Small talk...

Kind face woman

2012-01-18T09:38:00.003-08:00

There was a woman with a kind face,

Besides that, I believe she had no grace,

How she came to live there none knew,

Behind the church, she lived smelling like stew.

The woman with the kind face,

Had no friends, family or stake

Every Sunday she went to the market

Spoke to none, pointing only to the potato packet

One day, the woman with the kind face,

Walked amidst the children yelling, Hag! Craze!

She walked with a spring, a limp-a kind of churn,

Cracking her fingers at every eye’s return.

The woman with the kind face,

Her face, I believe, ripened with rage

Before they knew it, she hurled over the banister,

and kicked them all to the gutter.

This woman with a kind face,

All around the village, she hurled bullets,

Some were pickled, some were rounded,

As for the rest of us, she left us confounded.

Summons

2011-05-26T05:32:00.001-07:00

I clasped the pen,

And two roads emerged.

I summoned my thoughts,

And street lights flashed across.

I wrote it out,

And children danced among the floodlight.

I paused to hear a sound,

And sleeping dogs awoke from stupor.

I closed the book,

And broke into the stillness of the room.

I felt that lull crowd in my mind, Plop.

The poem fell out of my grasp.

Quicker than an amplified fire,

It had attached itself to things around me.

Hands - A geography of us

2011-05-24T06:03:00.002-07:00

:::::

In this country, it is said that cartographers

die of rheumatic minds. A wayward stream contending

for an astrologers’ fancy, a colonial boldness

trace tributary over tributary

a saga of youthful wanderlust. It is the country of our

meeting, an uncharted terrain of history making

the languor of our youth married to the earnestness of

our absolution.

The signs of my time has been grafted on them but

the complexions of our youth are yet to surrender.

Trenches and trenches through each of their fissures,

Allow us to trace an exit pathway, neither life nor death.

For I, baptised by the fire of senility,

tremble to clasp the microcosm of the folding world as you

left it in the palms of my hand.

Once upon a time.

2011-03-16T05:07:00.004-07:00

::::

We taught our boys and girls to sing,

a lullaby, a war song and an epithalamion offering .

And the women went to the hearth-

To light up the fire, and stir the earth.

Our men sat by the fire, smoking the meats

Sucked the end of the fruit, the succulent tips

And like that-while we lay abiding

the parasite came, and swept us clean.

It crept inward and shortened our hymns

with renewed hoarseness, our houses began to screech.

Our cattle bellowed, our children cried and

Along the river, our brave men looked

And found a breath of new airs-amen- quickly

Into the village, they brought it like an old flame

Our young men were the first to pronounce amen

And slowly it became a country only for old men

Man against man, woman against woman, child

Every man to his woman said, something’s amiss.

We did not know we took the parasite with our meals,

& Long before our duels ended, our children became unclean.

We called ourselves in different names, in prolonged

Tones our speech impregnated with a million tongues

Our piglets died, our duels grew old-

Our men and women, sickened, less bold.

Our village is an exile, but godknows

We stirred the earth once upon a time.

(Picture Courtesy: Elika Sumi)

Fiddling around

2011-03-08T04:15:00.000-08:00

::
I didn't know we would laugh like that,
dropping our heads in automatic togetherness,
and buckle our hands one on each, like interlopers
of one and another's gazes.

I also didn't know your eyes learnt to
betray the participatory flutter of your hands,
and take with you- the page well-writ with the
misgivings of you and me.

From letters...

2011-03-02T04:06:00.003-08:00

Lets make fittings into this skeleton

And churn out of our ramble

A chorus of poetic vendors shouting

Something due for relief, something due for long.

I’ve struggled you know, to grasp and look

At the pools that contained the falling water, pick

Up and leave.

But tonight, I am seized by a lust more

Stronger than a poet’s ambition.

For no poet is lavished more than his manuscript allows

No metaphor placed further away from his

Acknowledgment than this.

Is there any place in the configuration of poetry

to raise the question of why and how a sentence deigns to be?

Because I am devoid of a shape,

In possession of a subject that spasms out of control.

Who can tell- how many borders I’ve crossed?

Radar under the weather.

2010-12-14T05:48:00.004-08:00

The man with the megaphone

inside my throat had

never dislodged.
He must

be buried somewhere.

Today he speaks

between my words, and strikes me

asunder with bullets of linguistic

infidelity.

Water, water everywhere.

2010-11-10T22:32:00.001-08:00

There’s water flowing, but it ain’t for drinking...

You can hold me or

Toss me o’er

Yonder

And tell me

Tall-tales of conquests, if

You’d like.

I suggest you turn

On the nozzle,

And draw me

A bath, but only

If you’d like.

I’d lay there, engulfed

By an oath between

Ebbing and flowing

And having you over,

Punctured by a salient delight.

Sun Kissed

2010-11-07T01:07:00.002-07:00

Let us bathe
In the oil
From our garden,
Pluck those words for food,
And make half-drunk
Conversations on metaphor taxi.

