Sunday 25 October 2009

steering thought

thought is like a drum:
all it wants is a cue,
then it gets going
dum, dum, dum,
tridudum, dum, dum,
dum, tridudum, dum, dum.

it's also like my old car,
it may sail along blind to the truck
rushing round the corner.

shaken, what do i do?

i turn myself into the car,
its flanks are my flanks as well,
the throttle of its engine is my breathing.

now it's quite the same
as when we used to run
marathons,
starting off in a pack--
at the sound of the gunshot--
through the city traffic.

we don't nudge one another,
we don't step on one another's shoes;
we run listening to one another,
listening to the patter of our shoes
on the road,
listening to our breathing;
and gradually,
pulling off from the pack,
into the villages,
listening just to one breathing,
listening to the bounce of just one pair of feet...
on spring cushion.

*****

4 comments:

Prabhakar said...

I can almost hear the footsteps and the breathing. when you are fully involved in something or hardly have anytime to think like facing some danger the you or me doesn't exist. let's have more of these epiphanies.

P. Venugopal said...

Thanks Prabhakar. I was an athlete when young. I am beginning to learn the relevance of certain things I had learned then.

kochuthresiamma p .j said...

how well you have traced the behaviour of thought!

very apt images, though one doesn't usually think of an old carin this context! you not just pulled it off but made it look inevitable in this piece.

many unexpected surprise elements main the peon.

P. Venugopal said...

i am in some sort a reeling daze finding a level-headed person like you going through all these pieces virtully at one sitting. i have tried to encourage my friends into reading my blog, patiently listening to their woes, lending them my shoulder to sob upon and buying them drinks many an evening before introducing the topic. suddenly they remember they have to buy something or the other for home from some shop or the other before closing time and they leave.