a.j.rao's poetry volume 4
DESCRIPTION
Poetry written between 1st January,2001 and 31st March 2001TRANSCRIPT
A.J.Rao's PoetryVolume 4
A.J.Rao's Poetry Volume 4
Poetry written between 1st January and 31st March2001
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Contents
The argument 1
Edit 2
Dissolving 4
Fear of flying 5
The fly 7
Synopsis 8
Push 9
Sunset 10
Women in the morning 11
The edge 13
Spontaneous 15
The super-moon 17
Note-taking 18
Lizards in dreams 19
Smells 20
Familiar 21
Black leaves 22
Light 23
Shoe- laces 24
Relative 25
The heat 26
Iconoclasts 27
Soft 28
Movement 30
Snow 31
In situ 32
Prayer 33
Heaps 34
Waiting 35
Moon beings 36
Shadows in the evening 37
Key 38
Wildcat 39
Sweat 40
Mourning 41
Water 42
Patterns 43
Looking for the word 44
The rail -bridge 45
The table 46
Pictures 47
Remembered silence 48
Meaning 49
Nights 51
The past 52
Black comedy 53
The helicopter 54
Diminish 55
Discover 56
Disappear 57
Memories of memories 59
Her story 60
Ramble 61
Jokes 63
Father 64
Silence 65
Cadences 66
Visit to the Jagannath* temple 67
Shuffle 69
Voice 70
Crazy 71
Place 72
The owl 73
The intersection 74
Fait accompli 75
Mother 76
Now 78
Night thoughts 79
Hearing 81
Flashes 82
Light 83
We long for the night 85
Belly-fear 86
Milk 87
Turning point 88
Trust 89
Guilty 90
Matter 91
White flowers, dark creepers 92
Remembering 94
The mosquito 95
Radiance 97
The fall 98
The crowd 100
Joking about sadness 102
The chain of being 104
Epiphanies 105
The little dark one 107
Bored poet 108
Poems of the night 109
Pilgrimage 110
Cold 111
Trembling 112
Pain 113
Houses 114
Height 115
Old age 116
Celebrating the New Year (2011) 117
1
The argument
March 31, 2011
The argument here seemed interminable.The blue hills were a mere haze in the trees,I mean each of them, the hills, and the treesCrow-caws at dawn, train-sounds from afarThe wakeup song of God in early morning.
A mere kitsch of a song will not release usFrom the tyranny of this gridlocked mind,The sport in the gallery, the dark glassesOn pretty noses, bare shoulders against redA gaggle of crazy market men wild with joyAt the pantomimes of other people’s playGiant projectors with phantoms of playersComing from the world’s end with red ballsAs if they run you run, and when they squirmIn their pants, in your living room’s cornerYou squirm in your hot pants, red and dead.
It is this thought, under our felt caps, freshFrom the warm sunshine of other people’s time.The argument goes on endlessly in filled hallsIn play-grounds like a salivary thread flowingFrom the silky spider-work in our home corners.In our argument we conquer the world in cup.
2
Edit
March 30, 2011
This here picture I have producedIn a visual of an early morning lightWhen pain needed balm in the backOf nerve-ends tautness of the nightAnd editing blues of much saturation.
You and I were trying to edit detailEmotion that cut thinking at its back.The morning needlessly brought poetry.Poetry once produced cannot be editedBecause it is there in your front lobe.
But I cannot seem to edit all that detailFrom this night of life when it occurred.I cannot edit the colour of my dreamsNor change the depth of field in them.My picture seems shorn of all depthAs I am caught fishing in the fish-eye.
I want to know who is editing all this Before morning hand of night vision It is the time of happen, the horoscope The blazing Saturn planet that ruled life And many unexpected things happened
3
In the belly at most hours in the day.
It is in the belly again that it happenedOf tiny cells that grew without permissionIn a splurge of the body, behind the backAnd an inside has to go of a bag of beings.Twenty five times blue rays have to touchAs if it is the morning sun on the patio.I cannot seem to edit the noise in the bellyThe fears rising in the depths of its bluesThe little blue powder, its magnificent rays.
4
Dissolving
March 29, 2011
I look at the possibility seminally presentIn the current decay and body to dissolveLike an electric light-bulb that disappearsIn the bright sunlight as the day breaks.My body’s light shall dissolve in momentsInto the general daylight of a sunny dayAnd as the day burns I shall slowly dissolveWith the pain of light’s merger into light.
You know the merger of light in the darkIs easy on our body and feels like a breezeBut the merger of light in light feels likeGetting back into the claustrophobic spaceFrom where we had all emerged years ago.We had come there from nothing and willDissolve in the space of nothing from there.
5
Fear of flying
March 28, 2011
My flights must go on uninterruptedPast the white clouds and air pocketsWhen the pilot announces turbulence.I make my worship of planet SaturnWith a ring of blazing fire in the sky.Back home, I worship the Saturn godIn oil and flowers, turmeric and milk.
On the land my flights crash on housesBut there is a near-chance they crashOn slithering snakes of the deep forest.They can crash on real flying sky-birdsThough it is too much of a coincidence.I make that happen when I choose to.It is my dream; I can make it realistic.
My dreams are stories made in the pillow.They are made of bile, acid and belly-fearI have got them from her belly and his skull.
6
7
The fly
March 27, 2011
We do not know it when we lie dead in the grassAs the spring breeze would gently play with our hair.Others do not know that they are dead from usThough they are alive, up and about on their feet.The fly on our flowers is perhaps alive on us tooWhen it would buzz about us as if we are aliveWhen our ears are now bright yellow marigolds.The fly is blissfully unaware that it is dead from us.
8
Synopsis
March 26, 2011
A running commentary examines my lifeIn thread and bare, while it is going on liveWithin me, in this business of life, with noneFrom outside peering in my curious window,So I have the satisfaction of an examined life.
I am living my life entirely real-time, you see.I do not like visitors to look in the peep-holeWhen I am knitting eye-brows humorouslyExamining my life by extended commentary.
Right now I fear others not worrying about meWhile I am grey in chair and crumpled sheets.I worry about paucity of metaphors for the day,As I think of others not peering in my window.I worry about the synopsis, my examined life.
9
Push
March 25, 2011
A little push is all we can think about.A little shove, friend, is all that is neededTo push the leaky boat into blue waters.So a decrepit eighty year old poet says,In the margins, nicely to the night skyHis pale moon remembering all night.
The boat is on anchor in house balconyHaving come adrift in the last season’s sea.The tree’s shadows love it in the balcony.The timbers are still there in sea-cracksWith the wood scent of the forest intact.Their chambers have nice wooden planksThat will make warm embers this winter.
(Taking off on At Eighty by Edwin Morgan (1920-2010) , theScottish poet whose boat got the push in the last season)
10
Sunset
March 24, 2011
Sunset comes hastily before volumes of trafficIn the road of you-and-me fist- fights of chaosWhere we fight pitched night battles in a warSuch as in the confused Peloppenesian war .
