desire will never let us down

this is where we live now. meaning is only born from schism.
desperation is the same as romance i think. disillusionment is only natural.

we must remind ourselves that our desire is not the lack of. it is not a negative space.
it makes the world go round. and it makes the world stop in its tracks. and rotate relentlessly. and pause
and move again on its tilted axis.
science is turning onto itself.
a heatwave is fast approaching
i want you in the mornings. and afternoons. and when i walk back from the station. there is no end to the wanting.

the people go to work and smoke their cigarettes and eat paan and get on their buses and hold their flighty children close to their bodies and the work day ends in the evening and they go back home to their husbands and wives.
the earth moves once more while they all sleep and i still want you. routine is good for the heart.

 

Scarred

 Come. Dare.

Kiss a scar.

Wear blood lipstick.

Smear a slide with words.

Watch

cells divide, rearrange…

an amoebic dance of metaphors.

The histopathology of a poem.

Waits

for the microscopic gaze

of your eyes.

Remove the tubes.

Wheel me into your heart.

Take me home.

Heat Wave

Overpowers
Seals my lids
Melts cognition
Soon am swimming
In cool water
A gold fish
Dreaming of air 
Of a gentle breeze
Flowing through trees.

What can't be said

The form a thought takes, so that I know

I thought it, noun and verb in order, bound

together by a magnetic force so

strong that once fused can't be undone, sound

and meaning, this my language, my grammar

the crude tool I use to make the world make

sense. But language becomes a hammer

turning the world to nails. Words are opaque.

Those moments when the screen of words gives way

the world pours through, all liquified. Last light

on the lake before the sun goes down, aflame

We dived into the water that was ice

not so long ago, lay skin to skin, speechless

Under the aurora borealis

#3 Pink ball

 a pink ball rolls

around a corner

of a rectangular park

a newly erected fence

in green and gold 

edged with spears and arches

stands inscrutable

you can tell yourself

in a sinister whisper or 

a bouyant shriek, 

'I SEE traffic through a trellis'

with a burst of screeching friction

and heaves of mortar fattened pillars, a metro train passes above.

pink ball stops rolling,

settles itself, somewhat unclaimed.

turn of the corner reveals

an urchin with lopsided buttons 

and his merry belly button running,

brandishing an yellow plastic bat.

walkers gather pace, crunching

on scattered orange leaves

 of an Indian almond tree

 unafraid of solitary pink balls

Parting words

Go gently into that night, Ma.

Rest your tired eyes.

Cast off your tattered clothes.

Follow the soft fragrance

Into the garden beyond

The pitch-dark tunnel.

Go peacefully into that night, Ma.

Be a child again

With soft-pinky hands

And a shrilly voice.

Find a new mother

And I shall behold you

In every infant.

Walk happily into that night, Ma

Dark as the Krishna on your altar.

Let go of my hand.

Snap the thread that binds us.

Crash the pitcher of pain

Burdening your head.

Trust the dark, Ma.

Run along to meet Him.

By a limpid pool across the night

Bathed in light

He waits for you.

most condolences are not heartfelt

in the absence of your voice i construct a day for you
what are you doing? besides being far from me
daydreaming of your day on the way back from work
are you skipping breakfasts or walking to class? what movies are you watching? and whose mouths are you touching?
i hope it is you. my skin, my eyes, my phone, my shampoo, my nails, my ears,
my door, my laptop, my utensils, my books, all hope it is you.
my heart is a heavy, brute, unwieldy cyborg
and it beats too fast too hard too willfully

warm up

 In youth, the body 

needs little notice.

Shaken from sleep 

it will walk into 

the hard edge of day.

Little thought.

No aftermath.

As in the body 

so in poetry.

Cold start.

Quick finish. 

The pain

forthcoming

still in the middle distance. 

4. Be Not Afraid

"Be not afraid," it mouthed to me and swam

In circles round my fast-collapsing brain,

"I am a simple guest. And you're..." "Insane?"

I dribbled, "God, I must be. Yes, I am..."

