Sunday, November 20, 2016

My poetry in English

Fluttering Light
The sun with his threads of rays
is attaching the shadows
that have gone astray last night
to the buildings, trees and humans
The light is entering gently through
the slightly opened door of the world
like a butterfly fluttering its wings
The night shed its dress of darkness
and wore the costume of day-time
Bolloju Baba


History
"There must be light
at the end of this tunnel" he said
"once there used to be!
but when the termites ate, all the light vanished"
said few old men.
The young man who went in search of light,
was eaten away by the termites.
People laughed aloud
Closed ones murmured the incident as his stupidity
After some years
In the kingdom of Light, in the middle of a city
there was the statue of that Young Man
"A Saviour who Dreamed of Light" inscribed on it.
Bolloju Baba - Self Translated from Telugu language



Love making
The wave that
travelled all the way
squeezing through the vastness 
blown into frothy flowers
burst like watery smiles
on the lips of the shore
Seeing this
The youthful crab
rushed into its burrow
to make love with the earth again
Bolloju Baba




Broken love
He drank ceaselessly glassfuls of
the Desert that is devoid of her
and dissolved into age-old darknesses
She died warmth-less, last night
Down under her old bag
His crumpled photograph
Laughing with youthful charm
We thought of her
a mad beggar all these years
For the chariot of failure
timidity and tears are two wheels


Will You come?
Let us
Get under the blanket of darkness
And lamp our bodies with Love
Let us
Play the harmonium of Night
The Ragas of love’s fragrances.
Cover ourselves with warm breaths
And escape the wintry periods
Let us
Flow into an Another Time
Infinitely
Will You Come?
Bolloju Baba


Beauty
Someone has mixed
few drops of moonlight
in the upper part of the steam
Waters glister throughout the stream
Stooped to drink water
Moon itself came into hands.
Bolloju Baba



Freedom
Sitting in a dark room
my daughter is caressing
the light spurts of the 
bottled fireflies
Came out into open
and opened the bottle lid
Fireflies filled the Sky Bottle
Moonlight sparkled in her Eyes.
Bolloju Baba


The same Rose...
A young boy is waiting
for the bus
With a colorful letter and 
a Rose in hand
I remembered
her unfinished Kiss which
Spread like fog in my heart
The boy’s eyes are
probing every bus
that stops
I thought
He is just like me
Same eyes
Same glances
Same Rose
May be
I am that boy
Perhaps
that boy is erstwhile me
I groped the crackling
dried rose petals
in my pocket once again
Bolloju Baba



About a few words......
Nothing is remembered
Except
A pocketful of sun-rays
A Fistful slices of moon
Wish to forget everything
by getting this tear filled evening
under the eyelids of this night to sleep
But
Some words drop from me
and become a desert
a forest comes out of that desert
and a cloud-burst from that forest-
one after the other blossom and engulf me
Though born out of me
It drifts me away like a piece of twig
Nothing is remembered
Except
Pocketful of words
Fistful slices of a dream.
Bolloju Baba



Blood stains
He opened his manifesto
Before the mike.
Crowd roared in reply
Hailing him to be victorious
Someone put a bunch of
Flower petals in my hand
I threw them at his foot
On his every step
After coming home
I found my hands are
Stained with blood.
In-erasable stains
How can I show these
blood stained hands
To my children tomorrow?
Bolloju Baba



Change
I cannot say it’s a great beauty
Wheatish skin, plough like nose,
Large eyes, body trimmed by youth
That’s all
Upon our request,
sitting on the garden bench
With closed eyes, raised up head
Swollen neck vessels
she poured many songs
into the ears of that evening.
Oh.. that evening is still afresh
when remembered and
flutters in my body restlessly like
a wasp carrying a mouthful of mud
On a holy Friday of Sravana Masam
the scene of
her walking like a traditional girl
with a consecrated thread round her wrist
wearing a frock made of silk
her curls of hair spurting the aroma of benzoin
eyes shining with collyrium-
still glows among the pages of memories
as a peacock feather like piece of moon.
“we don’t attend classes unless
The boys apologize that girl”
said she boldly to the principal
Her bravery opened doors of respect
towards women in our young hearts
I have been searching for the softness
of the Thyagaraja krithi, she sang on the
Farewell day for the last twenty five years
*******
I went to my college after a long gap
on the occasion of old students’ reunion.
She also came
The feeling that
“We should not have met”
is haunting me again and again since then. .
Bolloju Baba (translated from Telugu by the Author)



Free Wi-Fi campus
A group of students sitting under a tree
drowned into glowing screen and
floated on to wifi sea
Every student
wore a cage of silence around himself like
the insect
which weaves a cocoon with its legs
from the thread that it secretes itself
the Wi-Fi link was cutoff
oh..... shit.....
Every student
wokeup into the world of discourse like
a butterfly
that emerges out slowly and softly
After some time
the campus is filled with
flying words
fluttering their colourful wings.
Bolloju Baba (Tranlated from Telugu by the Author)



