silence of ancient times -poems of sree devi nair

The unworldly silence of ancient times

In poetry words explain about some planets. Communicating in different ways it demolishes established habits of the words. In Sree Devi Nair’s poems, words do break out tearing the grounds of such a forlorn planet. The poetess could communicate with some deities who sleep under the earth where we live. In those rare moments the belief that ‘I’m a woman’ motivates her to be more unique. Personal rigidity is not a burden but it reminds us that one has to surmount many heights.

Every experience points to some other experiences. Poetry is not what a poet talks to us directly. There are a lot of glimpses of some alien planets in all poems of Sree Devi Nair. There are words ready to slide away from the normal life and their meanings do seem to drag the poetess away into an unfamiliar tradition. An experience amounting to this feeling is evident in all the poems in this collection.

A penetrating silence in between the words, an emotion frantically longing for timelessness, a deep thirst for a forgotten love, an eternal sorrow that is beyond what is humanitarian… all these in Sree Devi Nair’s poems do give an earthly touch to her works.

--Bluemango Books.
Philosopher

My fate was to surrender.
Like the steps to success,
Tried in vain to count up
The steps to failure too.

While failing lamentably
I saw myself clearly.
I understood me.
Through my downfalls
I grew to a philosopher
In that way.



Elephant

The elephant, brought to the festival,
Didn’t catch musth.
There were women, men and kids
Thronged to see it going musth.

Seeing the human crowd
The elephant lost all its interest.
Thinking of the orgasm
Elephant raised its trunk
And wrote many things in the air.

The pundits did not understood a word of it.
The elephant then decided
That it’s in vain to enlighten the fools,
But listened to the beats of the drums
And cursed its own fate.


Stupidity

Yesterday’s morning was blank.
A sort of loneliness
Stood like stagnated sewage water,
In office, in house,
On road and in the shop-verandah.

There was an air
That all have gone vain.
In the void ness of the day
Tried to remember the friends.

Couldn’t get anyone.

Memories got choked heavily.

Picking up the phone book
Called a dame.
Even she was not available.

Tried to sleep, but never slept.
Changing the dress
Went straight to the theatre.
First, ‘Sivaji’ and then to ‘Panthaya Kozhi’.

Still got bored.
Due to the crowd
Came out of the hotel.

While standing by the road side
Without being hungry
Understood clearly
That life is a big stupidity.


A bird creates conflict

That bird came yesterday also.
There was something wrong
In the eyes of the bird
Whose name is not yet clear.

The bird that flew away
Came yesterday again.

When the bird comes
It flies around the Ilanji tree.
Kids enjoyed this.
They shooed away the bird.
But in the night also
Did the bird come.
Seems the bird does not sleep.
What use if it flies
Around the Ilanji tree in the night?

Men do not fly
Without any use.
The bird did not hear
The questions of men.
It just flew on and on.

Fed up, someone decided
To kill the bird.
When the trigger of the gun is pulled,
The bird disappeared.

Two days after
The bird that came again,
Was found hanging on a branch, dead,
Being electrocuted.

Sculpture

The crowd is swelling
To see the nude sculpture of a woman
That stood before
A Devadaru tree.

Is nude attractive?
Sculptor loves nakedness.
All the organs
Are made to perfection.

Sculpture doesn’t need sex.
Only the onlookers need it.
Though the sculpture longed for sex
The sculptor forbids it.

The sculptor said:
You’re only a sculpture.
Your face and boobs
And body are all for the viewers.
You need just to stand there.
Those who throng to see you
Will decide what to do.
You’re not permitted
To have coitus.

You need not open your eyes.
To kindle wild erotica
You can lean a bit, if need be.
Even if you lie flat on the ground
It doesn’t matter much.

Sculpture said:
How long does it take
To know what coitus is?

Sculptor said:
Don’t wait.
Waiting for long for it
You’ll go insane.
You don’t have any right
Over your sex-needs.
You are only a showcase-object.

To see the fire catching up on your body
The Minister and the Academy President
Are all coming.
You make them hot.

Hearing this the sculpture trembled.
Out of that shivering
A fire broke out somehow.
In that fire
The sculpture got charred.

