Poems by A.J.Thomas

Being
 
Lying diagonally
In the wide bed, vaguely
Listening to the early morning sounds
Of bird-chirps, an occasional car-horn
Against the soothing murmur of the slow-falling rain
The fan swirling above at tempest-speed…
Smugly detached from the ballasting past
And the mirage smile of the future…
Sixty-one years of struggles and joys,
Blood-bonds close to the heart--
All suddenly a big void…
The haunting prods of should-have-beens
Strangely absent… no place
Even for ambivalence; each individual path
Fading into the fugue horizon at different directions…
Somnolence spreading like a blanket, inducing
Weightlessness—like a kite cut loose, the mind
Hovering around consciousness;
Life’s drama
Unfolding before the inner eye…
…Is this it?
 
 
 
The Refugee
 
He came like a refugee from
The second world, craving human company;
Terminally ill, he seemed to seek
Vitality and hope; his past tumbling from
His lips, as if in a confession,
He felt visibly light and relieved.
Life and death, two sides of the same coin…
He seemed to traverse the thin mass in between.
Like a scout atop a tower who can see both
Sides of the railroad and the two fast-approaching
Trains on the same track, and not able to stop them,
He assumed nonchalance.
Destiny’s immediacy, and the dismay
At discovering it, made him seem
To disbelieve his own words…hesitantly in
 A suggestive mode now, instead of falling back on
The assertive ways he was obviously wont to.
His days on earth defined; a reminder
To those who are still in the blind fray.

About the poet

A.J.Thomas (b.1952). Indian English poet and fiction writer; translates poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction prose from Malayalam. Former Editor of Indian Literature. Did  M.Phil, and Ph.D., from School of Letters, M.g.University, Kottayam. Was Senior Consultant, IGNOU; taught English in Benghazi University, Ajdabiya Branch, Libya.   Germination(poetry, 1989)  Bhaskara Pattelar and Other Stories, Manas, (1993), Reflections of a Hen in Her Last Hour and Other Stories (Penguin India), both Paul  Zacharia's stories in translation, ONV Kurup’s Ujjayini,  a verse-novel (Rupa) and  This Ancient Lyre, ONV's poetry collection he edited for Sahitya Akademi, Kesavan's Lamentations, M.Mukundan's novel he translated for Rupa &Co.,are some of his noted contributions. Winner of Katha Award, AKMG Prize (which enabled him to tour USA, UK and Europe  in 1997) and Vodafone Crossword Award (2007).  Senior Fellow, Department of Culture, Govt. of India and Honorary Fellow, Department of Culture, Government of South Korea. Invited Guest Speaker in writers’ conferences in South Korea(three times), Australia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Nepal.  Represented in The Literary Review Indian Poetry (USA-2009) and the HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (2012), The Dance of the Peacock, (2013, Canada) among others. email: [email protected] website:www.ajthomas.in.