The extraordinary stillness of the year past

Some things haven’t changed.

We still walk into glass doors and flush like a turnip. We still grin through our faux pas’ and roll from one place to another with both feet in the mouth. We still secretly harbor an endless reserve to pester and still get kindly humored by the remarkable people we pester. 

We still forget to return personal calls and what makes up the sparsely populated ‘personal’ still remains as infinitely accommodating as ever. Weekends are still all about toggling multiple schedules; after which we still invariably invoke rain checks to do nothing but sloth around the house. The bookshelves still keep filling and Mother still frets about things she has fretted about forever.

This little world still keeps getting closer, getting dearer as friendships of years still defy constraints of distance, space and time. Fresh sparks of purpose still alight today’s beauty by the beauty of that which we do not know of yet, but what we will be part of tomorrow.

We still endlessly wonder how much of ourselves to be with people; and all this wonderment evaporates in a poof within moments of joyous folly. The body of regrets still diminishes as whatever we thought we might have left behind at some point of time, randomly swerves by to pleasantly surprise every once in a while. 

The Buddha still brings so much calm and all instinct is still centered around a certain sense of unknowing, which drawn by infinite belief never seems to die. Our cards still speak to us and our dreams still eerily reveal to us the truth behind things we truly ought to know.

Okay, so we have still been waiting for our 5 very loving fishes to finally morph into a dog.

But there has still been much about the passing year, to be silently thankful for. 

Des nuits en hiver

Ce n'est pas

Qu’on attend

La neige tomber

Mais quand
Un petit morceau d'un flocon de neige

Trouve son chemin chez soi
On se demande

A propos de tous les ombres

qu’il a touché. 

(Penned Dec 31, 2009)

En Anglais: In English:
It is not
That one waits
For the snow to fall
But when
A tiny bit of snowflake
Finds its way home
One wonders
Of all the shadows
It has touched. 

Lights out

And first of all, it goes away from here.
All of it?
No, not really. Some of it escapes.
How can you tell ?
You cannot. But it always does.
Where does it escape to?
To some part of you, you do not know where. It does not matter where.
It hides?
No. It takes shelter.
Why?
Because it needs light.
And then? Does it come back?
Not right away.
Then when?
It takes its time. It finds its way.
To back here?
Yes, to back here.
How will I know?
You won’t. But one day, it will tell you.
That its here?
No. One day, it will tell you to leap.
Then, should I?
You will know.
Will I fly then?
You will find out.
How do you know so much about it?
I just know.
Will you tell me a story about it?
I just did.
No. Will you tell me a better story about it?
I will.
When?
Not tonight.
Then when?
Tomorrow night.
Really?
Yes, really.
You promise?
Sleep child. And you will know.

Long way home

She took me along with her that day.

She was meeting her girl friends in the park. She had yoga class that evening and did not want to be late. While lounging there, one of her girl friends got a call from the office. It just wouldn’t get over. Tina’s dog Frisbee spotted a cat and gave chase. Tina followed hoping Frisbee wouldn’t get run into by some cyclists. Kips spotted an ice cream vendor. It would be a good idea to have some ice cream by the pond that afternoon. We agreed and she was on it. It was nice and green all around. There were white lotuses in the pond. They seemed to drift gently every time the breeze made ripples in the water. Actually they did not. There were rooted.

She was focusing on the lotuses. It suddenly seemed so quiet. She could hear me. She kept hearing me. That made her realize how long her friends were taking to get back. She was getting late for yoga class. It annoyed her. She looked at me. She could still hear me. What could I do? That’s all I do. That is what I do.

It looked now as if she was smouldering. Her friends were still not back. She got up and packed her things. She was forgetting something. She put on her shoes and picked me up. She told me, I hate you and flung me into the pond. I had no warning. Okay I have two feet but would I do? Run? 

I did not fall near the lotuses. She did not want to hurt them. I was sinking rapidly. There was heavy traffic. A dense school of pink fishes was running into me. I was still sinking. I thought one of the fishes would hurtle right into me when it gulped. It gulped me right in. I was inside the fish now. I made the pink fish very bulgy. I made it different from the rest. The others could hear it now. I made the pink fish noisy. The fish was still quite hungry.  It spotted a minnow nearby. As it drew closer, the minnow swam away and escaped. The minnow could hear the pink fish. The school understood that if they were around the pink fish, their food would swim away too. The school deserted the pink fish. By now, the pink fish was starving. I was not enough. It sensed a wiggling in the water and bit in.

There was no water around us now. The pink fish was flying in the air. It had bitten the bait. It was caught. Hey look, I got a big’un, a voice said. The pink fish soon stopped breathing. It was piled on a big heap of fishes of all colours, mostly grey, some silver. They could not hear me. They were all dead.

I suddenly felt a rush of cool air. A big knife just chopped up the pink fish into two. A hand hardened with calluses scooped me out of the fish. The hand was disappointed. I wish you were pearls, it said. If you were eggs, I would get a good price. But I was not eggs either so the hand threw me over the back. I fell on fish scales and fish insides. It was not a pretty picture.

Only the truly needy would reach for me from there. But someone did. I was shiny. I caught the sun. It was a tramp. He could not hear me. He was drunk. I can sell you for booze, he said and staggered to the pawn shop. It was a quiet shop made of red wood. The tramp was a regular. I got him enough to buy him at least a bottle he mumbled.

