Poetry
Thoughts & Musings
I am laughing right now but tears,
Have already formed-
Behind those crinkled eyelids. I pretend to not notice, and
Continue on laughing.
Those tears start to fall.
Now I can't pretend to not notice
These warm drops on my cheeks.
I watch morbidly as
All of a sudden
They start rolling down in streams.
Within moments
My laughter morphs into despair.
I just watch this strange phenomenon
Knowing that laughter and despair are each
Nonexistent without the other.
-Srividya (May 6, 2014)
I walk down the street and I find
that same person I always see.
With his long beard and walking stick,
his shadow spread across the street,
and smoke flitting in little circles from his cigarette.
With a mysterious smile, he
leans forward some, to rest on his walking stick
As if he beckons, for me to join in,
on his lovely journey to the other side of the world.
I want to stop and notice him, but I find that my feet take me further away.
I turn around, but my eyes resist seeing him.
And Oh! I realize I dont recognize
who I have become anymore.
He was a guidepost
in the convoluted grid of space and time,
And because I have learned to recognize him now,
it is, but a matter of time,
until I find myself.
-Srividya March 2014
A convulsively distorted face gazed at him,
The two terrible eyes fixed straight upon his own.
With momentary wonder, he thought,
Is this a guardian or ghost?
He couldn't tell.
He tried to scream,
To find the voice within;
But there was only silence.
He is asleep today, but knows,
He will become awakened tomorrow.
And, this is but a dream...
In this dream, he began to dance...
that eternal dance between the mundane and the extraordinary.
How can one know the dancer from the dance?
Oh! They are so hopelessly intertwined.
-Srividya
Jan 14, 2014
PS: The last paragraph is a tribute to W B Yeats. I read his poem Among school children and couldn't get his last line out of my mind.
He walks alone...
They call him the lone traveler
With a calm, composed gait,
He walks on.
If you need a hand,
On any stretch of your journey,
He will hold your hand and walk with you.
Across that dangerous bridge,
Over the terrible valley of despair,
Where countless travelers have fallen prey
To the demons of delusion,
He will gently guide you through...
As you step off that bridge
You may close your eyes for a moment,
to let that shudder go down your spine,
And with gratitude in your eyes,
You may turn around, but he will be gone...
Without even as much as a nod,
He will have walked right on...
Why did you assume he was your friend?
Who can tell?
On another bridge someday,
He may walk with you again.
They call him the lone traveler,
And he walks alone...
Srividya
April 12, 2013
Their songs remain unheard.
When I wake from this dream,
There is a chance
that I may encounter
these unheard melodies.
They can't ever be heard,
But they pull on the deepest strings of my heart, and,
There, they play a tender and soft tune.
This tune might just
wake me from that dreary dream someday.
-Srividya (March 21, 2013)
The constant hum of the engine,
numbs my senses;
The rhythmic motion,
lulls me into dull acceptance;
The highway endlessly extends,
into the distant horizons;
Would it really make a difference,
If I knew where I was going?
-Srividya K R
Feb 7, 2013
The tiny little rabbits,
that hop along the park, regard him not.
He totters along, and in his eyes, his smile,
his wobble, is one expression; every step,
every turn over the shoulder and searching look; all bespeak,
a child who does not move with thought, but moves
with joy — He is untainted, unfettered
and so unprejudiced; he is one by whom
the whole world derives happiness; one to whom
Truth has such deep silence conferred;
that silence seems a thing, of which
he has no need. He is by nature
led to a quietude so perfect, that I behold
with envy, what the young child hardly feels.
–He ran towards me smiling, a bounce to his step,
extending a clenched fist; I inquired the nature
of the mysterious object contained therein,
Into those tender eyes I looked, as he proffered
a shiny pebble. I caught a glimpse of silence
dancing in those eyes; and as he pulled away
to find more treasure, I was left stunned
and staring.
--Srividya
Jan 26, 2012
PS: This poem is inspired by the meter in Wordsworth’s Old Man Traveling.
I am a soldier.
I am not sure which side I should fight for;
But I must fight-
Because there isn't a way out now.
I can't care which side wins;
I can't care if everything is lost;
I can't even care if I die,
Because I am just a soldier born to fight.
I must fight -
If there is no purpose to life;
There probably isn't
any to death either...
The battle is about to begin,
And the battle must be fought,
I can't run away now,
So I must fight.
-Srividya
Aug 3, 2011
In shame...
One man wishes he were invisible to all,
While the other still has his head held high,
Never giving up his fight.
