Men Of Barren Hills Poem by KATOCH P C K PREM

Men of Barren Hills

Struggle of a man to catch words
and lazy crooked feelings
with heart beatings without meaning
lost forever in registers
without existence,
words clamour to pierce ears
with pale heads nailed down
to graves of life in death and silence.

It is moaning and living sterilized
among the skinless marble statue
and gods sitting with eyes closed,
damned, and fighting for existence
with a palm full of prayers
and a few ablutions to purify mortals,
in a bloody whirlpool
of temples and religious yajnas
without foundations.

With venomous darts these injure
and transcend thoughts jumbled up
in statues mumbling and cold
dumped in irretrievable anonymity.

Here sermons transform to fluid dead
and uteri boil to throw it out
to cancel probable new arrivals.

A scene opens up men change
into treeless rocky hills
and tall deodars are infertile,
to give birth to clouds
for thick forests are ancient
like old bodies stretching on
to a crowd of cats in the backyards,
with horde of beetles and worms
away from the young razzmatazz
deafening and blink in absolute terms,
searching roots in rocks of granite
or under the wreckage of walls.

Words unfazed, unflustered
evaluate strength from the ink
sprinkled on papers,
making emotions dry and frozen
tears erratically flow out of words
of great epics and authors,
sitting with eyes closed and thumbs
in the mouths to avoid obloquy
beggars inflict asking for alms.

Life's juices are soaked, or evaporated
in the vast desert
where trees dissolve and disappear
in the deep gorges of rocks,
making words harsh and bitter
rains do not fall on time
as clouds are faithless may be barren.

In the islands of towering egos
worker's eyes are filled with water
on the barrenness of denuded forests
still throb with words in plenty,
and find a foothold of life
with receding of each moment
in long lost eternity.

On entering an uncertain temple
shaking bells; with folded hands
to awake Gods with continual prayers
to wish for a Kalki, an avatar of Vishnu,
with a horde of questions earthly
pulling swords out of rusty sheathes
to wound prayers and Gods
for not properly answering calls.

Suddenly praying bleeds silently
and drops of meanings trivial
drown in torrential flow of blood
where shaking men falter and collapse,
with loud stammers
on questioning the existence.

As constitution of words is empty
men dig and redefine a new path
and drive away phantoms of words
in shabby crowds via assembly,
up to a chaotic parliament
with a loud crying demand
find not meanings of words uttered,
in the crowds, in deep sea
the men's existence is in peril
stopping cacophony in the house
Gods should explain,
walk outs, zero hours and adjournments
and epilogues of uncertain prorogues.

In the new century, men are old
sans memory,
measure strength through aging trees
like words of consonants without vowels
search identities and names,
the ink stops replying.

It is a challenge to men
to find meanings of words
imparting substance, defying analysis.

Thus, the jungles sleep in fire
with brilliance dazzling
imagining another birth.
Before the dawn of another day
and I know
mornings are imminent,
bringing intimacy in love
charm in words and breathings,
with rays flying about around men
throwing light and hope unquenched
after a prolonged wait.

It is vagueness of words
of voices and noises words make,
as years slide away in depths
of horizons invisible

Men dream of legends
on the wings of smiles.

Singing beauty of humming bees
an exquisitely a fine optimism
of dreams in wild storms
to reach a luminous life of joy.
(Rainbow at Sixty 2008)