The Doggerel Den

Thrust

2011-12-23T11:33:00.000+05:30

Religion

that meticulous ritual of

sipping bleeding rust;

born once

torn twice.

The habitations of mortality

thrust in time

lurching like decades

arrest:pause:moment

hands clasp heart

letters resign.

Eyes downcast

like fibrous hollows

deseeded limes.

My pupils contract

black seed spinning

anguish chosen

pleasing,

always pleasing...

Bearing

this stark naked,

dark selfish decline.

And somewhere between love

and futures

surges a sky

screaming ripples,

songs

in latex white.

This body

2011-09-12T20:02:00.000+05:30

This body

Digital decline

Death::divine

Matchstick legs

Cotton mind

Woozy tea tasting forgettable time.

A blessing

2011-05-07T22:05:00.000+05:30

May the paths you tread, always be circled with daisies.

Spring

2011-05-04T02:32:00.002+05:30

The bounce of pollen in my glass of breeze.

A bag of bees

2011-04-30T15:17:00.000+05:30

Your wars, their words

our firms

we, us, me, you.

Proposed development--

the infinite agriculture of modern life.

*

2011-02-26T03:32:00.000+05:30

Burning stars,

coloured kites

my life--

alive.

Words make love.

Six impossibles

2011-01-02T12:14:00.001+05:30

Flickers of life

like light softly, self- unbound

reverberations in glass

built to ground

break bubbles--

burst not.

In red seas, sail

sailor-girl

swimming songs

written in Beast

Sarojini

Kamala

Adrienne

Mary

Alejandra

Debra

Sandra...

hridaya?

Medium, large.

Swings for wings

chains of hair

striking imbalances

…6 impossibles

Six.

Admittedly, alcoholic.

Defiantly circulating--

.Sufi.

.Singh.

.Somebody.

Sometimes, I wonder.

From the house of God.

2010-12-01T03:22:00.001+05:30

Brown slush crunch

weaving through kings’ parade

and modest protests

for Tuesday lunch

Nkoko and me.

At St. Michael’s

carrot coriander olive warmth

carefree ascent with steaming bowls

around wooden spirals

in the house of God

we laugh in howls.

Of butchers, babies, heads

lost thumbprints

fast old eyes

crocodiles and dancing bears;

The truth about timidity,

respect and gratitude.

Stones uncontained--

like Gandhi and roses

fitting tributes ,

some white ginger others watery green

with soft bites of walnut brownie.

Talk of

systemic sucked vitality

the vulgarity of poverty

Animal’s people

A fine balance

the security of predictability

the hilarity of systems

general, profound perversity.

Walk to sainsburys,

spotting seagull with broken wing

following seagull with broken wing

finding people for seagull with broken wing

meeting

parting

helping.

Apples for 97 pence

kisses for free.

He watches all with a stub warming his bleeding finger

I stop.

Return

offer

…for free.

Spent with spontaneity

finally!

Happiness!!

Sms.

Put down seagull with broken wing

but we can’t save them all

can we?

You

2010-11-30T04:11:00.000+05:30

My religion is you.

Matriarch

2010-08-27T10:26:00.001+05:30

Morse rewritten

since

Girl became Woman

a devolution

walking backwards

towards

dignities

Such as

words
and

half-past heartbeats.

These

colourful dreams

sieze

when processes defeat

Purposes

Promises

Presumptions

Pleasures

Passports to mysterious satisfaction

Allegedly divine.

Female saints

serve Gods

in the field.

Blessed be she

who balances

on her heart

an ambitious knife

pregnant with ideas

unsuitable for her kind.

Now,

grateful for

rationed melodies

unisex sunsets

that Bleed.

28 Luna

travelled a Latitude

never moving

beyond shunyah.

The duties of womankind

Bind.

Rebba, Amrita, Nirmal.

Defy.

Big brown cloud

2010-07-26T09:31:00.002+05:30

Big brown cloud
Floating really
Raining rarely
Travelling me

We were writers once

2010-07-26T09:27:00.000+05:30

We were writers,

Once.

Nouveau acoustic,

to crowds of eyes;

hoping to be understood

and maybe not.

Before pens became needles

stitching instead

our minds with verse

colourless repeats

threadbare, brief

crissing crosses

unlearning mama’s...

naive at 23.

And,

so we are

tremulous no more;

Like,

dust stains

on leaves-

on ice-

patches like disparaging concaves

filled with vapours

of failing rain.

Nothing to say?

Bleached shut:

Here rests a writer

Her words beating.

Journeys

2010-07-26T09:10:00.000+05:30

~~Velocity now~~

~~the gasp of spaces~~

~~sutured at ends~~

~~before beginnings...~~

~~Journeys through mist,~~

~~optimistic at most.~~

People Slush

2010-07-25T22:41:00.003+05:30

People slush

sculptures in light

passing by

quick

mechanic

a hierarchy of

elbows and knees –

these faint

peculiar ammonic memories

featuring

you, me

and

a thousand-thousand

we’s.

Free feet Glug

2010-06-26T20:01:00.000+05:30

We are who we are

and they are them.

Quick new steps towards saras baugh

past pungent worlds

following stray eyes

dismissing the bony and hairless

circling reds, yellows and pinks

a synthetic pause of petals

for mothers, sisters and lovers.

All that is fat

flies and crawls.

A little under

these free feet

glugs an amalgam of

waste

next door’s gums, cakes, cheeses and wines

mingling with their rice, lentils, meat and mangoes.

Perhaps hell isn’t too far down.

Perhaps nothing is.

Is it all too heavy?

Is it over yet?

Is it?

And

I smell--

Surely,

poverty is

human decay.

Hmm.

The ultraviolence of feet.

Marigolden Miserab

2010-04-19T21:36:00.001+05:30

Petite perversions

such as white bangles

encircling the vapid vigor

that flies in blue veins;

Centuries that we abided by

built on a single warrior’s

valiant destiny

while fire factories

are wrapping me

in marigolden miserab

a lesser half for life...

As fortune suggests

Shh.

Switch Off

2010-03-17T12:36:00.000+05:30

Holes in my elbows doing things you did for me

karmic cycles, they repeat

sleepy seven singing sweet

baby laughter pausing too brief

rap my own

missing Cindy

but kinder by noon

like dew between twin toes

and these pomegranate purples that heal.

I run too fast

finding centers in circles

too steep

switch off shinjini.

Buttons all green

lists of vacant priorities

golden mango ponds

dry summer thakurganj heat

fuelling desires

I flee.

To places I may never know

to people I was

to people I could be

to things that matter

and I think

what about me?

Pachydermata

2010-03-01T12:11:00.001+05:30

Toy twin

hold still..

thick skin

'tis true,

we are all within--

Beautiful.

Brave.

Brief...

in our most dexterous whim.

To fly,

four hooves splitting

air to lace

bodies like scalp

defeating breezes from

poles magnetic.

Bobble humbly,

like a wave--

infinite in Grace,

impervious to

the tragedies

of speaking eyes

and thinking noses;

these rheumatic spines

spitting vice,

paining

whole hearts.

But elevate,

my pachyderm--

spirit magical

vector forth.

For our

polyphyletic beginnings

and

holophyletic ends

are

semantically the same.

Mai

2009-12-21T22:01:00.002+05:30

I put a river on fire
with wishes
like White flashes
these black Gangetic puddles aflame
with
my thousand, thousand desires.

A hull--
molten,
goldswept,

with
swirls that velvet
Being.

Ten toes,
now cold
with

stripes of
mehendi receding
green, orange, yellow.

Do new mothers ever love
like old?

Still wishing,
...I comb her black waves

with

fingertips numbed

finding stars in curves
of dark, black, unending
curls.