I’ve been kissed,
Sorely and through
So out of your tirades
I will pick,
Unsheathed from the Sun,
Hyperboles for poems.

The clashing of cymbals

2010-11-06T00:59:00.002-07:00

or the rupture of a tenthousand.

From this jungle of concrete,
I behold a firmament of torpor.
Thick with cinders, among binders
A soldier gentle fall and
A communal roar ascend
Towards heaven

Angry little children yell
Coo-coo-coo, blast it! his pronounce
(If I could make tea, and
Reside by the pin code from yesterdays
Package). Like Defrocked Prufrock, he's
Hung out to dry.

The night sky is crowded with fire, dear
Can heaven be far behind,
with consent, descend through these porous veins?
Where these children enumerate,
Is where my feet will adjourn, and
None sing the ballad for the soldier’s return.

Bitten with a guava.

2010-11-02T09:49:00.004-07:00

my love,

you are the stealer of my thoughts,
the pandemonium in the morning,
the ruler of my gaze,
the nothingness in the morning,
my surrounding, my beginning.

my hunger at noon time,
my rage at dawn
my poem by midnight
my faraway friend at dusk...
the constitution of feeling, the rigmarole I bequeath.

Upon a Hiatus...

2010-09-29T10:31:00.001-07:00

:::::

I flail among words,

Look for means to go---

Washed ashore in civil disobedience,

I find myself among

Convolutions of a private kind…

Hanging on a verb or two,

Surreptitiously supplying caresses

to some belligerent sentences said.

Do my words some morals betray?

Do these some cogency deride?

I have to know, is there an open-

Secret that rides upon this threshold,

That my grammar can no longer hold?

Where is this page that my weary feet

Has cast yoke?

I'm not quite ashamed,

I pluck out of your words,

Something that twirls inside.

Spill

2010-08-27T09:37:00.004-07:00

There is a plant in my garden,

It stutters an inch everyday.

And all around it are wires & cables

to make me frolic and play.

It raves with the quagmire,

Trembling into august splendor...

Among other flowers, it sprays

Resplendent ashes that flow from within

the corpus of its meaning,

enshrouded inside capillaries of language.

What are these words,

that fly about in an epileptic fit?

Surely they are not stimulants,

neither slits about the human body...

The Annexation

2010-06-15T05:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am a bug
I travel to distant places, over indifferent
bodies and they come alive to the caresses
of my indifferent self.

     There upon a sheet of paper,
     my feelings flayed alive;
     the colour ran from my body
     onto the hung skeletons of signs*
     while that which seizes paper
     had done its final seizing.

On other days, I am a man
calloused from all the touching.
I read the morning papers, I drink the dreary tea
And then I feast off the papers some more.

*words.

Slips of the Pen

2010-06-03T01:51:00.001-07:00

Note here the tradition of anxiety

what tomfoolery couldn't pollute

from all the touching they flow

out in a bandy, quite unabashedly.

Words that have not been used for a long time

become hotter after the first strike; a

quizzical correspondence

with a curious interloper is all

but, needed to minafest the tall art.

It means hoarding can be flighty; like

a rip at the welter of unopened

letters triggers a deluge of ink.

Layer upon layer, it unfolds horror,

So i suggest we meet at the intersection.

A Buried Life

2010-05-27T05:14:00.005-07:00

**
Through a place under the arm’s shadow,
I looked up at the blazing yellow light
That exploded on my ornamented frame.

I was made too feeble, legless with fear
and soon, way too soon, it was going to burnish me
with another glare that would later pen down how exactly it
consumed form.

There I saw the great man chew hard, chew on impulse,
Chew on chewed gum. Click, plop.

I held a sister’s hand, and half deceased
from the mechanical vituperations of the tutelary injection
ventured a look on the play that performed on his glassy rims.

An entourage of pharmaceutical soldiers on duty,
yelled out shrill pronouncements all around the impenetrable exit
Like most rite-of-passages are performed. And boisterous punks, they broke into
the cemetery of Solomon.

Rudely. They found a molar on a downward spiral,
Clinging to the welcome of creepers, creepers that creased the entrance
to the labyrinth, from that fraction of the human anatomy.

I am, but man, I think. The light too much to soak up,
Revealed what the mind had no control of. And well, images kneaded
the mind and found in it the belated echoes of dumb words .

Once again, I began to relish the darkness. There was a line and two
here and there, there was song in his voice, there was Pamuk,
there was something to write and then there was ice-cream.

The light had settled on the horizon, machines had carved
thoroughfares on my insides and, cremated remains leaped out of
the chasm
exorcising the spirit of Solomon.

Slowly, gloved hands sought out the buried labyrinth.
roots were untied with scissors, the final remains amputated
From the sleeping corpse. Then he did a wonder-ful thing;
He stopped singing, I awoke.

The lifeless pantomime of instruments earlier alive with singing,
Lay bluntly naked on the table. The light was spent, the brief affair
concluded, so that the blood flowed copiously from me
And phones and papers were called to an address.

