We Are Nudes Of Reality! Poem by sundaram chandrakalaadhar

We Are Nudes Of Reality!
[This poem is a monologue from one of the four toiling labourers of the statue of labour, the only wonderful piece of art on stone among the plenty of lifeless statues that dot the famous marina beach of chennai, on a hot day when i stood saluting these
three-quarter naked labourers giving there all to shift a huge rock]
********************

This is not the eyes' restful closure in sweet dreams-
But these are the tightly pressed eyelids
By the trampling of the hooves of reality
In their furious dance on our lives!

Dreams..?
How would they be..?

We-
The nudes of realities.!

Look...!
These sliding jewelleries of sweat
Are the salty juices wrung hard by realities!

These our bulging and tightly strung nerve clusters
Weave themselves into the mighty ropes
To just jerk and displace the daily chariot of our lives!

For the weariness of the sun
Climbing up the steep skies
Our huge sighs are the cooling fans!

In the hoarse shouts of 'ho! ', huh! ', 'hay! 's
From our intense work fields
All our dream birds vanish timidly!

We displace deftly huge rocks and heavy loads!
Yet know not to shift our days skilfully
Nor know any of the tricks to drag our future to us;
Hence land ourselves in abject poverty!

We too laugh at times!
Yes..in dejection..in distress..jokingly also!

Yes-
When 'creased dresses' which do not know 'sweat'
Carrying many mighty 'shields' of 'law'
Crowding in front of the 'shadow' of 'office forts'
Firing flaming salvos, 'we labourers unite! '
From the cannons of their red-hot mouths
And try to tear and bleed the skies into red-
We too laugh derisively at such comic moments!

All the statues that thickly dot the roads-
At their appointed days
Would drown and suffocate
In mountains of garlands!
The false leaderships that cheat the gullible
Would enact the drama of worship
In hypocritical silence or glorious speeches! .

Those who inject life into the dumb statues
Treat this our statue full of life
Simply as a lifeless rock piece!

See this painful injustice!
Drive away these criminal masks!

-S.Chandra Kalaadhar