My friend, Maria Kirichenko by Vineetha Mekkoth

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Vineetha Mekkoth

Ecstatic to have my poem in the Borderless Journal

Painting by Ukranian artist, Maria Kirichinko, as mentioned in the poem

My friend, Maria Kirichenko, is an artist Her paintings are so real I love the way she captures the light That falls on the side of a house In the woods by the fields There's a brilliance there There's life in those paintings She draws people too Some smiling, some serious She lives in Ukraine She shares pictures of the war Her country under siege I worry I worry about her, her art, her life I worry about the life, lives around her I message her to stay safe for that's all that I can do I, like many others, am a silent witness I do not want to know the nitty-gritty Of what is politically right Or left or centre Politics of war are men's creation My thoughts are from the human angle All I care for is…

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Spillwords

Posted on December 18, 2022 by Vineetha Mekkoth

We present to our readers:
I Will Not Tell You What My Heart Feels
by Vineetha Mekkoth#Poetry #Poem #SpillWords https://t.co/U5En4CvmSG
— SpillWords (@Spill_Words) November 4, 2022

‘Chair by the Window’ Watercolour, 27/07/2022

Posted on July 29, 2022 by Vineetha Mekkoth

‘Chair by the Window’ Watercolour, 27/07/2022

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Alienation

Posted on October 3, 2020 by Vineetha Mekkoth

Alienation

Today I’m once again
The thumbsucking child
I wish to lie on my side
curl up into a ball
Close my eyes tight
And pretend to be asleep
My hair falling onto my face
Cocoons me in warm dark
I crack my eyelids
To see the beings
They exist apart from me
I wonder at them as they move about
I wonder at me
I watch
For a long time
If they look at me
I play dead
Unaware of being watched they move about
I
They
I
I is a small word
A small world
A world of one
Only one
I
And then
Nothing.

21-08-2020
© Vineetha Mekkoth

Remember, remember

Posted on October 3, 2020 by Vineetha Mekkoth

Two little petticoated girls swinging in the breeze
The hills around charming
The river a story telling
Swing this way
Swing that way
Round and round
In the breeze
The nooses are tight
The bruises are bright
Yet the nooses brought release
The pedophiles roam free
In those hills
By the gurgling river
Forgotten by a people
Overwhelmed by disease
Overwhelmed by fears
Overwhelmed by everything selfish
What do two little petticoated girls
Swinging in the breeze matter?

Note: Dedicated to the memory of the little sisters of Walayar, Kerala, India who were raped and killed by their kin. The rapists remain free owing to their political connections. This poem was first published in the July 2020 issue of Glomag

Posted on October 2, 2020 by Vineetha Mekkoth

Sakha,
Climate change is a reality
Yet how the world chooses
To close its eyes
To pretend to not see
As we continue to maraud this bhoomi.

Sakha
Our future lies trembling at our doorstep
Yet we shut the door to it.

That girl, Greta
She says what we all know in our hearts to be true
And unable to bear that they taunt her
They call her sick and hope that she will stop speaking
Stop speaking the bitter truth
And yet we continue
All over the world
To burn forests
Set up coal mines
Fill up marshes
Dig and tear up our earth.

Sakha, see the incessant rains and floods
And some parts suffering from unbearable heat wave
Elsewhere, the sudden cold

She is sick, Sakha
Your sakhi, Bhoomi
Unable to bear what is being done
To her by her own progeny
And when she unleashes her misery
We are helpless
We have nothing to save us from destiny.
Our own crafted destiny.

02-10-2019
©Vineetha Mekkoth

Burn

Posted on September 30, 2020 by Vineetha Mekkoth

Will there be candlelight vigils for you Dalit girl?
Will anyone cry over your brutalisation?
Will there be any encounters to polish off the criminals
Disregarding their upper caste status and religion?
Will they even ever get punished for their cruelty?
Or will they win tickets to join the Parliament?
Will you be mourned for by anyone other than your family
While we women shudder at what you underwent?
Has it not been like this since time immemorial
Rape and brutalisation for Dalit women?
Is not casteism the greatest inhuman burden
That all Hindu minds bear with or without trepidation?

Call a spade a spade
Call an illness by its name
Casteism is shit
Violence against women
Happens because you can get away with it
If you have the right connections
Sab kuch chalta hai
So much for greatness and equality
The future is bright
Shining
Blinding
But bright
Maybe we will all burn

30.09.2020
©Vineetha Mekkoth

Five Haikus written in 2015

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Vineetha Mekkoth

The day dawns bright clear
hopes arise eternal
to vaporise

Drops of rain
drumming on the roof tops
singing a melody

Time stands winter-still
Our love in suspended animation
Hibernates quiet

Early summer sun
Setting free basketfuls of
laughing dragonflies

Bubbling up in hearts
Koels coo unheralded
Effervescent joy

NaPoWriMo 2020

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Vineetha Mekkoth

# Napowrimo Day 13

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Vineetha Mekkoth

Today, our poetry resource is the archives of The Found Poetry Review. During its five years of operation, this journal specialized in publishing poems that were “found,” rather than written. What does that mean? Well, it means poems collaged from existing language, rather than newly created from scratch. A sort of borrowing from the universe.

There’s a pithy phrase attributed to T.S. Eliot: “Good poets borrow; great poets steal.” (He actually said something a bit different, and phrased it a bit more pompously – after all, this is T.S. Eliot we’re talking about). Nonetheless, our optional prompt for today (developed by Rachel McKibbens, who is well-known for her imaginative and inspiring prompts) plays on the idea of stealing. Today, I challenge you to write a non-apology for the things you’ve stolen. Maybe it’s something as small as your sister’s hairbrush (or maybe it was your sister’s boyfriend!) Regardless, I hope this sly prompt generates some provocative verse for you.

Stolen Arms

Stolen kisses are the sweetest it is said
May I add stolen kicks to the list
As a scrawny teenager long long ago
Travelling in a crowded bus I did feel
The foot of a co-traveller creeping up my shin
Mister Odious was sitting and I standing
A few stolen kicks did the trick
He squirmed unable to scream
The rest of my journey went smooth as a dream
I got off the bus unapologetically happy
So stolen kicks, pin pricks all help you see
But the light of exposure is what these most fear
I learnt as time passed and freedom is dear

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My friend, Maria Kirichenko by Vineetha Mekkoth

Spillwords

‘Chair by the Window’ Watercolour, 27/07/2022

Alienation

Remember, remember

Burn

Five Haikus written in 2015

NaPoWriMo 2020

# Napowrimo Day 13