Conscience

2010-05-19T00:33:00.000-07:00

*
The harness of this poem
Has become an irritant to my spleen,
Its cocksure pomposity, it’s
sneaky admission of deference,
fashions a credulous fool, don’t ya think?

I fear I will stomp out of this blunderbuss,
in childish annoyance,
well until the mind is sublet
to leniency.

A Prostitution of Poetry

2010-04-29T02:35:00.001-07:00

:::::

Often a poem is written for nobody
it lives off itself
devouring the crusts of its walls
like a fellow drinking soup through a
plaster of paris
where someone has stamped a hiaku on a naughty anecdote,
an object of his acrimony
he dangles quivering upon the board
wedged between the weight of that sentence.

There are poems camouflaged in schools,
like "yours and mine and hers and his and theirs"
to a conglomerate of flourescent dolls,
greased knaves, dolled up in alabaster
until someone probes,
and word-magicians rise on that cue
imprinting upon our tabula rasa
figments of poems
congested with over-thinking.

Poems like these spring from conversations
between the imagined word and the pause
at the end of the sentence. The poet,
the recruiting officer- the ghosts of each other.
Phantasms walking, bending, laughing, writing,
gaping, singing, frolicking, caressing, eating,
crying, learning- sometimes the other way round-
frisking ourselves for allusive alphabetical alliterations.
Abusive!

Conscious lovers you see, do debunk phrases.
so it lingers on that faculty of soul,
detached from flattery of ownership
upon a procession of intellectual and sensual assaults
determined by aggression, some by love.

Let old men tell of fables, I'm listening.

2010-04-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

:::::::::

I sit at my desk chewing meddling sinews
that shoot off from the fissures of my bearded brain,
struggling to keep afloat on the waters of memory
quickly, before I drown into the abysmal depths

that hold derelict shipments of this reality.
One for one moment, there is between you and I
a pen, a note and a cup of sustenance
Drink on it, it will leave me with a page

etched with the wanderings of Us, of Song, of Dance
the loose-ends of which are tendered and into the canons of War

Drunk District Descriptions

2010-01-12T22:14:00.000-08:00

:::

As the district went to sleep,
the woman watched the fog
Feign'd in a bulb, twist and wrap
man, woman, child and urchins
Inside a blanket of white
Beneath the fog, she indulged him

As the woman nursed the boy,
the fog crept through cavities,
some poor man's home, a manger
Feasts on epidermis first
the spoilt of the wholesome earth:
Beneath the district, the city's closed

*

As old posters start to peel
brick by brick, old city walls
made by the lowest bidder
settle gently on the ground
Man woman child and urchin
walk on bended knees, beneath the town

As doctors, surgeons await
the curly dog licks itself
last. The boy shuffles his feet,
nurse and child they cough, cough, cough
while the city squirts out blood
upon the dance of the silver fog.

Dear Reader, 2010

2010-01-03T22:26:00.000-08:00

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year. I sincerely apologise for this heavy unwarranted delay on my part in wishing you the very best @ the start of the New Year. I hope you have had a wonderful journey of 2010 so far. I wish you happiness, love, laughter, peace and friendship this year.
Thank you so much for taking time to read my posts and commenting on them. I appreciate your response and look forward to more interaction.
Keep reading.
Best,
Benny.

Doppelganger

2009-12-21T22:44:00.000-08:00

Last week, I dusted some of my old photographs and left them on a seat under the light of the sun to thaw. While some reflected the tint of sunlight that dared stumble upon it, others drew covers over themselves, that took more than a maid's hand to dispel.

This is a photograph of me

prostrate inside a wooden

almirah,

lying on its own backbone

it stood on wooden pegs

scathed by dust so

dexterous, it began to slump

.......................................

It is written, 1984. Was it Orwell's 84?

It was year I remember nothing of.

..................................

You are right. The glass has tinted with

time. But it charms she who sits

inside the wooded--

Look! there is a crack

on my cheek, that is new

unlike all else in this photograph, unintended-

a first piece of a countless intended

........................................

I remember everything of 2009.

Even the bloody mudded waters of the

paan I had last Febuary.

.......................................

While this photograph surveys,

I sit shifting the weight of my

head

into the cups of my hands.

Oh, there is no sense in looking at '84!

All that is in it is magnetic, it swallows

and mocks and prays and

.................................

so full of pride, to outwarp itself-

jammed between machinery

and desire,

and imaging-

so when I look upon it

O doppelganger-

It is I who beckons.

The winter ate the hungry dog and the fiery cat.

2009-12-03T00:39:00.005-08:00

:::::

The eternal winter has set my feet on fire, fructifying
step-by-step willowherbs that rise unexpectedly
from the dark.
Every part, apart from each other
thrives on a season of its own.

