a.j.raos short verse

As the night deepensClusters of fireflies rise fromThe depths of the earth.

The one-legged crowProclaimed pilgrim arrivalsIn the temple town.

Women danced dimsaMen drank cups of wine all nightDrums beat in frenzy.

They all went beyondThe mountains never to returnWe see them in dreams.

A boy walked awayFrom the orange sea-sun andIdly prancing crows.

These white robed monks cameFrom nowhere but are real menWith real cloth bags.

The palace reached skiesIn its shadow lay kings andTheir faceless women.

Words are giggling girlsPlaying in moon, ponytailsGoing up and down.

Words hum like the leavesOf the tree when the wind comesFrom across the hills.

The sea has risenOnly when the night is bornWill the sea calm down.

The boat stood broodingNear the jetty, its stomachFull with sea-secrets.

Our train chugged and first The coconuts ran to the hills Chillies went red in face.

Our train burst in ireLacking its former steam puffAs stones hit her below belt.

Fresh coffee drip-dropsIn filter,its aroma coveringBlood , gore of morning news.

A little white girl crawls on the grassBehind the sinuous coconut treeChasing the white-leaping rabbit.

My birds are twittering constantlyAmid scattered sounds and sun's rays.My mornings are many-hued skiesRising from treetops of bird-songs.

Sanchi’s golden brown stone dust settlesOn the beauty-things of the hazy mind .

At the end of the street they all disappear Where there is a blind turn, a dead-end.

At the Kappad beach

Vasco Da Gama’s stone tablet stood In history’s powdered rock and sand And broken -colored boat masts.

Several worn-out paths winded to forgot ruinsThere they stopped midway vanishing in bushes.

That night was hope and some angstWhile nothing ever happened , it would.

The flowers would not talk to usOf the pain of petals unfoldingWhen stars sprinkled dust on our roofAnd the night’s queen whitely bloomed .

On the dry riverbed

The water was green and coolOnly the machines no longer whirredAnd their men no more Shouted in the wind.

Buffaloes on the riverbed

Everything was the same, even the buffaloes And their eyes were vacant as always.

The grass swayed gently on the bed When the wind called in the noon.

The Sabarmati bridge

The shallow waters dealt with the bridgeOn which people went up and down.

Good morning, Mumbai

The roads were picture-perfect with rocks overflowing Haji Ali mysteries near the winding flyoverCar horns meshing with crow's caws.

My morning in Mumbai :

My morning came back full of feisty crows Fed on Mumbai garbages and fetid sea-fishOf the harbor’s heights.

In the hollow of my downy back Your after-being remains as refusal.

There was wind in the hairMy thoughts fell into the skinWhen everything happened Nothing actually occurred

In the horizon I looked far enoughAnd deep in the tree’s silences The leaves rustled in the night.

Refusal

I know you have said that enoughIn the day’s heat and moon’s eclipse.

Up there the cosmic egg flickered Beyond the treesThe blue emitted golden rays In the silky clouds there.

This summer seemed undecidedWhen the monsoon shall begin In the salt water and hillsTo journey across the mountains And windy coconuts.

Yesterday morning a little bird shrieked on the wireMy garden was full of them and under them, below the wires.

She does not speak to me in several dreams on my pillowI know she is now in the other room, the far corner one.

Darkness drowns us all,bush,hills and sky Except the hum of the sea-waves.

When you walk alone under the starsThe night bush exists separate from youJust a speck of black ,for a while.

Their men’s bloated egos did not show on their facesTheir egos showed on the women’s stomachsOn the little heirs who came from there.

When the silks arrived they forgot women’s faces The women sat gossiping about other women Other women in harem and their fine draperies.

Sultans and their faceless women

The women's drapery Interrupted their nosesAnd seeing eyesUnder vaulting domes And resounding halls.

There is a chimera on the tarred roadA woman with a metal pot on headPoetry strikes in the whir of the head A body posture replying.

The prostate enlargement

As love’s summers passed for wintry nights The joke is now on me prostate and falling And now I try to make pretty poetry out of it.

The E.C.G.technician

A white ghost with a tail in his neck Watched the geometry of my heart On the flatness of a luminous world .

They do not harm ,these green snakes But their slither-feel is so much disagreeableAnd they merge so effortlessly in her shadows.

At night she burrowed her face in the pillow As they dreamed together their joint dreams And some times their separate dreams.

Love was truly a splendorous thingBehind closed doors and drawn curtains.

Children played in the compound,collecting Warm twigs for the ensuing festival bonfire.

Images crowded like people ,in the mindAs the noisy train fan whirred pointlessly.

My mother

All the while we chant strange wordsThat mean nothing to us or to her Our words are ashes ,our love ashesA bag of of yellowed bones .

River noise and river silenceSwept by leaning trees and rocksCarry ashes of our living since dead.

At dusk cream-colored mosquito-netsHid shadows coalescing into each other Outside the autumn leaves fellCarpeting the garden floor