Confessions Of A Poet… Dr. Vamshidhar Reddy, Telugu, Indian
1
So, tell me something about you?
About me?
I am an itinerant mammal with the
Processor Medulla oblongata tucked in my brain.
I am a Homo sapien wiser than monkey by about 12 points.
I am an animal hungrier than the wild …
I am variously called a man
Do you know? I am a man!
2
Hum! What do you do?
Nothing in particular.
I purge my awareness of being a man
While defecating in the open.
And if I was incensed
I search for any pleasing remains of humanity and annihilate.
But, I quench thirst with my own blood,
I had a near-fatal experience
When I changed the blood group last time.
And if I am tired,
I stretch myself coolly nestling in somebody’s thoughts.
That’s all.
3
Why do you write?
When a silence
that decimates all expression sieges me…
Or when I feel there’s nothing for me to speak…
Either to cover up my crimes…
Or if it fails, to conceal…
To blame or to torture myself…
To appear as complex as possible to self…
On the oiled paper the chilli-bajji was wrapped,
Or, on the white tissue paper in the washroom
I scribble.
4
People say you write poetry on poverty draining down scotch in AC rooms
And passionately orate about feminism treating your wife as slave at home.
Well, when do you stop writing all this shit?
I don’t.
Till one of us die.
Till all the trees of the world are turned into paper
And stink with my effusions I will not;
Or, till the world praises me and pays tributes at my grave
I won’t.
5
OK! OK! Let’s conclude. For God’s sake, tell me the truth? Who are you ?
After a long distressing silence…
Pulling out some papers drenched in my sweat
I cry:
“ I’m half human… and… and …
I am not a poet.”
.
Vamshidhar.
Telugu
Indian
.
-
Dr. Vamshidhar Reddy
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