"My host," it smiled, "Within you such a dam

"Is built of so much uninspected pain

"And fear that I know it would be no drain

"On your emotions if you had–" "A damn

"FISH inside me?!" But I soon became

A little calmer as it spoke as if

Its words were sapping from me something made

Of tar and hair and phlegm and guilt and blame;

The feeling that can make my spirit stiff 

And heavy. "Now, I trust my rent is paid?"

consolation

every day is laid to rest
in the arms of the next.

Sitting on a cushion

Sitting on a cushion
I tried to find liberation
from loopy thoughts
autopilot patterns
judgements rising like acid
from the stomach
after a badly chosen meal

my skin was on fire
sukhasana became dukhasana
my mocking mind rejected mastery
playing both Tom and Jerry
sometimes hanging from the roof
laughing at me, or a trapeze artist
flying from one thought to another

fidget fidget
scratch scratch
itch itch
ouch ouch
liberation is not for me or
this path to liberation is not for me where
a minute is an hour and an hour a day

I need to walk, I need to run
I need to see the world pass by
I need to sing, I need to hum
I need to laugh out loud
I need to hug, I need to write
I need to feel my feelings
not sit eyes closed, back straight

silently watching the drama within  
just witnessing, just observing
letting the darkness come closer
letting it touch me, letting it hold me
letting it take me deeper into its fold
down pathways I would rather not go
letting me sense the slivers of light

Sitting on a cushion
I tried to find liberation
and lost so here I am
happily lost or a loser
as you will
writing poetry to find my way
writing, to join the dots
between light and darkness.
 

OUT LOUD

For an aeon, a fountain refuses to burst 

open. It remains pressed like a weak

water pistol. Even with strong triggers,

no more than feeble spurts squirt out. 

Sad hearts find safety in silent rejoicing. 

No fireworks, only noiseless snow. 

Why don't you do it loud, my mother asks. 

The jokes aren’t lame, my water pistol is.

LOL, my soon-to-be teen niece says,

her face deadpan, the expression of

humour a cryptic postmodernism. Our

faces balloon and burst mimicking her.

We're from a different century, clearly.

On a warm, power-cut afternoon, 

my husband teaches three of us, 

two twenty-somethings and me, 

a Punjabi word meaning labyrinth. 

We fail to pronounce the p-h phonemic 

peculiarity. His instructions become 

hysterical. Pupils dilate, voice rises, 

chest inflates. We copy him, fail, copy, 

fail, his pupils distend even more, we fail 

irredeemably and erupt. Fountains of 

laughter leave our throats 

and the trapping heat our bodies.

Close to half a century on the earth later

I manifest my mother's decades-old 

request and my niece's robotic code. 

    

(Laugh 

Out

    Loud.)

This is how growing old and growing up trade places.

The paradox of writing

In the net made of words I capture my thoughts

as they swim in the deep so wild and bold

Here on the page they turn black and they rot

Thrown back in the waves they flash silver and gold

The Poet Wishes To Write of Joy

 

Joy is a haiku
Its timing is exquisite
Birdsong in the night.
A heaping of blades of gold
Shining like a haystack
A heartbreak of falcons in flight.
Joy is a reaching, a metaphor
A thread in the needle of desire.
Risking blood in the need to
Hold, daring your heart
To lie on the pyre, a piercing
To the core.
May falcons fill and fire your sight
And hay fields blaze your yearning.

There are always two voices dancing in my head:

There are always two voices dancing in my head:

sometimes, they are mine and yours

sometimes the preacher and the question

sometimes they are justice and despair

sometimes the eyehole of the self and the tsunami of the world

sometimes the moment silencing the hours.

Surgery

 Time unbandages.

A stitch cries in pain.

All that had gone numb,

Is wound, again.

---

Saline hope drips

into my vein,

Desert mouth opens,

Eyes an oasis, again.

---

Muffled howls plucked.

All that wasn’t said

weeps blood, finally,

I breathe, again.

