13 Ways of Looking at Insomnia

I
Deep love for big dipper
eyes open, not missing
a speck, a grain, a drop of light

II
Mind, a minute a mile
familiar blur of subway tiles

III
Broken bones and restless sighs
an accident, a mistake, lost in time

IV
A late brunch,
a leisurely Sunday
long stretches of time

V
I shall not mourn,
a voice my head
a telling sign

VI
A scratch on the back
and sounds feline

VII
Kindred souls and sympathetic smiles
pajamas and pillow fights

VIII
Spirits in a glass,
a party and red wine

IX
A wish to be granted
a holler, a cry
a young hopeful mind

X
A mind that ticks
in no particular rhyme
a lost soul and a different chime

XI
In blinding lights and noises
eyes that reflect too much,
and don’t know the time

XII
Encounters in familiar places
positive and negative spaces
Undone, amorphous pillow-cases.

XIII
A rocking chair, and a book
untouched sheets
and sterile nooks.

Done for Creative Writing Course at SVA.

Looking for Poetry -Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Don’t write poems about what’s happening.

Nothing is born or dies in poetry’s presence.

Next to it, life is a static sun

without warmth or light.

Friendships, birthdays, personal matters don’t count.

Don’t write poems with the body,

that excellent, whole, and confortable body objects to lyrical

     outpouring.

your anger, your grimace of pleasure or pain in the dark

mean nothing.

Don;t show your feelings

that are slow in coming around and take advantage of doubt.

What you think and feel are not poetry yet.

 

Don’t sing about your city, leave it in peace.

Song is not the movement of machines or the secret of houses.

It is not music heard in passing, noise of the sea in streets

     that skirt the borders of foam.

Song is not nature

or men in society.

Rain and night, fatigue and hope, mean nothing to it.

Poetry(you dont’t get it from things)

leaves out subject and object.

 

Don’t dramatize, don’t invoke,

don’t question, don’t waste time lying.

Don’t get upset.

Your ivory yacht, your diamond shoe,

your mazurkas and your tirades, your family skeletons,

all of them worthless, disappear in the curve of time.

 

Don’t bring up

your sad and buried childhood.

Don’t waver between mirror

and a fading memory.

What faded was not poetry.

What broke was not crystal.

 

Enter the kingdom of words as if you were deaf.

Poems are there that want to be written.

They are dormant, but don’t be let down,

their virginal surfaces are fresh and serene.

They are alone and mute, in dictionary condition.

Live with your poems before you write them.

if they’re vague, be patient. If they offend be calm.

Wait until each comes into its own and demolishes

with its command of words,

and its command of silence.

Don’t force poems to let go of limbo.

Don’t pick up lost poems from the ground.

Don’t fawn over poems. Accept them

as you would their final and definitive form,

distilled in space.

 

Come close and consider the words.

With a plain face hiding thousands of other faces

and with no interest in your response,

whether weak or strong,

each word asks:

Did you bring the key?

 

Take note:

words hide in the night

in caves of music and image.

Still humid and pregnant with sleep

they turn in a winding river and by neglect are transformed.

 

-translated from Portugese by Mark Strand.

On writing about love

“The easiest pitfall while writing is to write about love,

because i’m afraid you will get too sentimental,

Write about it by all means if you are a love cynic,

but I guess you are too young to be cynical about love.”

 

-Professor McKinzie in the Creative Writing Class.

I am Vertical- Sylvia Plath

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one’s longevity and the other’s daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them–
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

Lost and Found

Words shape thoughts,

thoughts of cotton, thoughts of fluid

thoughts of

mercury.

…

Words becomes lines,

lines of a jumper, lines of a notebook

lines of clouds

sky bound.

…

Words written in ink,

inking of past, inking of future

inking of the spirit

found.

The Turquoise Door

Every morning since the last 10 years Devika wakes up at precisely 4.30 am to perform her daily prayers. Her day thus begins and is calculated in precise intervals made up of her tasks. Her movements are swift and calculated, gliding through much of the day this way, she wonders where her hours disappear. She works from home as a freelance artist, and hence there are days when she has to invent work for herself, and then there are days when she doesn’t have time to even look at her reflection in the mirror the whole day. She started wearing white sarees with a gold border after she visited Kerala(a southern state in India) a few years ago, and felt they suited her the best amongst everything she had ever worn, and decided to wear sarees from that day on. She stands out in the western-wear clad young women on the streets and likes it that way. She ties her important keys to the end of her saree, as she tends to misplace things easily, and as a result all her sarees have a knotted end. The white and gold fabric gives her dusky complexion a prophetic glow.

