On The Plant's Death...

One after another, one after another,
the leaves of the little plant,
I had planted in my garden,
seem to wither...
The little green flesh turns away,
away from where I stand,
it seems the little plant is dying slowly in contempt,
and it pains,
oh yes, it pains very deep...
I have waited long for this plant to grow,
I watered it, but then some said, water is not good,
pour less, I poured lesser,
leaves withered...
Some said, you're pouring less, pour more,
and so did I,
and leaves did not grow at all,this time...

I knew not what to do,
once water was more,
and so was once the fodder, the plant fed upon...

Now, I try to put it back together,
but withered leaves are but withered leaves,
they do not stick back...

I do not know if new leaves will grow again,
I do not know if the plant is going to survive,
a helpless state, I just stand,
looking at it dying,
dying in contempt, crying out,
'you never got it right,
you never did understand!'

I shiver, I shiver at that thought,
at the thought that I was foolish,
foolish enough to love it, but not know how...

The long winter plight has just passed,
and yes, it seems I survived the cold deathly winds,
and the freezing nights of black blankets,
but through the fierce ghastly winds,
my plant half died...

Now, after all this time,
I stand here looking at the plant,
which has decided to look away from me,
even yesterday, yet another leaf fell,
and all I could do was,
wipe a small trickle on my face...

© Karthik Adithya Singaraju

Song for the cantering alleys and the urchins' glee...

Amidst the cantering alleys,
throttled ahead by a desperate need...
The boweys and the chambers, ready,
the ballroom, ahead, rolled carpet,
red as a mystic flame and,
burning interest on the evening's affairs...

Mammoth riches loaded for the moment,
and music or dance, daylight's own fruition...
All chatters and mutters, pitched higher in the
seasonal bloom, while horses neighed at the sight...
And in all the parading urchins,
a widening glee, until the tempest
did rise high from the sea...

Valour sung, knights on the sword's oath,
did spread the carpet, and
hence stopped the froth flow...

Amidst all the cantering alleys,
in the end,
glee prevailed on the urchin faces...

© Karthik Adithya Singaraju

Prisoner of Rehabilitation...

His navel bruises weren't hurting much,
the scalp and his limbs neither...
His ulcers were all healed,
and the swollen up face was,
getting back to normal...
The purple tinge was fading,
colour coming back to the injured skin...

Mended - those broken down shacks,
rebuilt - all the devastated villages...
All plundered rucksacks - now refilled...

No more epidemic,
no more war,
all bullets drained of the fire,
and all fire of its flame...

Air was still again, and birds were again heard after ages...
And amidst all this,still
in the resurrected society,
in this community of healed individuals,
still there hung an air - scarred...

Scarred where no physical symptoms showed...
Scarred where no reason was left untold...
To that place where it survived, we gave the name heart,
and it still lingers, no matter how time had mitigated,
and still in that place, where it was fed with hurt and loss,
outlived all the medicines and herbs, the scar of hatred...

And out there, lingered the shadow,
which never healed, ready to strike,
at a moment's call...
Somewhere it has remained, untold...

Necessarily needed to heal,
more than the purple bruises on face,
it needed to heal... But still lingered on...

And all that I can do is wonder,
has it healed yet?
Or are we brewing another storm...

© Karthik Adithya Singaraju

The Smokey Tavern...

Inside that smokey tavern,
a little off the road, there sat,
a little dwarf with a beard longer
than his limbs, and arms sturdier
than the horns of the meadow's strongest ox...

Here in that tavern, he sat with a mug of ale,
wiping droplets off his long mane,
and beside him a dark man, with
wrinkled pallor and twisted gaze,
smoked on his pipe, casting circles of
poison into that misty haze...

There in the smokey tavern,
where coming and going of all sorts,
took place under the oily lamps and
under the dusty floor, amidst the four hounds' snorts...
Hark! Hark! Ho, behold, there came a
band of colourful lads, wearing merriment upon their face...

Suddenly the tavern turned crimson sprayed,
as the bearded dwarf and the twisted man,
turned their axe and knife upon the band's jugular veins...
All drunken else, spared a minute to watch digressed,
then went back to their ale and the old game of mistrust...

Next morning, the tavern Lord's servant buried those
dead colourful faces, and by evening,again all was smokey,
and the tavern half hidden in that ominous haze...

© Karthik Adithya Singaraju