I sit in class

With my eyes half closed,

With exhaustion that lasts hours,

And waiting to fall asleep.

Voices and sounds,

Here there and everywhere,

Of people doing their rounds

And of birds chirping away.

The teacher keeps talking,

I finally fall asleep.

On a lonely beach I walk

Wondering what I’ll face.

The breeze blows through my hair.

The air smells salty.

The sea looks calm.

There’s a ship I see sailing.

I can hear people shouting.

There seems to be chaos.

And suddenly the bell rings

And I wake up startled.

I Bubblegum

I pondered over what I was going to face

In this bubblegum life that seemed like a race

I came in a beautiful little case

With my fellow brothers

Worried about the pace

At which we were running our race.

I knew one from my brotherhood

Who smiled as much as he could

And gave me courage like no one would

Till one day

All that remained of him as I could

Have imagined, was him, lying dead like a shapeless mould.

A shapeless mould of lifeless bubblegum

Without the juice that made humans hum

In satisfaction; the luckless gum

Who was stretched

Like the membrane of a drum

And looked fragile like the skin of a plum.

I now accept my fate

Short-lived as I will be. My date

With the commotion and brouhaha in a plate;

In the dingy place of torment

Where the death of my mate

My brother, troubles me till date.

Tanvee Ravi: That Beautiful One from my class

Dance is in her veins

Her expressions bring the rains.

She brings joy to one’s face.

And to share one’s feelings with her,

There’s always a race.

Her voice is tender

And warm as a sweater.

She sings like a bird

So melodious and sweet;

That loves to be heard.

To get that ball in the ring,

She jumps like a spring.

Lively as she is,

Who’s her favorite superhero?

Captain Planet it is.

Bells of another kind

Bells of another kind

Bells on the road

A musical mystery in my mind

Just waiting to explode.

Memories of places near and far

Does the melody bring back.

And the journey so far

Makes me wonder what I lack.

That Mysterious Someone

I never told anyone,

Of that mysterious someone

Who always held a gun,

And killed for fun.

He made a lot of money

And always spent in plenty.

His charm attracted me to him.

Little did I know I’d be cheated by him.

I was shattered, I was down;

I felt so lost, I wanted to drown

In my own sorrow

That nobody was able to follow.

Old Mr. Ripley

He remembered the books of poetry upon his shelves at home. He had bought them during his bachelor days and many an evening, as he sat in the little room off the hall, he had been tempted to take one down from the bookshelf and read out something to his wife, but had always held himself back; and so the books had remained on their shelves. At times, he repeated lines to himself and this consoled him.

He had met his wife ,Jane, on the streets of Phoenix in the summer of 1935. He fell for her the very instant he had introduced himself to her as John Ripley. They got married in the summer of 1939 in a simple ceremony at the church he always went to. He loved poetry right from his days as a boy. She loved her husband deeply but she never listened when he read his books of poetry aloud.

After he lost his beloved Jane in that tragic road accident 20 years ago, he mostly kept to himself; he never spoke to people much; he had gone into this shell and refused to break out to a new beginning. He only kept to his books of poetry which gave him solace and connected him to his late wife, for he had loved her wholeheartedly.

Now, the only other human he tried his best to bond with, was Andrea, his 23-year-old neighbour who took care of him ever since she moved into the town of Phoenix 2 months ago. She would visit him everyday after attending college and listen to him repeat his lines of poetry from his books. She tried her level best to bring books of poetry that she thought he hadn’t read to her, for she was also working part time at a bookstore during the weekends.

But every time he spoke to her, it was just for a very short while; for he had gotten into a depression. Until one day, he entered such a stage that he needed medical attention. He had gone beyond Andrea’s control. He lived in an institution for old people till he died in sleep, dreaming of his wife. Maybe the time had come for him to join her again after all these years, for he had missed her greatly.

We didn’t start the fire

The sky was red;

Everything looked dead.

There was smoke in the air;

That’d choke you till you aren’t there.

The streets were burning,

And Mother Earth was fuming

With anger and frustration.

They destroyed in a hurry,

Not realizing they’d go hungry.

They killed everybody,

Until they’d have nobody.

What happened to them? I wondered.

Who started the fire? I wondered.

“We didn’t start the fire” was all they said.