Penury

It has become necessary for you to climb the corporate ladder

and quit in time when there’s a safe stack of money ready to hold you if you fall;

when you begin to chase long lived dreams of staring at the stars in multiple countries

from under canvas tents, atop motorbikes and by campfires.

Should I throw away what I shouldn't have had in the first place

with the only means to chase my dreams being the ideal fall

of chasing sunsets and sunrises, meeting new people

and dining on different tables, settings with wine, tea and cheese?

Would the world say I followed my dream by deciding to throw away a luxurious life

that I never wanted

or that I settled for the penury that I deserve? 

Image copyrights in the picture itself. 

~Hemu

Headscarves

The sun rises when she lifts up her chin
and sets when she breaks free the scarf 

full of misery and pain that she holds in her head. 

Headscarves of the woman bear more than the colours that you see. 

Source: HEADSCARVES

~Hemu 

Home

  How could I forget that night? It was exactly ten days since my grandfather had passed away. I was close to 1400KM away from home at Bombay, unable to sleep; merely staring at the wall a little before midnight. There was a sense of melancholy and wishful dreaming over my head. My teammates were fast asleep, heads buried in makeshift pillows. It was January; the floor was as cold as ice but yet, vaguely comforting.

  Silence screeched as the wall suddenly lit up to life, reflecting the warm hues of an oriflamme presence somewhere. The sound of the crackling rose up to the second floor apartment where we lay as the fog lifted, disintegrating into nothingness in the face of the bonfire built out of all which held people back.

   Bhoghi, the harvest festival, had dawned. It was midnight as heavy drumming began to sound, awakening the sleeping souls to stare out into the dark; where below, there lay a mound of light and lilt. Smiles cast invitations even when we couldn't see. We ran, our flip-flops slapping the bare mosaic flooring. The sound of the dholaks and laughter intensified with every step of ours, the excitement building. I rolled out only stopping to a reckless halt before the fire. The flames, a feet away leaped about, taller than I was, a fourteen year old girl in disarray. A Sardar, otherwise camouflaged by his beard and black turban smiled through it, holding out sweetmeats to me.The flames blazed higher, smoke spiraling into the vast sky charring the past and ready for the future.

    Slowly, the other state gymnasts descended the stairs and gathered around smiling, laughing and chattering away. Girls who would otherwise be dressed like dolls before the floor exercise performances began to dance in baggy pajamas and disheveled hair holding hands. My hands slowly slipped into theirs, strangers I didn't know in a place I wasn't really acquainted with. All I knew then was that the sound synced with my heartbeat and that the dance came from within.

It didn't matter that midnight in a strange place that I was holding hands and dancing with strangers. It didn't matter how close I was to the fire that night because I didn't feel any heat, only the warmth. It didn't matter that night that my grandfather was dead. I learned to laugh out loud again after a ten-day hiatus. It didn't matter that I was celebrating the festival away from home because, that moment in the dark when all our eyes met lingering with joy, shining in untamed light, I felt at home.  

Source: GOOGLE IMAGES. I do not own this image.  

~Hemu

The Girl Who Catches Stars in Her Hair

I know a girl whose hands are always full
with misery and poetry, love in vain and abyss infinite.
Yet, she settles down to catch the evading stars every night
and because her hands are full,
the stars perch themselves on her hair
so that she may smile.

Original Artwork by Hemalatha Venkatraman | Copyrighted | Do not use without permission 

| I have been going about with pet projects on my art and writing blogs where I put up one inked sketch as a part of the Inktober Challenge throughout October. On this blog's Facebook page, (Street of Smiles) I've putting up one poem a day for as long as I can. I collaborated both the projects for the day, combining my art and poetry. Please do let know what you think of it. :) My art blog can be found at Hemu's Art Blog! ) Thanks and cheers! |


Penned and sketched by
Hemu 

An Affair With Addiction

I don't understand those poets that romanticize alcohol;
attributing poetry to a glass of high
or a joint of weed.
I'm tempted to judge a man
who loves alcohol and smoke;
a daily dose of exigency
to unlock and  let oneself be.
But what right do I have to roll my eyes
at him, an artist
immersed in the illusion of beauty;
recovering and emerging from
a bottle of whisky
when my words spill and fall like
a momentous dominoes set
when I think of you?
The illusion and the addictive need
to romanticize the image of you?