My fingertips wet
I miss
mama’s angry old comb
scraping my
young, little girl neck.

far-gone

2009-11-21T18:29:00.004+05:30

Turquoise cuspidate

things fall apart

the centre cannot hold

things

the rich restrain
of velvet dove wings
a soft steaming stream
trickling parch

like cherry fingertips
feathering kohl
lashes leap
rescuing warmed opals
the fire of a thousand consciousnesses

the trouble
of constrictions
of conflict
of certainty
conditioned caresses
compress
and

alike
we be,
far-gone

...baby.

Cccroon.

Art--"The Character of Mercy" by Carrie Ann Baade.

rHead.

2009-11-21T18:22:00.003+05:30

Red coughs

dry decline

my mind a bee

bleeds

your hard, heavy, hundred desires.

Ours

2009-09-30T13:12:00.003+05:30

Vivid shadows
dhol scattering
carnation reds
obscure umbras
trodden dry.

Heidi skips
tripping through wires
thief, friend
mouse
brave...

But,
possibilities of not
when rejections abound
and happinesses sell- a childhood past.

If you leave.
If you do not.

Are our lives
ours?

I am now awake.

Girl Swirl

2009-09-26T18:16:00.001+05:30

Pound, rotate
Replay

Me in mentha earth
You up above

Two eagles
Our storms

Us

Comfortable
Softened slime
Combine

Salt watery beads
Surge

Mosquito symphonies
Whispering in red ears

Girl swirl

Trickles of black light
Where we collide

Evening skies
Sudden mounts
Sublime declines.

You:Me

2009-09-09T12:45:00.004+05:30

Black storm in my blue teacup
your circles

stay, stand.

Orange T soldiers
running by and by
mi amour,
...you, must understand.

Rolling majestic
these many
many dapper
soft silk sands.

Silence within.
Silence without.

Your laughter:
fluttering words
across my lips

aflush, anew

Inanna.

Such is proclivity
...our.

Squint sp.

2009-08-31T21:50:00.002+05:30

Fizz:
my life
a mind unsorted
dialectic pupils
question in squints
to point
to pin.

Trailing ants
I sweep
with
ten toe mysteries
palms --
these heels
secret, sudden sympathies.

Lemons in my sweet pudding
please.

There’s coffee between my teeth.

Concertos

2009-08-15T11:31:00.003+05:30

15th August ‘09

Feeble morning glories clutch sunlight, their fuchsia bodies reverberating with songs of sun, the frenetic drumming of bee wings against lips that are velvet...free... puckering to the same energy when all is violent. I pass the maize fields of Rajouri, Poonch and these other never again but maybe villages. Peeping into the eyes of souls of the well sunned and oiled but spent gujjar people. I cross the rhythms and colours of the Chenab. Hear her mists breathe; I find spots of sunshine on the green fern cheeks of a million mountains. I refresh these aging, glassed eyes...my blindness rescinds.

And so are humans, tiny orbs of peculiar vegetations, sometimes in blossom other times in barren winter states. Our four seasons are never the same and so we search those

who might be in the same season as us, we fervently, tirelessly search even though we may have found. For perhaps, the human forest is never at ease.

15th June ‘08

Sarovar Sap

You pass fields, relinquish ground dreams of those you shall never meet and that which you will never be. I am the character and I am me. Search, strive, struggle, starve, steal...but smile, for that is what they know. They who read the notes of Being, tapping into the metallic truth which constructs the alphabet A-Z.

My God is in the reflection of everything. I sit by the sarovar to drink and be drunk, to be one and nil, swallowed, humbled, forgiven, blessed...Do I need the affirmation?
In the deep core, in circles of reason that float to me but are nibbled by mental oranges that swim like fast trains and many brown buses diagonal to my reason. The darkness is heavy, silvery and sweet. The sap of my God, my soul calls.

Feb’ 08

My eyes are notebooks and my tongue a palette, the brush that is my mind knows not whither to turn...or to turn at all. So much angst, so little time and before the memories fade all three clutch and pause.

The firs

2009-08-06T23:06:00.003+05:30

The firs are silent tonight,
like us
I imagine.

Awash:
pink heels
purging silent stone fountains;

Laden:
crimson roses
like cheeks of shattered children
innocence in tact--
subtly.

I advance,
you are still.

It is raining--
I sense a revelation
pending
for it is written.

But,
my windows dry
I touch the greys
address letters
to alphabets;
then think
where are you?
why not you?

These firs
scent
the violence
of vague virtues.

Ablur:Me.

Tomorrow i will find
to step in
a puddle of fir blood.

Suha Dupatta

2009-07-26T15:25:00.002+05:30

Kasooran da kalaja
kad ke sutteya
sapne badal ditte
phul gayi apna bhes
apni phasa
...apna saccha Padshah

Phula devangi
parchaaiyan mere angaan di
hassa teyis saalan da
oh jungnu-aan di baraatan nu
...haule haule
mitaa devangi
nikki nikki yaadan nu

Par dass...meeteya,
eho vargi hariyaali kiven devega?
eh mera bachpaan
eh mere apne
onna diyan aahatan ...

Bass...
Hun mere kol tera ik
...suha dupatta

Zindagi- -
babulaan da khet.

my Own

2009-06-30T10:09:00.006+05:30

Almond creases restore
Fate
some Right lines
Left to Karam
my mountains lift--
transcendent
Morning Mists gently cradle
transient
sights of Self.

Vir’s supple petals
a molten white;
these glimpses
radiating spirals of yolk
so rich
unbroken...

They
now scent Ganesha’s
clay-crystal limbs,
the blessing
of Nanak,
His hymns ,
wrapped in kesari green
Asa, Jap, Sukh, Rehraas, Sohila

My faith?
my Own.

Immaculate, my ceramics

2009-06-28T21:54:00.003+05:30

Opium lava

this Stalk

versatile sin-sap:

resist;

My ceramics

Brick Burnt

system specious

but

shanti-hi

.Anhad Shinjini.

Where tigers run free-1

2009-06-08T22:36:00.004+05:30

Reader, here's a first from a series I intend to write this week 'Postcards from the future'. These pieces are not held by grammar, just time and turmoil and such.

Stripes running down my waist you see tigers running free some system unsound wild true passionate marks by fingers that held those which emerged that grew roots within a hull so flexible so alive it bled a sea of mercurial blood through births both ends struggling out of each other a last attempt at separation such was the invalid individuality like suns rising from flat watery bosoms wetting the mother and drying to a perfect orange then subsiding to black like the stripes on a tiger the kind you trace on me running your finger racing your eye pitying my width and all it held of you and I contend like I always have these are branches that once bore leaves to green yellow deaths bordering a trunk old so old she wept as each fell to a puddle conserved by her to soften the fall cradles of lust spent but that’s another story and this is me thirty years down- Meera.

Soda mind

2009-06-04T20:10:00.000+05:30

Billie’s malt rasp
key written
we sing;
Brown Calvin
some live sonic metal
for
Nina now flying me
to the moon
and there--

on my mind

blues on wallpapers imperial
gold candles
sitting in sequins pretty
wax tempts
this true, true summer heat...

Bamboo songs
erupt
flushing feathered flurries.

Taffeta lying black on
my sometimes silver
travelled, very travelled
feet.

My voice, faraway
me, asking for no sugar
no salt either
crisp soda lemon-aid.

I sit in couches plush
smiling inwardly at memory slush
purple blue green
sweet sympathies.

While,
up above--
champa ringlets
squirrels explore
untiringly.

My mind a bugayal,
me-here.

Vivipary

2009-05-30T15:23:00.000+05:30

Born of division
between recesses
coiling autonomic
Universe to one
One.

.Unborn undone Young ‘un

Of pleasures divine
patient,
Your systems recline.

