Bulldozed dreams,
They all let out piteous scream,
With every morning’s beam,
Elusive becomes glory’s gleam

With overdose of nepotism,
Turned comatose is our system,
Favouritism swallows ambitions,
Sadly, this is our prevailing condition.

Star kids eat the full cake,
Budding talents are left to crack,
Untended, the bloom ends up in gloom,
Pushed on to the edge of doom.

Pulled in by the never ending tide,
Life refused to take a bumpy ride,
Soon the life boat will rot,
Matters not if they scream a lot.

Sharks of are beginning to eat,
Gnawing at talent, they are having a treat,
No strength left in their worn feet,
Still they battled on with deceit.

Storms of life are not abating,
The sunlight has starting fading,
Life is slowly disintegrating,
A dead end seems to be waiting.

Flesh and bone started decaying,
Life’s journey has left them suffocating,
Soul is creaking and aching,
They can feel it’s breaking.

Drowning silently in agony,
Hearing the symphony of tragedy,
A piece of rope ends life’s mutiny
Just memory is left as remnant of destiny,
© K.Radhakrishnan

Yes, it was my grandiose fantasy,
But was it far from reality?
Don’t call me an exhibitionist,
I was not that immodest.

Is self-love, a disorder?
Did I cross sanity’s border?
Looked at reflection in calm river,
Why should that make you quiver?

For loving self, you gave my name,
For centuries I carried your blame,
You made me a villain in your game,
Made self-love a matter of shame.

In this world of infamy ISMS,
You added one more…NARCISSISM,
Equating it with Satanism,
Drowning me in delirium.

Is there a soul in universe?
Self-love in hearts, they do not nurse,
Why it is made a sin so perverse?
Why you made me bear this curse?

I have billions of followers,
Growing steadily at every hour,
Projecting billion faces in selfies,
Painting the world with beauty.

Not to be confined to folklore,
I am reborn as beauties galore,
Every rejection, I get million nods,
For I am NARCISSUS, billion headed God

(c) K.Radhakrishnan

I live in vacuum,
My mind’s back room,
Seeing things with cross-eyes,
Pretending to be wise.

When heart starts to rejoice,
From mind’s cavern I hear a noise,
Life’s promises and poise,
Lost, compromising to mind’s choice.

Mind cooks up epistemologies,
Busy with its “Project Garbology”,
Negating its own theories,
Planting barrage of queries.

I lost my subjectivity,
Finding life’s objectivity,
Held in mind’s captivity,
I wasted my creativity.

In my empiricist mind’s perception,
Unheard goes my heart’s volition,
In mind’s epistemological collisions,
I lost my wisdom and vision.

© K.Radhakrishnan

Incomplete stories of many,

Half-written in life’s journey,

Adventures slipped through fingers,

Memories of them ceased to linger.

Ideas carried to grave untouched,

Desires held tightly and clutched,

All carried away with the wind of death,

With the consummation of last breath.

This cycle hath no beginning or end,

Another river and another bend,

Over and over again,

Eternal wanderers, we all remain.

For our souls, no culmination,

Born again, another incarnation,

Stories in progress with role reversals,

No time is allowed for rehearsals.

Through endless rounds of rebirth,

Eternal soul to embody in earth,

To write tales of love, hate and anger,

Of defeat’s whimper and victory’s clangor.

Caught in this vicious circle of infinity,

All are blood relatives, definitely,

We are each other’s parents and children,

Siblings and cousins, as this cycle runs.

© K.Radhakrishnan

Prickly cactuses and tumbleweeds,

Scattered there like human creeds,

Miles and miles of sand dunes,

Hidden insects sing in rapturous tunes.

Where eagles circle over for prey,

As sandvipers sneak out in day,

Giant spiders and deadly lizards,

The sun was blacked out by blizzard.

Ghostly voices moaning and wailing,

As sandstorms rise to touch sky’s ceiling,

Ah!!, a medieval castle in the barren land,

Who built it in the nothingness of sand?

The wind is the architect who twisted,

The ravines and rocks got blasted,

To form a shape resembling a castle,

A bizarre “ DEVIL’S CITY” in the middle.

Our minds are like lonesome deserts,

Showing mirages to unsuspecting hearts,

Growing prickly weeds of hatred all time,

Deadly creatures roam around to maim.

The vast expanse of mind mostly empty,

But it holds poisonous thoughts in plenty,

The innocent heart seeks an oasis,

But the malicious mind denies it spaces.

© K.Radhakrishnan

Midnight hours and worldly sounds were dying,

The moon peeped through cloudy sky as if it is spying,

Thump, thump, there was knock on her door,

Her sunken eyes lit up once more.

After many months came this rare occasion,

To earn some money out of her vocation,

Those knocks were a welcome invasion,

To put an end to many nights  of starvation.