She dislikes mobile phones and keeps one only to satisfy her parents, and now Vivek her fiancee, who lives with her. She keeps her house spotless and immaculate. All furniture is handpicked by her from various craft emporiums, to create her dream home. There is a room at the back of the house she keeps locked, the turquoise color of the door a sharp contrast to the warm hues in the rest of the house. The keys of this door, she lost a few years ago, and since there was nothing important in the room to begin with, she soon forgot about it. Yesterday, Vivek asked her about the door, she suddenly realized she hasn’t opened that room in close to 2 years, almost as long as she knew Vivek.

She decides to get the door opened by a locksmith, and clear the room to make it her Art studio. As the door is opened, a cursory glance reveals some objects that she had forgotten in her busy schedule. A close examination reveals objects collected from three years spent as a nomadic artist travelling in Europe, Turkey, Japan, and Sri Lanka, on various art residencies. A few polaroids are enough to launch a strong bout of nostalgia. The girl in the picture, even though only 3 years younger looks actually 6 years younger, she looks happy and carefree, and is not afraid of being alone. The beret, the paints on fingers, the flowing hair, the arm wrapped around her waist. She wonders who that arm belonged to. A tight affectionate hold, and a look of wonder in her eyes as she see him. Travel was always her first love, but she chose to be in one stable place after she got engaged to Vivek. It was her decision. What would that girl in the polaroid be doing now? Where would she be? In Paris perhaps sipping coffee and biting off rainbow colored macaroons. Those moments seem like bokeh, bright, shiny, yet out of focus. She sets the polaroids back on the shelf, and goes through the rest of the items, each one invoking a particular memory, smell, space, an altogether different past. She spends her entire day there, sifting through and putting the objects back, carefully arranging them exactly in the spot she found them. She looks at the time, and realizes that Vivek would be back any minute, she also remembers that she had scheduled two client meetings, which she has now missed.

As Vivek’s car pulls up in the driveway, she quickly darts back to the kitchen, to prepare some tea, looking back to ensure the turquoise door locked firmly behind her as she left.

Done for a creative writing workshop at School Of Visual Arts, NYC

“Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.”

-says Winnie the Pooh via NYPL

Do you remember the somnabulant nights?

The warm mattress beckons with a warm striped quilt, where I can tuck my head and escape from reality, so fast, running to reach the world where I belong truly. Where nothing is permanent, yet nothing temporary, where everything is a figment yet everything has a deep rooted reason for being there. Where nothing can be deciphered and everything is a mystery. Where no one in the world except me can design what happens and what doesn’t, who enters and who doesn’t, where I can meet you and sit endlessly, under the ghost-lit tree, where we can talk, falling asleep on each others shoulders, listening to the birds chirp as the night turns into many mornings. This chill in my fingers today, reminds me of that time, when hours could afford to stand still and the nip in the air was just enough to sit close by and talk for 37 hours and more.

Never running out of conversation, or love. Never running out of somnambulant smiles.

Super Sad True Love Story- A Review

“Today I’ve made a major decision. I’m never going to die.” writes Lenny Abramov in his diary, and the first sentence of the book. And immediately, one is curious to know more.

The book is set in post literate American culture and traces the lives of Lenny Abramov and his love interest Eunice Park. Lenny is middle aged, balding and out of shape son of Russian immigrant parents, and is working as the Life Lovers Outreach Coordinator (Grade G) at the Post-Human Services division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, a firm that specializes in life extension, while Eunice, hails from a Koren immigrant family and is the daughter of an abusive father and an exceedingly submissive Korean mother, she has finished her studies with a major in Assertiveness and Images.

For Lenny it is love at first sight, while Eunice struggles to make herself love him, is constantly repulsed by his looks, often calling him “nerd-face”,  and afraid to look at them together in the mirror. But as the story progresses, she grudgingly, hesitantly starts to value his loyalty. What binds them together however, is their struggle with their own inferiority complexes, and Lenny’s complete devotion to Eunice. The points where Lenny is overcome with unbridled love for Eunice, are the parts that give a deep richness to Gary Shteyngart’s text
“The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons —
it was systemic and it was complete.” is by far, the most evocative and accurate description of love I have ever come across.