.Grow

Answer now
Do we do?
Do we not?
Is it us?
Them then...
no, not.

.Contract
Being me
The scheme of you
All reasons- reticule

.Expel

By the edge of my teeth
soft certain decline
contain these commotions
I am off .
I am off.

Another time.

Some abnormal

2009-04-19T21:04:00.000+05:30

I heard before I saw--
the dry hard beat of a foot
on a paddle;
abrupt thuds
sudden glides
some cotton strings even,
all music to the penitent’s old brow.

His smile-
peptised between a million bitter wrinkles
eyes that were once part-sky
his finger,
pointing to a green door
cream leaf atop a cheap pastry green.

We were oblivious
to the smell of
urines that were not different,
not special even...
Spread by the growl of a repainted cinni
standing sullen,
standing straight.

Remembering, I followed.

The intemperate thuds continued
while I met
around tables
groups of five
sometimes six
children;
perhaps people
...no, children.
Each,
struggling to Be.
Their tiny pencil feats celebrated
paranoiacally by Us.

And then I was held
between the saucer sized circles
of singularly functional
irradiate eyes...
Some smiles like special rivers
ran across irregular pebble like laughing teeth
so very:
Softly.
Softly.
Softly.

But for the thuds.

Then we descended
to the groans of that wooden machine
where he sat bent over
orange white threads
his short foot hitting
time and again
the iron paddle;
Never looking up.
Never stopping.
The sun catching for him
instead,
sparkling dribble.

And I looked away.
Walked back to where I came from.

Visual traffic –
men in suits
children on cycles
women with umbrellas
a flurry of school uniforms
people talking
on my old roads;
...Some abnormal.

Sweet summer recalls

2009-04-10T11:56:00.000+05:30

Pink fem bubbles softly fall

on a white basin newly washed;

A train of ants chugs by

while the stand-gecko meditates

tongue wetting split eye

then brow.

Red cheeked bulbuls swallow powder puffs,

sneezing pretty purple calls

A red earth dove dips her breast

into a shallow pool

Under cool muddy green-yellowing palms.

Kitty’s den is quiet,

but till Fall.

Pink pentases now yawn

catching passing poplar rays...

While little Thomases peep

between cane walls

I smile from

Within

and

You see...

These sweet,

sweet summer recalls.

To to to to to to to to

2009-04-09T21:17:00.000+05:30

Intuitions steal sudden simplicities

of broken cups, salty teas

telling stories

while

all maps still lead

to dots across seven disjointed

very blue green

seas.

Greece my heart

Strum this bow

Please.

Capture

a blue bottled tiny piece of soul

soul to sand

sand to time

time to grain

grain to grain

to my sugars

to be

to to to to to to to.

C

2009-04-09T21:06:00.000+05:30

Dog, I miss Thee.

And I hope they're cool wherever it is you might Be.
And yeah, I see I see--
But it's Hard to Kaur
Without you,
C.

.Sanitize.

2009-04-09T21:02:00.001+05:30

Alone in Kyoto

again

dead dry white tablet floatin’

somewhere

in there.

Swallowin’ to serum

.Sanitize.

Floatin’ high

like some kind of Boudin cloud

breaking blue bread

sparklin’ shy shadows

swimrises are yellow

creamflies into the black black wet wet windy windy night

lemon disco demons

glare.

Wipin’ to see

.Sanitize.

And so the grasses green

hmm, it could be a Y

but it’s a Z.

Banaras, the passing away

2009-02-27T10:39:00.000+05:30

My anklebells send silver shivers, multiplying the light from the many lamps I sell. Sita, see.

From the corner of my eye she watches the orange wood man awake, new births..old deaths. He is pushed back into the discomfort of a camphor wood cage, doused in cheap oils, scented with sandalwood...

afire
dream pyre
this strange,
strange piety.

..The tiny orange flames now dangerously close to a mud pink, once frilled frock...and so it is everyday. Sita says.

:I swallow the song, your offerings, the thousand vibrations from your invisible bells... I swallow You and Yours:

Saahab, my little son jumping from one boat to the next. Pausing. Breathing. I feel the heat from his aluminium kettle...my womb burns, sears..steaming my eyes. Rapere.

I touch the silence of incense smoke patterns.. tracing soft purple journeys to these brass eyes of fire now lighting the invalid's face, and yet

I sit
I sit
I sit
I sit
I sit
I sit
I sit...

Banaras...the passing away.

Fire to my bosom, aarti to my soul... I am now that little marigold lamp

Sita, she burnt my dry cotton wick from the pod Ameet picked under a different summer sun... his wet black unschooled feet bare. And here, on Azhar's roof, was I twisted... sometimes seven and sometimes five times. My leaf urn, he who is black dried under feet that rustled in a faraway forest never knowing what ghee what jal would wet what his sole dried.

...from Becka's hand I am floating now in waters lit...

boil...purge.. delight

I am writing, not reflecting and you maai, have left..?

Engulfed in incense and sweet butter fires, my tiny emerald dancing while a certain star above watches my face fall, fall into dark marigold depths, befriending the orange man's gray ashes and so we are all

Consumed.
Consumed.

The gnats stop and I, and I

I sit
I sit
I sit...

Such Lies

2009-01-24T19:06:00.000+05:30

When the water you drink fills your eyes
and the satin that is your tongue begins to testify--
large deserts bathed in sunny doubts
touch upon this palm
as Karma Rivulets expand...

Witness,
certain, quick decline
Notice,
that orange fires burn to black
and that face isn’t Him
why live a lie..?
I see your Sigh and hear your Smile.

You think i know
but i dont
and so
I do,
Lie.

Hum.

2009-01-21T13:15:00.000+05:30

Pink clouds of red

and I cannot see

I cannot see

must not see;

…must not see.

Pure shores

callin’

comin’

grievin’

believin’

lovin’

learnin’

bein’

seein’

Yeah—seein’.

And so it goes

Oceans beat on in:

wash my salt

sugar me pure

my Boudin skies beckon

shake my hull

to emerald

Suck out o’ the O-skull

burn brow

beat

sing

scream...

Hum.

Some little things take so long to forget

so long

…so, very long.

Soul Fish

2009-01-21T12:23:00.000+05:30

Smoke to sigh
slow scar sublime, sublime;

This wax warmth
shuts eyes...

Yellow red is sun soaked slumber;

Spent me.
Spent you.

And between
one sun
a sudden, certain sky
stars, all alive
half a moon, even.

One latitude lower--

and
We sink.

Shiver, my sweet.

2008-11-22T09:50:00.000+05:30

Rot stitched together

blackening pink

life--

taking forever.

And the clock by your head,

missing a C

…shiver, my sweet

Missing a C.

Our afternoons spent;

long walks on

old gray tar

paws-feet

two-gether.

Fettered with your eyes

this starry night

your gray face

my black bird

my friend

my constant

and yet,

shiver, my sweet.

I cannot take away

the caustic taste

while scars unnatural

grimace.

Farewells can’t wait

our childhoods

now race:

thirteen summers

fourteen winters

upon each,

can I ask you

my sweet,

to stay?

Her Conscious Walk

2008-11-10T23:21:00.000+05:30

Walking with right angle legs

the result of

certain, sudden

violent sex

the many

successful and not so successful

births.

Cocooned in synthetic black—

her conscious walk,

old.

To an unborn daughter

2008-11-10T23:14:00.000+05:30

A special thanks to two little 'uns-- Anoushka and Tia and their Mamas.

And now I see

Your tiny feet in my palms

My special softness

With your many beautiful moments

Special years

The tears

From me to you

You to me

Your breath mine

Born of me

To me

My daughter, me.

Like Buttons

2008-10-07T23:16:00.000+05:30

Reader, a hundred posts... I don't believe this. And I do.

