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Best Poems Written by Sri Lal

Below are the all-time best Sri Lal poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Sri Lal Poem

Fiery Mouth

Into your fiery mouth, 
I rush. I am ash. 

I am beyond myself,
I am a mottled moth 
diving into you 
to be consumed.

No, I am wine.

I am honey along
the razor’s edge.
I am your sweet tongue,

the rising serpent kite.

I am the cosmic womb,
inner sanctum of seed.

I am alive in brahmin
and dalit alike.

No longer girl,
not man or bird in flight.

I am the ocean’s song
alive in primordial light, 
vermillion dawn 

birthed from an endless
jeweled night.

Published in Indian Review

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Golden Bowl

I dream of a pipal tree that grows 
at the foot of Banasura Hill, 

miles beyond the fishing village 
I once called home. 

Here, I rest in her long, sweet shade
and sing the Kabini River’s song. 

Here, in the face of a full summer moon, 
I sit with an empty golden bowl.

Published in Muse India

Details | Sri Lal Poem

Brief Thread

This life, a brief thread
to string moments

like pearls or trinkets.
With a last breath,

we can count
nothing as our own.

Why measure now
the weight of loss, gain,

praise, or blame—
no more than rice

to be nibbled at by rats.
The south wind is strong today.

The departure of any love
is to be expected. Still,

the sudden flight of the nightingale
shakes the fronds

of the gooseberry tree,
her green fruit bitter when ripe.

Published in Setu

Details | Sri Lal Poem

Crows

Sri Lal
Crows

i.
I come from nowhere,
and I have nowhere to go,
I tell the crow perched 
on a low neem branch 
beyond the Periyar River.

He agrees.

He and I are free.
We speak the same language.

You know who I mean. He eats 
the garbage you and I toss aside— 
the endless sacks of rubbish 
hauled down to be burnt 
at the water’s edge,

like a secret in the dark.

ii.
I have seen smoke plume 
like the crown of peacock
feathers my blue love wears.
 
Garbage burns beside the river,
but I dream that he woos me
with white champa bloom.
His hands are like the water
on my skin. 

Still, some nights, 
the fire of rag and bone rises 
so that even the crow 
cannot sing for the smoke. 

Some nights, the blaze 
chafes my throat,
and swallows the sky whole.

Some nights of jasmine bloom
and sweet rice, I am
mute in the face of love. 

iii. 
So many crows, some say—
the erratic caw,

and I remember cities far north, 
where monkeys climb the temple walls.
They swing and chatter

like a mind that longs 
for enough gold to buy 
an unbruised freedom,

like flesh and bone that hunger
for a gentle touch in the night.

Wherever we are,
some cry carries us
away from ourselves—

the voice of a crow,
an unquiet mind, 

the cremation ground
where a father’s beatings 
go up in smoke,

or the bronze tongue of the temple bell 
that calls good souls to prayer.

iv.
This saffron hour before dusk,
a small silver mallet tunes the tabla—

knocking dowels up and down.

Soon, bhajan will rise 
beyond the firepit
beyond the wisping smoke 
of jasmine and sandalwood.

I have not yet washed
clean from hauling garbage.

I stand beyond 
the stone-pillared hall,
by the big tub sink, 
run cold water across my arms.

A crow alone sees me, 
in a way most men do not
see the lesser sex.

We are outsiders, he and I.

His call is full of longing,
and I answer back
beyond the liturgy of temple rite,

the cry from my own throat 
a song he understands,
my small mouth open 
like red lotus before dark.

Published in Doubly Mad

Details | Sri Lal Poem

A Fire Rises

Sri Lal
A Fire Rises

A fire rises in the pit of the gut—
and I forget myself.

At the grey langur’s door,
I give up. I cut my hair,
dance bare in the Bhadra rain.

Who am I? 
I ask myself, again and again.

From the shadows of a mango grove, 
two birds sing of sweet 
and bitter fruit. Two fires rise—

Between lust and rage
there is no difference. 

In the cowshed shrine burns
a fire of loss,
a fire of vow and surrender.

Fire is fire
to she who holds
no thought in mind but one

who rises from ash,
who sends forth 
a holy river from his hair—

one I have known since before 
I was a whisper on dark water.

Published in Doubly Mad