Singer

I sang some songs.
But none heard it.
They were not meant to be heard either.
What I called songs
Were all turning into moan.

All the music did I play
Became wailings.
Yet many did call me
A singer.


Clouds

Clouds, tell me
What are your scriptures?
Where do you go
With a fire in your head
Without standing in one place?

What are you trying to tell
As you run on a mission?

Cloud, are you a mirage?
Who taught you
To shower down the dreams?

What you do pull down
Are innards or the blood of bleeding hearts?
Are you alive or dead?


Falling Down

A night is blossoming.
Jasmine buds,
And mango flowers
Prepared to bloom.
Time took shape of petals
And traveled through night.
Night didn’t bloom.
Instead, Dawn
And Daylight blossomed.
Buds have bloomed
Into flowers.
Flowers do not need buds.
They wanted to whither
And fall down.


The Fan

The fan turned on and on.
It didn’t care for the bastards
Who came under to enjoy the wind.
There’s nothing suicidal like
Caring those came to relax beneath it.

Unable to stop the rotation in between,
Body and head competed each other,
Might become a strange fate of the circling.
How funny it would be,
To turn on and on
Without longing for life,
Or seeking assets or addresses.
Yet the fan
Didn’t think of that.
The fan knew it well ahead
It would be thoughtless
To waste the time thinking things.
Fan is a strong
Icon of abandon ness.
It makes the whole truth
Of men and objects
Easily forgotten.


Pumpkin Delivers

The pumpkin
Delivered a hundred kids.
It didn’t call any name to anyone.
Neither did it advice them.
Instead, it went to a Kitchen
That prepared a feast to a marriage,
Got itself ended its life
By breaking into quarters.

The scattered offspring,
Like the discarded placenta,
Grew up seizing the chance.
Most of them
Disappeared somewhere.
Some ran on and on
Through the wild paths
As if someone would come
To save them.


Pathways

It is ecstatic
To go alone endlessly,
For the pathways.
The paths that go alone always
Gathers people by chance.
Why the loneliness for the pathways?
They stumbled upon a trick
To overcome
The meaningless loneliness.
It’s this:
To make travelers
Wayward.
Misguided travelers
Would come again through this path;
Searching for the place
From where they did come.


Soul of the soil

I am searching my ancestors in this soil.
I remember some
Who came to bore a well
Near our house.
When I heard the noise
They made while boring the earth,
I got afraid.
Memories of some
Dead bodies
Did shake me.

Someone’s picking up the bones.
Some laughed aloud
Hearing the tunes of the last rites.
Some others did
Retaliate something
In a language
That seemed gibberish.
Is it water
In such pits
Or is it the water
Of some departed soul?


The Leaves

Leaves spreading veins,
Became an art by itself.
No one seeks the hidden historical truths
In these spread out veins that can be traced.
In PhotoShop of the computer
Did some leaves appear
As if the memories of death
That left words or tools.
The banyan-tree leaves
Spread as screen saver
But said nothing about
Krishna or Gita.

Daylight

How dear are the daylights.
Is there some holy note
Sent by someone hidden in daylights?

Unexplainable music,
Crystal-like mental simplicity,
Do these daylights give?

Is this daylight
The smile of a secret of life
That is beyond the earth?
Is it the transparency
Reminds of many habitats?
This brightness makes
Yesterday’s sorrows meaningless.
Nature’s emotive profile.

The actress who left the drama

The actor who came down from the screen
Had a limp.
How clear it is
That all was fake when he laughed or cried.
Still tried to find fun in that.
He never assumed
Himself an actor
Or a character.
But, since knowing his story,
Everything was clear.
Yet he wanted to act.
He showed every act of ugliness
To prove he was not the one who lived so long.
I, who knew all his history,
Left the theatre when got bored.
I could also become
An actress who left the drama.

Computer Bird

A bird did come
Drenched in the rain.
While shaking its
Drawn-out wings,
It did look at
The computer in the room.
Nothing seemed clear first.
It came slowly near the room
And sat watching the computer image.
There was a picture then,
In the computer of a bird.
Did that bird understand that picture?
No. How could it?
The picture was taken
When it came yesterday
To peck the rice grains.
While flying away
That bird laughed aloud.
But I never understood
The meaning of that laughter.