~Hemu

Karna

|This happened to be a piece I'd penned last year right after I read this book called 'Mrityunjaya-The Death Conqueror'. The life of Karna is one of the most fascinating and tragic stories I've ever come across. He happens to be my most favorite character in The Mahabharata alongside Draupadi and Krsna. I keep attempting to sketch him again and again and never have I been satisfied with what I complete as it never seems to represent him in entirety. The artwork can be found on my blog, here. Cheers! Revel in His life, for it's complicated and beautiful. |



What is more trying by destiny, oh warrior

 than to be painfully oblivious to the origin of your birth?

You who slayed vice with smoldering golden rays

later blanketed in the smog of your munificence

sparked from vanity leased out in thy head;

exorcising material despair,

subduing with grains of praise the

licking ravage flames in your chest,

under the gilded skin armour, shut.

What could have been more ruthless

than the rejection of the dark-skinned maiden-

flinging insults like dung to a damp wall

while your strength lay untested and unapproved?

The woman you loved and hated within eons;

that your brothers  five later betrothed ,undivided

only to garrote you to shameful death.

What decremented your virtuous soul further?

the culminated fury abreast constant light

of doubt-ridden guilt about your legacy

Or losing your honour to jealousy

Beginning a vow out of an unnecessary jabbering

of the tongue unsaddled by righteous thought?

And when you saw your confounded flaws

mirrored on the deceitful glass of an angered moment,

You saw the image that your blue-skinned kin saw,

an enemy you endured with till your

chariot broke

while fighting with the universal wheel of time-

the only aid to defend the dead in you.

There were those grains of sand that fell through

the goodness, your blood dripping onto the muddy moulds

fusing towards an unjustified departure

defended in the karmic book of a godly conman.

The hourglass now contains merely light

in honour of a hero, tragic 

thus denied a deemed title

because his own blood feared the words

out of an unworthy stranger, spitting in the air.

~Hemu 

Source: Vimanika Comics 

Hold You

Source: Google Images 

I'm not the type of girl
who'll squeal and hug you hard
in trepidation
of thunderbolts clapping across the skies.
Instead,
I'll be staring at the clouds light up
  whilst holding out,
the piercing rain slash my breasts;
in comfort.
I'm the kind of girl
who'll smile and hold you though,
if these forces scare you;
  without judgement or question.
Who said boys can't be afraid of the
  rumblings far above our heads?

~Hemu

Our Demon Darkness-es

And so when finally, 

your darkness peeped and led its head out towards opulent skies 

living in a space too bright to be comforting;

mine jumped from a rather cozy nook between unsaid truths and half-complete lies

to lend a hand and save your face disintegrating in the white 

that we later together beat. 

I'm only glad our demons are on the same side. 

~Hemu 

Dark and Dreary

The afternoon set in, rainy and dark. The clouds had pulled over the sun for having trespassed over my dark period and cried till I felt safe within the multitudinous folds of my quilt. The room gleamed with an eerie gloom that could only be best described as my own mind while a lonely hand stretched hard and waved the curtains across to let in a passive stream of light, exploring the path of the dust that lay accumulated from time lost on its way to Earth.

    The  knocking hasn't ceased. The person is relentless and won't give up. Dragging my heavy feet across  a cold marble floor, I moved, blinking between sorrow and seeing through tears. Stopping at the door, I yelled that I was coming, wiping away the slate clean of any traces of smudged chalk with the sweater whose hands fill mine. The door creaked, almost out of practice from the last few days. I pulled open the heavy door.

 The light was unbearable for me to take. A door-ful of radiance hit me as he entered the house with a kiss and some big bear hugs. I couldn't but stare at the silhouette of light that lit my house like a Christmas star that throws its dots of light, life and hope according to engraved patterns by an artist, a lover in his own accord.

'Maybe you should try coming in,' he said.

I stood rooted near the door as he walked back to me, throwing his light and shadow across the room split by him alone and shut the door tight to retain the flavour this house has become accustomed to.

'You?'

'Yes, me.' he uttered, through those perfectly formed teeth. His overgrown locks fell across my face as he carried me in all ease and grace, that I have never seen anyone else do. Walking to my darker chamber with the single ray of light, I fondled his cheeks with those beautiful dimples that could very well act as the life-saving pond to fish in need of life, that which only grew deeper as my hands traveled their distance.

