Poems by Arathy Asok

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Pic by Anni Roenkae

 

Dawn Thoughts

Why does it rain in the mornings?

The old woman with pushed out stomach comes in the dark dawn. She looks at the mango leaves and says, it will rain.
The sky is opening out in the sun and I close my eyes.

She says, the dam waters have been opened
Rivulets flowing into the fields
The people have dragged the straw man on the road
Beating him all the way and burnt him near the Goddess,
And it will rain today.

Inside the room grayness spreads little fingers of cold
And I hear water falling away in the thick trees.

I know it rains
I know it rains

Cicadas sing in the green leaves
And the far away river comes home


 

Them Questions ( And the Apologetic Answers)

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Why can’t I write of happiness with the same intensity with which I write of melancholy?

She asks me if she is what she is. If she is what she is. If she is what she says she is. If she is what she is. If she is what he says she is.

Why is she happy still? Is she happy still? Is this happiness? Or is it all peace? Is peace it? Where is all the unrest she had? What was she? The person with unrest or the person without?

Her eyes are the dead pools of water I saw while wiping my face in the wet, looking at the mirror.

I say, sorry sister, sorry. I do not know.

I am not the one to know. Not me.

Not me at all.


 

Ruminations

No poems are over.

Not when they are milked anew
Each time a wind blows in the bamboo leaves;

Or a hurt spills
In the centre of a wood desert,

Where camels walk, sand, sun, heat
And winter waits

In glittery grays,
Of slow mornings.


 

About the Author:

Arathy Asok resides in Kerala, India. She is a bilingual writer and has recently brought out her book of poems Lady Jesus and other poems ( Authors Press, Delhi, 2018). Her poems have appeared in national and international journals, in print and online (in Samyukta, Poetry Chain, anti heroin chic, Poets in Nigeria, Blue Nib magazine, Door is Ajar and Culture Cult). Her poems are also included in the anthology Native Petals and Iliyali (forthcoming). Her stories have been published in Rupture, Credo Espire and have been translated into her mother tongue and published in Indian Express Malayalam Online.