That fiery cat’s lost carcass is here, swirling
into the winter solstice nostalgic about
the ill-humoured equinox that
mocked the summer to frenzy
It blew the birds away, chased
squirrels to the burial ground,
called the winds to play on mountains
that sprayed lava, lava, lava:

It is lava where I lay,
   Is it summer in a tray?
   God help me when I pray
   Tell you, the poor cat’s a stray.

In the cold bed, he took off his arm
and slept on it. He opened his mouth
to reveal a stretch of denudated road,
lined with feline fur.
Dog-ear hours to dog-ear days, he did not
cut off sense sensibly. The bark burnt,
the bark burnt swiftly and spread

to my feet of flaming fire. Now,
is it not enough that our minds
are churning in an immutable vertigo?
Man is a hoopla: a mere phantom as he goes
to and fro. He bustles about, but only in vain.
He sips the fog, and spits the fire.

A cursive love poem

2009-10-24T01:32:00.007-07:00

There is an intensity

in the resemblance that embraces

you and then, me.

We are a performance

accompanied by mathematical deductions,

minutes longer than the quartet.

A hurried composition,

between insight, assumption

and a bottle of crass liquor.

We are inside a womb,

impregnated by abbreviations

of night and day.

And beneath this ocean bed, there is a choir of us

reciting dialogues of riddles

that you made from me.

Tonight my delinquent mind dearest,
will forbear the conundrum
and watch the pots of heaven
overflow with the juices of the earth.

What life is this,

you get to be chalk,

and here I am,

melting butter.

An aplologist for Poetry

2009-09-16T09:58:00.008-07:00

After much ado on my part, I have changed the title of this piece to "An apologist for poetry" from the former "Penny for thoughts."
:::

I cannot identify myself in long sentences

or abysmal paragraphs running on spiral staircases,

like the town crier- I am

exasperated by the 8th syllable.

Short clauses it seems, are arrogant, cloying,

full of rhetoric and

take another 25 rupees to draw.

I'd like to transcribe a motley sentence

of another town, and another time

as vociferous and impudent as

Michael Jackson's death, and let it run
into another town.

My sentences remain at the crossword

between the deleatur and the coma,

resisting the fullstop. They're like that.

They stick needles into my blank lucid mind for a brief moment,

and skitter away into the wretched nothingness.

As forcefully as I bite into the sugar

and force it all down into the skirmishes.

There is more to be consumed though,

monstrous paraphernalia bought but

sold in delicate sachets of silver.

Just a post.

2009-09-09T14:09:00.006-07:00

I find inspiration in the most uncouth of places.

Like the left back pocket, two spaces, of my blue jeans.

I found a fifty and two twentys yesterday

and today,

I worked all noon, and did not

stumble once through the evening to the moon.

:::

Physical Geography by Mahe Jabeen

2009-09-09T11:33:00.002-07:00

The moment I am told

it will burn me,

I want to embrace the sun.

Just once.

That's how I am.

I always want to do

what's prohibited.

I erase boundaries.

The sky is my limit.

I lifted the veils of waves

of blue seas

and studied the freedom of water.

I swam against the current

and joined the battle

of the waves against the ocean.

Now I have to go get the essence

of the thundering clouds

and rub them into the vocal chords

of my people.

Sometime soon

I will occupy the ocean

and sow my dreams in it.

Hi

2009-06-10T01:13:00.005-07:00

Hi,

Please excuse my absence. I haven't been doing any blogging for the past few months in any form, and yes it sucks deep! I have had to submit the manuscript of my dissertation to my supervisor by May end and it has kept me on my toes. I must add, I did suffer from an attack of writer's block sometime around the 13th of May (it being my birthday etc, i know ;) ) but nevertheless, somehow have managed to write it accompanied by quite a few errors. Over the next few weeks, my work is to sit and await. :(

Anyway, all said and done- I have written a few lines last week that i will post on the blog. Maybe i will, maybe i wont. I don't know. Maybe later in the day.

Till then,

Have a good day.

XOXO

No posts

2009-05-18T12:04:00.010-07:00

*
**
***

Pardon me,
I am too weak in spirit to finger my thoughts
and drape them in an appendage
of words, culled by
a fraying mind.

This much for me today,
I will post soon. My mind today, like yesterday
and the daybefore has been
ill fed by the academy.

Night

2009-03-31T23:22:00.008-07:00

:::::

At last
the night
last night,
surrendered to his sleeping pills.

Nobody nowhere knew he had gone home
after by the river Spur
he showered with the women
with friendly voices, telling
their tales of waiting, woe & desire.

*

With all his 10 hands
he ate the mushy oranges and slowly
his heart grew colder.

He called to her mercilessly and
told her that he loved her,
that he was afraid,
that he was falling somewhere,
that he had incongrously consumed the pills.

But she was no more.

He sat watching her blue baby face
with no make-up on,
proud she was her mother's daughter
whom he cast out

As the hungry night advanced,
there was very little breath left
and he fell somewhere,
a colourless parrot looking
outside the window of his mother's home.

*

When they found him,
he stank of the river's waters-
thunder, lightning and burnt charcoal.

