Memories That Linger Poem by Raj Arumugam

Memories That Linger



These are not nightmares, painful thoughts
not complexes or deprivations or phobias
but just memories that linger
in the recesses and folds
and they weasel in and out
and hop across the red plains of the mind
filling a void, recreating what happened
in another world till something parallel and more passionate
happens here in this.
They have their own existences and will breathe and live
and play out their lives in their own time
and at their own leisure.
They do things in here;
they wage war
and they entertain themselves
and make me
dream of a few friends still in other quarters
how we sat down together in the warmth of the sun
for coffee or tea, and they sit there mouthing
words and making me in that life utter words I never did;
they conjure a particular road junction or a
building that loomed over it pondering over
the meaning of tarmac and concrete.
There is a tree that stands in conversation
with a fruit and children sit in the shade.

The memories linger and play out their own lives.




(from The Migrant - notes of a newcomer (February 1997- July 1998))

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