In the car the chilly fellow is hot on film heroesIn scraps of badly accented radio gags like onesThe driver man will enjoy and you sure say no.Our drivers have eclectic tastes in film musicWhere everyone seems to flow as if yesterday.This sun comes in their eyes like a dust particle.
The driver makes noises from his nose to the road.His mobile phone rings to come home before sun.My monument must already be in its russet hues.But many cars and traffic policemen are in between.My sun has already sunk to the depths of belly.
11
Women in the morning
March 23, 2011
On the road before their houses are womenIn turquoise and blue, their heads and backBent with earth- sweeping and water sprinklingThe way elephants do in the morning forest.Their mothers-in-law had done it in their time.Like them the earth smelled of their bodies.
And the children wait for school in uniformsFor yellow buses to stop before wet patchesCareful not to tread on rice powder designsTheir mothers had made on their wet patches.Their designs are pretty but highly transientOnly to be eaten by sparrows of the morning.The sparrows have become heavy in stomachsOf rice powder eating from beauty designs.
But the sparrows are now not there in mirrors. In the afternoons they were pecking in mirrors At their sworn enemies in the mirrors of women When they combed oiled plaits for the evening. The birds have perhaps gone of morning sickness Or of far too many cell phone calls in their air. The women love their afternoon gossip ,you see. Luckily mothers-in-law are now gone for good,
12
Like sparrows that have gone from the mirrors.
13
The edge
March 21, 2011
Contemplating quietly on the edgeWe may not now tip over nor do anything.Actually the breeze we are waiting forWill come only by the fall of our nightWhen noisy crickets will wake up to makeTheir weird noises under the inky sky.We are now not on the edge of thought.
The precise word we are looking forDoes not come easily nor bring peaceIn a stomach upset with understanding.Our body is too full of understandingIn the snake-folds of a sleeping hoseNestled safely in an almond-like case.The crank case breaks with winter frostBut only when understanding vanishesThrough the chinks in its woven plates.
When our understanding vanishes we stare, In eyes of nothing, at the nothing of wall. We will then teeter on the edge of thought. Your words will then sound as soft poetry Like a breeze in our understanding tree Meaningless but high art in its bleakness. Their syllables will drop softly in our minds Like the midnight breeze in the pipal tree.
14
We shall then hear you entirely by your lips And make poetry words directly from them.
15
Spontaneous
March 20, 2011
We are now merely being spontaneous.We chance upon phosphorous volcanoes;Wear sunglasses at the burning on the fringe.These volcanoes combust spontaneously.Their lines form smooth monument stepsFlowing from noon prayers in white shirtsDescending in a series of steps to povertyAnd plastic bags flying about in the breeze.
It is the dust in the air, the smooth powderOf the earth that flies in our face like leaves.We wear duly our sun-clothes on our facesAs if we are girls riding to school on mopedsSpontaneously looking good for the marriage.We wear our nondescript masks that make usLook like others who wear nondescript masksWhich hardly hide nondescript souls under.
We are spontaneous in our poetry of the night. Our words burst like birds studded in night trees That suddenly erupt from them at distant gunshots Or mountain-breaking sounds of the nearby sky.
16
Words are things we keep hidden for nights.
17
The super-moon
March 20, 2011
In the evening the moon quietly climbed our roofTo peer in our skylight from his perch on the tiles.We almost thought he would jump into our kitchenAnd flood our mosaic floor with his dapper light.When we slurped our porridge with hungry tonguesIt sounded so different, this deep slurp from throat.The porridge tasted funny, a tad sweet on the sideBut somewhat like the broth we daily give our cowsIn their sheds with the moonlight sweetening its taste.Luckily we keep our bedroom windows shut upstairsOne can imagine what he could do with our minds.
(On 19th March, 2011(today) ,we witnessed the super-moon,closest to the earth in 18 years)
18
Note-taking
March 19, 2011
When you take notes you are not youBut a would-be gray non-conformist guyWearing pantaloons into early seventies,The ones you reach way before the leg.
You collect all your notes in the shirt pocketTo discard them when you reach home.Or wear them like polka dots on your shirtTo hide the existence of small holes under.When you take notes be adequately surrealYou cannot make sense of life otherwise.
19
Lizards in dreams
March 18, 2011
Lizards often come in dreams at dawnAs some snakes do in midnight dreams.Here I stand on the top of a black rockAnd drop a tiny pebble on the lizardThat sways his head up and down at meFrom his perch in a recess of the rock.
He seems calling me down from his sky.I am calling him down to my own earth.My pebble hits him but he flies toward meAs lizards often do in our atavistic past,On the brown plains, dotted with shrubsIn steppes that stretch to the green hills.That was my dream at dawn but I wonderWhat I was doing in the lizard’s dream.
20
Smells
March 17, 2011
We were trying to re-create experiences in wordsOf our walks, balancing on narrow embankments,Through the standing paddy rice, in morning light.Our words are stated experiences created first timeSemantically but later by invoking smells of things.
We remember sitting on a cloth chair in the shadowOf a vegetable creeper that had flung green snakesIn our faces striking our noses with their green smell.
We had grandmother’s wet cloth drying in the sunThat had smelt of grandmother and afternoon sun.When it was later hung on the wall peg in a bundleIt had smelt of grandmother and the iron of the peg.
In the sanctum’s anteroom, God’s clothes smelledOf camphor and wilted jasmines and burnt oil lamps.The priest’s smile smelled of holy water and camphor.His words spoken in high baritone smelled of God.
21
Familiar
March 17, 2011
All that seems familiar on the golden beachWhere the wind blows in the sand like madAnd a wind child moves in waves, like waterWith fun people riding them up and down.
There are shacks on the hot sands for peopleAnxious for experience, for history’s sake,When history is the only future of a couple.Their gold coins glisten at the bottom of the sea.They bravely hang there in a glider in the sun.
Other people go about in beery stomachsWe are on the lookout for some sun and foodA little honey on the side and some moon.
22
Black leaves
March 16, 2011
Look out the window to see black leavesOf cold argument, in the middle of a road.Usually green they turn black at nightIn the blood coursing in your black veins,Wearing the silk-soft colour of a black nightThe inky back of a night, out of the moonOnly this fortnight ago, held by the stars.
Woman wears a black flowing argumentOf a black night, this night and this day.Her golden pendant flickers like the starsIn the black night of argument, in white neck.
In the train we ate ourselves a black forestOf night, that turned green leaves blackAs the train cut through the black nightWith a white surgeon’s light on its forehead.Tea leaves stayed black at the night’s bottom.
23
Light
March 15, 2011
What came up was light, a mere tonal wordWe were searching for the real thing, you see,In the blind alley, making slow way for our eyesIn the living bats that fluttered against light.We had to make do with a mini-mobile light.
