SANTOSH BAKAYA

SANTOSH BAKAYA

Of Dearth And Survival

Tread softly, says that inner voice.

Don’t hop around like a grasshopper gone berserk,

there are harsher times round the corner.

Will they have a dark, surreal twist? I ask the voice,

but the voice plays possum.

I do something that I have never done before,

count the slices of bread, remaining in the refrigerator.

[Quite embarrassing I know, hope no one saw.]

The two last eggs make grotesque faces at me,

and I turn away.

I knead the flour, then I knead my arms,

trying to calm frayed nerves, ah, I need to rest.

Maybe that will give me a new lease of life,

some respite from this every day strife

of sweeping, mopping, washing dishes, oops my joints creak.

No, no, I am not freaking out,

I will be just back after I have popped a pain- killer.

The sun seems to have been sucked away from my sky.

I feel cold, so very cold.

Let me not just sit here, squirreling away things for a bleaker day.

Let me mask my feelings and go attend to that long deferred task,

of finishing that piece of tensile prose.

Maybe that will rejuvenate me, putting me on my toes

to face yet another day of dearth.

May be thus will I survive on this polluted earth.

A Survival Half- Hearted

When life becomes cynical,

flinging scorn at us, frowning at our actions,

and malicious fabrication spreads around like wild fire,

the heart withers and shrinks- a shriveled up walnut,

our very survival is at stake.

Last night, I tossed and turned in bed and

seemed to have lost my words.

Early morning, when I looked out of the window,

an endearing scene met my eyes, infusing a new freshness

in that wilted walnut of a heart.

A skeletal mother outside her hut,

was putting her child to sleep.

The morning sun fell on her,

filling up the crevices and lines on her face.

Hope and sunshine merged in my heart, and I trembled

smiling a happy smile. Her eyes brimmed with happiness too.

She looked up at the sun with screwed up eyes, smiling engagingly.

Her sun- kissed cheeks glowed with a rich color.

I too regained my usual spirit and dash, filled with a sudden vivacity

and started pouring out verse after verse with an impassioned empathy.

My wilted heart had got a new lease of life, so had hers.

We had survived the rampant cynicism,

one more day.

Existential Quandaries And The Spirit Of Survival

Shelling peas, grating carrots, kneading flour,

rolling out chapattis, half- heartedly,

sucked by existential quandaries,

tired hands, parched lips cursing,

mumbling in anger and angst.

The spirit is tired and lackadaisical.

Ah, for an infusion of new blood!

The half- rays of the setting sun dim every second,

ignoring the flaccid fists thumping the air,

and the human feet, jaded, lackluster.

The joints creak ceaselessly,

year after year, month after month,

waiting for some much-needed respite.

We are on the edge of the wilderness, dark and menacing,

caught hopelessly in a confused heap of roots,

brambles and thorns, sheep huddled together

against some hidden predator.

I will come to that later,

but in the meantime,

let us blaze on in the light of the westering sun.

Look, the wind is increasing in velocity,

but no, the morning waits in the shadows.

There comes the dawn riding a golden hued cloud,

loud----- loud……. go the clouds, but unfazed,

patches of blue-sky peep through rifts in the dark clouds.

The sky is blood- red, some of that blood seems to have infiltrated me.

The golden hued cloud smiles a beatific smile in my direction

at this surreal infusion of blood.

Of rebirth and survival on a beleaguered earth.

SANTOSH BAKAYA

SANTOSH BAKAYA: Academician - poet essayist- novelist - biographer - Ted Speaker - creative writing mentor. Dr. Santosh Bakaya has been critically acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi, [Ballad of Bapu] Her Ted Talk on the myth of Writers' Block is very popular in creative writing Circles. Some of her books are: Where are the Lilacs? [Poetry] Under the Apple Boughs [Poetry] Flights from my Terrace [Essays] A Skyful of Balloons [Novella] Bring out the tall Tales [ Short stories with Avijit Sarkar]. Only in Darkness can you see the Stars- a biography of Martin Luther King Jr Songs of Belligerence [Poetry] She runs a very popular column Morning Meanderings in Learning and Creativity.com