Anaesthesia Poem by R.Vijayaraghavan Ramakumar

Anaesthesia

A life half spent strangely entwined
in a pattern woven in broken threads
of a hundred hues, he lies there
trapped in green linen
anxious over the compulsions popping up
defeating the wall built as many times,
gaze fixed in the colourless fluid that drips
from the pitcher of time hung above
dropp by drop, don’t rush through.

Tac tac taca taca the shuttle in the hands
of an untiring weaver; he structured the scheme;
heart-beats mimic the shuttle’s sound,
the sari woven by the maverick soul has no border
nor the essential loose-end.

Blunted it lies there as numbness;
A hazy but evidently sad and bewildered shape
is obtained to the web.
Intertwined riddles thumb their nose
at the helpless mind unable to resolve
somewhere a string pulls the lame passion.

A half an hour. May be even less
another bottle of fluid to be infused
to render senseless, to excise the troublesome part.
There is much more that the scalpel can’t reach

-2-
Actors flex their muscles in the ante room
green, autoclaved, all over, whose eyes are they?
from somewhere sound of beats crawl in: chande, maddale?
A death in procession? They grow incomprehensible
yet there remains the image; a pair of moist eyes
strain over the obscure insides.

Save from the bright light the ether in the brown bottle
carefully protected. mercury rises and dips in a micro tube.
Breath hides in the oxygen cylinder
playing with the watchful eyes.
The Pavamana suktha forgotten wishfully
comes back to mind. I know it’s not my fault
to remember it in half conscious state.
There he stands, who asked me to lay
as a baby just born.
Mahaveera has won the nakedness,
but over the walls of inner mansion passes
the shadow of a wandering thought
of a great penile arousal, a wish? a desire?
They return to the mind and torment.
At the other side of the glass, in the wish
half life remains in the wailing heart
and the moist eyes
and in me,
God, save some dreams.