MUKUND GNANADESIKAN - POEMS

Mukund Gnanadesikan lives in Napa, CA. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Bangalore Review, Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Blood and Thunder: Musings on the Art of Medicine, Cathexis Northwest, Junto Magazine, The Cape Rock, The Ibis Head Review, Tuck Magazine, Literary Yard, and Calliope. His first novel, Errors of Omission is due out in fall of 2020. When not writing, Mukund practices child and adolescent psychiatry.

Skin Deep

​Friends extol beauty of roses
An image she tries not to shatter
As her father did dinner plates
Hurling the discus of rage
At ever-flinching spouse
 
Childhood was no playground
Except for drunken fornicators
Too strong and angry for her to resist.
Avoidance of their breath remains elusive
In solitary hours of darkness
 
What alms can be proffered
To innocents like this?
Figurative hand and literal ear
Long wished for in the heart
But empty as a robin’s nest in winter.
 

​Limitation

​Unseen lariat
Ensnares my ankles
Frustrating cautious steps
Stretching in pursuit
Of invisible something
But arms are far too short
And fingers yet unlinked
And if it once was there
No trace remains
Or is there more
That far eludes
Dapper primates
And baits my eyes
With seductive Illusions
I begin to suspect
Reality is nothing
But evanescent thoughts
Blown by zephyrs
Glistening in sunrise
On dewy morning grass
 

​In my Head

​There is no comfort
To be found within
Walls of golden palaces
Long vacated by mortals
Who learned too late
The lessons of material pursuit
That end in ultimate despair.
Seek within the mind’s infinite realm
Perennial truths that bear fruit
For all future seasons:
Herein lies the trail
Most sentient beings fear treading,
Far easier to yield to basic instinct
And customary social pressure
All to the detriment
Of Homo Sapiens Sapiens
Chasing his absent tail.

​Read All About It

​One boy stabs another
Over a disputed pair of Jordans,
A grievous wound inflicted
By greed’s sharp-pointed blade.
The next page tells me
In screaming agate type
Stories of myopic Midas
Who strips forests bare
And drains the waning watershed.
Further on, captions trumpet
The false prophet’s lechery.
What clarion proclaims
New tales of hope and goodness?
Eyes and fingers search,
Probing deep inside
Finding solitary tale
Of average humans
Dirt under their nails
Bathing neighbors
In altruism’s syrup,
Welcoming the pilgrim
And his unknown story
While building arks
Of wood and spirit.
Through spectacles, hope’s
Epaulets shine through
Recycled squid-ink tabloids.

​Hateful

​When did cherubic infant
       Full of hugs and laughter
change to seeker
       of bloodlust and retribution?
 
Once you were small  and passions simple
         - an ice cream cone, baseball on TV.
But now that fervor twists into a ball,
         clenched fists and teeth fueled by malice
 
Objects of disaffection
   Molotovs and maledictions
Launched toward the youthful other

    Just as pure of heart as you once were.