Much charcoal
little paper
boat on in
through ladder shadows
crossing crisses…
Like buttons
like Buttons.

Butterfly powder stains my skin
and these little islands of magic silt
pervert my pores
sprouting summer sin.
Open now…
Like buttons
like Buttons.

Charcoal circles
pressed into paper
next to
purple thumb paws
saying yes
to black streams of letters.

Please pause
There’s a puddle
toss in
even wish;

Do buttons sink?

Nighttime at Subhash Marg

2008-09-06T10:08:00.000+05:30

(for Cinders, soulmate, sister...best friend)

Cinders sniffs the moon

in a mud puddle;

concerned crickets now stop

frittered pleading for rain.

The house of fireflies

stays ablaze,

while the bats tango

tiny tails tipping

wet guava leaf dance floors

Deego calls

Dark Fire descends.

Cinders,

now dew wet

wags her tail

one paw on the dirty doorstep.

Yet again,

a passing breeze misses

once-gold chimes

we wait.

Yes,

the Old Owl notices,

exclaims.

Just as the porcupines arrive

for breakfast,

in dadima’s flowerbed.

Nighttime at Subhash Marg

begins at 10:00 p.m.

Train window, Dirty Feet.

2008-08-29T19:54:00.000+05:30

Frigid eyes peep:

paddy floats in cloud tears,

and my hut is soaked.

This bread sour;

But I look and I see, even.

I see black plastic sheet roofs

A dozen too many,

too many.

Smoked meals on mud

cooking slow,

too slow.

This running little child--

dirty feet.

She now peeps into a dustbin

her frock falling over her shoulder.

The pale blue now pale black,

bigger than bluer and its only been

days since daddy was back.

Dirty feet

pounding my head

explode my heart...

Girl, you're old.

Train window,

and too fast

we pass.

To the Raavi, my Wye.

2008-08-11T15:11:00.000+05:30

Verdant was your liquid Grace
that shadows wouldn’t dare stain.

That arch,
now your spine
no! your waist…
here your heel.
And these, your brows
But perhaps your fingers
yes, your fingers!

Those suncircled bangles
…your green form ablaze.

And I raced,
from far above
no, I chased
never losing sight of
that wild, dancing froth hair
fair, fair, fair…
Flinging itself carelessly
to the blue cheeks that
visibly adored,
so adored, this play.

While you continued,
oblivious
ageless
stirring;
Molding stone skulls
a smooth satin gray,
narrowing your expanse
through mountain hearts
long-since pierced,
and happily encircled by these,
your giddy emerald orbits.

And I knew then,
that those you touched
with your spright shoulders;
those that lived
on your banks
were pure,
froth-filled and free
so free…

Chamba was my Tintern,
and you, my Wye.

So often I return
but only to the memory
of your
Abundance,
and endless young shimmer
… that scattering gaze

Withal--
you peered into my soul
Raavi,
And you stayed.

Yellow Litter

2008-07-31T18:12:00.000+05:30

In this tumult of green fatigue,
pink white fairy tale faces
blush together
like country girls
sweaty after a harvest dance.

I half expect a squeal,
as one pink frill dips and furls
and then another
and another.

The roses have been allowed to be wild before winter.

Here, bright blondes curve yellow warmth
pulling butter grins at passers by
catching the sunshine
and keeping it
softly bosomed
and cushioning secrets
stolen from a moist breeze.

The crocuses too were allowed to litter the garden like weeds.

Somewhere, away

2008-07-27T22:11:00.000+05:30

I subject myself
to
oaks and winter rain
chestnut-sheens and
merry May…

To the ears of a little child
the tired paws of an abandoned dog
a dear plant,
naked and wild in its orange potlessness
And our freedom;
even.

Injured but safe
not loved but maybe.

…somewhere, away.

Glug

2008-07-23T21:27:00.000+05:30

Little boys on trees,
smoke rings:
they speak.

You don’t speak when you fly.
Yes.

Desires are dreams,
and now one.

Wealthy heart,
spin this head
but promise me,
Stillness.
Love.
Even Eternity,
till mine
Live.

Endless teas
green, yellow, purple, pink
Jasmine,
in rainbow glasses…

Steam on glasses
Two Dots
One C…
Happy.

Carcass

2008-07-20T10:35:00.000+05:30

Leaves that are grass
Crawl over red earth
Swallowing secrets
Those that are dead
Consuming dearth
Filling hollows
For sometime now.

Eating these
Others die,
A lesser death
Or maybe.

Nostrils contract
As we pass
Three such carcasses
The skin on another’s back
I have seen a crow’s tongue
And it is not
Black.

Fleet Foxes

2008-07-04T10:06:00.000+05:30

Fleet foxes

these tin roofs will sink,

like blood on a gravel

that could just be dry gray.

She lies awake.

She thinks.

She says.

a coil

of clouds,

to clouds

of sun lozenges

and moon martinis

of breezes that music her.

And

she pushes her head further

to clasp

in eyes

mists that speak

a secret language

of trees and hills

of few loves

and many pains.

Jin, Juice, Jade

2008-07-04T10:02:00.000+05:30

Smash those apples,

kiss that sun

race this rain;

soak out-

some of that imagined pain.

The hard soap soul

you carry,

let it bubble…

Laugh what’s past

Jin is Juice--

all jade licked

Joy sap.

Back to rhythm.

Here to last.

Invisible Spiders

2008-06-27T11:14:00.000+05:30

The best of my years was given
to stories of lanes and these people
who were pleased to see their pictures,
while my letters screamed for attention.

Now I am old.
I am finally old.
And there is no more news,
for somebody’s paper.

Mornings,
I try to solve
jumbled words...
but haha,
I need to refer.

So I sit without
rumpus
and with egg yolk yogurt
dripping down my neck
brain icicle slime,
lost verdure.

Because the bubbles in my water
do not yet serve.

And in a dead mind
salt stains skitter
invisible spiders assault
flying ideas,
frantically…almost.

My pens are dry,
I’ve let purple pencils die.

Praise.

Bless Please

2008-06-27T11:09:00.000+05:30

Hark my Calliope
Gallop me a blessing
Swish some rhythm
(White wit and rhythm)

See, it’s like this:
There’s an arrow,
And I’m to weave,
Word webs,
No gossamer...
Yes, gossamer!
For it’s to be fine,
Epic fine!

Say Helen,
Will you release?
An arrow that sings
Of no war misery
Or little Cupid’s
Perversity...

My Goddesses,
Be cute.
Be willing.
Pierce this pen...

Create.create.create

No not Crete!

Oh tell these goris,
Saraswati!

Black Orange

2008-05-28T21:25:00.001+05:30

Stratifications on
earth mountain bases are cradled
by tar snakes
that all
travel to
a place
closer on a paper map,
to a tiny red spot
directed by
mile stone hostesses
dipped in yellow
to their cuticles.

Red fields
black fields
gas stations
bus stands
traffic police.

So choose to continue--
coughing dust,
for
all is mute and
unmystical.

So many numbers
So many letters
So many places
So many people
So many trees
So many trees…

Soap rubbed
in a tub
white now;
thinking back…
gold grass
ended
where black-orange stripes
began...

Sitting still
as the gold
further dims
black outside
orange within...
and
my mind,
a mountainside
till both dissolve
and I am nil.

Constriction

2008-05-10T20:53:00.000+05:30

And have you ever felt alone? When the mist on the rainbow memory pond turns yellow and chokes, chokes the last dregs of happy memories…not out, not in but just in between.

When the friendships aren’t enough and when not knowing poisons.

And have you feared yourself?... not answering your own questions, because you don't want to be sure. Because the past never really does leave you, it stays there, it lives between your shoulders, breathing with you… always just-alive.

