Poems by
Ajai Narendran

Summing up

a poem by Ajai Narendran

When miles seem to shrink down
at every finger tap on the key board
When 0s and 1s
dart across the emptiness
of the super-conducting-super-collider tunnel
engulfing the information super highway
When collisions and deletions and materialization
of myriads of thoughts and emotions
pass through the logic gates
of man-machine mother board’s programmed free will…
this separation now seems
like a wild amusement
and effacing misconceptions
seem like a childlike attunement,
and agony the silent joy.

Loneliness that casts her
forlorn dark shadow
on white patches of time
loomed up with stretching space
now seem to have built
a canopy of shade
against blistering heat waves
of infidel thoughts and recurring fears.

The opacity of the unknown
has now become a prism
generating perspectives of many hues.
Vagabonds of experiences
that once strayed into my arms,
then got shaped into memories
of fond remembrances and futile forgetfulness
of imperious realities
are now getting metamorphosised
in the dark womb of desire
into cloned-luminous dreams.

Remorse that once yelled at woes
sprung from the gorge of self deception
have now become silent prayers
resounding in the altar of acceptance
blowing into life
the faint, flickering amber of hope.
Things have changed,
transformed and transmuted
far beyond the expected patterns
of all calculated moves.
Even those flashes of insights
and streaks of inspiration
that came in a gush
seem to have dripped out
much like the spent out glow
of the glowworm that perched
on this hand for a while
and then flew away
becoming just another fly
in the alarming heights
of swarming thoughts.

How true…
half of what is seen
is not understood,
much of what is understood
is not told,
More of what is told
got obliterated of its import
adulterated with words
for high impact.
The rest… the rest surface
like murk in the offering
before the deity of grace unbound,
and the very playful swindler
of many a turn around.

So be it!…

Is clear vision more perceptive
of sun’s red spots
than myopic vision?
Will blindness ever get perturbed
at the bulb’s dimming brightness in
voltage fluctuations?
and does the unseen cease to exist
any more than the seen, yet unperceived?
Seeking out answers
for seemingly endless questions
is much like trying to discern beforehand
which seed will germinate
among the millions sown
on an unfamiliar terrain.

Just leave it!

But that really doesn’t matter much
for, now there is a feeling that
was not quite there before,
that things will get better and better
no matter how much gets transmuted
or how much lies unperceived
no matter how less I cherish
or what all will eventually perish,
no matter how much I forget, falter and fall
or how often I regret,
no matter what public opinion is
or what heaven’s decree will be
no matter what not…
this sickening forlornness
too will fade away into
another awareness suspended
in blissful oblivion!

A speck of moon
and those handful of stars
will fill up my entire sky.
Yes, how reassuring is the consolation that
I am alive and so does the rest of the world too!
So much of noise, a little voice
silence, and missing notes
will make my music complete,
my seraphic symphony!