In grief...
One man wishes to annihilate himself,
While the other continues to plod along,
Oblivious to what grief means.
With a single loss...
One man has lost everything he ever had,
While the other moves on,
With not even as much as a tear.
Amidst difficult people...
One man has built a wall around him,
While the other continues to love and laugh,
At the drama that life holds in store.
In fatigue...
One man has dropped to the earth in desperation,
While the other goes on working,
Like fatigue could never stop him.
In death...
One man has lost the battle,
While the other has just begun,
another wonderful journey.
The difference is...
One man fights, thinking him to be the actor
While the other knows himself to be but the instrument.
-Srividya (Feb 2, 2011)
Noise exists both inside and out.
Futile has my effort been,
To drown the noise within,
using the noise without.
I should instead try,
not drowning noise,
but watching noise.
-Srividya
June 3, 2010
I am, because I desire to be.
Now that desire has metamorphosed,
Into grave obsessions that strangle me.
My journey is dedicated towards
Desiring and obsessing to become free.
-Srividya
Apr 2010
Joy lies in dreaming
about a possibility,
More joy lies in the
manifestation of that dream
in reality,
But ecstasy lies only in the
expectation of the manifestation
of that dream...
Oh dreams, remain possibilities
So that I may float in eternal ecstasy...
Srividya
Jan 29, 2010
The roaring waves encroached upon the shores,
He reached out his timid fingers to feel ferocity,
With that delicate touch he was transformed,
The recurring dreams had come true,
He had become one of them now!
No tinge of uncertainty remained,
He soared into the sky along with his kin,
Electrifying more people with his soft touch,
Those waves only grew mightier.
Those waves of change had reached the shores...
Silent submission fed their thirst.
Yet they ravaged through the ruins,
Hungrily...
-Srividya
Jan 2010
A little girl was scavenging.
Amidst that huge pile of dirt,
She tried to find something of value.
As I edged closer to touch her,
She jumped.
Her eyes were filled with fear.
And She ran. She disappeared.
And I was left staring into the mirror...
-Srividya
Jan 1, 2010
As the train whistled past the lonely road,
She stood still.
The stale neon lights illumined
the plastic smile on her tender lips,
Her burdened shoulder stooped down,
Yet, she waved.
She was all but ten...
I got a glimpse of her sorrow beneath,
I blinked, and she was gone.
Will our paths ever cross again?
She was all but ten...
-Srividya
Dec 19, 2009
The flames could either engulf me,
or illumine me.
The choice exists and can be controlled,
Or I acknowledge the presence of a choice,
And I merely participate in its mysteries.
Srividya (Nov 2009)
I close my eyes and drift
into a dark abyss, into a controled chaos.
Sleep is familiar, so I am not afraid
to dissolve into the unknown wilderness,
the vast ocean of non-existence.
A while later, as if in a dream,
another being arises,
out of the ashes of oblivion,
assuming a new form, a new identity.
With the golden rays of dawn
There is the dissolution again.
Sleep is familiar, so I am not afraid.
But the question always remains-
Am I the dreamer or the dreamed?
-Srividya
Aug 2, 2009
A new day had dawned.
Darkness dispelled,
Golden rays glimpsed through the cracks,
Perfection breezed in.
My lazy eyes opened wide,
A smile spread on my face.
Questions had ceased to bother the mind,
Answers breezed in.
The pain withdrew,
Agony terminated,
Doubts no longer lingered around,
Possibilities breezed in.
Srividya, Jan 5, 2009
A prophecy was made,
in the beginning of cosmos,
for two souls to meet.
Aeons later, in a dimensionless universe,
these souls wafted pasted each other,
with a glimpse of recognition.
More aeons later, limited in dimension,
these souls manifested,
with no remembrance.
Rebuilding that bond,
and deluded by ignorance,
the souls danced.
The prophecy fulfilled,
each with a grim smile,
wafted away - towards destiny.
-Srividya
May 18, 2008
I am running.
I can't remember where I came from
I don't know where I am headed,
But I see myself Running.
The scenery around me whizzes past,
I stop not even for a moment,
I don't know where I am headed,
But I see myself Running.
The winds are blowing against my directions,
I puff and pant my way through
I don't know where I am headed,
But I see myself Running.
I run, I run, I run.
I have grown old and frail and weak,
I have lost the vision of the end,
I have gathered nothing in this race,
But I run.
In the end, time just outruns me,
and the game has ended.
Srividya
Apr 13, 2008