The story take cues from the current American financial situation and extrapolates it into the future, creating a dark vision of the future generations, their environments and their reactions to it.

Every time the tone shifts from Lenny’s realistic diary entries to Eunice’s teenage, pornography studded, shallow exchanges through her äppärät (a device that is the centre of everyones lives, and live-streams all that is still considered private and sacred, willingly), one cannot help cringing. Perhaps that was the intended reaction as the book, like a pendulum oscillates between the superficial nature of future communications and the disconcerting but touching account of love and loss, which leaves you deeply uncomfortable.

Gary Shteyngart’s dystopian vision of America is indeed disturbing, so much so that one doesn’t know till the very end, and even after that, if they should absolutely love the book or absolutely despise it. His America of the future while teetering on the brink of a colossal meltdown, is inhabited by people who find books ‘smelly’, who want to live forever, who shop at AssLuxury and JuicyPussyline for nippleless bras, communicate through a Global teens account, and are constantly assessed through the street-side credit rating poles.

This vision of America while written to be severe, fails to elicit any sympathy, but causes an unrest that one cannot begin to give words to.

The part that keeps the narrative together however is Lenny’s relationship with Eunice, and his parents, his daily diary entries, and his endearing struggle to love New York. Clearly demonstrated in this line from Lenny’s diary “Every returning New Yorker asks the question: Is this still my city? I have a ready answer, cloaked in obstinate despair: It is. And if it’s not, I will love it all the more. I will love it to the point where it becomes mine again.” .

In pieces, throughout the book you are forced to dislike Eunice less, when looking beneath her words, you find a vulnerability that leaves you stunned with its poignant sadness.

It is this poignant sadness that hits you hard, at some points in the book, while leaving other parts acutely emotion-less and desperately satirical. Only after reading the book, does one realize, how aptly it is titled, a perfect mix of the deep melancholy sparkling through the pages and the biting crudeness embedded in the language.

This is a book that consistently smells of grief and the inevitable decay of human society, wafting through the air, as you turn its pages, and is truly a Super Sad True Love Story.

Go Read!

The Year That Was

A year of regrets and afternoon naps
new shores and marauder’s maps,

Of heart shaped secrets
and bellowing gaps,

Of biscuits and books
and solitary nooks,

Of petrichor eyes
and sheepish smiles,

A year together, a year alone
Of whistling djinns and vagrant bones.

A Super Sad True Love Story

“The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons-it was systemic and it was complete”

- Lenny Abramov in a Super Sad True Love Story
by Gary Shteyngart
swoon

In a blink

Never there,
These winds and cries for help
Witnessing desperately;

Never there,
These helpless appeals
Humming;

Never there,

When I’m lost
Not to be found
You will sing-

Never there,
And then resume.

Swiftly,
In a blink.

Returned

In all the years, the one looming truth.

I can see now fading, in an old red telephone booth.

…

A teenager rebelling against my own old self.

I can see now returning my rulebooks of wefts.

…

Of foundations that seemed so deep rooted,

now unnecessary, stand refuted.

…

Of the joys and pits and widths and depths

shrunk and hollow and narrow and bereft.

…

Of new truths and new lights

Of new sights with big, bright, brown eyes.

Days like this

There will be days like this,

sitting alone, in recovery, when the mind that runs a minute a mile

slows down, to chew on the things that really matter.

…

is flummoxed by the rich creamy feeling of feeling

in this narrow laned and always chained city

in this grey stoned and very marooned city

…

Even if for a few hours before the world falls down,

even if it is by force of recovery

by chance

by accident

…

The feeling of feeling that socks you in the gut

with its force and vastness,

with its blur and sharpness.

…

The love that is always around, if not in sight

then just around the corner,

if not in flight,

then just around

the feeling of feeling.

Maggie and Milly and Molly and May by E. E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

Day light saving

Sixty minutes of sunlight, now an hour early,

sunkissed songs, waft in the spaces of my mind;

in between perfumed conversations, the numbers on the clock,

spell out a magic hour;

…

The hour of songs that, located in memory-space

from decades ago, have since begun to

shimmer with repeated invoking.

…

The magic hour of half stringed conversations,

that gradually piece together to form,

a sunlit journey worth writing for.

The Unfastened Heart

Over time, certain knots, loosen,

knots that were tied hurriedly to keep two disparate ends together,

with the faith that, in knotting twice, three times, over again will

fortify –

invisible threads that tie our hearts,

a million tiny strings tied end to end,

to form the webbing of time,

all coming undone, little by little;

 

The unfastening of hearts is such.