When everything moves and you are still, so still that your eyes shut but it does not end.

…this personal vortex, this surge of the unshareable.

And have you ever not wanted music? When the twangs stir too much, too much to balance.

Has it been this hard for you? Has language failed you?

Who are you? Wait, I don’t want to know.

Stray Strokes

2008-04-27T09:42:00.000+05:30

The ache in her bones
and
the fire in her heels
tells a familiar,
fast, fatal, felt
story:

Of mornings spent alive
breathing wax smoke,
cupped in candle glow...

Of new wishes
killing old,
…those stray, stray strokes.

Of fatal appeal
cool, cool new breeze
the impossibilities…

Consumed by
fiction’s love heat.

This ache, those bones,
these heels
…dead ablaze
No,
not my story.

Purple Pencils

2008-04-23T00:03:00.000+05:30

Purple pencils
struggle with prose
to curve in an idea;

Now smoothing skin on
some character’s marble cheek…

Now playing butterfly hopscotch
with the black and blind fantail goldfish
in too deep;

Now sitting still as a sunset
biting bits of orange sun to sleep.

So occupied
and always,
always
out of reach.

Impossible workouts!
See…?

For the lead mustang
leaps:
there are two drops of silence
one pause,
and all too brief…

But,
all on pages
where purple pencils
weep.

From another March

2008-04-19T11:09:00.001+05:30

The garden looks like one easel. The orange flowers burn in one corner, the haughty roses keep to themselves, while the cornflowers compete for light. In the other corner, dancing dog flowers bark mute barks at very drunk honey bees. The dubious thieves have rebuilt a hive under the cool cement water tank at the crossing near Kasturba.

This veil of scents that pervades Subhash Marg at this time of the year, brings many hungry and wandering butterflies. Like dervishes they whirl about the purple larkspur, delicately sipping many powdery wines from soft bottles that are alive.

As I walk through the road running parallel to the plaza , I meet the dark brown rickshawallah with his cirrus white tufts of hair under a withered Reebok cap; the original color of which I suspect is red. His eyes are that yellow- the kind we all are only too used to looking away from. The load on his rickshaw is that of dry wood, many branches and other burnable collectives all bound together carefully. The dryness of him, his carriage and his wood is striking.

Around the bend is uncle George’s nervous Doberman, ‘Rocky’, very cement like in his posture, fidgeting only his ears every now and then. You can almost always see a black shiver running up and down his body, threatening to leap at you. The two neighborhood cats, distant relatives of Kitty’s I imagine, sit licking their murderous paws for all they are worth. I curse them silently, still smarting at Tango and Cash’s untimely termination.

A little too much

2008-04-19T10:39:00.000+05:30

You rush but I am still,
thoughts suddenly end where memories begin.

Constant memories.
Created constantly.

To look behind,
to reach within.

So much for the moment,
so little for the lived.

Wheat Sky

2008-04-19T10:33:00.000+05:30

A thousand sand statues race by
I see the velvet of alive purple
In straw hair blades as the wind
Gels them
Into a wheat sky

Under which
Ten rats skitter
Leaving ten red piddle circles
For her to focus-figure out

Notice this:

Swoop
And ka-pow
Kite attack!
Wheat sky comes crashing down.

Notebook Eyes

2008-04-17T11:49:00.000+05:30

Freeze the static,
Rest your head,
on this width of earth;
My width of earth
touch the green and then that blue
trust orange...

And look—

Dusk is mauve.

Shut your notebook eyes,
and confuse.

To the lilies

2008-04-09T22:09:00.000+05:30

This morning I saw him squirm
the ants bit into now dry slime
he stood,
a blind face looking at me.
So, with tissue I wiped
him away
walking to moisture,
to earth
leaving him to the lilies.

And a blind face watched my back.

This afternoon the wishes bit.
Again.
And my hands; they waved,
if only He heard
and he saw…
But sometimes it is indeed
too late.
So I shall be here,
and him there
like before
like now
like forever…
Possibly.

This evening I dug ten toes,
into dead grass.
Witnessed the mad dance,
of tree taperings
clutching last bits of orange grey
as the sky turned into an aviary,
and I,
I sat bitten and alone.

To try and forget,
I walked back to the lilies.

He lay dead,
the ants an angry crowd
pausing to stare at me.

Vindicated.

They then marched away,
with his blind face.
And then the rest.

This night too,
I know…
But this I tell
to the lilies.

Horatio, I have lost

2008-04-09T16:44:00.000+05:30

Horatio, I have lost
And I know not what you said,
was it about the sky?
or a dream?
tell me,
Yourself.

Tremble open a page:
prescribe me a note,
spin it ‘tween my eyes
but there must be
some music
and more.

‘tis a whorehouse this head,
And oh Horatio,
Have I lost?

A Downpour

2008-04-05T16:51:00.000+05:30

There is nothing quite like traumatizing ladybirds. Today is a child's delight. You cannot imagine, what rapture an afternoon shower and plenty breeze hold for life all around. There is almost a collective welcome sigh from all things green, with wings, those with paws and the only creatures that are frightened, are the frightening many legged creepy crawlies. Everyone seems quite busy.

It isn't really an afternoon or an evening, it's something in-between. The kind of time when all colours, sounds, fragrances and vapors somehow become more conspicuous and kind. The same elements seem eerie and unfriendly by night.

There are flat brown seed packets of chilbils lying about, all of last month I stared greedily at their green beginnings on the chilbil tree. Now, I have no desire to taste them. The hollyhocks are six feet tall again, they never disappoint. If our garden were a classroom, the hollyhocks would be the lanky dumb boys with ruddy cheeks that occupy the back benches and generally, fill class space.

I was pottering about the front verandah looking for something I can't remember now, when I spotted this handsome brown hare standing as still and divine as some carved statue (like from an Oscar Wilde story or something) in the middle of the lawn. His ears twitched as I turned the front door kundi (bad idea!) But it was just something else. I wonder if he is the old hare we got from the Mauri Bagh golf course some four years back, he was a baby then. I think bhaiya had discovered him being chased by some wild pie dog for tea on the fifth hole. But the chances of him returning after I left him back there when he was three weeks older are unreal.

My favourite home return story is of a magpie I named Fifi, she returned every winter for a good three years. How I recognized her, I don't know. Children always know. I worry I might have lost that magic now. Like with the squirrels in Agra, there were over a hundred that lived in this mango tree and I think I could have only pretended to know them all by name and things. That was years ago.

Anyway, the sky is aglow and mango trees seem to be flexing some muscle. I'm looking forward to the crop this year, it brings many visitors. Local school children especially. It's a treat to torture them with, "where do you live" and "what class are you in" etc. only to give them as many mangoes as their hands and pockets can hold afterwards.

There is a particularly beautiful tree, the name of which I can never pronounce and then almost obviously not spell either. It has these red flowers that look like an upturned bunch of really really red grapes, long ones though. These flowers must obviously have a rich nectar, a flock of hummingbirds is currently devouring them with an appetite even Hemingway couldn't match. There is also a row of Easter lilies that grows in that grove, it's a riot of red in the garden these days.

I haven't sent the customary bunch of Easter lilies to the St. Paul's church this Easter. I was away I think, on Easter. It's been something I've done since as long as we've had Easter lilies grow in 7 Subhash Marg. It started with Father George D'costa asking for some and us sending Ramu bhaiya with two pails full of them on the community cycle. Now this cycle is used by the gardener, the cook, the driver and the milkman. You can imagine what chaos this arrangement causes. But about the lilies, I think I'll send some tomorrow, since it's Sunday…if I still feel I should.