A corpse with only
God as his witness.

Musings in the morning

2009-03-14T22:07:00.005-07:00

::

Whats in a name?
[mother father grandmother
& priest]
when there's nothing to tame

Whats in a mouth?
[alphabets scales vegetables
& juice]
when there's nothing but a pout

Whats in a verse?
[song elegy poem
& epitaphs]
when there's nothing in the purse

Whats in a dance?
[conversation lust regrets
& training]
when it's nothing but a prance

Whats in a life?
[work gossip death
& tears]
when there's nothing but strife

March, 2006: Floating egg yolks

2009-03-12T09:45:00.010-07:00

:::

The last time we played Holi, we ended up smelling like rotten eggs. It was back in 2006. Ever since, I have somehow procrastinated: either stayed away at a friend's place, or found it the best time to go visiting... Home. But that year I was chasing a rallying MA degree, juggling friends rooms, eating too much, pardoning semi-clad feet by vigorous pedicure, amounting on noctural Kleptomaniac hunts (We caught one particular Manisha who incessantly stole anything and everything she beheld), washing clothes in the bucket and living an absolutely sedentary lifestyle. Ofcourse, then we weren't provided with Laundry Machines, a luxury we would only be bestowed with 2 years after-& because primarily we were'nt a central university yet - we were ergo, poor.
Anyway, i was there with Ashu, Aku and Christine (my BFFs at that time) snacking up a breakfast consisting of a gourmet chai made from a tiny immersion rod dipped into a rickety handel filled with water to the brim, a few egg sandwiches and chips.From our 1st floor window, we could see throngs of men and women and animal smeared in colour & liquid, chasing each other as if Twister approached, shifting places and fighting an all-out colour war. This is so fucking annoying, i thought.
I must admit i had then the frightening feeling that comes over one, who in a fit of nerves senses impending doom.
"They're coming to get us," said Aku.
The next few minutes went swiftly. We beat 10 eggs in a mug, filled two buckets with water (and shampoo) and stood still against the latched door, dreading the worst.
And then it happened.
All very quickly.
They banged on the door, and we could hear them calling us out- First Oren, then Ruth, Vandana, Asen, Slyvain and what seemed to be an ever increasing amount of adversaries.
We struck our plan after10 minutes, mostly because the people behind the door wouldn't budge! We jerked back- opened the door (to some 10-odd coloured people), swung the buckets of floating egg yolks right on their faces. But not before we got a taste of slimy coloured water running down our backs and hair! And then a tussle followed. The encounter lasted about 30 minutes- to and fro the bathrooms, the cubicles and the lawn- an opera of shrill voices penetrating deep into the dingy hostel corridors- till the last of the powder was consumed by the fraying skin.
Tired and tested, we returned to our rooms much later- the walls now a shandean barrel of coarse graffiti atop with raw-poached eggs. But we didn't have much to whimper. The floors had to be washed, the curtains taken down, the beds rearranged, the cane chairs washed and we ourselves, to be discoloured.

It didn't matter. The battle was over and we were going home in the spring.

I'm a technocrat, let's talk no more of it

2009-02-23T11:43:00.007-08:00

Piano

2009-02-10T12:17:00.012-08:00

Sometimes i like to believe that my piano holds the key to those unfinished tales and songs that my grandfather left me with. My parents bought me my piano in 1993. But it was 1993, and my grandfather had died long since. I never met him. He left me on the day of my birth. Some people told me he was borderline terrorist, my mother said he was an alcoholic and some said that if he were still alive he'd be "Chief Secretary", by now. Tales are few and testimony, fewer. He only left me stories in my grandma's voice, in my mother's songs, in my granduncle's library- heaps of books upon books, all useless. So far i have only found more clutter where i thought was once, meaning. As if one who's speech runs amock, he left the misfit, king in his own kingdom. He knew his right note, found perhaps before one of his escapades, whatever they were - It is that shrill D minor on the violin. What a bugger. Lucky old chap, dammit. I would miss you if i knew you.

Hide, Hyderabad

2009-01-27T09:58:00.019-08:00

::

The city of djinns
in secret, lies under
Hyderabad. Where streams
of meanders
criss cross citypaths,
drunk in pagentry.
More coveted,
less cherished.

it is the city
of my lost lover,
where other loves were found
while some lost.
where the sun rises
upon the tea-pot
long after the washwoman
has finished
her bathing

Shiny disco lights
upon curvy
charminars,
a lady will sing a
song for three rupees
light the bidi
and dodge the other rupee
just for your attention

Eyes that hold
her captive,
his silhouette is
a dirty black,
merging into her
and upon the sunset
a woman will look
at her lover and wish
"it will be better"

Nevermind the soultalk
autowallas, they will talk
while round & round
they go, full- free city tours
upon the
fabricated shore
where fishes stench
of feigned deaths that die

I heard the song
that my distant love
once sang
upon this shore,
where lovestories
wrote themselves as fables
but once the eve wore itself on
the muzzein called us on
and my lovesong
was gone