Say O

I wasn't really listening   until that song came on

that Thyagaraja sang      in Khamboji

to get the god's attention   the one who's lying down

in the temple in Trichy    O Rangasayee

All those musicians we know by their initials

sing it  TMK  MDR  MSS 

but this one   Semmangudi

Is known by the place where he was born

his broken voice remade

by mind     music made of ideas

He begs the god to say 'O'

a god I don't believe in 

but at the fast part   the notes

become the words   even  uneven

voice   violin

'This place is heaven'

Not the god, I'm the one

he's singing to

What else can I do?

DUST TO DUST

Dust is a disillusioned historian.

Mistrustful of self discovery

dust roams from Rome to home.

A particle, minuscule, joins

a million more. With the

fanatical passion of a new

believer it storms cities,

citadels, forests and thrones.

Over tedious gale flights,

red dust from Rajasthan

holds Australia's horizon 

hostage in an amber haze.

Dust travels with hulking

marauders galloping across

territories. The dust of

destruction. The lust for land.

Dust seldom settles. Even 

when it does, flimsy like hair 

falling off a burnt scalp,

it asks to be scattered.

Dust on a grave; an itinerant's

rest before passing on. 

we have a neurosis in common

we have a neurosis in common. her and i. a blithe
worldview is unbeknownst to us. a way to read.
a way to interpret. a way to dismember the
events of the day. locked out of my own room
staying up late into the midnight hour. wondering
if i am any good at all. she thinks i am i think.
aren't we all praying for something or the other.
i am praying for her. it leaves and comes back and
it leaves and comes back and it leaves again.
it being the fever. the fever is persistent. and
the falling down is too. once she is done seeing this city
the burning will come down. the waves will subside
the clouds will part and the flowers will change
into their summer forms. she knows too much
about herself. she knows she is on my mind.
i am left alone with her madnesses when she is not with me
nearing the finish line. have so much to say but nothing at all
there must be a celebration in her spirit.

3. There is a Fish

There is a Fish that swims inside my head

Where once there was a voice, quite loud, but still

As water that reflects for us a hill

With shrill cicadas singing to the dead,

“For seventeen rotations have we fed

“On sap from tree roots. Now we’ve had our fill

“And, born aloft by newformed wings, we will

“Arise!” And so, they fly until they’ve bred.

Perhaps like that it was the Fish awoke,

Transmogrified from still life to the brush

That moves across the canvas. Thus, the Fish

Leaves traces in my mind. When first it spoke,

I blocked it out and whispered softly, “Hush!”

Then, horrified, I felt its tail fin swish.

The memorable YA fiction

Silver, black and grey,

Those were her colours. 

Scars, wounds and tears,

Those were her fate.

Panic, fear and pain,

Were felt upon her entry.

From a an unwanted dog that she was,

A wolf she became.

Not the most ideal main

character energy she carried,

After everything that happened,

with love she was buried.

I have grown up reading a lot of YA fiction. One of my favourite book series is the “Young Elites” by Marie Lu. It does not have movies or a show. Just three books and few simple strong characters. I usually forget the books I have read, but this one has stayed in my mind. The main character had powers that were dark, negative and harmful. She was an unusual main character who did not have a high moralistic ground or a very kind personality. She fought for herself and those she loved. I highly recommend this underrated book series to anyone looking for an anti-hero from the times when such characters were not the norm :)

2

I read about the politics of loneliness and stir 
a teaspoon of sorrow in my tea. Do you get to 
feel alone and have it called an epidemic? Do 
I get to feel alone and have myself be deigned 
an old hag? I want to fail spectacularly at life, 
be free of the lingering hope that it will turn 
out like everyone else’s. You, of your perfectly 
designed life events; me, of my unorganised
existence I carry around in sustainable tote bags. 
How can our loneliness be similar, scampering 
around old bars in cities, flirting with each other 
when they meet? How can your loneliness tell 
mine that it is a mirror, a friend, a deep well in 
a far corner of the black forest? Why would it 
ask my loneliness to hold hands and escape the 
darkness? Mine is older, has been in love before, 
and lost. What do you know of losing? You are a 
study in human psychology. I am a memoir of a 
woman, unfortunate. You are a research paper. 
I am an old wive’s tale.

Esja From the Traffic Lights

 

 

You can’t always say you’ve seen the light

But it’s not as if the universe isn’t trying.

