As Cecile Oumhani and I join the editorial team of Caesurae Column, we present to you Akila G's exquisite poetry. Through the pandemic as our theme stands to be: resilience, Akila, through her poems, uses metaphors to caricature the metaphysics of existence, as she stretches epiphanies on short and long phrases of abstraction to reach silent deliberative moments in rhythmic self-confession.
- Rochelle Potkar
Our Hopes
like the Tanjore doll
her body, head and hands
in mudra, swaying with a gentle push
to her dome skirt.
You taught me to wrap it
in a cone-shaped paper
stuff the hollow spaces
with crumpled bits, what if
we lose the rhythm
to a broken hook?
I never learnt the way
you wanted me to;
tracing your nubile veins
tugging your skin in amoebic shapes.
Now
you do not glow–
er at my (packing) abilities
nor do you rub the fall of light
in your eyes,
as if you have learnt
to drift into my world
when you see the little doll
rhyming with its shadow.
Coping
Toss veggies, slice fruits
pour out recipes for pouring out
clack the red plastic bangles
roll roti , round them with conjunctions
(a loop)
sip details
like coffee with newspaper
(including silences)
gather syllables
without faces, bodies
let the skin
stretch like a fisherman’s net
toss it over the blue expanse
with other things.
Daily Targets
From an incessant chatter
dribbling from the bamboo grove
you borrow a frail hum
threads of a memory
run staccato – an abstract
trebles, trembles
dispersing cacophonic notes
there is no harmony in fear
you turn inside a soundproof box hoping
tomorrow will find a way
back to where you belong, until then
you tie them to your feet
listen to them upside down.
G. Akila has presented her poetry at Sahitya Akademi, Hyderabad Litfest, Goa Litfest, TedX – VNRVJIET, Hyderabad. Her poems have also found a home in reputed online and print anthologies and a few of them are forthcoming. Her poems ‘Stains’ was shortlisted for the Womeninc Sakhi Award 2018 and ‘Graphite from a Traveller’s Notepad’ for the Glasshouse Poetry Festival Contest 2020. She also engages in the Japanese forms of haiku, tanka and haibun.