Tales Of Half Men Poem by KATOCH P C K PREM

Tales of Half-Men

Chorus lines 1

A bitter break in historic bonds it is
and I am a child of midnight
of relations rooted,
in societal ethnicity
and a maniac in search of a location.
A babe of dreams unrealized,
played with sticks and shepherds,
cows, buffalos, sheep and goats
I took little pets to the pastures,
cocks, hen, parrots and pigeons followed
without noise at a distance,
as we shared sighs and sights,
of immature love with tender wet skin
under dark shades of trees.
I talked to birds I remind
and animals I took to the grass land
at times, eyes spoke a crypt language
which even I failed to decipher.
Who am I, a question arose?
am I man, a thought surges?

As relations and blank space haunted,
an area of love, of sound and music
appeared radically mystic
as I failed to define a wet skin of passions.

****

Chorus lines 2

It barely flashed on the mind
that I ate ample meat of many birds
of sheep, goats, hare and cock
and intense twinges bled profusely
as blood stained curses of a hushed voice
shudder now in memories hearty.
I ate meat and yummy it tasted
and took time but I was strong
that killing on the streets and roads,
and places of ringing bells was
a cultural need
to satisfy human appetite,
as feelings of nausea and disgust
filled the body
while blood littered around.
Cried visions of pagans, mock laughter
hisses and slanting lips,
I was told to forget a man's job
in brassy invectives as hoarse voices echoed

and singed throat as if nice to kill
to live life on unlimited terms of an end
because past's over-viewing future can't revoke
an unusual caucus conspiring
to capsule present with tribal instinct,
but it is a history defying reason
that politics is an animal with a man's head
among the society of half men.
****

Chorus lines 3

Eye-language of animals resists,
and birds lack option in hunter's noose
as dumb live in fretful times of inquiry
by the lord of death,
where a wordless hunt digs a hole deep,
and in the heart fosters a recurrent truth
of death in tentative times by men,
or by men who may be half men
as the thoughts throb
agonizing to digest, I weep alone.
As an adolescent I learnt to live
in the fields, jungles and grasslands
in fiery hills along eely foliage
I frisked about, scrambled,
and lived in old caves to bury secrets,
of incestuous relations and ancestors.

With unending feasts on barbecue
with scores of man-eaters, panthers
birds and cannibals too, infused vigour
and nerves stirred
a wild liberty of forest sandy,
when pacified brisk flickers of heart,
wrestled with doctors' forks and pincers,
wandering with tipsy fingers,
at times slipping into the nurses' bodies
while the women on table in green robe
trying to give birth to half men,
and men headless.
****
Chorus lines 4

Deep furrows, pines and deodars
and distending hill ranges,
deserted specks of bare snow
on grimy peaks and barren valleys,
appeared in search of a land to rest on
as silent souls of mute springs wished to flow,
for these nature's objects loved
so that men live in muted harmony,
despite an uprooted location
of men and women who nurse.

But still rustling leaves
and runny melodies, and wild roots
fruit and spring water,

life ancient yet modern, of sounds
whacking words unsaid
tranquilize and amaze.
Culture lenient is crusted
burgled and arsons disturbed,
loud festivities, songs, and numbing cries
dynamic and rational all,
collided to prolong a tempest
as a ritual to linger on and desecrate,
let alone clamour in focus
beyond the hills, trees and rocks
in feelings far off those words,
as sentiments of alliance
pestering kindly in the jungles,
to remind a truth eternal.
****

Chorus line 5

It rained, softened earth
and radiated smiles
clouds in sky floated as if it ruled,
spread over and touched sky
it was a brazen life force.
Like lullaby and amorous whispers
breeze wafted beside placid touches,
and walked in melodic mumbles
in music with a soul of jungles,

hopped-tripped in chaste prayers,
to spread over the bed
to taste moments of pleasure.
Here God lives in each pulsation
she is a little goddess,
wishing for a mausoleum that has no casket.
****

Chorus lines 6

Young run about in the fields
with pets of sorts, and play
farmers work, women sing in refrain
a folklore of a tragic love,
a poignant wail of a widow,
who scrubs linens and basins
of men dead long before,
who perfected marital ties in battlefields
of Kuch of Rann and Vietnams unspecified.
As folklores' tunes, enchant,
hymns to the creator rustle,
and spirits soulful buzz in praise
of God.
Dazed it is that instills icy joy
while a black king opens a fridge,
with skulls of history, the past that laments
and laughs as morsels of flesh pulsate,

while Amin prays with lips red,
even as a nation looks out for a fugitive
hiding behind a woman's black robe,
to escape a bullet from the sky.
Then works with energy
in paddy and maize fields, and in sandy land,
in narrow water channels that fascinate
with echoes of tunes mild.
Please lend ears as refrain mesmerizes
and elevates dewy cold of eyes,
where a spirit lives, a belief survives
not to raid sins but live with vices.

