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Poetry
by Ajay Vishwanathan
Why
Grandfather Whispered
Your eyes smile because of me,
my grandfather used to whisper;
I smiled back and returned to play with the boys.
Now, when I look back with my teenage eyes,
I know why
mother pulled me away from grandma's
painful hold and let her tears drop on my forehead.
Why my cousins were fewer girls,
and father never hugged me,
Why those angry looks when father died;
I know why grandfather whispered:
he had made a decision -
unmanly for a village he opposed;
A girl child, I was never meant to win
a battle that was often lost before birth.
top
In
Son's Eyes
When I watched the master strike my father,
my heart cringed.
Standing hidden by the slit
between the dingy wall and the rickety door
I silently cried, my tongue, injured,
shackled in serfdom, my master's wages.
The slap struck me as well, hard,
and it hurt to watch
it cripple - that impression in my eyes
of father, his proud face.
As he stood, languished, bowed head, unresponsive,
Docile, this pang I despised,
Wept nostalgia - those days of gone glory
when villages gathered for solace, squabbles
tamed in our courtyard till,
in a sweep of a tsunami, all crumbled.
As the hand of a city master fell on his face,
his son of a once proud man
watched in shattering rue
yet another fall of a fallen hero.
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To
The Bird Under The Window
previously published in Haggard
& Halloo
Your shuddering body makes sense to me
Like nothing else does;
The seduction in a reflection is often deadly,
Especially since it is a reflection,
An image of something that doesn't exist
As perceived;
The leaves, the grass, the brightness,
Are where you come from,
Not where you were going.
But from where you see,
It seems like the best lies in here
When it is right where you live.
Lived I must say,
For you just died
Not knowing what hit you;
The wall that actually
Showed you your own world
Was a quiet trap that
Had taken another life,
Life that believed more beauty
Is to be found
Somewhere else.
top
Having published in over forty
literary journals, including elimae, Haggard and Halloo, and
Boston Literary Magazine, Ajay Vishwanathan finds release in
writing. He works with bugs that he cannot see, on experiments
that might find a cure one day. He lives in Georgia with his
lovely wife and lovable twins. So a grateful man, he does things
he enjoys doing, surrounded by people he adores.
Send a message by using the Word
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