A foul gutter loomed here in the corner of smell.Some grey rats could crop up there, their tailsTracing lines of black gutter water on the roadAnd of the dead ones that smelled bad in the holes.These creatures smell bad when recently dead.
History’s dead smell nice in their alleyways.Daylight fills their spaces in the foundationsOf houses that once had people strutting aboutAmong copper-red brick walls, with cold niches That had oil lamps burning late into the night.Their clothes smelt nicely of naphthalene ballsWhen they had differently dressed men in them.
Their walls are not here, nor the flickering lampsIt is our space that has swallowed all their light.A pity it is only the smells that have remained.
24
Shoe- laces
March 14, 2011
Each time he bends down to tie his shoe-lacesHe sees an inverted world, of a clumsy blue skySupervalently fallen on a sprawling globe-earthSo he does not know the blue sky from the earth.When he looks up he finds breasts loomingLike a Pacific isle tsunami on the plains of carsBrown-mud and paper houses, people and flotsam.
His world-view gets distorted of caring mothersAnd nubile daughters with overflowing breasts.The lace tying may have triggered such a view.But it is the girls’ eyes that stare at him of passingHis fantasies played out daily in their noon shadows.His clumsiness does not lie in their overflowingnessBut in the topsy-turvy of a dizzy earth-sky sceneLargely drawn from the tube of the small screen.
25
Relative
March 14, 2011
She is not blood-relative but of fleshIn the dark night she is my dark fleshAnd my bones and marrow of hunger.An ontology of her bones clearly placesMy own on top of her incumbent bones.
Beyond the rail track her bones live.Her blood traces a train’s light beamIn the pitch dark of my own midnight.There I wait her outside for the creakOf a broken string cot that has saggedOf many heavy bodies and light pockets.Sorry I forget the name of the bones.
26
The heat
March 13, 2011
This heat may be unwelcome on young skinBut not on old eyes where it becomes pure silver,A home to dense shadows that emerge slowlyFrom vaporous layers hovering on a hill stream.Here in the trees it is green and joy and twigsQuiet birds in the noon and their day-dreaming.
In the temple, afternoons are heavy with sleep.Bare feet hop-skip from one hot tile to anotherAs if they are doing a brisk trot of a fire dance.The neem tree sheds flowers of powdered heatOffering a bitter foretaste of its summer fruit.
27
Iconoclasts
March 13, 2011
The crowds fascinate us in their latent wisdom.Lately they have turned rebels for a cause.They are now our iconoclasts on the lake side.Our lake is now blooming heads like lotuses.The torsos they left behind recite rebel poetry.
(Crowds have recently vandalised statues of history’s great men ofculture installed on the lakefront in our city)
28
Soft
March 12, 2011
Soon we went about our poet’s businessIn the wooded paths of human historyTrying to tread softly on delicate heartsIn some ancient history of poetry kind.We saw some turquoise tourist braceletsGlass bangles that clinked in a poet’s storyAnd the shadows they cast on brown faces.It was golden evening always and sun set.The mountains sat there immobile and blueTheir egos went home in the white clouds.
Even as we wrote poetry we had to laughWhile not unduly muttering under breath.Our silken pajamas were yet to come backFrom the roof up where they were drying.In the meantime we had to whisper softlyOur cumulative secrets into the winter air.
Beyond the parapet the sparrows hopped And chirped incessantly in the morning sun As if they were ripe golden brown wheat That waved heads softly in the grass breeze. The sparrows here under the window heaved Their brown bodies as if they were playing
29
Music, in our computer, from the snow hills And yellow pipal leaves fell softly on the wind.
Our temples were soft in the outlines of pagodasWhere they scraped the sky ignoring the wind.As we looked up at the top of God’s golden pillarWe looked softly at the contours of our own life.Everything came home as if it was in our motherWhere it had happened, in our beginnings in her.
30
Movement
March 10, 2011
We have come to movement at last.Actually our inertia was inherent in usIn our present incarnations of tyresThat have lost stomach for the road.
Hung by a fiber rope on the highwayOur path remained where we were,As indicators to passing motoristsOf tyre service available at the spot.
A passing wind enables us to pretendOur continued lateral movements.
31
Snow
March 09, 2011
At sixty, it matters little if you have not slowly climbedThe snow hills to look a frozen phallus god in the eye.You have now all the time for your thawed hypothesesLike had I or not become or done this and this, then.
The snowy beard on your face flows in white clouds.But of little use is looking precipitously into the abyssOnly to incur a plaster cast on legs like snow in flakes.Had not my granddad happened then in hoar and frostWould be less flawed in the vast frozen wastes of time.
32
In situ
March 08, 2011
We reveal ourselves well, in the night.Our cell growth had taken place, in situAnd mostly localized behind our tummy.We sure love words, Latin and medical.
Our surgeons came in white and greenDiscussing the in situ growth in us as ifIt was a pretty Ming vase found in situWhere they dug up for ancient cultures.The surgeons use mostly medical epithetsBut their scalpels seem like sharp flintsDiscovered in their ancient excavations.
We reveal ourselves mostly, in the nightOur fears come from dug up ground levelsWhere they lie buried and in situ for yearsAnd threaten to turn invasive at night.
33
Prayer
March 07, 2011
We stood in a whiff of fragranceOf him that stood behind the curtains.His water tasted sweet and fragrantWhen taken to the lips in a slurp.
We thought of him in her destinyAs it unfolded for her in white wallsIn a wilted flower within her fleshWhich once housed tiny beings.
It was a mere thought, this fear for lifeAn existential question, a silent prayer.
34
Heaps
March 07, 2011
From our ground levels we went on to heapsOf vehicular chaos, of racing men and carsAmong heaps of crawling people on the road.Their eyes shone unduly wet with money.
Some were anxious to reach dizzy money heapsIn cars wedged between trucks of bearded driversThat spewed black smoke from their behinds.
Government bosses looked tall on their paper heaps.Citizens walked like writhing bundles of caterpillarsThat were waiting for decisions to transform themInto full-fledged butterflies of the finest of colors.
35
Waiting
March 06, 2011
I stand in the computer luminously waiting.I am looking for the flash, the glistening wordLying in wait in the dark folds of the night.
On the other side of the world is a womanHer womanhood starkly waiting in a white roomTo be dispossessed by the cruelty of a body.
A mature night is waiting for beauty-dawnFrom its orange memories of yesterday’s duskWhen over tea we were sitting on a string cotOn the highway and waited for the sun to sink.
36
Moon beings
March 05, 2011
We live, a little on the other side of the moon,In a pallid half-disc of the moon in the day sky.We say a little consequently, but withdraw more.Our poems tantalise beings ,from outer ridgeTheir words tease from its marble concavity.
37
Shadows in the evening
March 05, 2011
The old woman’s skin squeals fitfully.She oozes water and fear now and thenAnd gets agoraphobic nightly in skin.The thoughts in mind are submissionsTo shadows present in layers of water.
