The Lone Petrel
Thiruvananthapuram, 2019
The silence is what remains now.
Everything’s the opposite,
the resonance of everyday chatter,
a lone petrel thrown off-flight
by the absence of magnetic poles.
The petrel walks
the faith of saintly Peter,
sometimes we must forget we once flew,
and skim the water, keep hope afloat
that love never perishes in a storm.
You know I won’t seek you again;
love is greater than you,
you took everything —
lightning, salt, the powering wind.
Now that I walk the waters,
I know I’ll live despite you.
(2924)
In the Hills
Ponmudi, 1995
Lords of whoop—
head spun by diesel,
roads coiling.
The psychedelia weans;
lure of the city,
gone cold as death.
The nip sweeps in,
gears howl,
clawing up highlands.
Forget the plains,
gorge on the clouds,
let the skin split.
Pull the feathers out,
flee earth’s gravity.
(2034)
10YearChallenge
Thiruvananthapuram, 2019
And when we have gazed enough,
(this self of ours a decade younger)
and wonder if a strange algorithm
has been at work, preserving you and me,
but growing in unimaginable ways,
making love and seldom unloving,
the pink of our cheeks growing rich,
and waning, the animal within colder,
consider ourselves wiser or not,
that this might be life’s attempt again
to find attention, to rejoice in who we are,
or maybe just observe
the passing of irrevocable time.
(2033)
Things You Believe
Thiruvananthapuram, 2018
I had begun to think this is way past over.
But like a comet you cut short my sleep.
I am floundering, down to size, a slow wake of dust
hitching the rhythm of elements.
The whelming waters have climbed
through the night. I taste only brine. Such things
I don’t see coming; how else have I let myself
believe I breathe when I am drowning.
The border has been crossed: a new air, a new tongue.
But I don’t remember the name of this place.
What strikes me—I have sought refuge in
a town unknown, full of faces I have known.
Be warned, wait not for night; it’s anyways here.
In this now, stay; tell me this is indeed light—
how convincingly you told me so every time.
Love, you lying ball of light, hurtling somewhere,
leaving a tail of debris.
(2028)
To That Tender Light
Thiruvananthapuram, 2018
How heavy lies this head, looking at you in the darkness.
A pale glint of light from nowhere, iris-shaped,
tells me you are awake.
Reading this darkness is heavier, I wish there was a shape
I could recognise. How much I yearn
for that familiar landscape, the easy spell of loving you.
The weather comes and goes, winters and summer,
in a short heave of breath. There should be tears,
there should be crying, but that won’t come so easily.
The need for answers is tell-tale, the wisdom of years
reveals what I feel and must do. But in this bardo, there
is only the knowing that I am arrested,
this brokenness the only familiar thing. In what I make
from shadows shape-shifting, your pale face is the last straw,
and anything I recognise is my polestar.
I do see the glint in your eyes, but I also see the sea
of still water between us, patiently opening
its ears to what can’t be heard any longer.
(2026)
Soni Somarajan is a poet, copywriter, and content consultant. His poetry and writing have featured in anthologies, magazines, and newspapers including Muse India, North East Review, Kitaab, Bangalore Review, New Indian Express, Marie Claire, and The Four Quarters Magazine. He attended The University of Iowa’s IWP Advanced Poetry Seminar course in 2013.
His debut collection of poetry, First Contact, is slated to be published in 2020. He lives in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He is also the Creative Head at The Quarantine Train, a poetry workshop initiated and curated by Arjun Rajendran.
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