VISUAL POETS

I scribble in a Dark-room with a light pen.

I call it CINEMATOGRAPHY!.

I scribble in a lighted room with an ink-pen.

I call it POETRY!

- Ramachandra Babu, ISC

Cinematographer

FIRST PUBLISHED POEMS

Four Poems of mine were Published for the First time, in the issue of YOUTH TIMES Weekly, 17-24 November, 1977. They were was selected by well known Writer and Poet KAMALA DAS ( Madhavi Kutty for Malayalees and later on known as Kamala Suraiya ) who was the Poetry editor at that time !

Midday Take-off

In the blazing sun I walk blind

My immobile hands follow behind

Time worn planks in the stairs of destiny

Utter a long drawn out cry.

Under a shade less tree, with the ghosts of tomorrow

I await an encounter with fate.

Absolute silence seeps in to the void

Among the transparent shadows of life

Stretching seconds into years and then to ages.

This maddening stillness, this unending agony

Fills me with the suffocating terror of the unseen.

How I wish,

I could just take-off and just vanish

Yeah!

I feel the ground

Suddenly s-l-i-p

UH____

Boredom weeps alone

In moments of silence

Words refuse to appear

Defying the laws of language.

Back-fired thoughts shock frozen

Stand as

Dumb T.V. towers in the desert.

Disrupted communication

Speaks in sign language

To those blind eyes staring at infinity.

Rider less horses trample lawns

Breaking the stillness

Corks pop out, glasses tinkle,

Displayed flesh in streets of desire

Stink with memories of lost innocence.

Morning dawns smelling of stale kisses,

Hangovers from sleepless nights.

Nauseating mists of imported love

Blind the senses.

Under the cold blanket

My hand searches for the missing partner

In the grip of my longing fingers.

Sunset Sand Diggers

(Inspired by Kobo Abe’s Women of the Dunes )

Under the undulating dunes

Desires lie buried

My soul sleeps imprisoned

Somewhere in a bottomless pit,

To each his own

He himself being one.

Ours might be billion light-years apart

Or just a sand wall away.

Above in the gray sky

Under the blinding sun

Circles a lone vulture.

I dig my agony to unearth lost ecstasy.

In constant work, do I exist

My universe — this pit.

Destination unknown,

This journey a one-way trip.

Perhaps our tunnels may meet in the sunset

We may then discover

What we have lost

Or what we have not yet.

Of Godmen, Gods And Men

My denial is no conclusive proof of absence

Nor other’s approval the evidence of your existence.

They sing of your manifestations,

Many visitations and revelations

Some claim your partial presence in their form

And perform miracles like magicians,

Only garbs are different

Arenas vary.

If at any one at any time

Could feel your presence, even a trifle

It is just possible that

I too might.

Skeptics like me

Can wait till then

Before we start to believe.

MOTHER

(To Mother Teresa)

Lorries laden with dynamite

Pass the bridge of hope.

Somewhere there is an explosion.

A crack

Appears near my foot.

Two drops

Fall on the parched earth.

Rain or tears?

A cloud on the horizon

Looms larger and larger

Like a mushroom ……

Vultures fly

Silhouetted against the setting sun.

Darkness crawls inside my heart,

Which has forgotten it’s beat.

In the abstract forest of despair,

Hopeless lives run in slow motion

Waiting for the morning…..

I see a light emerging

Growing brighter and brighter ……

A frail figure clad in white

Walks the battered field

Feeding the poor

Treating the sick

Caring for the destitute

Comforting the dying ….

I have never seen Jesus

But I know you are His Mother

I know you are my mother too,

And of all the suffering humanity.

In 1977, I wrote a letter to Mother Teresa and here is a reply I got in her own handwriting!

SWAPNADANAM - A Journey in Dream

( To K.G.George.)

He had a million hallucinations

To be forever transfixed on celluloid.

The path was long and arduous,

I was a fellow traveler

On this psychedelic journey.

We built dreams upon dreams

On an invisible foundation.

In that mad house

Strangers herded together

Shot each other.

Fools fell in love with fairytale princesses.

Some had nightmares even when awake, and ran off to distant places.

Others followed us blindly

Without knowing their destination,

My friend led the way in the darkness

His polestar was called “Fellini”.

At last the long night seemed to end.

The new Cinema

Hangs frozen on the horizon

Like a Truffaut ending.

The weary world watches hopefully

For the slightest upward movement

To pronounce a new Dawn.

In that twilight

Before us lies the endless road in to the sky

And we march on ………