Letters
i feel a feverish pulsation
pass through my veins
as i look at each word
uttered or unuttered
placed in the cup of my palm
bound by time, the
words disintegrate
and each letter
slips and slides
into a timeless space
mostly never to return…
i crack under the weight
of the silence they leave behind
but
the ones that return
to the warmth of my palm
are drained of the pulsating
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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Riding High on Insomnia
And on nights
When panic strikes
And sleep eludes
Even the slightest sound
Conjures to descend
On the unsettling nerves
The indiscernible depth in the belly
Expands to gorge on the self
And on nights
When panic strikes
And sleep eludes
Moving from room to room
Darkness dispels at a click
And follows at another click
To stay put within
Awaiting another ‘click’
And on nights
When panic strikes
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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Explorations: III
The heart summoned me
At an impromptu moment
And subjected me to
Rapid-fire questions
That left me utterly
Defenceless!
Thus began the interrogation:
'Why do you lie to yourself? '
I simply stared silently
In response...
'Why do you make these
Desperate attempts
To escape from the
Pervading reality? '
I had no answer!
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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Ruminations Of A Morning
in this seductive interplay of
sun and shadows
in this intirguing drama of
light and darkness
i nose-dive into pools of
teasing illusions and
corrupted reality
i'm utterly defenceless in the
vortex of hide and seek
on this pompous stage of
glaring lights with my face
heavily made up
i indulge in an unending soliloquy
that i alone hear
i enact a clumsy pantomime
in an auditorium where
i'm the only audience
is this just one sun rise
is this just one darkness
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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Death of an Aunt
She attracted fire
Like a piece of dry twig
Otherwise, it’s a routine act of cooking
In the ordinariness of a day
Lurked the fatal fire
Waiting for long years
To be ignited to caress her body
By and by embrace her in its fiery passion
Striking her right at the origin of life
As a child I was always surprised
How she could be my aunt—
Gruff voice like the opening of
A corrugated iron gate
Contracted muscles
Skin dry enough to attract fire(!)
Whenever we visited her
She always cooked at the same stove
In a kitchen that later turned into her last resting place
Wonder if her legs could ever open to welcome his seed
Childless, she left behind a husband
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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From the biography of an unknown woman: XVI
‘How can you possibly
Do this to me…? ’
Demanded the unknown woman
Last night as sleep began to pull me
Into its checkered course
I looked about peering into the darkness
If I were dreaming and wondered
Whose voice it was…
‘Don’t you recognize me?
I’m your unknown woman…
How cruel of you to put me to sleep! ’
I heard her gathering my wits
‘Tell me, how can I be dead?
I’m strongly rooted on this earth
And I’m prepared to strive and struggle
For any number of eons
And mind you, I’ll breathe my last
Only upon seeing man amd woman
Treating each other as humans
It’s then will I in blissful contentment
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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My Country, My State...
inside
money and power
change equations
with the ease of a
seasoned skater
outside
some hundred billion
hands raise to an
empty sky in utter
helplessness, undifinable
inside
power gets moved on
an antique chess board
in intrigue and advantage
outside
cheap lives move
on the rusted chess board
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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Woman
A woman’s eye
Bears the brunt
Of releasing the sorrow
Of all those around her
Not revealing
Unable to reveal
Those hundred words buried
Rain through one silent wail
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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Mother's Dream
‘A sixty year old dream
Recurred last night, '
She just shared with me
After her routine puja
A lump formed in my throat
Seeing her eighty year body
In a tremor and a forgotten quiver
In her otherwise passive voice
‘Do you remember the room
We used to sleep in?
Can you recall a small dark niche?
There I found a baby ivory elephant
When Ramakka was a toddler...
Now I found hoards of baby elephants
Ivory in colour and closely guarded by the mothers, '
She went on, ‘and then I found Sardar Vallabhai visiting us
For some reason I didn't know I followed him
Only to find myself lost and loitering till I sighed in relief
Sighting some people busy at construction...'
She paused... ‘once again to find hoards of elephants! '
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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Grandpa's Clock
in that ticking of the clock
three generations of time
had ticked past...
with some tickings fixed firm
each ticking concealed
tireless roar of the sea
and a conundrum of emotions
time has its way of
teasing and tiring us
one fine evening during
a casual chitchat as sister
got off from the chair
she hit back at time and
the grandfather's clock-
though i had never known him
but through the clock fixed to the wall-
that seemed to chime
eternally into the wee hours
each time waking me up cruelly
from an innocent sleep
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poem by Indira Babbellapati
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