There are layers of water in her old skin,In subcutaneous streams, one on the other.The vapors they emit are sulfur fumes.
Her feet follow each other in a pageant.The professor said the mind made themWalk like an ancient petite Chinese girlWith delicate feet not made for distances.
She struts and frets in the hour and is more.These are high performances on life’s stage.We need appreciative audience for claps.
38
Key
March 04, 2011
Her clean bill of health defies explanation.The skin holds the key to it, not the heartWhich is a pump much like the water motorRecently started to air-cool her sleeping.Her nightmares generally describe states.Behind the dusty stairs, the water-coolerLays her mingled past, in dark shadows.
Her skin emits vapors, like a sun-drenched bog.As if it was moisture of the monsoon cloudsOr the expectant sultriness of the east coast.She drinks ten litres of pure aqua by night.Was it okay to drink straight from the bottle?But doctor, in sleep it pours from her being!
39
Wildcat
March 03, 2011
A wildcat purrs softly in the back of the carA random thing, a new geo-physical mapping.When material things like our flesh are madeSecurity checks will work on fur at the airport.
Flesh and bones are white powder, brown ashes.When not thinking, thinking flesh is mere bonesThinking about the fleshy continuums of bones.A little flesh, some powdered bones, colored fluidAre all it takes to make us in plasma and chemistry.
Our bones are adequate noises of disintegrating.We look for our nature cures in the black alley.Our bone powder is mere sound in the ankles.It is words that ooze in the flesh of our throatsJust like salt water that wells up in seeing holes.
40
Sweat
March 02, 2011
Our sweaty anxiety is in fact a pre-historic thing,A primordial phenomenon of our ancestorsLike single-horned or several-armed creaturesBestowing powers on dancers in the woods.
Our bodies are now airy souls that feel free to flyFrom svelte conference rooms, plush hotel loungesInto shredded clouds floating in the rarefied air.
We promptly put on our shields, on horsebacksAnd set out to conquer worlds that will conquer usUnless conquered, those lie beyond the mountainsThose that will descend with armies of elephantsThose that will bring about our decline and fall.
We are anxious our thermostats will not functionAnd we may yet sweat under our anxious armpits.
41
Mourning
March 02, 2011
Morning seems a good time for mourningIn the breezy season of spring and March.That is when you have to mourn the deadIn flowing white garments, in vacant eyes.
You wake up droopy-eyed, dream-freshBut your time is still ticking to the noon.
When noon comes the day feels heavyIn the warm weariness of a siesta time.Your eyes half-close with sleep in them.Your garments become sleep-crumbledAnd their creases won’t hide black grief.
In the evening loss becomes a far ghostBehind the coconut as the sun slowly sinks.As the night creeps in, sleep comes to eyesAnd absence feels like the only viable fact.
42
Water
March 01, 2011
There are blue striped pipes bringing waterTo empty into intense human-made bogsSitting on the roadside between future houses.There are here no crocodiles, only builders.
There are no prole-born brothers in duressOnly workers in torn tents under a blue skyWedged between tall skeletons of houses.
Houses are made replacing rocks in bushesMurdering rocks slowly by sharp knivesAnd rhythmic pickaxes that fall heavilyOn their summer bodies petrified in time.
Often water softens rocks, makes them amenableTo slow murder by persuasion and perseverance.
43
Patterns
March 01, 2011
On the beach sand were webbed feet patternsAnd unshod feet, one after the other, of walkersOn a rising sea of memories on a moonlit night.
A hum went on like the breath of a sleeping child.Its sound patterns were like those of shore palms,Largely specters of lonely trees with wind in hair.
Behind them were abandoned customs warehousesOf old brick patterns visible through flakes of time.
A liquid moon stood at the centre of white cloudsTheir serrated patterns ruled out possibility of rain.
Green fish nets formed a sea-like wave patternWith dark fishermen who sat on their haunchesMending broken nets with honeycomb patterns.
44
Looking for the word
February 28, 2011
The word eludes in the night;Pushes you into its blackness.Change the colour, putter aboutIn the wild wastes of the nightAs though in a wandering gardenNot to pluck flowers and leavesBut to think about far peopleIn white hospitals, blue overalls.It is the white which outshinesThe black night in fluorescence.And the blue falls in the night.
45
The rail -bridge
February 28, 2011
The train crossed the span against great ruckus.Miles before, we had thought of the coming bridgeWhen the train would stop greeting dancing polesTo enter sound, in a cacophony of steel and sound.The bridge would then disappear in forgot soundAnd the train would soon catch up with the world,In a victory of silence over sound, of sun over shadow.We knew soon there will be another clackety- clacketyCrossing of water and wind, more sound and fury.
46
The table
February 27, 2011
The old table sat there gloomilyWith a checked cloth on its face.Poetry was far from its thoughts,Only a carpenter of wood to fixThe creakiness in one of its legs.
The carpenter teases it from afar.He comes now and now, does not.He is not involved with our poetry.
In the balcony our wet clothes hangRevealing tiny bits of the blue skyTheir tantalizing shadows will enter,When the table will embrace them.But that is a story of the afternoon.
The table cloth has a dusty history.Under it lie its innermost secrets.But poetry was not in its thoughts.All it wants is a carpenter of wood,Who will fix the creak in its knee.
47
Pictures
February 26, 2011
In the night the pictures become clearOut of a shrill whistle piercing the dark.Words become thoughts, vivid picturesIn the whir of an electric fan in the room.It is a sound that comes through a childA child of the earth and of a climbed wall,A tree with leaves plucked into pocketsFor worship of a stone god in vermilionAnd the yellow softness of a beginning god.It is my god nestled in a heap of yellow rice.It is my women of rustling silks of the air,A fragrance of worship flowers and flame.It is the flame that dies in floral fragranceBut re-lives to verify my continued living.
48
Remembered silence
February 25, 2011
I do not remember silence alwaysIn the midst of noises in my insideExcept in the very brief interludesWhen a noise holds over to another.
It is the silence at the edge of soundThe brief highway of green paddy fieldsThat occurs between town and townIn a populous countryside whereNoisy chickens often cross the roadAnd men are found lying on the roadIn helpless pools of drunken silence.
I remember more the awkward silenceThat rules when dialogue breaks downAnd the answers in her eyes do notAddress the questions in your throat.
I remember those awkward silencesWhen words occur in sonorous soundsAnd meaning ceases to flow between menWhen expression loses its life function.
49
Meaning
February 25, 2011
In the bus a tiny girl suggested many levels,
Layers of meaning filtering into a cosy bus
From the information spread about in the bus
Around the driver seeing in the rear view mirror
And the passers-by who vaguely whizzed past him.
It was for me to make my own meaning for me
Synchronising my plane of existence with hers.
At another level a fuzzy sun set on the still lake
As if the collected lake had to speak for the day
Without the orange sun blazing in its other side.
