A Prayer

O Mother, O Deity

The Giver, The Destroyer, The Resurrector

Forsake me not – The serpent is

Wound up in coils of calamity.

It has become a black hole,

It swallows up everything whole.

Then I learn of your carelessness,

And your sacred fixations,

And I am forced to adore you.

Your splendor shows its supreme grace

In your vacant face.

And daylight wraps you in a

Golden thrall of benevolence

As an endowment from a dark Universe.

Diminutive, falling to bits and pieces, I am

In your splendid presence.

I offer you these broken remnants of me

Which were once whole.

Though I know, to you it makes no difference.

My only prayer, which I intone to you

In the stillness of my heart

Is to keep me in some corner

Of your clay heart. Do not

Disappear into your forbidden abode,

Disintegrate into clods of earth.

Leaving me without a single illusion

To light my soul.

-by Rita Putatunda

Heartbeat from a Padlocked Cell

She stays within her padlocked cell. Sometimes she peers out with barred eyes and is tempted by the light and breeze. The bird song is sweet. She wants to fling herself into the blaze of the burning sun. She remembers she’s a grain of sand. A particle, worn thin, worn frayed, with time and indifference. Stay within yourself or you will burn and die. Turn into black dust. Wear your painted face, bedeck your scream with flowery words. Hoodwink the sky. Bow your head in obeisance to Life, or any God. Who will squash your genuflection with a stony stare. And yet, the cobwebs tangle insistently with an odd sentimental  tenderness to some archaic ache. And, though the rust is spread along the heart’s edges, it thumps insistently, unlock me. But, be careful, my heartbeat may be fractured, like the fault lines of the earth’s crust.

Evening shadows

Evening shadows

The sun is dipping

The day is dying before my eyes

Fading light, soon the sky

So vast, so blue

Like a crayon drawing

In a child's hand

Will fill with great gashes

Of orange, red, mauve

And then the ink blue of night

Will obliterate all -

Of course, it wasn’t meant

To last forever

But in my memory

It will be

want can't won't want

i would if you could want
you want even if you won't want
how can i if you can't want
you won't even if you can want
can't won't if won't can't want
i could if i would want want
you can't even if you want want
how can't i if you can want
you won't even if you can want
won't can't if can't won't want
want won't if won't can't want
want can't won't want want

Paper Poem

O, yes, I know, I’m just a piece of paper

Bereft I am of the pulse

Of feeling, thought, pangs of pain

Or, so you say, my friend

But, O my friend, before belittling me

So heartlessly, Do not forget

What I once was –

Once I was

A tree standing tall

My branches, home to nesting birds

Kissed the moon and the stars

My leaves glittered emerald

And my blooms spattered bright colours

In forests and streets and pretty vases

Once sap ran green in my veins

My roots grew deep, drank life

From the womb of Mother Earth

But, Alas! O friend, One day they came

And cut me down with cruel saw blades

They trampled me, crushed me

Killed my leaves, killed my blooms

Dried my sap, And turned me into

Blank paper –

O, many are my uses, my friend

I am now wrapping on your food

Boxes to store your things

Tissue to wipe your dirt, sometimes tears

Newspapers, books, roadmaps

Think about it, O friend

How many are my uses!

And sometimes, O friend

You use me to write

Of your heart’s longing

With your pen flowing

With your heart’s blood

Sometimes you strew flowers

In the words you pen

On my blank heart

Sometimes you drench it with tears

And after all that, O friend

Whether wrapping, newspaper, roadmap

Or a page of poetry – you crumple me

Trample me, crush me, belittle me

And throw me with the other rubbish

In your garbage bin!

O yes, I know, I’m just a piece of paper

But forget not, O friend

It is on my heart

That you write of your heart!

-by Rita Putatunda

Unseen, Unread, Unspoken

Clouds gather, only to dissolve

Raindrops form, only to evaporate

A new leaf is born, an old leaf lies dead

On the ground

The earth, moist, is getting drunk

On monsoon cloudbursts

But, soon, its heart will split, crack, parched

For a rain long gone

And the trees will stand alone, listless

Their leaves will rustle, restless

As they yellow and fall, one by one

And birdsong will fade away

Into some lost distance

And the sky, the earth, the moon

Will be filled with the silence

Of dead things

And the stars will go blind

And the sightless night will be engulfed

In darkness, everlasting

And on the shores

Of the edges of life

Oceans and seas will be voiceless

On their sands, on stony rocks

On lifeless barks of trees

On the broken walls of empty ruins

 Poems which had been written

By some unknown hand

Will remain, forever

Unseen, unread, unspoken

-by Rita Putatunda