Untitled

2009-01-22T09:46:00.006-08:00

:

philosophy, there is none
fancy, a little bit
opium, ensnare me only slightly
words, they are ill-fitting tonight
i stooped, I will not write

My postmodern God

2008-12-26T21:09:00.011-08:00

:::

Rivets
Bills
Irremovable nail paint
Voo doo dolls
Cheese
Notebooks
Watch dials
Being minority
Hearts
Open books
Cupped Hands
Procrastination
Google Maps
Fallen trees
Adhoc Meetings
Cigarette Stubs
Bread
Lilac glasses
Hair loss
Delays
High heels
Grey Skies
Lost causes
Traffic
Port Wines
Versace
Coffee
Carpenters
Black children
Nazi Camps
Suiting Up
Suiting Down
Oh my God
Eyeliner
Cuban Cigars
Words
Poetry

Such stuff that dreams are made of.

Deluge

2008-12-24T11:12:00.006-08:00

water gushes like wine
wine flows like stonesking*
&
stonesking is but waters
drunk in sonoluminescene

* a kind of potion

Love bite

2008-11-17T03:25:00.014-08:00

last dregs of coffee,

always
tastes of you..
a saga of
dancing cigarettes
enveloped
in hues of
bittersweet coffee...

rest,

drag me left,

push me right

and

leave me at

sigh!

Wind Groper

2008-11-13T06:36:00.014-08:00

:::

Kamikaze is
the great hunchback
reverend and ordainer
of the wind mills
that gust
huff- puff, the wind

He charged the west wind
to Kublai Khan
in the summer of '74;
vendetta for lost
loved summers by
two fleets

Against amorous Henry,
he commanded an army
of protester winds
to abet finally
William of Orange, for
he loved H's merry wives...

Hmmm....

Is someone singing
'Lo, Kamikaze, the quarterback
is dead! The gods had warned
him, grope not the Tsunami.
It is not to play. Mankind is
not forever here to
stay'?

Now he is dead? Is he?
But you know
Kamikaze,
he can be mean
and say he was asleep
for fools like you & me
to believe.

When Wati Tagged me

2008-10-30T04:44:00.011-07:00

So Wati tagged me. I didn't know the connotations of the word "tag", so i looked it up. It said, 'tag' (also known as touch, tiggy, tick, chasing, chasemaster, chasey) is an informal playground game that usually involves two or more players attempting to "tag" other players by touching them with an object, usually their hands.
Now, i got it.

1. If your lover betrayed you, what would your reaction be?
*Gun shot in air*
Slap. Dropkick. Hit. Punch. Pinch. Shoot.

2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?
Marrying Ethan Hawke (I dreamt of him once) .

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?
Somebody bootylicious .

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Buy a bank .

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
I dunno. I am a happy heterosexual.

6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
Loving someone.

7. How long would you wait for someone you loved?
2 days. (Now you know!)

8. If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?
Chance a glance or two, is all. Waste of time!

9. If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?
How much of WAR is social?

10. What takes you down the fastest?
PMS

11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
(Softly): Is that you, Dad?? (Dad always asking me this!)

12. What’s your fear?
Silence.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
The babe is cucumber cool, fits like a pair of smooth snazzy leather pants into my life!

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
Rich and single. I'm okay feeling lonely inside my Merc.

15. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?
I don't recall. The whole thing is hazy.

16. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?
The (un)picky one.

17. Would you give all in a relationship?
:D I dunno!

18. Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?
Forgive & Forget. Forgiving is easy. Forgetting is tough.

19. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?
Being in one

20. List of people to tag: Kaatib , Insignia, S, Shock.. etc!

You

2008-10-28T23:25:00.009-07:00

Author and finisher of
my romances
redresses,

and
ping-pong games.

in-betweeners

2008-09-17T21:03:00.005-07:00

*

the clouds
are touchy,
the rains
atickle,
the breeze
is teasing,
the touchy
is moist
and
my speech
is accompanied by
a piano-sound

i am
lying
among the
white
of cocoons
and webs
while
acrimonious
black blokes
looke' down
at me

i am not
white; no black
either but
a false index
drops down
dead on
me
and i am
now an
astounding
in-between
fa-fa
what you sopranos
call an
eff

See me, see you

2008-08-12T08:12:00.008-07:00

:::

I look at you from
the crack on my wall
like a silhouette
of crass glass
moving
dancing
as if in-habit
as if intrigued

looking at me
so i sit
in the room of
burgundy
like the wimp*
like the convict
with a case, a fruitcake
and a crackpot

see the room
turn a red colour,
flaming purples
and green dots
but only free at one
dot
for me to see
for you to look

at me
at you
and laugh at
the songs you sing
while slowly you
break away
from the
crass glass
that made you
are made of.

Upon a Revolution

2008-07-15T13:57:00.010-07:00

::

1.0
It is the night of revolt
The cause is not lost yet
Children, pray for your fathers,
wailing mothers,
godforsaken prayers,
wasted democracies,
and drunk little bastards
littering the streets of
Dimapur.

