Minds unfettered by
knowledge by knowledge
of letters roamed in realms
beyond the reach of those
who now acquire knowledge
by knowledge of letters.

Those who have
knowledge by knowledge of letters
are fettered by their own
second-hand knowledge
that gathers dust like a family heirloom
thrust upon them by those before them.

Renee Descartes' Insight

Up and down and down and up and
right and left and left and right
the fly crawled on the plane of the tile,
diagramming seemingly empty space.

Ideas are arrested in words
before they become lost
in the sea of intervening thoughts.

Solutions of elusive equations
can also be arrested in space,
before they become messier
than the problem itself.

They can be caught in dots
fixed between the space of two axes,
get a permanent address
on a line of various solutions
of the same equation.

No mathematician would ever be
lost in the blinding alley
of infinite solutions to
a simple problem.

This was the grand revelation
made to Renee Descartes
when he saw that fly crawling
up and down and down and up
and right and left and left and right
on the plane of the tile
on the ceiling of his roof
as he lay in bed.

The Think Tank Thursday #95 Wish

I wish i hadn't spurned my Lover
for she has turned me away
as if i were a lowly cur;
I am an infidel unworthy
of her indulgent affections.

I dropped her as if she were
a heavy burdensome brick
that hurt my hands,
scorned her delightful advances
went rushing to Responsibility's summons.

I turned truant just when
she chose to bestow me with
her most generous gifts:
divine flashes of inspiring grace:
ideas racing to lend themselves to poems.

And now when time is on my side
she refuses to return.
The gushing torrent of her blessings
has run dry with neglect.
I despair for deliverance from this dreary drought.

Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life!

You stand as ever
behind the latticed partition
half hidden from my view;
only your glinting eyes
and enigmatic smile
are allowed to filter through the net
like beams of sunlight entering
a dreary dismal dungeon.

Fate, distance and people
conspire in sadistic delight
to torment my restless imagination
into fevered frenzy.
Will i ever behold the whole
of your glorious frame
in my hungry gaze?

The Think Tank Thursday #91 Escape

My ego makes moving on criminal-
I'm a poet,
I'm a poet,
I'm a poet
and 'I' HAVE to BE a poet!
I can't escape being a poet
with that nagging itch to write;
for whom?

I'll be Back

My Dear Muse, 
 I'm wracked with guilt 
when i say this: 
You are a mistress 
i can ill-afford to indulge, 
a lover so demanding 
that my jealous wife, 
Responsibility, hisses that 
i should repent for 
all the time lost in 
chasing your tantalising hints.
Oh! Don't leave me, my spurned lover!
I'll be back.  

Is it wrong to long
for the key to the door of
forbidden pleasure?

The Thursday Think Tank # 83 - YES

 I know that this is a rather late response to a prompt but i took my time. I was reminded of something that my Kenyan brother, Salem Lorot had told me once. He had told me that i should respond to a prompt no matter how late i am. Thank you ndugu!
 Here's my poem-

The little girl clutched her dolly
as she took some hesitant steps
towards a bunch of girls like her.

Each child was engrossed in her own
play, feeding her fantasies in
calm solitude, drifting off deep
into her little universe.

And among those kids there was
harmonious solidarity;
they were playing with the same toys
in typical toddler fashion.

How much the little girl yearned to
be a part of their tranquil play!

But the instinctive wisdom of
her three year old antennae
deterred her from becoming the
unwelcome intruder.

Somehow she managed to muster
the courage to walk up to them;
and in her sweet soft voice she asked,
"Can i pway with ya?" The other
kid said a nonchalant 'yes'.
She grinned from ear to ear.

The Thursday Think Tank # 82 - The Road

 This poem is about a tribe called Jarawa who face the danger of extinction. This is because of the Great Andaman Trunk Road, which was built through their forest land in the 1970's. From then onwards they've faced great hardship due to widespread poaching, encroachment and commercial exploitation of their land which is of no benefit to them. To read further about what dangers they face read this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarawa_people_(Andaman_Islands)

Here's my poem:

The road cuts through their land;
their forests were cut to level it,
driving all the animals away.
Now where do they go for fruit and meat
on an island so isolated from the modern world?
Stripping off their dignity and
dancing to the tunes of corrupt intruders:
demeaning begging is what they've come to.
The scrounge of modernity hasn't left them alone.
Curse the modern world!

The Thursday Think Tank # 80 - Choices

What after tenth?
A choice between
streams of study, each
as unappealing as the other.

Just plain old
science, arts OR commerce,
as if these aspects of
the world don't work together.

Each choice in itself is
a dead end,
an overload of information
that could be chucked
out from the
dustbin of my memory.

Two painful years might
be wasted learning nothing.

If only i could learn
only that which is
useful and beautiful
in this world:
that will be all the
education i need.

Vice-Versa

It looked like trivial teasing
meant to be laughed over with friends,
something that happens all the time
among children grouped randomly
in the rooster coop that is school.

But something more unpleasant
grew out of that trivial teasing:
when teasing became bullying,
when the hitting, poking, taunting,
shoving and hair pulling got too
much to be taken like a joke.

A surge of anger rose like lava;
enough was enough: it had to
end and it had to end someday.

The pressure of anger bubbled,
swear word volcano exploded
from a mouth that had been too
silent for months, punctuated
with kicks, punches and slaps
delivered with vindictive pleasure.

Then anger receded to the
sea of emotions
like the aftermath of a furious tsunami.

But what would remain for the days
to come is tension that will keep
crackling in the classroom, making
it harder to celebrate the
significant victory
of putting a foot down.