We had to make meaning from the tree by the lake.
50
On the sidewalk men sipped tea from a red kiosk.
They made their personal meaning out of the time
And the information in the trod dust of the road,
In the bricks that piled to be built in a house wall
In the stray dogs that sat listlessly on the road
And in the dry leaves that fell on the parked car.
51
Nights
February 24, 2011
We love nights because they cut out frillsAnd get down to the bare bones very fast.They soften the contours to gray outlines.Like poetry they suppress needless details,Abolish borders; make a sky of the earth.
The tree stands there brooding in the darkForgetful of its death by last year’s lightning.They even put night birds on its branches.The night fields become a vast promontoryWhere the sky and the earth become oneAs if the paddy is actually grown in the sky.
In the night the bushes behave like moving,As if they are lazy bears on the wait for food.The mountain in the distance stands abolished.God knows where the clouds went from its top.Everything is drowned in the night of the sky.
52
The past
February 23, 2011
The poet reiterates the past is a dream.Our body being of the past is but a dreamA mere dream in somebody else’s dream.His dream was part of my dream, beingThe grand dream of the cosmic scheme.
I have come to know the past did not existBut I merely seemed to have dreamed it.We are such stuff our dreams are made ofNot just in the bard’s sense or in spirit-talk.Our dreams are so much inter-connected.
When spirits talk ,bodies vanish like spirits.Our bodies disappear in chloroform smellOn the table under a green cloth of scalpel.Some times they just disappear in clay-potsInto flowing rivers, melting snow-mountains.Our spirits are mere words, some tautology.Our bodies do not exist except in dreams.
53
Black comedy
February 22, 2011
When we say a tennis ball it is a ping-pongWe love hyperboles for their graphic quality.We know the tumor can’t be so large inside,When the body believed it was a pin-head.
We are playing our little dramas in our headThat is how the thing plays out in our script.Our script is black comedy, a fun thing we playWhen we are desperate about people we love.
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The helicopter
February 22, 2011
We see several hands stretching to the helicopter,Of dry mouths that quiver with hope at its whir.A mystery how bodies can pile to form a pagoda.
And why some bodies are always found on the copterWhile other bodies rise from the dusty ground-earth,And bodies here have to reach out to bodies up there.
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Diminish
February 21, 2011
Inside we were afraid to diminish.The flowers have come to bloomTiny green mangoes are on the wayIt is now March and hot is less yet.Soon there will be a rain showerThat will diminish their flowers;There will be diminished fruits.
There will be diminished imagesTheir colours shall become shadowsA few mere greys of March summer.Mist is migraine and fallen leaves,Unripe fruits helpless on the earth.
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Discover
February 21, 2011
We are discovering needless things gleefully,The hidden light behind things, under stonesWith unusual creeping-crawling creatures.
All we love is the other fine things in our homes.We may eat them now or consume a little later.Our tongues will wrap around them softly in tip.
That man under the tree has a halo around him.But he deals in violet light of an exquisite varietyThat shows up our bones as in an x-ray machine.Our flesh erupts in goose-bumps if we hear him.All we want is light to show where our eats are.
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Disappear
February 20, 2011
Wonder if I can disappear from this space
And feel my absence in things, in walls
In the wall pictures, in the trees outside
And in the blue sky that rises above them,
Like a sparrow that pecks at the mirror
And hops away into its silver innards.
Here I stand before the computer tube
And disappear into it sometimes, vaguely
Touching the outer walls of the world
But come back soon to its inner walls
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That have my absence etched on them.
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Memories of memories
February 20, 2011
In the evening we smelled talcumAnd tiny white queens of the nightAs we passed by the stairs of room.Once out we saw talcum-fresh girlsWho giggled for nothing in the sun.
Their eyes had memories of the noonWhen their books appeared too heavyAnd their eyelids dropped for sleep.
Their eyes had memories of nightsWhen they sat reading by the bulb.They had memories of rain-mothsThat had embraced dark death on it.
Their faces had memories of soft mothersWaiting to cuddle them for the last time,Of noisy horse-carts that took them homeTo toddler brothers with running noses.
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Her story
February 19, 2011
Her story has become a mere pain in the rearA sardonic statement on death’s smiling faceA lecture-to, a curl on lips, a verbose dictum.
A mere smear from her brought a smile on himIn all that was going on, the white halogen lightsThe fragrance of silks, the whir of beauty-dance.
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Ramble
February 18, 2011
Sticking to the point is so tiresomeLike an old man’s fixation on wearingA woolen muffler in the evening walk,The one that shuts out all street noisesMaking him prisoner of the inward hum.You get into the streets and ramble onIn the dusty labyrinthine town streets.
I see absolutely no point in sticking.That makes you committed for life.
In the end we come to the same thing.On the side street people sleep on cotsNot to admire the moon but rest backs.Buffaloes stand there with vacant eyesTheir udders full with reluctant milk.The old man is groaning in his blanket.He is still sticking to his point, his times.The train yells at people on the tracksIts flanks burst with hanging men.The train sticks to its point, they to it.
It is fun to ramble, when other people And other things stick to their points
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That way you are sticking to your point.
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Jokes
February 17, 2011
We are on the lookout for jokes,Not two-penny cell-phone jokes.They must tickle ribs, just in case.We mean if you feel itchy there.
The macabre ones go in the wild.They do not strike you anywhereOn the ribs or in the belly-button.They do not come on cell-phonesOr fill shirt -pockets with splutter.
They just happen in your stomach,In blood-stream, in the upper cage.As if they have dropped from above.You don’t know it when they hit.
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Father
February 17, 2011
Here strangers pass by, themselves alone.You try to find a snake in the hole for effectAnd actually find a snake but no effect.This snake is a water snake of summer.
White clouds drift in the sky near the tree.You are alone, all the time, in your mind.You think of he who drifted away like a cloud,When you were still in swaddling-clothes.You had white clouds for swaddling-clothes.
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Silence
February 16, 2011
There is hoar and frost in the leafless tree.An old man has wisps of snow on his beard.Church spires rise up to the white sky.Their bells tinkle in frosty silence there,In a silence of the art, of contemplation.
There is silence here, of paper crackle.In the kitchen there is clatter of cups.There is the blare of an oncoming train,A distant dog’s barks in morning’s silence.Silence is in the wall, hung on a sound.
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Cadences
February 14, 2011
Here I write, dipping quietlyInto remote words, thoughtsOf other people and other me.
Words that spring from otherNightly minds, nightly bodies.Thoughts that form cadencesIn the smooth flow of the night.
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Visit to the Jagannath* temple
February 14, 2011
He ruled our puny minds and frail bodies.
He smiled from a painted black wooden face-
He that made body things and airy souls.
A mechanised drum beat its stick in rhythm
And a yellow camphor flame lit his face.
We duly took his sanctified water to lips
And dabbed his holy sweet to closed eyes.