A walks on the mount lines is risky.

For it is a thin borderline of fields,
it is clear as I sit alone in a town,
that drives out the crazy,
and the crude in pain I affirm,
I can't get out.

A visor spectator I am, as workers look busy
in sandy farming,
work of fields a difficult art I learn
in forests, springs, and rivers
it prolongs hope and joy in life held as a captive
for long without releases,
with a question sign on existence
living underground and gets blackened.

It is past and I sit to sip coffee
and a feeling overwhelms drained-out body
varied hued soil still chases fresh
and it tastes perfect, and so earthly.
It touches like a prayer pale
and putrid leaves stir gently,
quietly speak of a godly charisma,
as bells ring when the priest is naked.
****

Chorus lines 7

I stand in anger while coffee repels
and children play as if prisoners in a park,
in a free country,
with regimented alphabets and uniforms
of colours without meaning,
of shirts without arms
and trousers without legs,
aghast I look, I am a heaving torso.

Long ago experience of an age was a huge plateau
along the mindscape fiddly and with vast fields in lap
soon waterfalls teased as the red began to flow
and appeared pungent and elegant, and jarring.
Nothing happens now,
village is dry, fields don't laugh, farming gone
machines do the miracle and I can't run away

as children look sad with drooping heads on books,
and a barren scenario upsets as birds grieve,
and animals look sideways,
for, an evident loneliness pierces and wounds.
****

Chorus lines 8

I get bored hills are deadly silent
forest burn while winters collapse in hot chill,
and snow in brown chops is roasted
and I wait for the feast in a mindless pillage,
and stare angrily at the grey empty valleys
as the sun visits vast beds,
and windowpanes look hazy and dim
moonlit treads badly injured hills' cries,
for God does not visit often
while a preface erodes beauty,
as men of sockets without eyes
stand on a precipice
not knowing the fall
for blindness survives when half men laugh.
****

Chorus lines 9

No inkling ever disturbs jovial, blinking eyes
and sidelong glances,
little thefts of fruit, a paisa or two toffees,
for that constitutes naughty childhood.

Village fairs, wrestling matches, poetic dramas
or night operas thrill
heroes of Ayodhya and Vaishali visit at night,
legendary kings of Rajputana, at times
as Hector fights a battle like Rana in a valley
when Helen goes deep down a watery grave
and a woman prays for Krishna to save honour
in a land of robots and sleazy scientists.

And witnesses deaths along Euphrates,
as tears fill Nile
now that Pyramids rewrite ancient agonies
along the ropes tethered to dragging blocks of stones,
while an old crippled man peeps through a hole
to see rising rocky mountains,
and a dwindling kingdom in hands pale.
****

Chorus lines 10

History is alive, culture breathes as the old pulsate
and I am not happy when people walk with gruff faces,
where heads look like a patch of darkness
for it is a man's wish to perpetuate tyranny of lies,
to live a life of men, not precisely men.

Babas and saints on rostrums with saffron images,
looking larger than life are mere thugs
government visit and bow
white collared-statues simulate flaunting

a plunge for no specific time say so,
know the worth that prompted saffron,
khaddar and white,
to live long without rationale
for headless living defies identity.

Swings a tag on each pocket with a fatal glint
caring little for sting operations,
which neither serve people nor anyone,
but provide joy to lusty eyes and vacant heads.

Burglars and rapists stay without trouncing.

Nothing is safe and I see the growth never happened,
a search of a man in a man fails
as aphoristic letter of regrets lingers,
crowd of headless jigs in a mob deformed,
crowd of statues thumping around
where a man is accursed in times blurred
existing with allied hopes of a romantic.
****

Chorus lines 11

Ironic jeers and mirth sway strangers
naive voices look wordless,
when sounds and echoes slit rhythm.

A troubled land's half-foolish nuts grimace
like lechers,

revive to live long wretched living in huts
no one conceives distortion but it is unfortunate.

To live under designs, a glee of mind
a part continues the pattern,
rooted in the phony outfit and blusher.
A valiant face confesses not.
Otherwise, I am a loser, a worn out birth.

A man who is not a man collapses,
as bodies sans craniums struggle to live.

