Srinivas S teaches English at the SSN College of Engineering, Chennai, India. Trained as a theoretical phonologist, Srinivas’ research focuses mainly on linguistic typology, prosodic structuring and Dravidian phonology. His interest in poetry is mainly non-academic, and he loves the literary form because it enables him to break free, every now and then, from the shackles of the world and his own mind.
Fool
Fool! Is that the face that wit forbade,
The form that flash conceals, a fly foretells?
Fool! Is that the force that fame upbraids,
The flaw that knowledge flogs, and wisdom spells?
Fool! Is that a feeling felt and shown
Where fears denied are courage framed with floss?
Fool! Is that a fall that fosters loss
As sneers the fallen slight? A Fool’s alone,
A womb to wit, the fight infused in form,
Beyond the flash and fly that fray but skins.
A Fool’s aloof, a flower that fame does not tame—
No flare that festers like the Known. Not storm
To breaths, not fake in falling, whims, or, wins,
A Fool is ‘Here’ and ‘Now’, a wink its game.
Times’ widows
As a wrinkled leaf falls from Light to ‘left
An elegy is writ
Never to be read aloud,
An epitaph; its words all in afterthought.
Author: Unseen.
The unseen, yes, and the unheard;
With the unknown, and the unloved,
Are from anonymity, rendered into Silence;
Amorphous memory, though,
Offers tributes like forgotten prayers,
To a God: Formless.
As nameless icicles in raging rivers
Come alive, their wet whispers
Are warmer than breaths alive with blankets…
But ice breaks while a life leaves,
Destination: Unuttered.
At times though
On distant one-way streets,
The left commune with the Left:
A smell, a shard or a sprinkling –
An eclipsed sundown in wishes
Wedded to times’ widows…
There are memories and Memories,
A remembered credo, an implicit creed!
In the vicinity
Of solemn posthumous whispers
Souls make a cup of tea.
Oblivion though is
Just.
On Forgetting
A bow that calls back arrows sent,
A throat that swallows words uttered,
A bird that longs for skies unspent,
A Night that looks for days interred;
A war that misses peace dismissed,
A hate that shadows love unclaimed,
A fallen star, its shards remiss,
A broken vow, its Letter maimed:
They speak of moments as they stand
Accursed and still on history’s hands!
A café’s window without tears,
Or raindrops from an erstwhile year;
A twin of rainbows free from sense,
Or epithets, or earthly lens;
A growing moon without a knot,
And ebbing tides without a lot;
A salty wind without a cause,
And birdsongs without a pause:
They speak of moments as they ‘pear,
Unclouded by the darkened Seer!
A petrol bunk devoid of ghosts
And spirits vacuumed of their host;
A railway car denied its blinds
Beneath which love was made, unsigned;
An airport where no home is seen,
No heart is heard, no tug is keen;
A bus stop where the air is mute,
A ferry port that hears no flutes:
They speak of moments as they glide
Undaunted by the vales (/veils?) of pride!
A name that shines its present face
But bears of others not a trace;
A laughter gurgling through a shore
That ‘balms no former beach indoors;
An eye that dilates into dark
Whose tides devour a vision’s spark;
A voice that copies none and naught,
The silence ere a coming thought:
They speak of moments as they flit
Unshackled by the chains of grit!
A foot that talks its tales anew
Beyond the tells of trusts askew;
A hand that paints a wall with dreams
And daylight asks to make them gleam;
A ear that finds its music breathe
In falling leaves, not scented wreaths;
A skin that feels the fire for strife
Beyond the smog of olden life:
They speak of moments as they pass,
Unsullied by the ink of loss!
A choice that washes choices made
And laves the mind of rusted guilt;
A Love that frees all love unpaid
And ‘wakens hearts from greying quilts;
A pardon free from grips of will
And given sans a hope of trade;
A deed of grace devoid of skill,
A generous thought without a spade:
They speak of moments as they fly,
Oblivion-winged, oblivion-spied!