From those visitors she didn’t ask any explanation,

She dressed quickly and fittingly for the occasion,

She is no whore, don’t carry any  false notion,

She just sells her tears but with devotion.

Bereft of emotion, she just goes through some motions,

She is the essential part of those thirteen days celebration,

Tears, wails and shrieks come out without hesitation,

Though with the heaven bound souls she had no relation.

She cries, she screams and she grieves,

For some free meals and some rupees,

Sitting  and wailing in those gloomy grooves,

Making all those fake mourning moves.

She had cried enough tears to solve any water crisis,

For all those lecherous men lived in vices,

Those men who need  borrowed  tears for salvation,

May I call, it the wretched society’s perversion.

Every time a  visitor call up to condole the  death,

The Rudali wails louder beating her chest with gasping breath,

She is the mourner for those who can’t wail,

Their sighs  do freeze and tears drops hail.

Near and  dear ones restrained from mourning,

Even at the dust of earth returning,

Tear drops cascading down the cheeks are hidden,

For grieving in  public is the act forbidden.

Rudali supplies her  tears for the fate of those and of her own,

Hoping those wails  reach God up above in the horizon,

She  will cry for all but who will cry over  her pyre?

Who will be Rudali for her once to lend their tears?

© K.Radhakrishnan

Fragmented vision of the ego,

We witness wherever we go

Distortions of culture,

Eating away human conscience like a vulture.

Swept away in the tornado of isolationism and racism,

Fractured and divisive world yearns for feelings of altruism,

Wanting to embrace the consciousness of oneness,

To reconnect the world that is groping in darkness.

Let love flow through across boundaries,

And the deluge of love drown people in all countries,

Let us all be reconnected to the spiritual roots of life,

Transformative and healing energies of love make us revive.

Let the world merge in love’s infinite ocean,

Love is the power that links us all in its noble emotion,

It is only love that speaks the language of oneness,

In love’s substance, let’s all seek life in abundance.

The bond of love is the core of our being,

In the melodies off love let life find its meaning,

Let us all be drawn in to the love’s web,

And float in love’s flow and ebb.

Let us open the link of love that unites us all,

And hear the song of unity as our hearts make the call,

Each act of love is a participation in the process of unity,

Chained in love, let us find oneness with universe till eternity.

© K.Radhakrishnan

Celebrate sacred femininity,

Lift the females from obscurity,

Acknowledge their power and divinity,

Restore their freedom and dignity.

Beyond form and duality is that divine essence,

Vast and dynamic is its omnipresence,

Pervading all life, an interdependence immanence,

Sacred femininity is that “Goddessence”.

How this power can be defined in only masculine form?

To gender assignment divinity will not conform,

So alive, so infinite and so free,

Made from love and made to love is divine femininity.

She is the ever changing sea of emotions,

Unending source of love filled with true devotion,

She has the Universe inside of her,

A great inventor, innovator and creator.

She is the beacon light to show us the right way,

She has those hands to pull us from going astray,

Every man has traits of femininity,

It is for us to bring out that for peace and tranquility.

The feminine is the matrix of creation,

The depth of feminine mystery we have sadly forgotten,

How the divine light of soul creates a body in the womb of woman!!

Only sacred feminine can bring out spiritual transformation.

Let us reclaim the transformative potential of feminine,

And feel its connection to soul and earth for our salvation,

Honor Her presence within our bodies and soul,

For peace to prevail in this earth in whole.

© K.Radhakrishnan

Shadows left behind by thousands of moments,

Those moments casting shadows inducing torments,

Between life’s heights and depths I drifted through,

Preyed by haunting memories that never bid adieu.

 

But I have learnt to live with shadows left behind,

Nursing those scars as life continue to unwind,

Shadow is following and always at my side,

No matter how fast I run, there is no way to hide.

 

I live in the ever moving shadow of my present,

Boxing with it till my prefixed life time is spent,

Sigh mingled with sorrow escapes from my soul,

Imprisoned, guarded by shadow, with no parole.

 

But I am not in darkness, a feeling of contentment,

Living with shadows, I feel no resentment,

To cast a shadow there has to be light shining through,

My menacing silhouette won’t sink my spirit so low.

© K.Radhakrishnan

Some call me a philosopher and some a loner,

This heart of mine has only me as owner,

Self – denounced as one not fitting in to societal order,

I am beyond expectations and scrutiny of peers.

 

To keep my creativity fierce, I prefer isolation,

For my being the odd one out, that may be a reason,

But I am observant and absorbent of social reality,

Perfectly content I am, though a recluse I may be.

 

I love talking to breeze and love chatting with trees,

Addicted to my loneliness I am so free,

I need to wear no masks to be accepted,

Though I am hated and shunned, I never protested.

 

I don’t care my name being not mentioned in places,

Let me stay in peace away from people’s glare and gazes,

I am so different, a nerdy bookworm and a happy recluse,

I have no grudge or regret for being a lone goose.