We took a closer look at him while returning
He was like one of us, with a doting wife by him
And a loving brother standing in attention .
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(*Jagannath literally means the Lord of the Universe)
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Shuffle
February 13, 2011
Let me shuffle them and see beach peopleIn the rising waves of the sunset hour.My light falls on them, on pliant faces,On their hair in sea-filtered sunlight,Of the soft December skies of deep hue.
On the beach they are just things, fine objects.Flooded in strange light, they lose their faces.
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Voice
February 13, 2011
Actually there is nothing with voice.Here my mind was held up to scrutinyFor my voice that needed to be raised.
I can see the picture of mind’s knotsIn folded vicissitudes of inner spaceThat resonated with shrill bird calls,Flashes of memory, failure thoughtsThat soon faded away in a foggy past,A fall from a fecund sky, a brick wallThat returned all pharyngeal sound.
Actually there is nothing with my voiceIt is just that I cannot scream loud enoughTo be heard on the other side of the river.
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Crazy
February 12, 2011
In the night’s glittering wedding hallA crowd of sanity gave sidelong glancesTo this odd-ball of clothed crazinessWho holed you up in her gray craziness.You held her against her cousin’s bones.There was no country laziness in them.O you cousin, tell me where my meal,Thanks you for the plate she wheedlesOut of you .Excuse me sir, is she fromYour wedding party? Yes of course.Crazy people are in our wedding party;Wouldn’t I like her in the bride’s seat?
(About a mentally challenged cousin of mine)
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Place
February 10, 2011
In the rocking chair we are placed tightlyBehind the newspaper of all about places.There on the park bench shadows fall on usOf our several absences from thinking bodies.Dry leaves crunch below of remembered places.We then sleep on soft pillows in running trainsOf moving places and faster moving absences.Our desire for place is moving away from it.
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The owl
February 10, 2011
At midnight the conch blows in a new start,The start of two new lives together of future.The owl is eternally welcome at midnight.Several owl-hoots echo in the wedding hallNot to betoken evil on the withered stumpBut to bring on back a seated wealth goddess.We welcome our owls in our own hoots.
(At a marriage ceremony, women make owl-like sounds in order toinvite the Laxmi, the Goddess of Wealth who arrives on the back ofan owl)
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The intersection
February 06, 2011
At the intersection of truth and poetry,It does not at all matter if we prevaricate.Words do interfere by beauty and noise.We are not here speaking the real truthBut an almost truth, and if this is not it,Let the bodies speak, in their recedingIn their constant flux, movements away.
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Fait accompli
February 06, 2011
A gray and sullen sky is up thereWith no flying birds frozen in it.I cannot paint all those birds backInto a seeming blue sky, tiny dotsOn the painted canvas of the world.
My freedom is indeed at stakeAs I sure want my birds there.But I have to maintain proximityWith truth, with the real world,A kind of pretension of reality,In a verisimilitude of no birdsWhen no sun, but white clouds.
I wonder why in the name of GodMy facts always come accomplished.
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Mother
February 05, 2011
I thought he wouldn’t come, surely
Not with the body his mother has.
Here, in her soul, there is quietness
Of resignation and in body, tautness.
Mother’s body is yours, a fragment
In the whole of your body, like mind,
As you were a fragment once of her.
If she dies, you die, in a piece of you.
The rest of you will live with a hole.
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Now
February 04, 2011
Now is a fragment of me in this spaceA fragment that lives and changes its shapeLike the amoeba of light changing feetA piece of the self growing by the hour.
Now are my sounds coming alive at dawn ,The light that floats from the crack in my roofAnd drops of rain that texture my window,Dry leaves flying in the face of the wind.Now is fragment of time set in this me.
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Night thoughts
February 03, 2011
Night thoughts enter your bodyLike so much free-flowing waterAnd its top portion teems withIts many empty sounds, echoes.The body is your mind at night.
The thoughts occur of livingUnder white sheets, iron cotsA shut window for winter cold,Of living, under eyes of sleep,In pajamas of strings loosedWhile dirty goods get splashedOn an old man’s quiet dignityUnder a pin-striped nightcap.
In a prison uniform of thoughtsThe body is trapped in the mind.The night watchman’s stick hitsThe asphalt and your existenceIts tap accurately measures timeOn the asphalt of your existence.
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Hearing
February 03, 2011
I still hear the world in my ears.
I hear the whoosh of the west wind,
The noise of the empty word
And clatter of senses rubbing
Against the body of the wind
As if they are my very bones
That move lazily in my knee.
As I walk in my defunct dreams
I do not need the hearing aid.
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Flashes
February 03, 2011
The cold seeps in our head.Our head echoes with a humOf the trees in the sea wind,A mere silence of the mind.That is when we look forFlashes of light, in sound.
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Light
February 01, 2011
We talk here of light of everythingNot merely of dispeller of darknessIn the bat smelling ancestor caveBut of lightness of being, bearableBecause it does recur but may not.
Our lightness becomes when the pillReaches deep recesses to dent painAnd lightness dawns in lower being.Our lightness happens in the moodNot in its several sing-song swings.Our lightness happens in the sun,When stone shines in its splendour.
Our lightness floats in white beautyIn the textures of weightless words.Our words are lightness of the spiritWhen they come out of being onlyTo drift away in the sea of the night.
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(The faint allusion is to The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a novelby Milan Kundera)
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We long for the night
February 01, 2011
We do not look all that pretty in this daylight.Our beauty emerges slowly as night creeps upOn our houses and on our bodies, in starlight.Bright arc lights show us up as divine figuresBut without them, the stars do their job fine.
It is the burning sun above our coiffured headsThat makes us look pretty ordinary and human.The way warm rays fall on us makes us squirmIn our clothed bodies, arms covered in glovesAnd our heads in scarves shielding from heat.We long for long silky nights that make us pretty.
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Belly-fear
February 01, 2011
We now remember those smells of nightfall,On the mud track lined with thorny bushes.As night falls the bushes become ominous.Several night ghosts reside in thorny bushesThose make their ghostly food in the night.As our bullock cart proceeds toward the nightThe bells tinkle in rhythm in bullocks’ necksDrowning the dreadful shrieks of the ghosts.When the stream appears, the bullock’s bellsStop clanging for a while when pale ghostsResume their shrieks from their bush homes.We, the kids in the cart, hug mummy’s bellyWondering how the bullock fights its belly-fearWhen the bells stop clanging in the darkness.
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Milk
January 31, 2011
There is wind in the dry leaves on the floor.
The busy red ants are crawling up to the bark.
The sky looks like rain will come and hail.
The water sound there seems as if falling
On the slanting tin roof but it is the squirrel
Or some love- pigeons shuffling feet on it.
Here I wait in the front porch of my house
Afraid, deep within that the milk has boiled
And is overflowing whitely in the kitchen stove.
Footsteps are easily drowned in dew- wet leaves
And I am unable to go in to check the milk.
