‘Almost Interpretable, Almost Bearable’: Four poems by Sambhu R.
Photo: Karan Madhok
Poetry: ‘Our reflections walk out of mirrors, / ashamed to take on / the semblance of our sinister shapes’
Fire Ants
Drop a fire ant into water
gathered purposefully in a glass bowl
for a brief experiment
verging on casual murder,
and you will see how
it struggles to stay afloat—
the lighting-quick agitation and flailing of legs—
reminiscent of a farmer from Kuttanad
treading a water wheel.
Now drop four or five more of its kind
and watch how the ants
seek each other and form
a raft of their copper-brown bodies,
floating to dry glass with such art
as would make one long
for the magic of mandibles and tarsal claws
in place of the easy predictability
of human teeth and legs
perfected for back-biting
and striding in and out
of a dehydrated universe
that begins and ends with ourselves.
*
Alzheimer’s
A moist squishiness under my left foot
and I yelped as the realization
of something vaguely alive being softly
annihilated put its electric fingers round
the scruff of my neck. It was a slug, sleek
and puppy-brown, trying a contortionist’s pose
between my repulsed toes. I did not panic.
A hibiscus leaf set it down on a log
where it resumed its adhesive motion,
the tiara of tentacles probing the atmosphere
for delayed danger. Then there came
the beguiling swirl of the tail
and the mantle’s telltale ripple—
evasive like all true art. Yet I thought
it was tragic to watch the poor creature
pull its detumescent length along
the sun-stiffened bark, the glistening slime
of memory that makes a life of fortuities
almost interpretable, almost bearable,
fading into self-doubt, then blankness.
*
Moving On
There were times when they could not help
their gaze converging on the panels
of the empty crib— times when it was hard
to know what to do afterwards. But mostly
they were vigilant, and unspoken words
flip-flopped on the banks of their resentment
like those long-finned tilapia they landed
once when visiting her aunt in Kottayam.
Over their silences hung the insatiable
apparition of the dead child— playing, sleeping,
chuckling—like a millefiori paperweight
immobilizing a death warrant. His sweaty hands
cradled the phone at odd hours, and once when
it slipped from his grip, he looked livid with fright.
Though it made her want to cry, something in her
warned against the seduction of easy grief.
Though he felt light-headed when his thumb flung
incongruous emoticons— like atom bombs
garnished with peace symbols— into the chat boxes
of friends who still enquired, he did not want
to know why. She stared at the frottage of some
unseen hand bringing out outlines of the Orion
and Cygnus on November evenings and made plans
to travel to the Himalayas or learn Latin—
reveries she would emerge from with a smidgen
of oblivion till her vision clouded around
her eyelashes, the asymptote of loss
dancing close to acceptance like two racecars
whizzing side by side forever. Every night,
across the walls on which oleographs
of their favourite gods stood smiling agelessly,
their shadows rubbed shoulders, apologized,
and fled into the crouching darkness
unsure of the healing powers of touch.
*
Dread
(for Jayanta Mahapatra)
The city bleeds light
through a thousand pores
in its body of reinforced steel and concrete.
It becomes air-borne like a raven’s feather,
and let slip from the sky’s quivering grip,
brushes against my eyelids,
infecting my sleep with lurid nightmares:
women going back home along the margin
of a deceased paddy field
with their sickles blunted by betrayal
stop to enquire of the sea
the terms of its impending mortgage.
The ascetic banyan tree,
chained to the earth
by prop roots of furtive desire,
sheds its leaves to count the exit wounds
that pierced the sky’s cavernous cranium
in wars whose genesis is long forgotten.
A spectral flute playing in the burning forest
joins foxes and fawns together
for a dizzying moment of mutual astonishment
before their final extinction
reduces to ash
both hunger and prayer.
If the known oppresses us with its weight,
then how much more crushing will the unknown be?
Our reflections walk out of mirrors,
ashamed to take on
the semblance of our sinister shapes
and our shadows desert our perfidious selves.
The moon, which gave promise of being full,
has relinquished its illusions of perfection
and shrunk to the size of a banana peel
on which stars lose their footing
and tumble headlong back into fairytales.
Temple bells tinkling in the night—
what deity do they keep up
on the frayed edges of insomnia?
A mother standing on the shores of history—
her mouth gagged by terrors—
separates the woes
of her offspring from pompous charades
in the winnowing basket of self-pity.
Through bleary eyes she sees sunlight
arrange its dazzling deck of cards
on the ruins of stone steps leading down
to a river buried under its horoscope of drought.
The gambling begins. The stakes are high.
The vultures close in. The tricolour she wears
is only so many yards in length.
***
Dr. Sambhu R is a bilingual poet from Kerala. He is employed as Assistant Professor of English at N.S.S. College, Pandalam. Vavval Manushyanum Komaliyum published by Pappathi Pusthakangal in 2019 was his first book of poems in Malayalam. His poems in English have appeared in Wild Court, Bombay Literary Journal, Muse India, Borderless Journal, Setu, Shot Glass Journal, among others.
