I was once a poet...

I was once a poet...sounds surprising to me too...but then at some point of time in our growing up years most of us try writing poems...I used to write a lot of poems... in Kannada and in English...I prided myself on being able to write poems in two languages...those were heady times...sigh!

My BA years were especially fruitful in terms of poetry...love, heartbreak, again love...and so on..and sometimes idealism...a couple of poems got published in the Fergusson College student magazine and I was ecastatic...then the muse stopped visiting...

Then in early 1995, when I was in CIEFL, Hyderabad, my friend and fellow participant there, Srinivas Prasad (now Princiopal of a Government College in Kakinada), out of the blue asked me write a poem and give him...I told him I had stopped writing poems...he persisted and told me that I could and forced me to write one...I didn't know what to write...I thought for a whole week...the muse eluded me...then I sat down to write and managed 2 stanzas and gave it to Srinivas Prasad...I then asked him the reason for his asking me to pen a poem...he said it was a surprise...after a while, I forgot about it...then suddenly one day there was this small impromptu gathering that was arranged in the hostel mess and Srinivas Prasad, along with three other participants - John Varghese, K. Jayashree and Rita Ghosh, announced the launch of the Participants' Newsletter...managed and written wholly by the participants for the participants...we were all surprised and happy... then the copies of the newsletter were distributed to all present...it was an 8-page newelstter and I opened the pages and was stunned to see my poem printed in page 5 of the newsletter...I thought Prasad had asked me to write this poem only to egg me on to re-start my 'literary passion'...I was happy and embarassed at the same time... I definitely did not intend my poem to become public property...now it was before my fellow participants...

I was going through my old files and was happy to see the old issues of the newsletter (it ran for 2 years continuously and thereafter intermittently and closed down after 3 years)...I thought, why not put this poem in my blog and whoever my readers are can 'enjoy' it...I haven't written any poem after this...this is my last poem...so, all you readers...enjoy...

Smoky Thoughts

The whirring fan stirring up stale cigarette smoke
re-igniting the desire for the half-cigarette,
now lying brutally mutilated.
Now, again pining for it, and chiding myself
for being so thoughtless in disgust.

Does the muse come riding so, on smoky thoughts?
Why doesn't sleep come similarly?
Oh, it has already gone to sleep, tired.
Use the muse as a ruse.
Write poetry and lure sleep.
But poetry must be made of sterner stuff, no?
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So friends...