Life of their own
by Rashmi Prakash
The poem I had been
dozing with all afternoon
suddenly awoke in the middle
of the night, jumped clean
out of my window
landed on the bald moon –
a black smudge at the centre.
It sneered at my sleeping form:
tonight I reinvent myself.
No longer will I reflect
distorted images for you
to drown in – Narcissus-like.
Pools of blood are not for the faithless.
I am weary of your doubts.
You've riddled my body with holes;
the sun and moon glide through
without healing. Storms rage.
Waves have battered my bones to a heap
you burn them every night
to keep yourself warm.
Every morning you poke dead cinders,
looking for a spark.
Dying embers form a ring of grey
and crumble in your palms.
Jagged mountain-pieces
have entered my veins.
Tattered, brittle, drained
of blood, they trail on the ground.
I am uprooted with every breath of wind.
Tonight I will perch myself
on the top-branch of the ancient tree
and beg the dancing leaves
to reveal their secret.
Tonight the trees will erupt
in flames, hot molten liquid
will fall at my feet.
I will sit with folded knees
Buddha-like, waiting for enlightenment
in a new country.
I will wait for the sky to conceive;
there is still time for its birthing.
The Golden Oriole jumps in yellow
flashes, quickening the senses.
I will live for the seasons alone,
one monsoon to the next.
When the rains arrive
to quench thirsty lips
I will let it break my heart.
Snow-winds have swept the sky clean;
it is alive with stars.
All my life I have plotted against them:
tonight they will adorn my ear-lobes, my throat.
I am happy to note the poems I write
have a life of their own.
It is in the nature of things –
It's the ones that hang on
vampire-like that haunt – monsters all:
ghosts of Frankenstein
& Hyde.
