Shy Young Poets

During the past few months, I have been approached by innumerable young poets and writers- a truly motley crowd if there ever was one, some in their shaky adolescence, some in their stoic late middle-age, some overworked IT geeks, some underworked housewives with endless hours of ennui stretching in fron like untraveled highways, some traumatized by their 'roaring' hormones and enzymes that adolescence dumps on one, some oozing fatherly advice and yet harbouring poetic ambitions, some brushing up attic-hidden poetry and some spurting fresh poetry like geysers.

Those who have come close to me during a lifetime have frequently been puzzled by my lack of competitive spirit... I often abandon a game of chess with my wife and oh boy how it riles her. To me it means nothing, neither the win nor the loss. Dropping out of an adrenaline-pumping race for no obvious reason, is a thing I have done frequently. Not only this, but many times I have groomed a promising new technologist in my own specialized field to give him a position of higher level than myself... or handed over a running business. Suicidal ideas, some feel. Bombay-bred folks would think this is tantamount to saving a rupee by rupee and then throwing it all to the winds. Material world and the metaphysical world run like parallel train-tacks.

What intersts me much more is the intellectual rewards of helping someone achieve a goal... for hundreds of my own goals have been screwed up hopelessly by many a night-raiders, workshirkers, quick-buck schemers, shortsighted politicians and frequently by peers who love to act like the Indian crabs : their great thrill being pulling me down as I rose away from them to the freedom outside the box. Being recognised abroad, brings some solace at times, because the crabs then clam up. This really hurts my Indian ego !

Caferati has brought me such half-baked fear-ridden clammed-up poets and writers who used to go pssssttt from their closets and nothing more. Now many have become bold and brash, and oh boy o boy, does that lift my sagging spirits ! May your tribe increase, these shy lurkers who gingerly put a toe in the board and then with my help, riding me piggyback, unfurl their peacock like finery in the blog. I'm having a ball !

Here then is another lurker who wants her poem to be test-driven through my blogspace without disclosing her identity.

She writes :-

Why am i here
What made me walk this mile
what made me give, into that smile.

Love lives on moments
Life is on love
Hope lives in me
and me.... unknown


Is love so difficult to handle
or is my heart too stern
seething emotions trapped in me
yet i cannot let them flow

thoughts wander to unknown fantasies
and fantasies are untrue.
Will love be the same,
or will, love be the door to my trapped emotions

I have love to show, but i fear it being seen
I have joy to share, but fear it being known
have a heart thats Hurt,and yet to heal.
have lost myself

I need to find me

I call myself the sea, 'coz
I see it calm.
And underneath it i see a different world.

I call myself the sky as it's covered with stars
And underneath those twinkles are dark clouds.
With feelings trapped, and mind to follow.
How do i call my self different,
when i know what's in me.

I used to love
smelling nature as nature was full of love...
Now Nature smells Foul....

(Incomplete)


This to my mind is a rather rambling piece of writing, that hisses, swishes, splutters, throbs and flaps about and even bursts now and then.

A lot of raw energy one feels pulsating through it -and though the technique leaves much to be improved upon, the disjointed thoughts make the poem seem a bit long too.

Erudite readers would do well to make their invaluable comments. May be that could draw her out -she badly needs to be tugged at, so that the process of extrication could begin !

cheers!