Sons of Zeus

(Published By : Online Magazine - Writers Asylum )

Like epitomes of paradoxes,
the Big Brother to the ‘other’,
dictates and usurps
the universal truth:
the last minute Mr Benefactor
of Swiss accounts. The nuke,
that controls in the name of peace -
making, keeping or breaking?
Apollonian ego and democratic dogmas

following convoluted cults as rights
of expression, defiance or idiosyncrasy.

Or that ‘significant’ other that learns

yearns, emulates and succumbs.
Like dung beetles, menacing bugs -
‘mysteriously meticulous’,
laying spawns as pawns for a stable future
tediously following the laws of survival:
development, fluidity or corruptive liquidity?

Like parallel electric lines

at calculated distance apart
are Apollo and Dionysus.
Dichotomous. Incongruous.
They can and will never unite.
The natural father can only watch over. Clueless.
 

 

Rajashree Anand

           

Visual Silence

A transient visitor into her sensorial world,
“Now walk,” she said.
My legs played possum to her vocal stimuli:
spoilt for visual signals, spatial comfort.
“Walk, trust me!” she said again.
The eyeballs held captive
 by my sweaty palms,
now choked in want of feeble light.
I couldn’t give up, not so soon.
“Now come on, di!” she said
and held me tight.
And then I felt.
The stagnant wind in the service lane,
vehicular breeze from the corner street.
The gravel, baked foliage
crackled, crushed under my feet.
There was poetry in madness.
I listened for traffic, vehicles, people,
almost every tiny sound that was audible.
My stoked skin-hair soaked vibrations,
My smoked eyes inhaled the tyre fumes .
I froze. I felt the missing arm. 
Where was I? Where was Jasmine?
At the crossing?
I heard the storming of horns, 
the screech of brakes.
I stood in their way!
Guessing, decoding
listening, feeling, all-in-one,
I dropped my hands in panic.
And ran to safety.
Light flooded my painful eyes,
in an explosion of colours,
 watching a blurry little Jasmine
scuttling with her stick across the pedestrian.
“No! Don’t, there’s a road!” I screamed.
Unfeeling of the withheld rebukes,
Unseeing of their nasty stares,
She crossed the road with ease.
“Didi, where did you go?” she asked.
“I don’t know, I couldn’t see!” I said
and hugged my symbiotic sister.
She congratulated,
I sighed in relief,
as we trudged our long way home.


RAJASHREE ANAND

Wind, Water and Wings

Wind, Water and Wings


The sail flutters at five knots
onward, the ballooned curtain
now one with the wind,
spreads its patched white wings and
lunges me ahead.


A knot for every year.


The taste of fresh salt
floods my all-seeing eyes and unmutes
the songs of the wind and wild water
splashing the lapels of the fishing yacht.


The net will never see dead fishes again--
or hooks, or baits or promiscuous men.
The Noah’s Ark will rescue hope:
harbour unions of the wind, water and wings
to cleanse my world again.


Rejuvenated.
Not shunned by
the tiresome journey of unsaid words.

Being Lost and Found

I found relief in that altered moment,

when the arid, yellow course

caved, into greener woods.

I crushed the violent undergrowth

in a leap; to forbid silence,  

and grew fruition in zealous cheers.

In wonderment,

‘How, why, does my memory fade me?’

 I questioned.

I had led many through that crag,

planted seeds of incentive,

at broken ankles - twisted trials on trails.

But, alone that day,

momentarily untried, I stood:

in unknown knowledge,

(despite my many revisitations!)

of the transient wilderness,

Nature’s deceptive mischief.

In studied skill,

mastered over years of arduous treks,

I accepted the challenge, trudged forward still.

I lashed through weathered, wild cacti:

the snares of bewilderment,

 to find the rugged cliff’s end.

I peered not far down:

at the lush, re-learned knowledge

and rejoiced, in a mighty leap of celebration.

I bade that moment a proud farewell

and continued to seek pristine paths

laid to be grubbed;

relieved in new visions of confidence

but waiting to be tested again,

and yet again.

Rajashree Anand

Brazen Sand

I waited in my pillaged shack

like you’d ordered me to,

before you trod foreign sands.

The mirages of your arrival

were like remnant shadows of my

fallen, looted village

that you’d scoured on your way.

But, my parched earthen lips, breathless

bequeaths a final heave for you,

a fair disgust, to pale the heart-line

and renew its beauty with 
the smell of fresh henna

and glass bangles clinking at my wrists.

“These limitless boundaries I shall cross

to marry you, Sana.” you’d said Musafir.

“Three years! For a bandit?” I thought every night. 

and I walked into Iftikar’s thatch again...

Rajashree Anand

Viewer’s Choice

Gallons of messages

coded streams of data,

shoot

in planned

infusion,  

expanding our capacity

to sponge more and store.

With every click, the mind

makes readymade choices.

Rarely frugal:  these fluctuations

are plainly practiced by overuse.

Fingers wander on pluses and minuses,

focusing on that one infinite option

momentarily;

justifying dislike and shuffling on

back                                     forth,

blanking in and                       out

for vague seconds,

uncontrolled levels of sound

screeching like broken records

in di    a    logs a   nd    di    ale    cts.

The tedious labour of thumbs,

never settling for a minutes rest,

till the grey battery gets recharged.

Consumed, these replenished seekers,

begin to detect an alien force,

driving thought in opinion

ads, stereotypes….

like bombarding magic bullets,

creating an illusion of your control,

only to make you realise later,

that you aren’t --

simply because IT is.

