Empty spaces

The days are full, filled with empty spaces
Empty mornings, afternoons, evenings, and nights
And empty nights
The coffee steaming from
The endless cups I sip
Mingles with my breath
I breathe it in and out
Each breath fudging the bitterness
Of every sip
The words I pour, The pieces
Of my heart I throw
Into those empty spaces
Are just not enough, Just not enough

You stay hidden behind opaque curtains
I pronounce each name you call yourself
In these empty spaces of
Mornings, afternoons, evenings, nights -
And as these years slip by
It gets more and more apparent
Perhaps the time just isn't right
Perhaps it never has been right
Perhaps it will never be right

The gift I've been given remains
Hidden in its hard cardboard package
Perhaps it's just a sublime illusion
Of something that never was meant to be
And in this limbo I scatter my empty spaces

Within this state of silent despair
I chatter, I make small talk
With anyone who happens by
In the vicinity of my empty spaces
I make believe, I tell them stories
That my days are full, fulfilled
All the time wondering, wondering
If you even care

And I stay within my empty spaces
Watching all the wasted hours
Being abandoned one by one
Wondering, Wondering
Every second, Every minute
Will these empty spaces
Ever be filled, With You?

unforgiving pasts

but the rains

that sprayed verdant beads

in a past season

have left marks

dried furrows gouged

in once green fields – now arid

where hot winds

blow sour breaths

and sear the scars

-- unhealed unfilled --

and eyes that once

saw the moon even through

the glare of neon lights

are now blinded -- stranded

like a child’s toys

discarded

lost in the parched dust

of unforgiving pasts

The other side of silence

Illuminated by the naked tubelight

oblique rays from the false ceiling

casting artificial moonlight

through translucent curtains

into the dark canopy

under which she sits

listening to distant voices

in her world of silences

lilting undulating

in the heat-soaked night



The soft cling of finger-trails in the overgrowth



The coiling quiet of leaves listless



A bird calling -- incessantly



Dry soil’s sinuous crunch



The trees suddenly stirring with behemoth voice



Her eyes follow the

hidden eyes

slinking through

her purple tranquillity

on the other side of silences

The Songbird

The Songbird



The songbird cries

Freedom is my thrill, my joy

I leave my histories behind

With every thrust of my beating wings

I lift my eyes up, burst through the treetops

I seek my tomorrows

Skywards, My abode is beyond the rain-clouds

Beyond the tossing winds, I know

Of silver linings, I learn

Of silences and stillness and

Eternities -

I am as light as the air where I fly

As bright as the light that shines

Over me


Will you listen to my songs?

Can you hear my calls?

Pieces of my heart

It was a little too mundane, even plebeian

One could say

The cleaver’s hacking of the deadened joint

A commonplace enough event

In any roadside butcher’s shop.


One hardly smelt the blood spattered

Threadbare face he wore

As he struck with insensate swoops.

One barely registered the entrails and the gizzard

And pieces of a heart, still throbbing

Lying in clumped lumps – lesser meat for lesser folk.



I must hurry out in the clean sunshine

Dip my eyes in the burning glare

Up to the roots of my burning toes

Still that throbbing in those

Pieces of my heart.



I will seek my reimbursement where the peepal leaves shudder

In the cloud-winds that whip the grasses of boulder strewn hills

That purple my horizon.

I will walk. I will watch. I will sometimes even touch.



But never to feel. Never to feel. The need

That feeds like blind gastropods that worm up from the sodden earth.

The sodden earth where I lie buried. Hair, teeth and limbs.

And of course those pieces of my heart

Still throbbing, but only just. But only just.



I must hurry out in the clean sunshine

Dip my eyes in the burning glare

Up to the roots of my burning toes

Still the throbbing in those

Pieces of my heart.


by Rita Putatunda

Seeking the other half of me

Caged I am within myself
Things I dream of
Have been left just dreams
Life goes by, each end of day
Brings a little death of my dreams
Sometimes it feels
As if I am cursed
For I can't find
The other half of me

It's all karma, some people say
Fate has passed its life sentence
I must be this incomplete
Half of me, caged within me
And yet, each morning
I spin my dreams anew
Willing the sun to kiss each
Rainbow strand, tenderly, lovingly -
Hope never dies, some people say

Of my caged dreams
Perhaps there will never be release
But wherever I go
Around each blind bend
I expect to find
The other half of me
Hope never dies, some people say

Rita Putatunda

Losing weight and feeling strong..yet, restless

I've been up since 3, as has become usual here.. Done my yoga and pranayama.. Sipping tea now with   Ma while watching the sky lighten up..will go for my walk at 6, as I usually do here.. The steep inclines in the terrain here gives me such a good workout that I am losing all that fat I had accumulated..so am feeling strong and lean.. Strangely, though I exercised equally hard in Seattle my weight loss was much slower.. Nandi thinks it's because of the daily evening wine we used to have there.. Alcohol does inhibit weight loss.. Here, since it's so hot, I don't feel like drinking any alcoholic stuff at all.. Seattle, being so cold, one felt the need of the warmth alcohol provides.

Though I'm feeling physically healthy and strong, I am feeling strangely restless... Pessimistic.. Alone..