Jagannath rao Adukuri

We looked for her in a revived memory
In the greenness of the memorial forest.
A young mango tree flourishes for her
In the vast dome of the academy’s sky.
...

When your eyes go astray and balled
No thumping on the chest revives music
Distant listening and hair in a close mat
An electric shock here, needle piercing there
...

We tried hard not to dream
While awake and in sleep
We leaned against the parapet
The shadows seemed to tease;
...

A nerd bitten by the charity bug,
Spoke of slum children’s education
And shining darkness in their eyes.
In the shanties, the water flows
...

The night's wakefulness came across the starlit sky
Over the dark cluster of mangoes and the court wall
With loud cymbals and scraps of movie songs
After lanterns started flickering with halos of moths.
...

This season our backyard coconuts
Hid it under their swinging fronds
Behind our asbestos-sheeted shack,
Its presence marked by the pale shadow
...

Right now, in the room next, she seems to say something
At times as I lift my eyelids she appears in vision's periphery
As an incandescent presence in the diaphanous daylight.
At midnight I see a tiny lip movement as the train hoots
...

On the river bed three holy rivers meet
Two of them are in the minds of people
The third is a streak of undammed water
The holy men and shop people celebrate
...

My figures are shadowy, squatting
On the river bank with halos intact.
They lost their identity, however
In the prevailing spatial situation.
...

My spectacles are on the corner table;
There lay fine muslins and stitched textiles
Woven with delicate patterns, their craftsmen
Lived in mud-houses and their eyes failed
...

On the mother’s knee, you got slapped
With alternate palms, warm with coal-fire.
Then the cradle went up by the mother's hand
You closed eyes to the world beyond cloth
...

It was in dreams he broke vows of silence
And flew, full of love, into the blue sky
Like a colored balloon with a hanging fate.
In his dreams words quickly became things
...

The angel in the red had taken my bag
My body arrived all in a piece as a guest
In the sky- land of a liquor comeuppance
As the red bird had flown low and high
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These are unknown quantities;
they sit still in shadows and evenings.
sometimes they crouch expectantly
waiting to be reality-copied
...

I keep writing my sticky notes
Small talk is all that takes place
Some black jokes, some witticisms
Rainbowy memories, bellyache
...

All those are quintessentially
Protein specs floating freely
Our words float like protein
Fondly called lewy bodies
...

The poet did not read much poetry
In the river which had water only once.
The river that had carried away
A pregnant woman carrying twins
...

Afraid of the seething world within
I took pictures of my pulsing bagpipe
A white ghost with a tail in his neck
Watched the geometry of my heart
...

The rain beat the lake, in rising shrapnel
A girl hid there under the rain shelter
In the eye –shadows of the afraid lover-
He that was afraid of the lens’ blinding light.
...

I had to write the poem when the sky was fresh
In the twilight the mystery deepened and frogs
Croaked when they came out for a while to die
The next day the frog carcasses squished under
...