A poem written by a poet, religious intolerance , necrophilia and allied things

Poet you have done it right
As a very very modern poet should write
Fusing elements that you have found
Floating in the thin air ; quite unbound!

You dared to put into your lyrical grace
Things that we the people oft do brace
In our daily lives, filled with false pride
Our acts of violence, vendetta and verbal jibes,

Some one talked of doing unholy things
Ghastly and diseased thoughts which bring
Shame in my blood, angst in my veins,

And I ask myself, am I getting poisoned too?
Am I losing my mind, slowly becoming death?
Am I making a compromise with intolerance?

But then , poet, you are a learned man,
You have written many things, seen through plans
Of political flagbearers changing attires
- One coat glittering for a ball,
Another subdued one perfect for a Fall,
Nehruvian hats, non nehru caps,
Saffron shirts guarded by black cats,
And so on and so forth happening oft,
Poet, don't say you're naive and ignorant of
How political affairs are handled here
Even that do I not seriously care,

But where is there that musical magic?
Where is there that piece of literature?
Poet, you got up in your sleeve
Several tricks with rhyme and motifs,

Come , pour them more in this muddled time,
Bring to fore the artistic sublime,
For that is what we can always claim to be true,
More than anything, the eternal view,

A yogi proper is a difficult find,
Necrophilia can only please the cursed mind,
A poem even more beautiful can perhaps make
A statement just, bold enough to unearth mistakes
Of the past, the present and even of our forefathers,

Now, don't say poet you do not know
Where from the wind of truth really blows,
And where does it really go?
To which frontier? To which heaven's gate?
Where a poem differs from the mundane rest?

Spectrum

When he was born I remember how had I dreamt
Of him becoming big, oneday like other kids,
Ryan had been the eyecandy
Fair with pinkish hues on his cheeks,
And how we tried to build our little things around him,

Our world was around his needs,
And he would rarely talk back,
Even when he was three years
He would only shout and scream,
I asked my spouse
Oneday after gathering enough courage
To face any truth
'Is he okay?'

We went to the doc,
And again I asked the same thing
'Is he okay?'

The doc nodded his head
Somewhat dubiously,
'He is, I'm afraid, in the spectrum'

'Spectrum?'
'What spectrum?'
My spouse asked him,
She was having beads of sweat
On her forehead
And on the tip of her nose,

'Gosh...we are so lost'
I thought I heard my wife almost cry,
Was she wailing?
Prehaps,

Then on
We are living on the spectrum
Of light
Punctuated by dots of inexpressible silence,

Silence was the key word of Ryan,
He remained silent,
Ages grew,
The trees in our backyard grew too,
Ryan turned ten,
Silently,
Almost stealthily,

Then oneday...
(Probably that day was Sunday,
I was reclining on the sofa,
Ryan was sitting beside me with a scrapbook)
I noticed (quite nonchalantly)
Ryan was drawing pictures!

How wonderful the drawing looked
Full of colors
As if a rainbow had descended upon his scrapbook!

I looked and looked
The spectrum of colors
Filled me.

To Derek*

To Derek*

"He saw the poetry in forlorn stations
under clouds vast as Asia, through districts
that could gulp Oklahoma like a grape,
not these tree-shaded prairie halts but space
so desolate it mocked destinations." In the world where poets and so called intellectuals
Throng like unashamed swarm of bees
Seeking honey,
You stood like a monumental passage of grief,
You talked about home and exile,
Black women with shiny foreheads
Resplendent and oily,

The people in New York called you
The Mighty One,
A poet who had been profound and complicated ,
To me, you are as long as your poems
Which made me travel to torqouise seas and white sands,
Palm trees I heard roaring in the air,
In your words the world seemed restless yet strong,
Passionate yet morbid,

You have made me find beauty in distant lands,
In wings of pelicans
And candy floss shaped clouds.

(*this writeup is dedicated to Derek Walcott, the poet extraordinary)