Sreekala Sivasankaran

The squirrel came today
Separated from the mother

Half dead in the hands of the playing cats
...

Can you see Ma standing on the balcony?

I can see her standing on the balcony
Against the backdrop of the Warli landscape of the bedsheet
...

Single Woman Poet

What do you do?
I write poems
...

New Year Toast*


The toast I promised
...

Words...
Just a few alphabets
The same old building blocks
Handful of raw materials
...

Poem can bloom

Madness of society
Tore into pieces
...

They were trying to define beauty
Truth, justice, strength
In all fairness and darkness
Let it be so
...

Nothing is there
Just nothingness
No matter what we do
We see the same old torn pieces of clothes
...

Rain-washed earth
Still smelling like death
The flesh of moving animals
Not moving anywhere
...

Deserts are rising
Dryness, nausea, fatigue
Here's where we dumped
Our words yesterday
...

What can I write from the mental hospital?
The pills swallowed three times a day?
Disciplinary orders made of boundaries and discretions?
The Ashoka tree still standing green in sight?
...

Masada mountain --
The miniature sculpture
I made of clay yesterday
Sits like an elephant this morning
...

The whirlwind that surrounded me
must've reached you
I feared
Unspeakable sorrow dawned on me
...