is a reality
some people are rowdies
you need to stand up to
and tell off
cheating is very common
and those you trust
might stab you in the back
hatred heats everything up
religion caste class and so on and on
and pettiness sits on your head
and pulls out your hair
till you scream in agony
and this world churns your insides
and burns your mind
and still you are nowhere.
through reality
and imagination
and it is funny too
though tragedy
is its very path
and in the air
we breathe
and beauty
flies ahead
of us like a bird
as we dance
in joy
trying to embrace
our end
eluding us
like love
and life blinks
like a bulb
before it is over.
yet it was actual
my heart was a boat
in the sea
rocking
and the beauty
of the moment
the fear
I lived through
because
life was magic
and this vision
was a reality
and strangely
I was sinking
in joy.
in the mind come
I ask myself
and listen to the birds
chirping
the gas van going by
with its cylinders
so many moments
from the past
and so many
random visuals
from nowhere
and I try to think
how does it happen
and how sometimes
it is better than reality
and how it is worse
how they give you
wings to fly
so that you
can see places
and things
you never saw
before
so that you can
revisit old joys
and then they
are also killers
that bring horror
so dark
you’ve never seen
and drag you down
to the dungeons
of despair
and those traumas
of the past
that have scarred you
they come again to
clutch your heart
and squeeze it
right in the morning
when you wake
and look at the world
and feel so miserable
you could die.
the mind disappears into the void
faster
the body follows later
the universe vanishes
and that’s it
finally nothing prevails
emptiness dances
its death dance
ghosts howling
in silence
and memories
of multitudes
crawl invisible
all that was there
has gone somewhere
and here is the chatter
of zeros
and these are the heroes
of the cosmos finished
you cannot see
anything now
there is no reality
there is no fantasy
this is the end
the space after
the full stop
till the closing
of time
when its hands
fall off.
sitting in a tree
meditating on the world
it sits still
looking into the distance
lost in the beauty
of the green forests
and mountains around it
and a brown cow
grazes on the grass below
the baby next door
cries and cries
it is heart wrenching
to hear
after long it stops
and a bird begins
to chirp
and then another bird
with a really beautiful voice
begins to chirp
it is like the sound of a videogame
only better
so loud and sweet
and then there is another bird
that chirps
this one too has
a beautiful melodious whistling voice
so clear
and then there is yet another
and that one too has
a great singing voice that tweets
its song
and then there is silence
in the forest
and in the evenings
I lie down in bed
listening to jazz
or just simply
listening to the silence
and now I think of two clouds I saw
of the prettiest white colour
with circular lobe shape
and they were exactly
the way they were
in picture books and cartoons
and I tell you reader
that both reality and imagination
are strange
sometimes like trespassers
sometimes like siblings
saying something
you can’t understand.
I would paint the scene
outside my window this morning
Mograpada in mist
the small brown houses
in the distance
the railway tracks beyond
all hazy
the signal poles the buildings
and the trains slowly ambling
it’s like a scene
from some dream
a painting
in beautiful hues of whites blues and earth
I would draw
this local paradise
but it was while I was thinking this
that the best part happened
when an engine blew
its loud melodious horn
and had the final word.
The above poem is from my second book Circling the Sky (2013).
in my mind
hangs like a silent cry
in my heart
in my stomach
the universe is dark
there are no stars in my eyes
no moon in my sky
only emptiness
only absence
and here I sit hunched
over my computer
thinking of the sky’s whiteness
in which black birds fly
and it turns to blue in my mind
and I see sunsets and palm trees
and slowly drift into sleep
and then I suddenly dream
I am a river
a green river
under those trees
and when the moon sings
at night
I dance and sway
rippling in cool waves of thrill
and in the afternoon
under the sun
I shimmer like an emerald
playful warm
flowing calm.
The above poem is from my third book The Branches (2015).
the greyness
out of the water
till it is colourless
at the end of land
where it merges with the sky that is grey
trying to take the greyness out of the sky
I travel in
a city of grey
waiting
like a photograph
that is probably not there.
The above poem is from my first book Reeling (2012).
and below that blue
and then the pale yellow sunlight
then red like fire
like a furnace
and finally the world
this is my morning
how the day is so silent
like someone sleeping
and I look and wait
for it to wake
some giant creature
of air
is it desire
that burns and cools
is it all in my mind
I wonder
and then
I think of death
closest of companions
and then the world slowly wakes
the windows open
and I smile.
Dominic Alapat 