#vk-samudrala — Public Fediverse posts

Flower Power — I Have Revisited the 60s

Many recognize and acknowledge

The enigma that he is

Knowing he is an enigma

Is not quite the same

As knowing what the enigma is

Some things are not menat to be understood

But merely loved, either from near

Or from afar

Do not try to probe

There is nothing underneath

That is the enigma

How things issue

From that emptiness

Where neither identity resides

Nor any residue of time

Spontaneity itself is charmed

By this enigmatic man

Who is not quite a man

Though walking around

Almost aimlessly

In the woman’s world

But still remaining

That guy in khakhi knickers

And of course sneakers

Which boy Brinda Karat

Addressed so endearingly

And the little comrade not yet 17

Remembers to this day

And that proved to him

Communists are the real deal

Throw in Che into the mix

And his world is complete

The compass has landed in his lap

And now he will not get lost

In our adult world

As he goes around

With his peculiar look

That sees right through to your bones

And can tell what is ailing you

This bloke called Samudrala

Vamshi Krishna, in whose name

Rama does not belong

As those girls he flirts with

Would testify

And I am slowly learning

To flirt with him myself

Though sometimes I get confused

Who is playing whom.

The Lover of Che and Marx

Samudrala Avinash Rahul Vamshi Krishna
What a long name. Does not sound at all
Like the name of someone
Who belongs to the proletariat
Their names will be Pullaiah and Yellaiah
Yours sounds far too sophisticated
As sophisticated as your accent, almost like a Brit
You say you have bruxism and what not
But your accent lives on, on and on...
Making people give you a second hearing
While at 62 I am searching for my second wind...

And your gonads have not yet started firing
Were you crazy then to be stopping by
Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in Bagh Lingampally
Where that Reddy girl taking courses in statistics
Was getting distracted by you, but you were never by her
And you stuck to your guns, pretty appropriate metaphor
Since Marx and Guevara interested you so much
No skirt or some peculiar shade of lipstick
Could hold your attention for long...

Being a Naxalite appealed to you as your svadharma
Long, long ago, and when I discovered you
You were the more sauve urban naxal, so I blocked you
Lest I the guy interested more in Maharshi than Marx
Be picked up at midnight, because the smokin' gun
Of Marxian literature was plenty on my bookshelf
I who believed that the stream of truth flows
From all sources and not just from some blokes
Doing something somewhere in the Himalayas.

Then, you texted me after a long while, saying
You were now more moderate in your views
Kind of a rare conversion, maybe Rosa Luxemborg
Started appealing to you more than Lenin
And that writer of The Motorcycle Diaries
Though Che never left your bedside and your dreams.

Nowadays, you are more into studying material girls
Rather than dialectical materialism, so tell me
Where in your heart have you created a cemetery
Where you have interred Marx though not Che.

But, my dear chum, or should I call you comrade
Listen to me dyed in the whispers down the centuries
Not only of the topography including the Himalayas
But also including Thames, Seine, and Black Forest
Marx was good as far as what he wanted man to be
But in what man was now in the present
He misread him so badly that his idealism
Was bound to come a cropper, though not before
Bloody revolutions meted out the karma
To all those people who erred in their previous lives
When they took birth long before Marx was born
Including maybe the likes of Alexander Solzhenistyn
For karma is backed by God, not some floundering startup
Ah, it satisfies me so much to end with this imagery
From Capitalism, and make Marx stir in his grave
And rethink his philosophy at least when he is reborn
And become an opium addict to discover newer realities.