Of a dream and other quaint places

In the spaces of this dream that turns

two this year,

 

Another one, spread itself under my feet, uninvited,

a bit too suddenly, too swift to be seen in clarity,

without a whiff of white and black and most importantly grey.

 

Grey, that is formed of a medley of notes,

some muddy, some inaudible, some pastel, of now

 

Some others, more fluorescent and vivid.

brilliant luminous colors that peek from

familiar folds of old singing diaries.

 

Songs of a dream and other quaint places.

At last

...

and keeping with our custom,

there are bits of paper

in this pocket,

Useless,

I know,

but I love them nonetheless.

Dont know why,

But then, that’s how one loves right?

without much reason.

Scheherazade by Richard Siken

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forget that they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
we’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

 

 

IF YOU FORGET ME by Pablo Neruda translated by Donald S. Walsh

I want you to know one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon,
at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live
it will be in your arms without leaving mine

Declutter

Lets declutter our lives.

Of people, Of places,

Of milestones, and lost races.

…

Of uneventful childhoods, of bookcases,

of ruthless lovers, and their romantic phases.

…

Lets declutter our lives.

Of a past that no one faces,

and of happier futures that the whole world chases.

Erratic Winds

These things happen, or so I hear,

between the moments of wishing and getting, many a winds whirl by.

 

Not the ones that break your back, or the ones that howl.

Winds that pick you up and drop you in a different wish.

 

These things will happen, you say,

I hear you. I agree.

 

Reservior

For some, its a well shaped room,

with them at the centre. Centre of all the well and beyond,

much beyond the well as well;

All the bricks all the cement, streets, windows and trains

all lead there.

…

Garnering, acquiring, collecting, swallowing

everything and everyone, is for them. is them.

Nothing leaves, is given, offered, donated, not for anyone.

Its all in there somewhere. Stashed Greed.

जीवन की आपाधापी में

Came across this brilliant brilliant poem by Harivansh Rai Bachchan on the web. Must read for those who understand and appreciate hindi poetry.

जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

जिस दिन मेरी चेतना जगी मैंने देखा
मैं खड़ा हुआ हूँ इस दुनिया के मेले में,
हर एक यहाँ पर एक भुलाने में भूला
हर एक लगा है अपनी अपनी देन-लेन में
कुछ देर रहा हक्का-बक्का, भौचक्का-सा,
आ गया कहाँ, क्या करूँ यहाँ, जाऊँ किस जाहा?
फिर एक तरफ से आया ही तो धक्का-सा
मैंने भी बहना शुरू किया उस रेले में,
क्या बाहर की ठेला-पेली ही कुछ कम थी,
जो भीतर भी भावों का ऊहापोह मचा,
जो किया, उसी को करने की मजबूरी थी,
जो कहा, वही मन के अंदर से उबल चला,
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

मेला जितना भड़कीला रंग-रंगीला था,
मानस के अन्दर उतनी ही कमज़ोरी थी,
जितना ज़्यादा संचित करने की ख़्वाहिश थी,
उतनी ही छोटी अपने कर की झोरी थी,
जितनी ही बिरमे रहने की थी अभिलाषा,
उतना ही रेले तेज ढकेले जाते थे,
क्रय-विक्रय तो ठण्ढे दिल से हो सकता है,
यह तो भागा-भागी की छीना-छोरी थी;
अब मुझसे पूछा जाता है क्या बतलाऊँ
क्या मान अकिंचन बिखराता पथ पर आया,
वह कौन रतन अनमोल मिला ऐसा मुझको,
जिस पर अपना मन प्राण निछावर कर आया,
यह थी तकदीरी बात मुझे गुण दोष न दो
जिसको समझा था सोना, वह मिट्टी निकली,
जिसको समझा था आँसू, वह मोती निकला।
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