You’re on your way, what more do you need.

But you’re idling at the crossroads, crying.

You’re not even looking, you’re scrolling

Your facebook feed, whatever it’s selling

You’re buying. I’m not judging; god knows

I feel your need. You don’t want to walk

If you can’t be flying. You can’t always

Say you’ve received a sign,

But it’s not as if you’re even counting.

Its true that there’s a yield board before

That massive uprising of rock, where the light

Seems to pour forth in fountains. But before

That one  – right in front of you – there’s

The figure with a shovel: a sign

That you can move mountains.

Some thoughts on Non-violence or Ahimsa – 30th January, 2024

I

You destroyed my place of worship
I destroyed yours.
You killed and conquered mine
I killed and conquered yours.
Where we fought stands
a shiny shrine – its foundation
soaked red – its walls just dust.

II
The killer is enshrined in the hearts of haters.
They read his reasons for murder as sound.
They sharpen their swords and words daily
to use on people still carrying traces of ‘that man.’  
Peace can only be got through bloodshed – it’s
sad but true, they say, carefully cultivating
more rage, more vengeance
firmly steering clear of healing.

19. Solitude (continuing Miraji's Japanese geisha translations)

 

They will come, flowers crowding their hands

On this tender, clean path

When the moon skirts the sky

YOU HAVE NO REASON TO REBEL

 After reading Ziad’s Gaza diaries

In your backyard, spring has

arrived early with robins and 

cardinals singing pretty songs, 

with squirrels and bunnies (not

children digging through rubble)

ransacking the earth for secret 

treasures of seeds and nuts 

still hiding in its chest.

Where you live, a trail opens up

to a panoptic forest, the path 

leading to it your faith keeper

in the surety of seasons returning. 

Yours is not the place where winter 

overthrows autumn and never leaves. 

Yours is a blue sky that sill puffs 

up with tufts of cotton cloud, not 

one so thick with bomb smoke 

that children mistake it for an iron roof

that the angel of death roams nonstop. 

You have no reason to rebel. 

Where you live, department stores 

sell clothes and libraries do their 

lending thing. You don’t wake up 

in a place where libraries start selling

pyjamas and underwear. Where a cat, 

in her final days of pregnancy fights 

to stay with you as you try to find her

a safer home. With peace as repugnantly 

abundant as you possess, no gauze is 

needed and you have no reason to rebel. 

#2

 Screeches in the dark

owl on a bare branch

Ripe mangoes

hanging fruit bats

Splashes in the pool

unafraid of school

Clattering vessels

scarce water

A child's shriek

on soft grass

A dog's bark

long lost bone

A poem

found words

2. An Ark

“An ark, an ark! I must construct an ark!”

Obsessively, my inner voice demands

Of me with such unusual commands

That some strange accent animates its bark—

A Pomeranian in an Indian park

And not the Central European lands

In which by all too eager human hands

Its form was shaped, for sport or for some lark.

It is for sure an alien this speech

That bubbles up from deep within my brain,

Some cuckoo parasite from ages past

Bred into me by those who chose to teach

The words of prophets, blessed or insane,

Whose hooks reach farther than when they were cast.   

1

The year has been a dark forest
its small pinpricks of life twinkling
then disappearing like stars of a city.
A darkness that softly weeps.
No promises were kept, the tears of
the trees fall like rain on mushy ground;
what grows from it, we will never see.
We do the bidding of the blackness,
touching the surfaces to know where
we are, but never each other. The story
arc is broken, we know because we have
been gathering wood for a fire. There’s
no match, no flint, nothing that calls to
us from the woods. This loneliness of not
being haunted envelopes us. It is silent.

around me

you lay down next to me and look at your phone.
im watching something too. isn't this what people do these days?
you're shifting moving searching for something not in this room
i wish i knew what you're looking for.
i am inheriting diabetes and guilt and overbearing love
from my parents
this is when the smallest sliver of light breaks on your window grills (the sun never reaches your side of the house) and
you have your rituals with your lights. you hate the unforgiving white tube light in your eyes
you change the light - softer and warmer through an application on your phone. the lights are app-enabled these days.
how could i possibly compile a litany of reasons to be angry at you?
you don't really want to leave this house
i don't want you to leave me

Poem about poems

The right words in the right order - clear stream 

over rocks drunk from cupped hands. Made, or found?