Fat raindrops are assailing the pathways again. Suresh the sweeper is running about with this ridiculously henpecked looking broom at a right angle to his body. As a kid, I thought he slept with the broom…entirely innocently though. But he is a good man and he sweeps with conviction, lighting a beedi only when the pile of leaves is neatly gathered or being burnt. He first lights the pile and then his beedi. I am always charmed by the dignity with which he does this.

I visited the farm today, my heart broke looking at the mentha take root (so comfortably and naturally, like as if asserting it's birthright sort of way) in those fields. It was like the bastardization of everything my grandfather ever grew there. To add to my grief, I realize we will be selling this place soon and to think this land, with its eucalyptus and poplars and the graves of our cows will be made into plots kills me… there are no other farms where ours is. Just a marketplace and Khurdai is dying. Even Raghunandan the local clever Brahmin has started wearing a pant and shirt when visiting the city.

It's a downpour.

Lemon Salt

2008-03-29T11:52:00.000+05:30

You suck in your lips
and say to yourself
that the drought within
smells of salt sprayed with mint
that the itch in your membrane
is not there
but I know.

I know
that the lemon salt crystals
are many millimeters deep
that your sweat is someone else’s blood
and these are false promises you speak.

It dries under your soul
scouring the tail of your bone
electric blue sparks now burn
the rest of your fat cartilage
you may speak more you,
you the accomplisher
I see no flank foam.

Your salt
is all lemon
and I saw bare feet
whisper to their toes
he lies about journeys
but you and me
we know.

When leaves walk

2008-03-13T14:32:00.000+05:30

Last night
I heard the parade,
of gypsy leaves.

They walked
hand in hand;
Perhaps...
Tips touching,
blades brushing,
veins jutting
now left,
now right.
Twice back
once aside
heading north…
Always north.

Like a cat crawl,
like scratching up a brick wall,
and then a short pause.
Like conversation--
between crests and troughs
the sound of leaves walking,
on a red sandstone shore.

There were chuckles,
as some peeped
through an open door…
rustling against the mesh
smiling cheekily as leaves do,
after a short, beautiful fall…
making poetry with zephyrs
while flying east.

This morning--
I attended the funeral,
as I walked along the old drain
indifferent as always she was.
Indifferent to
the rushing soap water playing pallbearer
to last night’s parade
into a faraway
black vortex.

But
here and there some still lie
the green-yellow dead
not smiling now,
but looking dead-content.

There were also those who picked fights with street brambles
thorns now pierced their brave chlorophyll hearts…
While the others,
they are piled up at the knotted brown foot
of their great old father Neem.

The seven sister choir I hear chirping
in the lonely, damp, dead
leaf cemetery.

Dry Song

2008-03-03T18:24:00.000+05:30

Spots of green
Stare from a face of red
Orange tears
Feed empty bowls
Of the dead…

Dry is this jugular
Coughing dry wheat
Mud simmers
Where once was Spring.

The young ‘un falls
Four legs giving way
His black tongue hanging loose
For a sip
A single sip
From someone’s
Pot of clay…

While she
With the possibly gold nose pin
The starry blackened gold nose pin
With
Two dots of blue tattooed
To tell
Her tribe;
She sells her plates
One for Two
Surprised with Three
Explaining
With pride
The use of each--
One for maize
The other wheat.

It gathers,
This red face paste
Inside my neck
My ears
Hissing in my ears
It’s dying song.

All this
While I race by nine villages
A thousand forgotten people
Ten crow-breakfast cow-carcasses
A child that walks on all fours
Another with no feet
A third with yellow eyes
And its a hissing blur...

So
Hear this,
Tremulous is the tune
Of a dry song.

Complex Enough

2008-03-03T18:17:00.000+05:30

I
Sold my beads
To a passing
Fakir.

Writing as I breathe
Silence in
Silence out.

Now the cheese
Now the knife.

But
This Blue Ink
Is from a lost vein

And
This incense
You now burn
Was Him.

This sight is tender

2008-03-03T18:08:00.000+05:30

A plump peach blossom
snuggles
with a blush
into a brown bosom
peeking every now and then
from under dew tickled
tapering green leaf tips
magic green carpets on billows of dawn breeze.

And another,
now embraces velvet pink pale sunshine
yawning luminosity…

And this one here,
is quivering softly,
so softly,
hidden in chiaroscuro
before flighty spring
kisses sweetly
its pursed pink lips…

Behind the banana trees

2008-03-03T17:56:00.000+05:30

Behind the banana trees
Dries a withered green
Terrylene
Sari
On a wire
A pink wire
A shocking pink wire

Jugnu, then three
Stands under this shocking pink wire
Bare legs far apart
Toes turned inwards
The smell of Rin-water
Itching his nose
Plugged with a stubby finger
He squints

“Maaaaiieee!!!”
And he’s bawling
One eye is red
The other’s dam breaks
And she rushes to him
Dropping the katori
The katori of sugar
Not looking back
But running fast and forward

“Jugnu!!”
“Maaiieee!!!”
And in the chaos
The crystals lie forgotten
Refracting light from a laughing sun
To the blur of images
In the face of shining steel

Jugnu lies in the hollow
Of her yellow
Bright basant yellow
Sari
Gurgling happily
With his one red eye
And his halwa smeared mouth
Squinting
At an ant
Whisking away
One crystal of forgotten sugar.

Five parts

2008-02-09T19:25:00.000+05:30

Weighed by the sin
Of wanting The Taken
But oh he should be mine
Now I don’t want
To do her wrong

So I steal--
Time, thoughts
Slowly
Tapping into tiny memories
Storing in bottles
Three parts spirit
Two parts love

Helpless, but I try--
To stop
Disengage
Drop
Drain
Deal

And I say…
No, I know
He is Me.

But oh I wish…
Just wish
Can’t I wish?
…Please?

Otzi did you kill?

2008-02-08T08:54:00.000+05:30

* Reader, you may find it easier to understand this if you read about Otzi the iceman.

Otzi did you kill?

All those
who dared to disturb your painful slumber?
But you were dead
when they found you
with a missing epidermis
and four squashed ribs;
bent over yourself
for fifty-three centuries.

You still lie
stiff and
wrapped in the mystique:
of conspired truths,
yellowing with the burden
of possible ends.

From your tooth
they discovered--
you were from Feldthurns,
that you were forty five years old,
weighed but fifty and then thirty-eight kilos,
and stood short at five feet four.

So much copper in your hair…
that pure copper axe…
So you must have smelted copper.

They know what you ate:
the plums and grain
red deer meat
and they found
preserved whipworm and conifer pollen
and so, it was Spring.

But what were those
many dots on the back of your knee
around your ankle?

Did it hurt?

Who made your grass socks and rich cloak?
And was it because,
because of…reduced fertility?

Yes you killed--
two with one arrow
And yes,
you died
pulling from your stomach
in the slowly shrouding snow
the last shaft out…

The Children of the Shadows

2008-02-01T16:54:00.000+05:30

I saw today
The children of the Shadows.

This morning,
something trembled
beneath the old Peepal.

Under it’s wide cold shade,
a few bangles I heard,
and the crackle:
of another empty silver packet
that was thrown in
with the others.

But the barking
I heard before the crackle.
It was quick.
Very quick.

Something,
in half a scarlet frock
another in yellow.
And the mother,
in hurriedly wrapped
synthetic green with yellow spots.

She stopped.

I walked by the grey
the black
and the hairless one
that stopped to bite off more of it’s tail
all three of them
now in the bushes…

Barking, still barking.

Their never-white,
white sacks were not yet full.
The one in the scarlet half-frock,
looked hopefully at the large bin…

The barking drew closer still.

I did not hear it,
I was far from the children
the mother
the dogs.

But what seemed like shadows
under that cruel old Peepal --

Were people,
and never shadows.

Just Winter!