The imaginary boundary between us threw itself into the corner, the sides of the bed became but one. All I could perceive was his stubble against my collar bone, his body pressed to mine and hands that caressed what I was, every inch through. I twiddled a while, moving away only to be pressed against him, a little closer, some more passionate kisses and tickles transmitting across my own body moving onto his own. Every time he smiled, a burst of light burped out of my laughter, every time his hands played their tune across the boulevards of my body, strings connected from my head and till my toe; music flowed and resonated through the entire room. I could smell the smoke off him and we reveled in our own world of beer and vodka, the scent raising our sensitivity. No longer was any part of me insignificant or strong, it was but whet and vulnerable. For a long time there, we were but one fused mass that might have even melted had not there been that darkness in the air and the coldness in the light. In that warmth that he radiated, I closed my eyes to receive his love and never woke up.

  Hard, breathless raps on the front door landed on my ears.

  The darkness rolled under my eyelids, tears streaming hard as I woke up to an absence where presence was uncertain. The knocking on the door only grew harder. I wiped my face clean of pain and walked towards the edge of the world, in hope of death for a visitor. I passed the shelf and saw the calender lying around, the same from the last time I ever saw it.

Source:Google images 

~Hemu

It Lulls Forever After the Storm

The sky has been split and I can see the many pieces
as they wait to be pulled with a gentle tap
and a strong hand.
It is starless tonight with a weathered smile
from dissolving clouds that pour their sorrow atop my
misery already floating over the metre.
I decided to knock one and remove its facade;
made up my mind to see beyond the outside.
My hands were at work and
eyes beyond it
as the frame collapsed and fell on me, face down.
Fragile is what I expected but
unassuming and a whole of the part it was,
of the complete wholesome.
I wish I knew how to explain what I saw beyond
the clothesline that cut the sky.
I really want to tell you how damp the terrace floors
were after appearing dry,
I lack the will to show you the intricate bits gathered
upon my eyelids as I blink
and the ego to let that all go.
Lying back down and looking at the dark bit
I have extracted,
I can only assure you there are more tears in that dark hole
than that has poured;
sucked into the emptiness of no reason.
                                                                                         

Source: Google Images- Wikimedia 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

A Shadow

I saw someone come with me all the while I walked on the streets so hot,
smaller in form, darker in shade..
Why she kept following me, I just don't understand.
Growing inch by inch, throwing her magnificent self across my body,
her details blurred, yet her form so clear, I saw her live
as she swallowed the light, holding it in her pit.. the illuminating rays so bright.
She kept ahead of me, holding my legs in her black mass..
and I just followed her wherever she went for the rest of the time, lit,
unable to leave her to her dark mates hidden in the narrow alleys and masses of opaques.
I thought she was weak, clinging to me like a filthy little rag,
sticking by the legs of a person she never knew.
But, I saw the fact that I couldn't get rid of her, try as I might,
until, she decided it was time.
Hours rolled and she started running behind me, like an unknown bond,
unable to let go of me...
An unacknowledged bond just like my hand or my sight,
only, she couldn't see, blind in her path that saw only me and no one else.
The evening sun set as I paced my footsteps faster,
in an urge to take her to safety, an incomprehensive love taking over me...
to let her live.
She didn't sense my efforts as she diminished, little by little,
her feet growing small with a shaded snake
grabbing her legs so taut from under my trousers.
I quickened my steps, wanting to see,
that mysterious entity, live with me...
and yet, she died. There. Right in front of my eyes,
falling apart, disappearing into the black of the tar of the roads..
screaming for help and searching for light.
I scrambled on my knees catching at her waist when her belly exploded
and all of her swallowed light flew,
catching my hair in its golden rays, merging with the black around.
To see her last sprinkles dissolve into thin air that hosts the unending black.
I shrieked for company and tried to hold on to her,
but she only slipped away, like an element so free.
I envied her freedom from where I knelt, vanishing into substances
and wetting my cheeks with hot tears streaming
at a demise so unknown...
Merely to realize, that she was bound.
Just the very next day clinging to me, yet again.
She went on to live without the botheration of having to die.
She just, held on to my physical existence, recognized
for I think she knew my soul might not cast any for others to see and sense.
She lived, a constant reminder of a nagging thought that I don't understand,
until she clung to the trunk of a huge tree,
throwing me into darkness.

~ Hemu