मैं कितना ही भूलूँ, भटकूँ या भरमाऊँ,
है एक कहीं मंज़िल जो मुझे बुलाती है,
कितने ही मेरे पाँव पड़े ऊँचे-नीचे,
प्रतिपल वह मेरे पास चली ही आती है,
मुझ पर विधि का आभार बहुत-सी बातों का।
पर मैं कृतज्ञ उसका इस पर सबसे ज़्यादा -
नभ ओले बरसाए, धरती शोले उगले,
अनवरत समय की चक्की चलती जाती है,
मैं जहाँ खड़ा था कल उस थल पर आज नहीं,
कल इसी जगह पर पाना मुझको मुश्किल है,
ले मापदंड जिसको परिवर्तित कर देतीं
केवल छूकर ही देश-काल की सीमाएँ
जग दे मुझपर फैसला उसे जैसा भाए
लेकिन मैं तो बेरोक सफ़र में जीवन के
इस एक और पहलू से होकर निकल चला।
जीवन की आपाधापी में कब वक़्त मिला
कुछ देर कहीं पर बैठ कभी यह सोच सकूँ
जो किया, कहा, माना उसमें क्या बुरा भला।

 

via here

Never Apt

Such is the meanness of the human spirit,

to keep everything, to own all,

but to never commit, to owning, to keeping, to cherishing

even the closest of them all.

…

Such is love,

to want proofs and tests, and galleons of salt water.

and yet be realised only in, I.C.Us and hospital corridors.

even for the dearest of them all.

…

Such is the tragedy of loving in a human way.

never complete,

never open,

never apt.

never at least to last.

…

…

Can the world not shutup,

for just one grateful day???

or half?

a minute?

blink

To not feel, is to grow,

or so they say, the ones with

content, conscious lives.

…

to not express is to die a little,

or so we say, the ones with

transparent eyes.

…

so here, i, stuck in limbo,

for i am briefly (i hope) with the ones

that express without feeling, without joy, without hope,

without sadness, without guilt, without vulnerability,

without the ability to translate and decode, the

cipher left in my mind, by my now foggy eyes.

…

so pray for an edge. for my eyes to find a permanent state.

to see without the mind tampering with vision.

…

to find my feet with my eyes.

of curses that occur suddenly

can i carry the burden or someone else’s mindless mistake on my back all my life,
And pretend that there is a reason to it,
And console myself that it could be much worse

Why should i?
Let it prick and remind me
Of the form that blind trust takes
When it is let down
When it leaves you numb
When it does the kind of damage
That is irrepairable

There is not enough anger in me
For such insensitivity
For such carelessness
For the devil flitting across

Do i smile then?
Forgiving is a sham.
Its all overrated.

only melting can erase the ink
Of uncaring deep , mistakes.

Forgiving is out of question.
Curses more natural and fair.

Brown

The color of the human soul, is brown.

the marks it leaves, are a deep reddish brown, like a wound.

Even though it rained this morning, I noticed,

the color of the ocean.

now is brown.

waltzing again

Its like waltz, this constant indecision,

this constant cacophony of needs, of fears and of vocabularies

one step forwards, and two back

a side step, a swirl, a headrush, and back to position.

And then in this step-keeping of a seemingly organised dance form,

your eyes meet mine, our feet and bodies glide in perfect harmony.

So what, if the music will last only for a little while longer.

and then we’ll stagger again, to find our balance, our feet,

in this unknown, unpredictable form of togetherness.

To be wreathed in smiles and circles

orbs

She was only six years old when she noticed the orbs in the night and the day,

the ones that sometimes appear in your photos when there’s rain.

…

At first dismissing them, as dust, or dew, or fruit flies,

even a defect in her eyes.

..

She would flick them away, but relentless, they followed.

Giving her an unusually sunny disposition, and funny hair.

..

Until one day, she realized, that they, these orbs, were there to stay in her eyes, on her shoulders,

her companions, round & translucent, her shiny hand-holders.

…

And when she grew up, she grew up without any friends, since nothing else she ever saw,

and so, she learnt to sing and draw.

…

“Such beauty in it, I say” she said, with the prettiest eyes,

And then she drew, light.

Of time travel and other joys

On a day like this, the mind saunters into

dry old veined, leaflets of the bygone.

Not forgotten, but barely less moist,

and fresh, tinkles of droplets are sprinkled on them,

much in the same way, a gardener tends to his dry shrubbery.

New revived plans are made, of travels, and study courses,

and much more impossible dreams.

And yet it seems more real just by being shared,

and enthused upon.

If a mind travel among truly linked souls, can bring such joy,

what more satisfaction can a million travels bring?

Out of habit

look

Alleys change lanes, out of habit,

Look around, find me guarding watching you, out of habit.

drawing my own sphere of protection for you.

most definitely out of an innocuous habit.

Lanes lose their ways. I won’t.

The heart turns aflutter, you catch me mumbling

chants of a secret variety.

Are you scared?

out of habit?

