Fire and water (A morning in Sivakasi)
A shrill peacock-cry from the bell tower
Pierced my morning silence
The temple bell rang and rang
With its thick tongue in fever
Images, fiery, some smouldering
Came dropping from the white sky
Clusters of acacias that had grown
Waterless under the skin of the earth
Spread their ghostly hair evenly
Into the rainless, blazing August sky
The girls with jasmines in their hair
Stood unblinking all day, in the hall,
Bringing fire into people’s lives
Dark sweaty men made balls of fire
Old ladies kneaded fiery dough
There is fire in their tired hearts,
In their minds, on their hands
But no water to quench their thirsts.
poem by Jagannath rao Adukuri
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An October Morning
Here, in October, scores of dragonflies
Fly about like miniature airplanes
Speckled butterflies collide with them
Floating in the air like catamarans
The morning slowly dries wet clothes,
Dripping, they smell of blue detergent
The house there wakes up bleary-eyed
Hesitating shadows emerge from the walls
A varnished gate, the midget of a woman
On the concrete bench, in the garden
Measuring the length of her shadow
A riot of bougainvillea bursts on the rock
Like a Chinese vase with fresh geraniums
Fresh coffee drip-drops in the percolator
Filling the air with delicious aroma
Amid all the blood and gore of newsprint
Soon you drift into a crimson forgetfulness.
poem by Jagannath rao Adukuri
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On return to Mumbai
The city is daylong and sea –backed
The sea-child deeply dangled his feet
Into the sea at the misty radio club
Near the cockroach-ridden sea palace
Bringing back a tide of memories
Years ago, I had bought my identity
Here, in a piece of paper, full of lies
And endless possibilities of hurt
In the fragrant harbour to come.
Now the sea is calm but afraid
I see Rukmini’s lying-in hospital
Along with the juice hair parlours.
Stock- brokers rub rotund stomachs.
Scared dons account for deaths
There, at the junction, in a sea of cars
Stand these muddy-haired children
They have a nasty habit of poking
Their outstretched grubby hands
Directly into the holes of your eyes.
poem by Jagannath rao Adukuri
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Train thoughts
You see the train fires our thoughts-
We find a white metallic sky up there,
As though the train itself were the earth
Spinning like a top in cosmic space.
The train’s hoot pierces our awareness.
We then come down from the upper berth
To mundane matters of trivial concern-
Thoughts which are not train thoughts
But home kitchen and patio thoughts
Waiting for inquisitive neighbours to talk
So that we could pick large comic holes.
In the train, between our finiteness and sky
There is another white sky, train sky
Under which several celestial thoughts
Take place in our upturned sleeping faces
It is as though the metal sky does not exist
And we are faced with the Big sky itself.
poem by Jagannath rao Adukuri
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The temple of Tenkasi
Tuesday, September 14,2004
A gentle breeze blew over Tenkasi
Through a narrow mountain pass
Sprinkling fine stone dust all over
Innumerable were the chisel strokes
Stone after stone cried out in pain
A phallus-God had to come from afar
From the distant banks of death
The love-God wielding a sugarcane bow
Invited certain, fierce death by fire
The horrified wife froze in stone
A heap of yellow dust reached the skies.
A strong gust of wind blew from the hills
[...] Read more
poem by Jagannath rao Adukuri
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Visit to Orcha: A visual exploration
River and tree look on morning town
And on the bridge and men and women
With loads of firewood from the forest
A bare-bodied man has sun on face.
Off the bridge a wizened old man
With saffron cloth drying on river rocks
Bends exquisitely with age and beauty.
A woman in red bathes on the river bed.
In the distance is the bank and history’s spires
On the bank a woman pours water in river
From a steel pot in oblation, to the sun.
As the sun glistens on the shaken river
River beats rocks in soft steady rhythm.
Men stand on the river frozen in time
Joyful women hide on the river’s rim
Waiting to burst forth in celebration.
A holy man stands tall on the rocks
Drying a red loin cloth, his hair mat loose
A boy silhouette crouches near the holy man.
On the tall mound sits the crooked holy man
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poem by Jagannath rao Adukuri
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The Chomillah palace in Hyderabad
The palace was luminously wet and reached out to sky
In its shadow lay the kings and their faceless women
Whose fine drapery interrupted their noses and seeing eyes
Under big-vaulting domes and resounding halls.
Their noises went up to the ceiling and returned empty
Like their noses and eyes lost from their faces.
They were not lost actually but had never been there.
When the silks arrived they forgot the women’s faces.
The women sat there gossiping about other women,
Other women in the harem and their fine draperies.
Their men’s bloated egos did not show on men’s faces;
Their men’s egos showed on the women’s stomachs, ,
On the little heirs to the throne who came from there.
A fine bangle, a glittering necklace and some pearls
Hush talk about the latest addition to the harem
And other scraps of conversation went on as it rained.
They had no faces for the evening conversation,
Only bodies fully draped in the finest gilded silks.
In the beginning they sat on the ground huddled.
Later the West grew on them in the white man’s land
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poem by Jagannath rao Adukuri
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The Guava Tree
She pretends she does not limp
Resting a hand on the wobbly knee
Her bones could be heard creaking
She does not acknowledge this.
The shopping is utterly irresistible.
Her sister is gone; she is next in line
See the bone-dry fear in the whites of her eyes
But why talk of death, probable leave-taking?
These people have sinister designs
To deprive her of the joy of being alive.
The last time she went shopping
She had a minor sprain in her ankle
The doctor made such a ruckus
Come to think of it, she believes
She could cook food for twenty
A walking stick? Who needed one?
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poem by Jagannath rao Adukuri
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This September
This September I have turned yellow and seventy
The sky's translucence no longer mystifies
By holding out hazy undefined amber promises
This air is still crisp and there is promise of
Excitement on the leafy floor of the forest
As the mongoose scurries among the yellow leaves
Tens of thousands of zany butterflies of many hues
Have burst out of the bushes on the Tirumala hills
Striking the stunned panes of the passing cars.
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poem by Jagannath rao Adukuri
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