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Turning point
January 29, 2011
Somewhere on the journey, near the banyan tree
I meet this perfect stranger in a colored headgear
That sits heavily on his head, his legs swathed
In silken dress-cloth, his torso decked in camphor.
I see him come riding on a horse, sword in hand.
I decide to join him aloft, in the journey beyond
And now as I look back in the hoof-dust of his horse
My village becomes a mere blur in the blue hills.
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Trust
January 28, 2011
You begin with a cloud of trust above youYour rubber house will not close in on youAnd when you come out to breathe fresh airThere is no poisoned air and the dirty aquaWill not do you in or the long rubber hoseWill not throttle you in your crying throat.
Who is this one who had decided to give youA chance to exist ,borne out of a mere chanceCollision of particles in a big bang of bodiesLike the astral bodies singing the sky song?And now who is this another one ,years later,Who decided to give some one a chance to existOut of a similar collision in her inner spaceAnd you a chance to join this game of trust?
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Guilty
January 28, 2011
When I went to sleep yesterday night
I had to reckon this in my own failures.
My sleepless thoughts were mainly of guilt.
My long scroll stretched to the starlit sky.
I tried to arch over the expanse of space
To see where the record of my guilt ends.
In the back of my mind I have a feeling-
Between us two I cannot be blamed for this .
I now lay the blame for this at your door.
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Matter
January 26, 2011
In the morning walk we thought of ourselvesAs mere matter, matter trying to coalesceWith other matter in a compulsive fashion,Man matter merging with woman matter-Destructible matter with destructible matter.The monk saw some bones and some fleshAn unusual matter that saw other matterIn a decomposed fashion ahead of its time.All the time we are making matter in thisFactory of the old matter merging to formNew matter which will do the same thing.This matter wants to control other matterAnd some times hastens the process of matterDecomposing ahead of time like the monk,In a compulsive urge to decompose matter.The matter is the same, monk or murderer.
The urchin who broke the dog’s leg with a stoneWas just breaking down matter to its essentials.
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White flowers, dark creepers
January 26, 2011
Muted conversations are heard in the streetIn the gray shadows of the houses of dusk.Women squat on the steps of their housesTo discuss their kids, husbands and neighbors.Their memories go back to other eveningsOf kids, drunk husbands and bad neighbors,Of the many pretty floral designs before housesOther women made in rice powder and color.The incense smoke from their four-armed godsEnters the streets, reaches up to the tall treesAnd electric wires, going up in silk-smooth swirls.As darkness sets tiny white flowers break outFrom loving mother creepers on the housesLike stars we often see burst on our roof at night.
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Remembering
January 24, 2011
Remembering is a morning and some thoughtsThat swarm like those buzzing locusts in the airThose have descended from the far off alien skies,Their wings light and flapping to keep them alive.A child’s stick brings them down one at a time.
You had nothing against them who were our guestsGuests from the plains of Siberia into our bushesThat had brought their memories, their thoughts.They had brought memories of many green leavesAt other places and other thoughts, other skiesBut you can only bring them down one at a time.
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The mosquito
January 23, 2011
The midnight mosquito is back in the earIt comes as a mere thought in the earlobeA buzz, that is, in an excruciating journey.I speak above the general din in the hallDo I hear less than I speak, in my tuning?Sometimes it is this old of the thoughts,A mere fear of the impossible in the darkA frightful young volcano in the nether bodyAs sleep comes distorted in the resting mindIn a mash-up of the living and the dead.
When I lie in the plastic casket do I look,At the roof slab through its transparencySomehow contributing to the frigid roomThere in fourth floor in its un-swept dust?How can I add to anything up there withMy fixed stare where I cannot say all canAnd I am just a thing of the plastic casket,A thought buzzing like a mere mosquitoIn the earlobe, in the depths of this night?
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Radiance
January 23, 2011
As radiance strikes his faceA pale silence spreads from hisPantomimic lip movementsIn continuation of the dreamBetween his waking and sleep.
(On visiting a cancer patient under radiation therapy)
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The fall
January 22, 2011
The fall comes to you again and againFrom grace, certainty and equilibriumOf forces of gravity under a gray sky.
These are our failed attempts to stay on feet.We have to dig in deep before we extend footAnd not lose sight of white walls at midnight.
As we think we expand sideways and up;The body falls as the mind floats in ether.The tree there and we exist in the same planeAs its golden leaves fall we too fall in bits.
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The crowd
January 20, 2011
We dip into the mind of the crowd(Not sourcing the crowd as the geeksWould say under their light words)As the layers peel off in the internetRevealing the reader to the writerAnd vice versa in discursive modeIn a continuous text engagementAnd of images, virtual and sound.
The crowd dips into a single manAs it dips into his tiny piggy bankAdding it all up to say it has wealth.The crowd is not a humongous mass.When it has things to say it says them.Its spiritual guru would say it all,What it likes to hear in heady incense.
But there is the sorrow of the masses The collective wailing of the crowd In a black parody of all that goes on In the recesses of its aggregate mind, A mash of bodies falling on the curb A bloody mess of an unwanted sword The stupidity of a pantomime in black In a few burnished thrones and sashes. A boring repetition is all that they do
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A mere déjà vu and we have seen it all.
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Joking about sadness
January 20, 2011
We have blasphemed singing about sadness.Our jokes are mostly about being unhappyAnd these days we sing of sadness in fables.Kafka’s rat is running in circles with cornersStrange, says he, these walls are closing inAnd he is at the center of concentric circles,Strange shapes of circles with four corners.The world had been big and afraid and runningAnd then quickly the walls started closing inAnd he started dying little by little as a joke.You have to change the direction, says the catOne gets his point only after getting eaten up.
(Referring to A Little Fable by Frantz Kafka)
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The chain of being
January 18, 2011
At this time I wait for the big word,Rather for the bird of the deep night.It is this damn structure that preventsIt’s landing on the waste of the night.But it is now already moving on and outOf the limiting structure of beginning.
The grasses wait in their levels of beingAs trees, animals and lesser creaturesI wait in my assigned place in the chainPatiently to ascend to my higher plane.
A confusing woman is in the forumWaiting for twenty years to ascend.In her confusion are epiphanies hid-Dark mystery insights of the midnightWhen her birds land as mere words.
In my human anxiety I truly want to beDeeply vegetarian with no sharp bladesThrust against my sleeping conscienceInto the vitals of a fellow living beingYet this is what I did, this night’s dreamThat left me wondering about sinningIf I kill in dream, will I go to a lower hell,Stopping my ascent up the being chain?
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Epiphanies
January 17, 2011
There is utter helplessness about the world
The existing built world when I keep saying
Pch , pch, not much can be done ,you know,
My life is too short under the present sky;
There are other skies, other spaces of times.
My buildings shoot up steadily into a blue sky
But my clothes hang in the holes of balconies
Their wet drops fall into masses of passers-by.
