‘Years pass without a whiff of murmur’: Four poems by K.S. Subramanian
Photo: Karan Madhok
‘Once the cacophony peters out / emerges the calm cadence of order. / Life is never a bouquet to the living / surprise always on the fringe’.
The past is gone
Chennai’s landscape is changing faster
beyond the raising of the brows;
A fusion of time zones where the Past
has disappeared into the shadows.
A jaded glimmer of luscious green
lurks like a tree in the maze of mist;
Roads cry for a fresh coat of life
as wheels rip through clouds of dust.
New alleys of chameleon hope on view –
Farmlands giving way to pigeonholes;
where the old seek salubrious wind,
the young tensing for defined roles.
The Past only a dust-blown wall paper,
uncover new vistas in the day’s layer.
*
Eyeing the mariner
Bones lose their élan as years burrow
into the marrow; Age has a canny
way of nudging the missive.
The last sigh may not smell of rose.
Faces that were known in the vicinity
Of your own orbit now seem jaded.
Their paths hardly crossed yours, tempers
frayed by the travails of the journey.
Their eyes meet yours, yet seem so far
that memories do not wet the shore.
As if a tsunami of time has left a gaping void.
Have faces shriveled to a ghostly outline?
A “hello” sounds emptier than the beating
Of the drum; stands out as an odd decibel
unblessed by a well woven song.
Lingo losing its sap, a drifting wood.
Is it now a wait only for the last moment, a
weather-hewn canoe eyeing the mariner?
*
Ageing, what it means
Years pass without a whiff of murmur,
gossamer clouds dissipating in the sky;
If happiness is a whirlpool in the river
Pain too is a fading scar on memory.
Voices jar on the wavelength,
a perpetual melee daunting to the ear.
Once the cacophony peters out
emerges the calm cadence of order.
Life is never a bouquet to the living
a surprise always on the fringe;
Beyond the rim of stinging chaos
hope beckons, a distant rose?
*
By the rivulet
hesitant drizzle here or
a patter a little later, rain
is a purveyor of mood hues.
Clouds too snort in dismay
at its slow drip of munificence.
As if acting on cue it opens
into a relentless downpour.
Then rivulets brim, canals breach
the banks, dams knock at the gates!
The edgy heart cries
“stop this nagging roar.”
But the heart, strangely enough,
has no banks or is dammed.
It flutters when the sky is beaming
blue, sparse white patches,
expecting the day to unclasp
rosy vibes; or the dusk to fall
with a parting, gleaming gift.
En route is the paved way of
prickly thorns; Heart trots to the
steady tip toeing of the wall clock!
Then it moans “stop this claptrap.”
I love the silent, tranquil gurgle
of the rivulet
where pebbles shine.
***
K.S. Subramanian has published two volumes of poetry titled Ragpickers and Treading on Gnarled Sand through the Writers Workshop, Kolkata. His poem “Dreams” won the cash award in Asian Age. His poems have been featured in museindia.com, run by Central Institute of Indian Languages, Hyderabad, and also appeared in several magazines, anthologies and web sites run at home and abroad. His short stories have appeared in indianruminations.com, setumag.com, Tuck magazine, indianreview.in, museindia.com and Indianperiodicals.com. Subramanian is a retired senior assistant editor of The Hindu and lives in Chennai. You can find more of his work here.
