RAJNISH MISHRA - POEMS

Rajnish Mishra is a poet, writer, translator and blogger born and brought up in Varanasi, India. He is the editor of PPP Ezine, a poetry ezine. He has three blogs: one on his city < https:/rajnishmishravns.wordpress.com>, the other on poetry, poetics and aesthetic pleasure < https:/poetrypoeticspleasure.wordpress.com>, and another of PPP Ezine < https:/poetrypoeticspleasureezine.wordpress.com>. 

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                                 The Angry Driver
 

He presses pedals, rushes fast,
Drives impatiently,
Angrily past plastic, glass and metal.
Cuts through slow, slimy snails,
driver’s bane,
switches lanes,
swerves, then goes slow
and blocks their lane
For revenge.
He drives
with geometric precision,
with a drive to drive,
eyes of tiger,
half-a-smile.
Lingering fingers or eyes
on screen, not his way,
his style is simple,
not a moment extra
 spent on road.
Rage erupts when he outdrives,
with a war to wage
every moment.
How could he, she, or they,
delay him for a second?
Mon semblable, mon frère?
You know him.
Don’t you?
 

 
                               Apologia pro vita mea
 

I don’t remember exactly
what happened that evening.
She wanted her minute,
hour or year of fame,
she told me loudly.
.I tried to reason,
with a woman,
and failed.
 
She kept pestering;
my resistance broke.
I may have slapped her,
not more than once;
lightly, tangentially,
I don’t remember clearly now,
but I sure know how
to restrain myself.
 
I stayed awake, beside her,
seven inches away,
separated by a wall,
listening to her eerie sobs
through that long night.
I apologized the next morning,
even made her an omelette and coffee.
She said nothing.
Her words were drained
with her tears maybe.
She did not respond,
I left for work, looking at her
for the last time,
although I didn’t know it then,
.
In the evening,
I returned with two tickets
of Life is Beautiful,
and a resolve
to be more patient with her,
always,
no matter what.
 
I just can’t fathom even today,
why she left forever!
 

 
                                              Cocoon
 
 
My thoughts run. They run to hide in your protective lap, to lie there, to sleep, carelessly. For death can’t reach there, you’ve told me with your reassuring eyes. Your eyes are brown, the shade, I never had courage to stay and stare. They’re bewitching, unnerving, beautiful. I hardened the cyst but  the soft core of truth,  of weakness; remained. You’ve told me that the fear of loss –  of life, of love; is true. You’ve told me to rest while you weave round me a cocoon.
 
 
 
                                  Alive not Immortal
 
 
Alive not immortal am I, not me. I live, I know, in the end to die.  I’ve heard and read gods weep and bleed, like us they live, they love and die. I bleed and weep and live and die. Yet I’m no god. Not good enough, am I? I’m tired, not dead, not I, not yet, of feeling like one, not being a god. Myself should I push into myths ever new, and get reborn. Let my mind, the Father, beget its son – The god that’s me.
 
 
 
                                   My City and Yours
 
​
Ghats, narrow lanes, sand,
temples, river:
images that flash,
in all presentations
consistently, close to “always”;
combinations of all or some of them
present ever in images of my city,
the city of light, of life, eternal.
No I’ll not name it.
My city, is your city, and theirs.
My city is stuck with what it’s given.
My city as shown, as true, as real,
yes it is all,
and not.
The spirit, the life,
the transience, the sorrows,
the joys, the filth of flowers,
and all that’s seen or not, at all hours,
For the world to see, is my city simplified,
palatable, presentable, made easy.
Multifaceted? Never.
Simply, ‘city for dummies’.