Our epiphanies occur mostly in the fine gaps
Between the existing built world and this ‘me’
If only they would allow me to build it anew.
Thinking means wondering if can get the hell
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Out of these various hell-holes I have built;
The holes can only be expanded, not blown away.
Ha, ha, I now chuckle at the warm thought
Of blowing away all my holes, one by one.
It is a nice thought to blow away all the holes.
But there is a bigger hole in this midnight logic
Because I cannot live under this open space.
I am deeply afraid in the hole of my inner space
And I need a five feet five canvas tent of a hole
Between my frame and the glimmering stars.
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The little dark one
January 16, 2011
At two this midnight the little dark oneBecame a poem, her all-knowing smileThe first stanza and her baby bird- glanceBecame the next one as she pranced thereOn the floor up and down like pendulumSwinging in the free air, a full fall of force,A pout of sarcasm from tiny baby lips.
I at midnight wanted to round it offWith a cool third stanza, of epigramA last line well said, to the deep night.But she wouldn’t let me, the little oneThat squirmed in my hands like a wormFull of bones that pushed against mineIn my withered palms and finger bones.It is life which pushed against my death.As the night creeps I once again go intoMy epigrammatic mode of the old poetWith the bally irony thing barely broached.
The curl on my lips that briefly occurredVanished without trace in my confusionAs my eye followed her moving in circles.I thought I had seen the curl on her lips.
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Bored poet
January 16, 2011
The bored poet is not a sleep-deprived poetBut a wanting- to- create poet with the leavesYet to fall, and the golden autumn yet to arrive.A yawn or two at midnight is not pillow-sleepWhen warm musk thoughts steal from behind.Actually they have been there under the groundWaiting for the first rains to bring them to lifeA summer breeze from the warm mountains Will surely quicken them in those fluffy cloudsTo bring to the dust to sprout light and green.The poet loses his amber sleep in the afternoonFiguring out when autumn ends, spring begins.
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Poems of the night
January 13, 2011
These poems appear at midnight with the shoutsOf fearsome Alsatians with their echoing barks,That emerge daily ,from lonely houses on the hillsLiving behind electrified fences of sleazy money.The barks come from their dark cavernous mouthsOf soft sorrow, born inside, of gratitude and love.The poems come from the sleeping mouths of furyFrom where emerges the silence of a sleeping cityWhose tautness will break at the first crack of dawn.
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Pilgrimage
January 12, 2011
Mother, what is now cooking, in your home?That once smelled of onion roast and fried potatoes?Where is the food you promised us the last time?You now talk of long distance yellow pilgrim buses
Those will take you to the pristine hills of snowAnd the pearl-white temples nestling in them.The holy beads become weighty on your frail chest;Their mountain smells are truly overpowering.Up there shimmers a silver lake of frozen iceAnd pretty swans gracefully float as in a dream.
There under the looming shadow of a white rockSits your three-eyed god who will dance destruction,When he will open his eyes from his deep thoughts.Mother, will you then cook lentils and rice for him?
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Cold
January 10, 2011
Here, in the cold of the nose you are transmogrified:To become a little tranquil, like the sea in the morningWith a hidden possibility of rise to the moon at mid- night.The white surf is quiet, lacking evening ‘s orange passion.
The hum in the ears is but an imitation of the dark night.But the sounds come to you like morning beach crowsLanding on their whooshing feet near the gentle wavesLooming largely as though they only exist in this worldAnd none other, on the sand-earth or in the sea-air.
For example we ignore the existence of jumping fishOr crawling snails in the wet sand in and around holes.Or plastic fishnets in knotted heaps of red and blueOr strange old women selling sea-shells of rarest hue.
Here these pills enter the swelling sea of my bloodTrying to negative the existence of those tiny creaturesThat feverishly ride their red waves in gusto, up and down.The sea is everywhere around our dear earth and in us.Its hum is persistent, breaking only when bigger soundsLand on the shores of our tranquillity like beach crows.
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Trembling
January 09, 2011
First of all I don’t believe I trembleAt the thought of the dark night to come.My feet do not quake but shuffle in walk.There is sweat on brow and fear in my eyes.I don’t believe my trembling unbelief.
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Pain
January 08, 2011
When we were being borne our idea began.
Our limbs slowly formed making us a tadpole,Then a blind creature swimming in the aqua.Our idea is just once, living in the presentLike the carriage wheel touching the earthOnly once in a brief vertiginous movement.Those limbs we grew have to go in the end.The gills shall disappear as vestiges of then.Somewhere in the middle we grew some fleshAs succor for new life, new love and beauty.But we remained just an idea, a brief momentA fleeting moment when beauty shall pass.All that will remain is mere flesh and its pain.
“Strictly speaking, the life of a being lasts as long as an idea.Just as a rolling carriage wheel touches earth at only one point,so life lasts as long as a single idea”
(Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy I, 373).
(re-blogged from The Floating Library)
(Hearing of the discovery of breast cancer of a friend’s wife)
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Houses
January 07, 2011
Houses we think of, in sun and rain-Those houses which live, cheek by jowl,With maternal mango trees of summer.Their shadows paint their white canvas.In monsoon the houses are painted greenIn delicate taffeta of luminous moss.The squirrels climb the tree lookingCuriously into your bedroom window.
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Height
January 05, 2011
When your face is situated quite highYou look naturally down on the worldBecause that is where your eyes are and whereDramas are staged before sequined curtains.
When you lie down on the ground with your eyesOn the infinity of the dark promontoryYou see tiny fish-worms swimming behind themAs if they were swimming in your own blood.It is these swimming creatures that will do you in.You remember, you were once one of them.
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Old age
January 03, 2011
Funny how we all begin in our old age.First we ignore it and then are afraid.The pain down there reduces us merely.Fairly farcical, our faces have lost allTheir humanity, angelic glow, at a time.These our pills are tiny white universes.They vanish darkly in that vast chaos.
We laugh deeply in hollow inwardness-A toothless attempt at biting sarcasmWhenever the phone does not truly ringBut becomes a mere ringing possibilityUncomfortably vibrant for an old pocket.
There is now not even pain there belowBut a dull ache in the lower mind and back.All our hellos trail off in the blue winter sky.
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Celebrating the New Year (2011)
January 01, 2011
Poetize we said, whatever prose there is.At twelve new night, little boy and girl jigIn bleary-eyed parental compulsion, proud.They keep up with Joneses on cup and cakeAs wine sparkles between uncles and aunts.Our little cherub dances his steps so cutely,We are proud of him in his English school.
But there is tension everywhere, tensionOn the wall, elephants get up and chargeWith their tails tucked in their taut behindsAnd a poet appears from cloud and rain-Wet behind the ears, the poet who forgetsTo wear iambic pentameter in his under.Poetize, we said this morning to the treeIn the hills where village women trudgeTo work, with many-storied meal boxes.