1.1
The night is fevered;
clouded from Jaundice
where sparks of yellow
penetrate the air
residues of Jacketed cordite
pillowcased with copper
this place, where
soul meets body.

1.2
The night is smoking
cigars and biris and cigarettes
and babies suckle
on breasts tasting of
honey and plums
and gunshots, harmonized
while the lazy snake
uncoils itself
after a night
dabbed in reckless debauchery

1.3
The insomniac urchin is
sobbing
leaning against his
blasted father cursing
geometry, trickery
snakes and women
while another man is
singing hymns of
communion, standing on the
church's pulpit.

1.4
Tonight I won't keep
awake and watch for
talented matchstick men
singing songs of freedom
and songs of fury
draped in shawls
of frenzy; piqued
and potent,
vigilant and wary
cooking little pigs
in earthen pots
over the fire

1.5
(Passer-by,
i am a man of peace,
but when i speak
they are for war).

July, 2008.

I for eye.

2008-07-10T11:26:00.008-07:00

::::

I sold my eye
for twenty pence
and thirty
dreamless nights

He paid
fifteen pence
and left,
kisses goodbye

My eye, two eyes
for ten pence each
if not now
will you pay?

He came for
fifteen dreamless nights
to pay, i thought
five pence's peace

Two eyes, he said
half an eye each
take them back but
please,
place me in my dreams.

Telegu Poetry Madness: Van Gogh's Ear

2008-07-08T13:18:00.015-07:00

::

First, i thank my friend for lending me her copy of Telegu Poetry, the most lucrative and wonderful read i have had in a few months, and not asking me back for it, well, just yet. (You, i hope this has not served as reminder). I will return it to you sometime, though inclined as i am to keep it forever. :O

The more i read of Telegu poetry, the more i am captivated by the splendor and beauty of the language, the poet, the reader, the poem and its ceaseless wanderlust of thought and emotion. I know nothing of telegu, except that it is a language derived from Dravidian and Sanskrit (?) origins and it has almost a thousand years of uninterrupted literary tradition. Now, I feel enriched by translation, and truly believe that though a poem is blessed by its location in the specific, indeed the farther the poem moves, the longer it lives.

I confess, much like the translator of these lines below, that there is a love affair between me and this poem...but mine is one of wit, meditative pessimism and the vulgarly surreal.

"For the love of his girlfriend,
for the love of the world,
van gogh cut off his ear
and glued it to the sky

Since then
it puts out
a little blood,
a few tears,
a little sunshine
and a little shade.

The reins of the horse carts
that run on the paths of
Wassenaarse gardens
come out of van Gogh's ear
every afternoon.

The circles and tunnels
of the canals of Amsterdam
that cut the melodies of light and shade
into thin strips
attach them together
and cut them again
and flow as pure waves of sound--

they are actually from
van Gogh's ear..."

- Ismail.

Between you and me, let it be known.

Kaleidoscope

2008-06-27T13:12:00.004-07:00

:::

caterpillar on the pillar
is envious
of me who
does not change
see that is why it is green

there are others
who dress in black
moody and angry
repulsed easily
see they will turn to moths

some like chameleons
to dissuade me
and later persuade me
of promised beauty
and mock me
in pagan delight

they wilt
in ten days sometime
on water and
milkweed and eggshells
overdosed for ten days when

three body parts,
six jointed legs
two antennae,
compound eyes,
and an exoskeleton
exonerated

... to be continued!

Small & idle talk

2008-06-24T11:39:00.017-07:00

:::

Ima,

The frequent template change in my blog does not mean,

a) i am inconsistent :D (emoticon alert)
b) i don't have a paper to submit
c) i am virtually narcissistic
d) i am looking for some form of self-enrichment and self-realization, contrary to what you would like to think
e) i am wilfing all the time
f) i do not love a new look (this point, hardly debatable)
g) i indulge in TMI alerts
h) i am funny in a mean kind of way, whatchumacallit, sarcastic?
i) i have the time to write this
j) writing this at all, is justifiable.

Anyway,

Let me leave you now with something different and more than the cacophony of this parodying and this senseless, fanciful interpretation of blogtemplatechange blahblehbleu... a picture of Henry Peter Emerson, circa 1850?, a picture that has beguiled me with its charm and beauty. Sigh. Rest assured, consider this Victorian a stunner.

I know, this much ado and over what. :)

reproductions from casual conversations

2008-06-23T05:31:00.009-07:00

::

Look, i'm just quoting camus to satisfy my conscience. See, right here... "A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if i may say so, exhausted".

Fifty bucks, baby and i'm yours.