2008-01-24T22:27:00.001+05:30

Warming my hands in her lap she looked further than far
and I followed her eye to wherever that was…
Over peace-stead,

into the sighing silver oak trees,
beyond covered-passage
into green woods that were deep…

I waited and thought.
(just like little girls seldom do than oft')
Then ventured to ask,
in a certain voice,
and with a brave heart,
What is it mama?

My little heart now wishing
she thought what I thought.

No nothing baby…
It's just old winter coming along.
Oh…
said a small voice disappointed and all…

But!
She heard, and she smiled.
Then tucking two curls,
behind my affronted pink ears--
Hmmm…Did somebody's tummy say
Apple-Pie?
Haaa! How did YOU know!
Ha ha…just winter!

Inner Orphan

2008-01-07T22:25:00.000+05:30

Listen:

talk nine dimensions
into life.
Make eighteen stars,
gloom;
sputtering glow dust
that-
rains on my
Inner Orphan…

Yawn three dimensions
to Watch
the Gust Gather
in my
purple peach
sails:
before
I set off
Alone.
Prodigal.
Indulging my
Inner Orphan…

Laugh six spheres.
Loud.
Very loud.
Catch the corner
of my eye,
black bowls:
spherical salt juice;
now spilling--
The Truth
about my
Inner Orphan.

She's Free

2008-01-03T14:30:00.000+05:30

Crunch the caramel of my being
Swallow the last bits of me
But spit my spirit:
Spit it
Free.

Chew the last of my Vacancy
Kill it please
But the verses shall churn
From my mercury marrow
Free.

Always Free.

You cannot take Me from me.
Try, and you’ll only release
More me
Swill shook Anhad Shinjini
Free...

She’s Free.

Still.Still.Still

2008-01-03T14:27:00.000+05:30

Still.still.still
my troubled waters
and if you do,
I will.will.will
be Here.

But

Still.still.still
my troubled waters.

See my hand outstretched
white and wanton
I need.need.need
See?

And

Still.still.still
my troubled waters

I don’t ask more
Than to let
me
Be.be.be

I promise.
I promise.
I promise.

Look.Wait.Still.
Will.be.me
Deep.deep.deep.

Your Second Childhood

2008-01-03T14:16:00.000+05:30

Your second childhood is here.
but who is grateful for
your--
questions
tantrums
demands
innocence?

Not Us.

Was I too like this--
Once?
And will I be like this;
Again?

So I see.
And I agree.

Reverse it all,
Please.

Let me be the child
and you the Grown.

Let age govern wisdom…

Oh, to be careless again.

My million bangles

2007-12-29T23:37:00.000+05:30

My million bangles
Tell stories you wouldn’t understand
Of mothers, sisters and daughters
A world you will never know
Don’t call me woman
Oh no, now don’t.

My million bangles
Sing a song each time I breathe
They cage Our Dream
When Hit—b.r.o.k.e.n
But Alive
Very alive
Are those sharp insides
Pricking my Self

Don’t mock
Metal and glass
I can taste

Ha!

My million bangles
Are together music
Fear their Pitch
clink, clink, clink.

My million bangles Quake.

I might smile

2007-12-29T23:24:00.000+05:30

I might smile--

When You Do:

Cry me a cloud

Send me a circle drop
Wrapped in a wet star
Warm as the blue sun

Love me solar
Burn my cool
I might smile

Dress up all turtle

Sing me my favourite story
Of snipers and marmots
Remember all the names
But stay far
Very far

Love me lunar
Cool my burn
Smile I might

Take me to Naples

But then don’t talk
Till I wear azure bangles
And then,
Smile I will.

Many, many, many.

2007-12-29T19:14:00.000+05:30

I remember afternoons when my shoulders were free. There were no constrictions between my head and heels. When joy would swim without me knowing it, when life was a fish in a green pink lotus pond out in a small big garden. My koi had names, we often talked. Our stomachs were never full and clover wasn’t just lucky grass.

And when the peaches fell it was a new season… The old blue sundial that was my clock, before I knew numbers and measured my wrists. The motia glistened in wet heady bracelets and soon there was mist. Evenings when I slipped to hide behind tall bushes to say goodnight in each nest, to friends who spoke and still do.

Fifi, she would wait. Her black white tail and that same song with many meanings. Her black pepper size eyes never blinking, with a smile only I could see. Every log was a chair and every rock a friend, how I stuck blossoms back on to trees. So many secrets behind why my knees were always green, many jungles there were in moss. Many, many, many.

Your bitterness

2007-12-29T18:55:00.000+05:30

Your bitterness amazes me
yes it does.
Be gone now!
please…

Your bitterness frightens me:
yes it does.
Why this anger?
…sorry.

Your bitterness distresses me--
yes is does
I am quiet.

See!

Your bitterness pains me;
yes it does
So caustic,
let go;

Your bitterness.
Your bitterness.

go.go.go.go.go.GO.

This Sun Shines Love

2007-12-28T08:39:00.000+05:30

There’s sun shining down on her face
her eye twitches
the traces of a smile dance on dry lips
she knows I’m here
our love is 21 years old.

S-u-n-s-h-i-n-e! she says
not without difficulty
there’s pain
a lot of pain
but I laugh and sink
into her arms open wide…

I feel the shiver of blue veined fingers
with their single ring
on the back of my neck
and a kiss on my forehead.

The same biscuity sweater smell
labored breathing
the pain’s getting harder and I can’t swallow
and so the tears flow…

Sunshine lies buried
in her Origin’s embrace
her childhood seems to be slipping away.

And she feels her child’s pain
S-i-rr vih-tcch daa-rd hai-gaa?
Nahi ma, hun thik ho gaya!

She smiles and pinches my red nosetip
Her liquid eyes singing our song

And so I mutter a million times
Oh please don’t take
My Sunshine away…

What I meant.

2007-12-13T22:11:00.000+05:30

And so you find yourself, somewhere in between. That is my butter lamp bardo, I hate reinvention, rejuvenation…rebirth…so I’m in bardo. Butter lamps mean much. For one, Sonam brought them to my subconscious and I wont be at peace till I meet her in Bhutan and see for myself what one looks like, how it feels to hold one… is it hard red earth? Does the wick crackle sometimes? And does it smell warm..? does the butter stay on your fingers…do you think of those you lost? Do your cheeks become red and do your eyes feel salty..? Do you see grey smoke and then see nothing? Is it personal…

She Is

2007-12-12T09:19:00.000+05:30

Butter-lamp bardo
when does it end?

I have slipped into black, green, blue rivers
With waves of red.
Cradled islands; balanced…
balanced, on that twang
of a faraway invisible veena…

And the subtle shiver of a swan song
has crawled,
crawled with me
while
I have whistled along paths up mountains
only to be defeated
by winds of a different kind.

Unfriendly is this growth--
panch koshas expand
only to expend.

My wings aren’t wax
no, not wax.
The wicker of my body
does not yet burn.

But
She Is.
So I ask-
Dhaaran-e-dhaara kad?

Butter lamp bardo
When does it start?
Is my candle yet unlit?

Or is my childhood spent
...and me?

In the autumn of my music

2007-11-23T21:28:00.000+05:30

In the autumn of my music I was born
and
t’was spring when I found the last of them gone.

But here I am again
and
tell me, where is it you said
you were from?

Was it autumn too,
when you were born?

Did you hear the brook
gurgle at dawn?

And did you walk barefoot
on a thousand mustard flowers?

Were the curtains swimming
in a bright-wet-big-blue-black storm?

And am I autumn?
And will you stay till spring?

And such is my delirium:
that in a prelude--
I find my Sleep.

