Fabiyas M V - Poems

Fabiyas M V is a writer from Orumanayur  village in Kerala, India. He is the author of Moonlight and Solitude. His fiction and poems have appeared in Westerly, Forward Poetry, Literary The Hatchet, Rathalla Review, Off the Coast,  Structo, and in several anthologies. He won many international accolades including the Poetry Soup International Award, USA , the RSPCA Pet Poetry Prize, UK,  and Merseyside at War Poetry  Award from Liverpool  John Moores University, UK. His poems have been broadcast on the All India Radio.

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                                 Sahib’s Waiting

Sahib’s head
swings in an arm-chair
while waiting for his son.
 
              A midnight fox howls. 
              His son hasn’t returned
              yet. Disquietude deepens.
 
Dry leaves
stain adolescence
in the cannabis lit nights.
                   
                    His son washes
                    his wounds in rum. His
                   stepmother’s tongue was sharp.
 
Bell rings. As
he opens the door,
Sahib’s mind’s hinges grate.
                 
                   His son passes
                   by as an emperor
                   from a lawless kingdom.
 
His son can’t lift up
his sin streaked eyes.
Reek of liquor mutes Sahib.
 
                 Each night burns
                 until its edge. This is
                 love’s non-profit pain.                      
                
 

                    The Down-trodden Sense
 
His knowledge catches fire.
A flame, a burning ache,
Spreads from the scalp
To the sole of his mind.
 
Later, he finds that flame
Dead in his distant daughter’s
Wound. If he tells it aloud,
People will call him mad. 
 
Feelings are sometimes
Synchronized in the track
Of telepathy. His mind
Receives signals again.
 
His call surprises his
Spouse beyond the sea
The moment she muses
About him. Cells of souls
 
Merge together, sharing
The distant pangs and joys.
Mind has been linked
With extension cords.
 
It burns with the power of
Deepest love.  There’s a
Down-trodden sense, waging
Within for recognition.
 
 
                              Mango
 
It’d a bitter childhood like a girl
 in penury.
It could defend itself against the molestation
by pests.
It didn’t succumb to the
hot rays.
 
Now it’s ripe, and its chubby cheeks
so charming.
It’s a forbidden fruit, but Chami’s impulse
is vehement
as the monsoon waves leaping over
the breakwater.
 
His teeth wound its soft skin. He sucks its
sweet syrup
from its soul, and rises up to the heaven.
Slowly he
falls down into the hell of fatigue
and drowsiness.
 
Again, he repents of disobeying his
diabetologist’s advice.  

                a coolie woman’s delivery
 
digging  digging  digging
she defeats the dry sand
red dust enhances her resistance
thanks to the underground cables
and her sweat
lest our telephones won’t ring
 
he’d filled her womb with transient love                                             
and vanished behind the crowd
but she won’t let herself drown
in loneliness
 
she’s conscious
never anxious
of swelling love inside
 
this is a unique pain
like one from the depth of nature
she withdraws into the seclusion
of the bathroom
 
hearing her shriek
the local class passengers rush
to the door
her baby falls down
through the open toilet pipe
as a train gives birth
 
somebody pulls the chain
locomotive lullaby ceases
newborn baby lies safe on
the track between the right
and left rows of  wheels
 
she didn’t make it unnatural
with tonics tablets and tests
she didn’t waste thousands
during the last ten months.