Of places we must visit

domes and seas

On the list of places that travel to me,

in my dreams, dwells, this one of,

bright blue domes, of bright blue seas.

of cathedrals and balconies, or winds that tease.

of doors leading to nowhere,

and of indigo peace.

Winds of change

For Chi and Ani

strands

Winds comb, greying, silvery strands.

once thick lush nighttime strands.

entangling, skirting, fingering

pinching, needling, bruising.

Winds of change, and unfortunate luck, spin

the webs, of them, gossamer, weave them

into stories of change and belated wisdom.

Hat tip vai

Of a sweet substance

In between miles and minutes,

the thought of you

bubbles and splinters into air

…

I try to smote it, to evade it, but

its too sharp,

its too round,

its too soluble

…

Like salt in water

or shall I say, sugar?

Threads of a day

Threads of a day

As it is, we get used to things, too easily, too quickly.

…

some people, some places, some trains. Some eunuchs standing at red lights.

A few hawkers selling cheaply printed disney stickers.

The big round white paper lamp with bamboo print, right over your bed.

The glittery dragon slippers.
…

The empty letter boxes, and howling winds,

the heavy air that slips through your fingers, and subsequently your rings.

Like genuine pashmina, or was it your grandmother’s muslin?

…

The empty hearts, that nothing can fill,

The gin, the tonic, the sherbet, the pill.

…

As it is, we get tied up, too easily, too quickly.

And coming out

is it possible to un-feel?

to detach, disentangle to solidify?

A stone perhaps? A pall then on the stone itself?

But really is that also that free from feeling?

Is there such a word as

stonimagus, at will, the ability to turn a stone eye,

a stone ear, a stone nose, stone body,

if nothing else a stone heart.

There are some, who take up the gauntlet of living this life, feeling, thriving at every moment, every second,

and yet emerge a tad too clean/ sterile/ jocund

Beyond me, these abilities, these strength of characters, are.

Beyond me, this whole business of feeling with ardor, and coming out, with…

coming out.

Ways of wrath disposal

Oh dear god!

A 22 year old , who smells of old age, stale conversations and death!

what could be the reason,

a premature death, or a late birth?

reckless behavior, that warrants punishment?

perhaps.

My manic and I

My manic and I by laura marling

thanks to rab for this song

-uffsana

As I Walked Out One Evening – WH Auden

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.

‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.

‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.

‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

‘O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

WH Auden

Period

Within this tapestry of words, that you spin

all over my calender days, have you mistakenly be-sequinned

A moth. The green netting that you put over my head,

to stop the debris that the world throws at me,

have you mistakenly forgotten to weave an edge?

My blue blue sky that you locked away from me,

promising a brighter sun, have you mistakenly

thrown away the keys?

Sometimes in the night, my moon turns a period.

I surmise, it is best to go with it.

…

…

How come even water has a shadow?

Of old houses and dust mites

My 6 year old self, refuses to see this house,

as I see it now. to see how it stays now on the edge of death and dust.

bits of folded paper and fabric wedged in between wires and rust.

To see how no one bothered that the tiles are all mismatched, while i was gone on

on to my big dreams and spots in the sun.

The fingerprints that once had become instant storeytellers of my mud eating days

now are just splotches of hand prints which hold on to the wall,

dead afraid of falling off, not walking straight.

The morning prayers and agarbattis now have a rotten stench of their own old self.

Each day in this house, is just a wait.

For one lengthy chapter to end

for another to begin all over again.

What kind of a segue is this?

I wonder, if you will ever ask,

why, by the end of this tiff between my gravity and my earth

I chose the mud.

I wonder, if by the time you do get to it,

if I will have the patience to answer by filling in the squares you provided.

If you do then, ever wonder

track back to the time when you asked me :

what kind of a segue is this?

and I told you, it isn’t as seamless as you think.

The gravity and the earth stand for two completely different worlds.

One is where there is no control,

and the other is where there is nothing except it.

day2

2010

This year, lets start with smaller goals.*

a sideway glance

A gesture not meant to be seen by you, from a person that you though you knew,

and suddenly you realise. Its all about the animals

that the society keeps under wraps.  The ferocious,

naked animals in all of us.

Unspeak

When will we learn to be comfortable with our individual silences?

When will we begin to hear the silent echo of our unspoken songs?

Maybe then, wedged between a decade of urgent whispers, and angry embraces,

we will find, all the conversations, we thought we never had.