But in the autumn of my music
I shall wake
and
fall…

All the notes

2007-11-02T15:05:00.000+05:30

Oh you won’t see--

the many times I have been beautiful
thinking about you.
And oh you will not know
which lines on what pages
make me think of you…
But I will keep the notes,
all the notes.

I saw the other day,
a blue glass lantern
a broken window
new wet white roses
a smiling child
an empty chair
yellow leather slippers
Three Birds on one wire…
a tiny dip for a navel
of a laughing maroon God.

I also touched a piece of sandalwood.

And I’ve memorized all this too
for when I’m old,
and alone,
a little frail,
a little forlorn,
and when you,
you are but a memory in all these notes.

The thousand shadows

2007-11-02T15:01:00.000+05:30

I can make a thousand shadows
make the thousand shadows dance
their dance is black
black like the sky
the sky without her stars
stars that lick black ripples
black ripples like the thousand shadows in dance.

[Photograph by--Mandira Sharma]

Robin Was

2007-10-20T23:37:00.000+05:30

Both parts of We were 21 have been removed, the manuscript is currently in progress. Apologies!

We were 21

2007-10-18T09:17:00.001+05:30

And I watch

2007-10-16T23:34:00.001+05:30

Biswas gathered the white lilies quickly, his legs the size of their stalks and I watched him. I watched how he ran along the many cars, his tiny wet black head visible through a series of parallel car windows. Nervous that he had stolen.

The men in trucks threw coins at them. At Lakhan and Pyaare, riding their wooden skateboards with their dead legs trailing along with them and I watched them. I watched Pyaare’s lips curl into a mute curse and Lakhan laugh at his impudence while a coin hit his head. And Pyaare dived for it.

Sukhram drove the rusty wheelbarrow with it’s slivers of blue, carrying dead-dying-dry marigolds and roses and I watched him. I watched him smell them deep and unsmiling he threw them into the Gomti. Scratching behind his ear after he spat at Her Holiness.

Five yellow leaves

2007-10-15T22:39:00.000+05:30

Five yellow leaves

I stop.
I count.
I remember.
I forget.
I hope.

No Dervish.
No apple.
Half a pencil.
No address.
No desire.

Fat roses.
Familiar like forgotten-faces.
From before.
For no reason.
Framed.

~~~

Our bus of dreams--
opens it’s door:
out flies --
Orange Opium

Oh.

~~~

Do you think,
doves like these;
die like whistles at
dawn?

Don’t. Please.

~~~~~

Northern lilies

2007-10-15T22:34:00.000+05:30

Northern Lilies

What are these spaces
mountains, airs, voices…?

My words cannot hold --
the dew, mist and dying dandelion.

I cannot bring back for you
in a jar,
this air.

I search for your messages
in my subconscious…

Alight now,
won’t you?
Say something…
Amuse.

***

They question
when they wake,
touched by a wand
of sunrays.

In the lavender dance,
white widowed butterflies.

Powdering the dewed long,
long leaves,
silver.

***

Answer me --
Is this rage or are you
another Thief?

You --

Mist ballerina on a lily leaf…

What is your happiness?
What is your grief?

Tell me.

***

In the Circus of The Absurd

2007-09-27T15:27:00.000+05:30

I shoot blue butterflies
with noiseless firecrackers.

They flutter with purple pigeons
under a yellow starred
black velvet ink sky
between those red fur clouds;

And there’s this supernatural feel…

The dancing bear that escaped
sits next to me,
with his paw wrapped
in a bloody bandage.

His eyes are on the trapeze artist,
she’s waving him farewell.
a black kohl tear
rolls down
a white powdered cheek;

And he is discovered…

By the monkey:
with a stolen monocle,
and an old grudge;
selling toke,
for free backrubs.

While
my Superstars
and Detrix
Die.

Die, before their
seven seconds
of fame.

And I hear--
that the canons were burgled
for bodies,
of dead human cannon supermen
by blind clowns without knees
searching, searching.

What magic,
at the Circus of the Absurd.

A thousand green bangles

2007-09-25T17:45:00.000+05:30

A thousand green bangles
are alive tonight.
They clink,
dancing with the moonlight.

Heavy are bent arms,
with wet diamond drop bracelets--
of fresh rain.

Now singing soft songs
slowly whispering me awake…

Calm scents call
tickling a silent sleepy nosetip,
and capturing pockets of this wind
are magic-purple baby chimes…

A thousand green bangles
are making music;
with the first wafts of winter wind
fingering all that’s asleep,
Peter-Pan like…

Three nights ago I heard:
the first whisper
and I saw early,
the ripe orange harshingar--
falling like fragrant stars,
like impossible sweet wishes
on wet earth bricks
the morning winter arrived.

Seasons ago

2007-09-24T22:17:00.001+05:30

It was nights and evenings such as today’s that we looked forward to most. The sheesham threatening to fall, the poplars wailing from another corner, the sky a distinct orange, like the round base of a sand covered matka… the gusts of wind blowing away neat piles of leaves that had been hidden behind the bushes by lazy old Munna Singh who used his broom for a crutch, supporting his polio eaten right leg on it. The broom and him were one. One when he sweeped, one when he didn’t.

Someone would call out for the lamp to be lit, someone else would ask for it to be done carefully and I would ask if I could do it. But I think I will never be old enough to handle such things as fire, in saath subhash marg.

What I remember more than the conversations were the constants we had on evenings such as these, constants like the sound of the wind, some faraway dog barking, running out of kerosene and tawa heated toasts. We sat closer together than usual on evenings like today’s. I enjoyed the feel of dadima or dadaji’s bony knees and the occasional wet nose of Trigger, Shera or Gypsy on my elbow.

There were no dreams and aspirations to discuss, nor the change in climate. Or politics or anything intelligent. We talked about Gujranwala and Patiala, the colour of the maltas at Rajkot, the governess at Patiala and my commendable improvement in tackling the formidable triwheeled blue bicycle. From the verandah in the cottage, the boundary wall looked far, somewhere behind the beri trees which looked eerier as it got darker.

You could smell the trees first, then the nightflowers… the heavy raat ki raani, the coy chameli and the ethereal juhi. Nothing could be calmer than these scents. Then you’d hear them. The cows, a branch cracking into two and Shera shooting out of the verandah to bark out the trespasser. The foot long dachshund had some serious misconceptions about his size. He could challenge anyone and he did. We loved him for it, he made a good substitute for conversation over tea and when we had tough to crack guests and relatives over. That’s why I guess, dogs are popular pets.

The stray cows would come in through the broken walls, they gorged on dadima’s kochias and every delicate plant she grew. She was young those days, young enough to walk out with a straight back and a stick waving at them. I followed her, heady with a combination of responsibility towards my little garden and bravery. I think I learnt a lot about the sixth sense night vision thing on nights like this, especially when the big steel torch was out of Nippo batteries.

We’d always return victorious, dadima, the dogs and me after the cows had been driven out and we were considerably parched in our throats from screaming at them. We’d return to no cold drinks, no thanda paani in cool PET bottles or anything, our luxury drink in the cottage those days was the orange or lemon squash which had to last two months, till our next visit to the AMC canteen. No we didn’t drink squash either on nights like this, hammi made us chaa and I usually had to drink my second big glass of milk for the day. But we’d wait till 10:00, dadaji would impatiently look far out to the MES opposite us, no trace of lights meant we might have to sleep without. And we did, happily. Me snuggled up with dadima, who’d tell me about the French neighbors and their free pet turtle in Saigon and dadaji, putting in his own two bits from the next room till all of us fell asleep.

So simple was our life then…the fireflies weren’t romantic visitors, the wind sounds were all part of the evening, the stars had names and I was but a little girl in a big boy t-shirt and little fat-boy shorts deeply in love with it all, not yet able to use three syllable words and not yet unsure of anything.