....

the last drunk standing

2008-05-12T00:30:00.007-07:00

::

sometimes it is me
in a coma
my heart,
squinted
in agape

Lullaby for my beloved: for in his dreams he weaves mine

2008-04-23T10:10:00.013-07:00

:::::

sleep my baby sleep
listen to the music
of those broken strings
and idyllic drums
that in your dreams swing

close your eyes
the shore is distant
the fishermen, they are nearly sleeping
the fireflies too
i can see them grinning

camouflaged,
like damned little fairies in the dark
that sing
fishermen fishermen cast away
and bring home
my baby boy dreams
that are far away

Puppets: ones made for children

2008-04-03T04:43:00.001-07:00

:::

The lost feelings are returning,
i can almost tell,
because,
when i look to my sides,
i look just like the runner.

Small talk: Excerpts from Sound of Silence by Srirangam Narayana-babu

2008-04-02T21:33:00.007-07:00

::

I was recently doing some reading of Telegu Poetry and came across these incredible lines. Though i am heavily not accustomed to quoting in my blog or producing something from out there, i am captivated by these and in the course of this reading, have made some peace with myself.Or at least, that is what i feel. Of course, these are translated and i can only imagine how beautiful they must sound to the native speaker.

"A big street yawned
and three girls were born.

It sneezed and
three street lamps lighted up.

It took a deep breath
and all of them disappeared,
corpses of people who died from cholera
floated on the river of Time
like boats in the lake.

'Streets are dangerous,
Let's run into the open, over there'.

We ran
There was no wind there
No light, no space.
The seven seas joined together
and were playing water-music.

The sky was lying in a corner
like a torn banana cup
The snake Sesha lay dead
curling around the earth
like bathroom tissue.....

(Contd-)

Two skeletons.
You do not look for beauty or sex in skeletons,
but one of them is a female skeleton
and the other is male"

Zilch

2008-01-23T10:02:00.001-08:00

All is sundry.

~

Remember those dim-lit nights,
the nights you came running to me
clumsy noble and fagged; like a horse
returning from battle
with a patch from a previous master's
robing and disrobing
now that same patch of land where
you gleamed is no man's territory
where every man is his own.

I am sorry there is no commemorate,
requiem or relic
to tell there was you,
but today, i am here and you are not
unlucky or lucky, who can tell? but
can i tell of you, where you stood standing
beseeching but not telling
"i am not right you are not wrong".
Here, but see, i am running askew
i am not my own,
where everyman is.

Small talk: In parts.

2008-01-12T11:05:00.000-08:00

~

I have been made bored; this longing for the sea, the touch of the waters, the whispering sheer-nothings of the genteel winds and the flirtatious caressing waves. Bring me this March for i am prepared to wallow in the blanket of this flatulent, pricey, pompous night sky, once again. But this time i will, perhaps...
... drink whiskey and sit on rocks, stare as lewd men often do, listen to the moaning birds that fly about carelessly weaving ridiculous halos for the sea... and maybe sometime around 6, even dance. Ruggedly. Handsomely. Foolishly. Even hopelessly. Without Pride. Without complexity.
And perhaps, plead with you in dizzying tones of "Oh, but for this night!", repeated over and over in my head. Perhaps? Who knows? That's the plan, dear reader. I only await. Accustomed that i am, to waiting.

On many thoughts, lets talk later.

Beck-and-Call

2008-01-07T13:54:00.003-08:00

Is there someone to call my lover?
tell him to come
soon

tell him
I await
by the door
he came, ringing
ding-a-ling!
this, no more laughter
no more lines
just a few
words
to draw contour
to make him mine

till Monday
frolick Thursday
and haggardly Friday
checkmate Sunday
Oh, so

tell him
I await by the door
he came
and I shall say
lets go gallavanting, wild roses
I am besotted by your scent
round and
round and
around
in circles and in giddy

And you not gone to call, my lover?

The Gallop

2008-01-06T20:14:00.001-08:00

[Click]

"Trot trot trot
and
a
hippity hop
*&%^@#".

[Pause]

[Play]

"Trot trot trot
and
a
hippity hop
*&%^@#"

[Pause]

[Click]

Playthings

2008-01-04T04:40:00.000-08:00

I
danced
the waltz for you
embraced Tom
loved John
and
kissed Pete
like you told me so
(Under the Willow tree)

I
wandered
far from them
despised mother
father
and
cousin
like you told me so
(Like the Weeping Willow)

I
lost my hands
in the fall of your hair
hopelessly
caressing
like you told me so
and
yet you weep
(My Weeping Willow)

The Madness of Lou

2008-01-03T12:45:00.001-08:00

Up at the morning
Over at his table
She scrambled
Tomato
Onion
And fried
A deep bacon for baloney.
For noons
Among the empty
She stumbled over
Sissors
Rocks
And chuckled a
Two full stops.
And nightly
Beside his window
With the Blackbird
Sang numbers
for Figures
And ran
For fallen dew at dusk
With hair of twisted knots.

Lisp

2007-10-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

Look
Away.
Cups and Saucers
Automatons
Gods and
demi-gods all.

Look
Down!
Enchantment
Flame and gushing fire
and
Ashes on the tray.

This, you and I
and
Sisyphus.

With all my love, 1998/99.