(Poetry)
These poems drift through lit chambers of wakefulness, dreaming of error, darkness, and the old, broken mercy of sleep.Pablo Neruda)
Artifice
The photo editor
corrected your
slightly
lopsided smirk.
l And yet—
I’m the one
who clicked
“approve
changes”. (Poetry)
Also Read: Firefly or Minuku Hulu by ManjuNayak Challuru
Surveillance
I see you
through the lens.
You don’t see me.
I know your name,
your pauses,
what you almost say.
You don’t know me—
only
that the screen
is always
awake. (Poetry)
Also Read: At the Altar of the Sea
Puppetry
I have hatred
cold-pressed
and algorithm-approved
for breakfast.
I crunch
bias granules
personally recommended
by unseen shepherds
for lunch.
I gulp
deepfake elixirs
distilled from the marrow
of communal paranoia,
the aftertaste—
carbon fiber dread.
While I sleep,
I spar with phantoms
printed in neural ink,
and wake
trigger-ready,
screaming war cries
someone else composed.
Also Read: The Bus Stop at Kandanassery and Other Poems
Digitized
Words
perfectly formed,
disembodied
tapped
back and forth-
spell-checked,
grammar-corrected.
None crossed out,
none illegible,
none tear-smudged,
none
alive. (Poetry)
Uncrystalized
The voluble screen
spews
today’s highlights…
Barrage of pings.
Instant memories;
yesterday’s detritus.
Deletion.
Instant oblivion.
Words,images
rarefied,
flow,
before they are fully formed-
uncrystalized,
unembraced by
the heat of longing,
the stillness of waiting…
Also Read: Song of the Autumn Goddess
Candle
You melt
drip
by
drip
when you burn…
And in your
erasure,
fulfilment
learn.
Each breath
of flame
consumes
your certainty…
You vanish
slowly—
yet only
as you
are undone
do you glow.
You burn
not
to comply
with darkness,
but to prove
its limits.
You melt—
yes,
drip
by stubborn drip,
yet every drop
remembers
the flame
that you fought.
And kept alive.
Erasure
is the tax
you pay
for illumination.
But for one
brief,
blazing
moment—
you make
night
doubt
itself.
Waiting –
Through my windowpane,
polished into invisibility,
I used to watch
indolent cumulus
nudged into a somnolent glide
across the blue infinite.
I used to watch
runaway offshore gusts
ruffle the foliage
of the distant coconut trees
that fringe the turquoise coastline—
all through that pane,
solid
in its transparency.
I would watch
the sky’s smile
curl into a scowl,
then swell
into a burgeoning grimace…and then
the storm’s rampage—muffled,
sanitized
by the wall
that insulates
but never blinds.
But lately
I’ve noticed a crack
spidering outward—
with every careless closing,
every sudden slam—
and
while
contemplating
that splintered landscape
it now frames,
I wonder why
I’ve been sitting
on the thought of replacing it
for so long.
What
am I waiting for?
Photos Generated by AI (Poetry)
A wanderer in words and wilderness, Koushik writes and translates to see the world — and himself — with mindful clarity.
