a prayer

A connect from some other realm
at a time when the disconnect was complete
yet my skin refused to let its memory fade
of the leech that wouldn’t let go
of the wolf that wouldn’t go slow
of the man whose nip still throbs

Touch me not
not unless you want to go  
and leave me another skin
©Reena Prasad

“BAD”

“BAD”

The tone is disturbingly gleeful
It says, “I am the best parent, the kind you should be. My kids are happily doing their homework and playing with each other while I look at them indulgently while updating my Fb status and posting more pictures of our perfect family”

You the differently-abled one here
with blindness in your heart

This is such a difficult topic
That is not the reality with many families
Acceptance doesn’t end violence
Keeping a marriage together, keeping the very young and the very old safe, keeping sane, that is a priority too.
There are happy stories about the prodigy, the computer whiz, the super math kid but lives don’t become stories automatically

There are homes too where
nothing bears a semblance to ‘living’
Homes where the father thinks of running away
and the mother contemplates going ‘mad’
but they know they can’t and will never do

where all that the siblings pray for is release
but they still love and live together till it is humanly possible
and get through hospitalizations, guilt, feelings of inadequacy, pure terror,
even facing,” unplanned, random violence like an obese tornado”

Your life experience being so different from theirs
I have to tell you this
You have seen cute little boys who punch
They grow up one day, taller, bigger, stronger than you
Adult men (and women) who can injure
There are mostly downs and less of ups
No more patience for anyone. No more light. The house screams.

“For years, I have known no other life. I come home from work not knowing if my mother will be dead and my little girl too. And no one will care and no one will help
I am broke
I have to do it myself
In spite of all my resolutions
in spite of all my love
I tie him to the cot
There is no state to hold back his arms, no neighbor to pat his confused face and calm his anger down, He bites me hard, he is 16
I slap him down
Then one day I find him a home
where there are stronger and more hands to love him back”
True story

Across the street, you put down your peeping glasses
and write your Fb status
“Bad father”