Sound before meaning, like the pearl in a dream 

about eating oysters, in your mouth, smooth, round

Suitcases

You have so many suitcases

my friend said. I counted 5, big and small.

Packing and unpacking to pack up again,

all of this one life to move on as far as my eye can see. 

Suitcases, how literal.  

do you think we'd have been friends as children?

written for my best friend 

he was looking for a water bottle
maybe we are returning to the ways of ourselves. last week we saw a young boy in delhi on the floor of a restaurant looking for something and he was sticky in the way that young boys are. he was looking for a water bottle to go into his backpack
then we walk around tossing our appetites back and forth between us

he's wiggling his hips
we run into the little boy again; this time he's on a skateboard trying to do one of those tricks. he's wiggling his hips now to be more aerodynamic
we fill ourselves with trinkets and knick knacks and window shop until late into the night.

he's playing with his friends
his backpack is flying in the air and his friends are laughing with him while he zooms past us on the skateboard. he's playing with his friends and he probably has school tomorrow and his mother will call his name soon signalling the end of playtime
we reminisce and i wish i knew you when we were young and growing up

1. Beginnings

Beginnings bring with them a challenge, friend:

I wonder always if each odyssey

Will end with home and sweet Penelope

Or if disaster is to be my end.

Will these, my words, fortuitously bend

And circumvent each maelstrom on the sea

Or are the crags of some catastrophe

The ports to which my poetasting tend?

To me some comfort comes from worlds afar:

“Each instance is some ending’s genesis

“And endings always leave behind a spark

“In which a billion new beginnings are

“Aflame with radiant new impetus.

“For terra supernova, now, embark!”

Sulaimani chai

 A tiny bark of cinnamon 

 two pods of cardamom

 twin buds of clove

 what's not to love

 of the aroma

  pounded and dropped

  into boiling water

 swirling in the eddy

 restlessly they bob everywhere 

 ah ginger should be with them

 now for the heat to be off 

 so a few tea leaves can join the pot

 The lid is is important,

 no magic happens in daylight

 darkness releases gold

 sieved into a cup

 with a squeeze of lemon

 and a dollop of honey

  you are struck by wonderment 

  at the number of species that made

  this perfect cup of sulaimani chai

THE STELLAR WORK OF KINDNESS

 

The cruelties of yesterday meet

the fate of all old things. Lose

their edge. Fade out. 

 

From the southern window, a silver

moon peeps in. Still almost full.

Shy. Veiled just so behind a sheer

curtain. But there, a friend

who gets what loneliness is.

It's 5 am. Songbirds haven't yet

pitched their sonic petitions to

resist the rule of darkness. In 

this distilled hour, the lunar 

interposition is perfect. It's

the colleague who reaches out

after unkind colleagues bully and go.

 

Dismissal is an easy, lazy act.

Reaching out, peeping through a

sheer curtain, being there but not

bearing down -- such softness is

stellar work that wells the eye with

tears. Like moonlight bathing a

snow-covered taiga forest floor.

Alright, I'll admit

I wore the rose-coloured glasses, 

knowing I wanted to be

blinded but safe

when you showed up

red torch in hand

person in exclamation mark form,

perfect for the question mark loop of my days,

the comma-less expanse of nights

telling me

(like every other man) 

"with you I feel safe"

and I think,

waiting for it to hit,

I'll feel it soon,

it should be

on its way

right?

Hey Ram: a ghazal for the times

See how they scream murder, in your name
and underscore every border, in your name.

Where bridges stood between people and places
lie heaps of rubble – a fallen girder, in your name.

Being one is all a joke, they yell and shout
hate is now an act of ardour, in your name.

In another avatar, your leela of love we witnessed
now war-cries not love songs heard, in your name.

Beautiful colours from the sunset soak temple and mosque
blood, tears and rage stored in time’s larder, in your name.