The Untapped Keys

At dawn, the piano trotted- it’s clef reposed

melancholies in notes, in known stanzas.

It played octaves of weak fruition, but stored

cryptic genii cased in remote dogmas:

omitted keys- within hidden retreats,

prospects for flair: contained, but used rarely

snubbed recesses and opportune defeats,

haplessly lie frozen, but perfectly  

virginal, in white and untainted ebony.

Fingers ending in garbed choices, perchance

for kin or notational amity,

loving notes in a life-long, feigned romance.

So, touch those keys, veiled in joyous cadence,

to end grief housed in your ambivalence.

Scripting the Queen

Words pour into the brain,

like ants in line, in unison.

They creep into grey esoteric valleys

in solitary words,

groups of phrases,

mobs of sentences,

in unashamed, circles of confusion

when disturbed.

They frisk for potential,

in pheromonic thought trails,

treading tiresome journeys,

to find dead ends.

They are no fools,  

these  workers;

they persistently diagnose end to end ,

albeit unproductive .

They are but transformers,

for, a line of fruitful thought

gets them marching -

once again connecting, correcting

and scenting lines to woo the Harvestor –

weave their focal plots in her,  

stack, store and prepare to nurture

in their new, pivotal role.

In this vicious circle,

they procreate tomorrow’s children,

in  fruits of her majesty’s onerous labour,

hatching harbingers of fresh ideas,

 to migrate intoxicated terrains,

and carry on the legacy

of toil, sweat and sweet success.

Rajashree Anand 

Thyagaraja's Disciple

Pardon my treason!

I sang your eloquent verses,

I pleaded in therapeutic ragas,

I served the lotus feet of your beloved, Rama -

but I couldn’t spurn wealthy concerts.

I am sacrilegious! Shun me.

I didn’t sing your praise!

I was lost in my voice.

I used your rants to seek Him,

it gave me a sublime experience,

a lofty name to fame.

To cleanse my profanity,

I attended every aradhanai,

in Thanjavur and Cleveland,

poured tears into your pancharatna krithis,

But, pardon my irreverence!

I was sponsored.

Rajashree Anand

Thyagaraja - One of the greatest composers of Carnatic music or classical South Indian music

aradhanai – worship/prayer

pancharatna krithis – the five noted compositions of Thyagaraja in Telugu

The Translator

He sourced his ideas


from a kutchi artist,


borrowed his metaphors,


picked the best of his designs.


He eliminated the inscrutable.


He chose eclectic fabrics,


to sew deeper metaphors,


to suit his contemporary audiences.


In a façade of patchwork,


he marked his new meaning.


Raw silk for subtle emphasis,


mirrors reflecting the original.


To accentuate his own perspectives,


he made new patterns, stitches,


synchronous paraphrases.


He etched his initials,


and published it,


rightfully copyrighted!




Rajashree Anand

A Matter of Fact!

Published in Muse India: Issue 36 Mar - Apr 2011

One seeks to discover meaning,

in twice-removed subtleties of life,  

through a skilful mining of morphed metaphors,

while decoding the quaint and rife.  

Sceptics argue in eloquent prose

or justify emboldened strategies,

vague belief becomes an approved truth

and we nod in hidden anomalies.

‘The universally acknowledged truth’:

was Austen’s reflection on Victorian mind,

the mighty scabs on the fairer sex,

were to empower womankind.

But Freuds ruthless theories,

caved in on Feminist afterthought

and Ptolemy’s skewed notion of the universe

changed man’s own focal plot.

In this human quest to seek clarity

How far can we trust any source?

Its but natural to find subjectivity and doubt

weaved in an answer’s arduous course.

Rajashree Anand

His Muse

Strained by frustrating forgetfulness

he shakes his ink pen & wants to write.

He waits for his muse to appear,

but nowhere is he in sight.

Without his fugitive sprite

no words can be lucid or clear,

so he curses his pen :“I said write!”

to budge his stubborn reflexes.

Has insomnia got him too?

Why does he nowadays abscond?

He blinks at his ancient fingers,

and sighs at his fading bond.

But there in his memory far & beyond

that slighting elf slithers,

he dances with that hideous blonde

in Hitchcock’s bemusing clues! 


Rajashree Anand


(An old man / poet wants to write a poem. But, his inspiration/idea/muse leaves him and he finally finds it.)
Rhyme scheme : ABCB BCBA.... 

Guru of Penance

Published in Muse India: Issue 36 Mar - Apr 2011


Two-folded limbs utter karmic chants
guilty outstretched palms to heaven
tremble weak in unanswered devotion.
Ringed ear and finger pale in weakening light
as his entrance test approaches - the grey
overcast concoction- that ruthlessly precipitates.


Minutes to an hour, an inbound path
of restless reconstruction begins.
In mortal flesh, he dreams his forgiven image -
an acid-rain-drenched, mould-rotten
penitent meditator. Like a boulder of rock
immortalised - an embalmed yogi.


Alas! An ant bites.
He shivers, shakes his disturbance away
in good riddance to elusive worldliness.
The sting purifies, conviction flows
through his unclouded veins, grit overcomes guilt;
the dawning realisation heals.


Stallion-limbed emperor to demonic warlord
his bloody swords shrieked,
innocent blood froze in cold-blooded conquests.
but now, he meditates in profound knowledge;
grey clouds and mind give way to unveil,
a sky bespeckled with cosmic stardust.


The teary-eyed, one-legged guru of penance,
folds his palms at his temple ,
chants in obeisance and gratitude.
Unflushed of his sins, but aware.
Lucid and purified knows
that he is forgiven and blessed!