I am not a man in a man of a cellular world
many beasts peep in and out
in mad solipsism.

Living in pieces of a broken mirror
full of fuzzy and brittle imitations
hurts as I construct dreams on a laptop,
play cards and bridge while files gather dust
for I know everyone does it.

No logic pumps out untainted images
in a land of Half Men
to construct an existence,
and structure a body with a head affixed.

I go home but do not meet the woman
with eyesight gone and teeth fake
while lips quiver and craft words soundless
of age gone,
but still she wants to be loved
until she wears out and I with a furrowed body
drag the feet with a dose of liquor,
tasting the muscle of an impotent age,
and I feel it is good to live like a half man
in an age of uncertainty and just vacuum.
****

Chorus lines 12

Tragedy is an escape route to figures,
with thin and rickety fingers she knows
as I make out a long epic on a bed of arrows
and few tears roll down as the woman draws lines
in the air imitating a wrinkly palm.

I construe dimly scrawled shape not of a man,
but a figure in haze pops out, mocks at
and I am dwarfed,
and then christened as a Half Man.

I find half men, half men and there is a disaster
of hopes and dreams, I refuse to admit,
like others in a world of growth.

Words, my woman tries to scribble
and tries to build a man perfect
neither God nor devil it is, it is torso she tells
and I am christened as a half man
she tells again.

No option left but a null reality tears apart
as lady reveals that a half man exists within
with enormous appetite of a ghost,
for ovary no longer bears the weight
of a man who eats up embryo before it takes shape,
in the womb dark.

A huge stone, I cannot lift it
and so it falls into a dark gorge of obscurity,
where boney men chase down to the bottom.

A crowd of half men and headless words liquefy
in a wicked resonance,
as a belief is shaken and angst swallows up.

Living is a burden and culture, a liability
in a world of half men,
fathering half men, mutilated and bit of monsters
hollow flat skulls sling around in anarchy without,
when appendix calls for a title.
****

Chorus lines 13

It suffocates and I go inside the prayer room
many gods and goddesses in posters and paintings stare.

It is jam-packed I realize, wherein a war goes on
either existence or no life it is believed.

I listen to the grisly din and find
sniping Gods jutting out
forlorn and choked,
because half men make Gods' life difficult
I look out for incense as I truly want to mollify
and spray nectar with a magic band
from the holy Ganges for wrath of gods is dreadful,
like the gods of Greek tragedies
and the anger of Lord Shiva,
before the opening of Third Eye.

Turmoil in the terrestrial world and in the sky
among the Gods when devils burst out,
in rage, and ominous laughter,
half men try to register presence and get killed.

This fate awaits who claim growth and progress
as half men cannot stand tall.

Standing at the turn of the cosmos is a grisly fight
in the family,
as gods walk out and crazed apathetic half men can't hold
so slowly break into an arena of sin and vice
almost a living hellhole for half men in men.

I look at the mirror modestly,
and a headless figure explodes like Pokharan
for me, it is perhaps a new birth,
as I get sliced into a number of headless half men,
for I am neither a Kabandh nor a walking torso with fire
at night to scare away everyone.

I am fated to live with a trunk in grandeur
confronting an end,
snarled in massive dose of insulin,
since altering a half man residing within is not viable.

Drumbeats hasten a death without loss of time
and the world lives with aliens where half men jump,
and scowl as if in waste
it is a natural life I say.

A horde of voices create a pandemonium
as sub human figures quarrel and cry
in a futile attempt to achieve salvation,
in a fierce sport of reciprocal perfidy.

Here everyone is eager and patient it looks
in a world of transience,
meditation of sarkari sadhus still throws
tempting offers of long leggy life and riches
to liberate today's' sinners,
in the form of half men.
****

Chorus lines 14

I try to wriggle out as it is fire-burning skeletons
and I writhe with pain and look up to gods
with torrid eyes,
whom I see running away from wall posters
and paintings wishy-washy,

while rejecting prayers all seem to take mercy
and tell the Half Man living inside me
to oversee every event.

Fated to live this life is certain I know
and no one will write an obituary
it is ordained to happen I believe,
state identities in posters distorted,
with no sound-footing and status
that only die and die many times,
as a half man.

Humble and humane I am I tell
a mode to accept sins of half men
in the life of a half man lived.

Or maybe less than these
for I wish a logical liberation.

With a vengeance I want to run and die.

Or live in the perfection of full men
with love, peace and peace with many questions
pasted around.

It is a version to prove virtue at last I confide
and am ready to live,
as a Half Man if allowed to hide identity
for that is a gift of heritage.
****