Two poems

Srishti Shenoy, the lovely daughter of my Sharjah-based friends Vidya and Praveen Shenoy, has arrived in India on annual summer vacation, and guess what she has started doing lately – writing poetry! And I remember a line from Polish poetess and Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska: I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems!

So, I reproduce the first two poems Srishti, who is eight years old and will join Class III this April in Sharjah’s DPS School, has written for her school magazine.

If I were…
If I were a butterfly,
I would spread out my wings
If I were a bear,
I would eat sweet things
If I were a crocodile,
I would go snap snap
If I were a fish,
I would go swim swim
But I am happy to be me…



Lovely Colours
Red is bright
Orange is light
Yellow is a sun
Green lettuce in a bun!

Blue is water
Indigo is darker
Violet is the last
So lovely are the colours of the rainbow!

I don't think I even knew how to clean my running nose when I was eight, forget writing rhyming poetry. When I pointed out that the last two lines don't rhyme at all, she replied matter-of-factly, "No they don't". Thats good I thought. That way, she would come out sooner out of the confines of rhyme meters.

Three poems

Three of my favourite poems by Kamala Das...The cover of her collection, The Old Playhouse and Other Poems, is beautiful, but my "picture upload" option is not working and hence I can't upload it. But it can be seen with a simple google search.



The Looking Glass
Getting a man to love you is easy
Only be honest about your wants as
Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him
So that he sees himself the stronger one
And believes it so, and you so much more
Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your
Admiration. Notice the perfection
Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under
The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor,
Dropping towels, and the jerky way he
Urinates. All the fond details that make
Him male and your only man. Gift him all,
Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of
Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts,
The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your
Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting
A man to love is easy, but living
Without him afterwards may have to be
Faced. A living without life when you move
Around, meeting strangers, with your eyes that
Gave up their search, with ears that hear only
His last voice calling out your name and your
Body which once under his touch had gleamed
Like burnished brass, now drab and destitute.

***********
Love

Until I found you,
I wrote verse, drew pictures,
And, went out with friends
For walks…
Now that I love you,
Curled like an old mongrel
My life lies, content,
In you…


********

The Freaks

He talks, turning a sun stained
Cheek to me, his mouth, a dark
Cavern, where stalacities of
Uneven teeth gleam, his right
Hand on my knee, while our minds
Are willed to race towards love;
But they only wander, tripping
Idly over puddles of
Desire……can this man with
Nimble finger-tips unleash
Nothing more alive than the
Skin’s lazy hungers? Who can
Help us who have lived so long
And have failed in love? The heart,
An empty cistern, waiting
Through long hours, fills itself
With coiling snakes of silence……
I am a freak. It’s only
To save my face, I flaunt, at
Times, a grand, flamboyant lust