Prodigal Sons
Children
left for College studies
Have not yet returned
Every thing in old-age home is well
Timely food, medicines, entertainment
But
Wakefulness spreads itself
Along the length and breadth of sleep
The cold hands are to be warmed
By putting around the old experiences
The candle
Listening to the recollections
spilled into night
time is filled with frozen darkness
The lonely desert in the sand clock
oozes down lazily
winds move on dragging their weight
upon the tree branches
A great wave swallowed
the footprints on the shore
silence fell onto the body
like a cage
Children
left for College studies
Have returned.
Bolloju Baba (Tranlated from Telugu by the Author)



Virtual TIME
There is no future…
Zillions of opportunities
Fell into present….
Even so called present is also
An imagination…. Because by the time
We reach it/ becomes past
To be truth Past is the only truth
Leaving scars of memories,
Experiences Guiding life…
Moments to cherish over life
And Scenes that never leave your eyes
Until u permanently close them…

Bolloju Baba, Translation by Arya



One Hysterectomy
Whatever reason they might offer
they deracinated the tree
that blossoms a sanguine-flower
every month.
In the Anatomy Theatre
of civilised man
the body of a woman
has always been a Guinea Pig.
Whatever be the reason,
the cradle of man
which put up with two cuts earlier,
now lies dead… severed forever.
In a system of medicine
where consequences are
not fully comprehensible
uterus has reduced to a Test Tube
For Pills, Caesareans, IUDs, I-pills,
and now … surrogacies.
Whatever the reason be,
some invisible scissors have excised
the invisible organ.
Now
the vulnerable Soul
laments looking for a hiding place
searching all places within the body.
HRTs and anti-depressants
have lined up in queue to console.
Yes!
This timeless, ageless corpus
is a hunting Mint now.
Bolloju Baba - Translated from Telugu by N.S. Murthy



History
"There must be light
at the end of this tunnel" he said
"once there used to be!
but when the termites ate, all the light vanished"
said few old men
The young man who went in search of light,
was eaten away by the termites.
People laughed aloud
Close ones murmured the incident as his stupidity
After some years
In the kingdom of light, in the middle of a city
was the statue of that Young Man
"A Saviour who Dreamt of Light" inscripted on it.
Bolloju Baba - Self Translated from Telugu language


The Sublimity of Life
The first cloud that skims along
The last whiff of summer breeze
Leaves an impression of verdurous kiss
on earth’s parching lips.
The cold wind that comes riding
Over the last drop of rain
Passes off … blessing each body
With an encounter of warmth.
The Summer born
In the ultimate moments of Winter
recedes throwing a fistful of jasmines on adults
And a chestful of memories to children.
Novelty of life and the tapering of death
Shall always fine tune
The music of Life.
Love always
Enlivens the passages of Life
With its fragrances.
What a sublime life it is
When we humbly subject to Time or Love
And surrender our Being and our Existence!!!
Bolloju Baba - Translated from Telugu by Sri. N.S. Murthy

Double tongued poem
For the modern world
Who you are is not important
What you speak is
Say salaam, you will be praised
Utter dissent, problems arise
You are mere a number, that’s all
********
For the modern world
What you speak is not important
Who you are is
your caste, religion and region.
You are just a Division Line, that’s all
Bolloju Baba

Inequalities--- Bolloju Baba
Birds shared the dawn
in bits and pieces equally
Trees shared the sunrays
in packects of leaves without trouble
Flowers shared the rainbow
by pealing off layer by layer

Flowers too were shared by
bumblebees with handfulls of pollen
When will man learn to share?
Bolloju Baba – self translated from Telugu



Solitude
One afternoon
Was passing all alone...
I was also alone in my room
silence riding over.
The lone fan
The lone chair
The lone Table, and
The lone me
silently emptied
into the afternoon...
Now, we are on her back, piggy-riding...
Sun’s face
was green with envy.
bolloju baba


Aparthied
a poem by

“Teacher! Can I give the bouquet to the Chief Guest?”
“No. You can’t. We have already selected someone else.”
and soon she realized the difference between
her and that ‘someone else’… her tan.
Emptying tears and blood into the gorges of history
It plays chiaroscuro on the path of life…
She wanted to cry hoarse
that soul is superior to the shuck.
With reddened eyes and swollen face
she silently departed
collecting all her prizes.
Ten years later…
nobody understood why
the Chief Guest
after finishing her speech
walked down to a student
with reddened eyes and swollen face
placed the bouquet in her hand
and patted her on shoulder before leaving.
They will never understand for another ten years to come.
(Bolloju Baba – Original in Telugu, translated by Mr. N.S. Murthy)


Aputhrashya…
a poem by

Do you agree for it?
“Yes”
The sentence being written
on uterine walls
was broken in middle.
Do you agree for it?
she lowered her head
The rain waters washed
the colours of incomplete
wall painting to the ground.
Why didn’t you bring her?
“Please”
The abortion pill that entered
the blood vessels like a thief
crushed the Chrysanthemum bud.
******
“You are lucky to have a male child
who keep on your lineage
and a place in heaven” every one told
the murdered three incomplete foetuses
swung their heads in dissent.





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