Monday, October 6, 2008

കവിത/five poems by m k harikumar

An earthworm

An earthworm that ponders,
what life after all is,
needs to be given the freedom
to put across its opinion.

Is it what our poets doing?
Or, how could they speak on this line
When they themselves find their lives
Steeped in perpetual misery.

As they stay sunken shoulder deep
In their own world of beauty,
Incomprehensible for them too,
How will they settle the problems of others?

I am one among those poets,
who imagine that misinterpreting
the freedom of the earthworm is poetry’.

Our poets’ sense of freedom,
Anyway, has gone stale already.

The first letter called “Λ” (*meaning ‘don’t know’)

It is a great thing to be
The first letter* and meaning negative!
For, everybody needs a ‘no’
As a sign to feign or deny
Simply saying no and nop!

But we must realize one thing:
‘No’ is fed up.
Playing accomplice to any rogue
and plotting for all his obscene no’s,
no now feels enough is enough.

Scheming with indecency
Has its own limits, you see!
So ‘no’ doesn’t like to be
pimping anymore, nor is it ready
to play accomplice to any.

Rather, no wishes to be alone
And feign ignorance
By saying ‘no’, nop’.

*The first letter of the Malayalam alphabet, equivalent to its English counterpart, ‘Λ’ is now taken to mean ‘don’t know’ or ‘no idea’. Being a first letter of a language and meaning a negative response are juxtaposed here to make an interesting aside.

Line bridge looks for a job

A line bridge!
Interesting to think of it,
But it’s really hard crossing it.

The bridge doesn’t know anything
But it gives all who come by
real tough testing times.

For, it is believed
that people who cross it
Happens to get a rare relief.

However, the line bridge is now
In a dilemma.
The reason is simple.
That nobody crosses it now.

After all, a line bridge too needs a prey.
And if the prey has got a human frame,
it would rejoice and be much pleased.

The line bridge now remains
Beckoning all to cross it by.
But, no one bothers to make a try.

But a line bridge needs a vocation, too.

A moment

A moment:
That’s the only truth.
It’s there in this moment,
But, not in the following one.

The one at hand makes us think
That life is real closer.
But the one that follows
goes without showing us
Any sign of acquaintance.

Every moment is changing
But we cannot cope.
We aren’t chameleons.
If only we could bottle-up
this moment, we’d be free.

Still, man changes
under the slightest cover of a leaf.
Such chameleons are malayalees*.

How much have I changed myself!
Where do I have time these days
To think of my near and dear ones?

I am just an oblivious blogger!!!

Birds

Tearing the day-sky apart
The birds took flight.
A never-ending flight!

Is it the inner spirits
which stay muted in everyone,
that they are trying to re-generate
Out of some non-traceable force?

They could not raise their heads,
Due to the fever of that passion,
Instead they just held them out.

And the feathers of melancholy
They shed out in their flight,
Kept traveling along with them
like scorch-marks of time.

Flying and flying and flying
What did they communicate?
May these feathers they shower
not get disfigured
in this mortal world of existence.

What needs to be up
For yet another flight?

The sky?
The feathers?
Or the mind?


trans: jayaprakash panicker

m k harikumar interview

 m k harikumar interview