The pawn store owner gave me a good rinse. He could not get the pink fish off of me. I was placed on a high shelf so I would not put the customers off. It was not a very respectable pawn shop although it was made of red wood. I was surprised to see a respectable gentleman walk in. His young grandson followed him. I was catching a little sun from the window. I was shining. Nana, I want that, the little boy said. Nana did his bidding. The pawn store owner made a good profit. The little boy could hear me now. His ear was the first thing that felt warm.

Look Mamma, what Nana got me.
Where did you get that? Mamma said almost with alarm.
Why? said Nana.

Mamma smiled Let me make you boys some tea and I will tell you.
Over tea, Mamma brought out a glossy book. It had lovely pictures. Mamma pointed, Look here. See this. I was in the book.

Mamma worked at the museum. Mamma said I was important. Lost, untraceable, much looked for and important.

I sit in a glass case now. I have my own hallway. The little boy still comes to hear me. He is not so little anymore. He is still warm, his ear even through the glass.

Now everyone can hear me. All these years, I never stopped ticking. That’s all I did. That is what I do.

(Penned Dec 20, 2009)

The reward (Ogden Nash)

In my mind's reception room
Which is what, and who is whom?
I notice when the candle's lighted
Half the guests are uninvited,
And oddest fancies, merriest jests,
Come from these unbidden guests.

Flash retreive

It all spools one early lazy day home (Blogged Sept 7, 2006)
 
I want to blog but I don’t know what to blog about or that there are too many thoughts too few fingers to blaze them down. For starters, I am home early and I don’t know what to do with myself. I fed my fish and sat staring at them for about a good fifteen minutes. I fly tomorrow and my bags are already packed - clothes all rolled up neatly in rubber-bands as a space saving tactic. I have nothing to do. Life as a control freak - I think that is what I have become.

Why don’t you do up your hair he says. Whatever for and why? It is just so comfortable and simple and easy. She just got a complicated haircut and spends 20 minutes ironing and styling strategic strands every morning for 'the look' the stylist sold her. I shampoo, bunch up the mop on my head with a clip and it dries in office. I am so happy to be a slob. When did these things begin to matter? I do what is important what makes a difference. FIIs in emerging market equities won't plummet if I do up my hair. I wonder what else I have to hear next. But it is interesting. I thank life for its variety.

'Métro boulot dodo' that’s what the French call my way of life. So I am going to Singapore and she tells me to get my trip extended. He says he will jump off the sixteenth floor if I get my trip extended. My life is full of these generics - he's and she's. They keep swinging by like trapeze artists, like the tennis ball in a tennis match.

I know what to expect from Singapore. I will spend my flight time making a list of people for whom to buy things. I will make a list of things to buy. I will kill my non-mathematically inclined brain converting currency in every store. Hopefully I won't get lost or mugged.

It will be chok-a-blok live animated streets bright neons in the night, revelry, drinking and dancing. I will go by the waterfront and gaze into it like a fool thinking Paris will be so much better. I will do things so people think that they are being good hosts and feel good about themselves but I will be truly happiest when I am snug in bed with my socks because the floor is always so cold. I will miss my albino shark because I love the pores on his skin and because he stops dashing into the glass like a blind torpedo when he sees me. I will miss my people because any place is always so much better with them around.

My people calls me from Jersey thrice a day to connect me to sisters in Singapore I have never met in our lives so I don’t get lost. My people in Birmingham gives me a weekly countdown to the next India visit and it kills me that I act like such a cold wall to such advances. My people in Amsterdam sent me Calvin and Hobbes for two weeks everyday until I gave up being too mad and too cross. My people is in Germany and returns on the 10th and I hope we bump into each other at the airport if nowhere else. It really doesn’t matter where I am for my people is never with me.

And he asks me why I don’t do up my hair.

An old favourite

Moon River http://bit.ly/53laJD

Madly to learn (James Still)

Madly to learn,
To fathom, to discern,
To master the Gobi, the ruins at Petri,
Climb K-2 and Nanga Parbat,
Swim the Strait of Malacca,
Be Ahab aboard the Peaquod,
Milton in his agony,
Shakespeare treading the boards;
To unravel, to grasp, to speak
Freud's Theory of Seduction,
The mathematical beauty of irregular surfaces,
The Quantum theory, the leap genes,
The invisible morghognetic fields
Transmitted across space and time ----
Bridges to infinity -----
And why Tennyson's "Flower in a Crannied Wall"
May not tell us all and all and all.
Madly to learn.

Something to read when time permits: http://faculty.colostate-pueblo.edu/sandy.hudock/jssection5.html#inmy

Reminds me of...

... the following quartet from Rubaiyyat, the verse copied below.

...

Indeed the idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in Men's Eye much wrong:
Have drown'd my honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my reputation for a song.

...

Saga of a crumpled piece of paper (Vivek Sharma)

I was a crumpled piece of paper
till your curiosity unfurled me;
An excited child in you ironed away
my wrinkled and discarded past
and laughed at what I bore boldly
written in her hand, in pencil
in dark arches, colons, commas,
with a full stop.

You laughed till your tears
made maps over me
and then you smiled and erased away
her words, her punctuations
and took crayons to wax me with color.
Fascinated by the impact of your hands,
you embellished me,
revived me and then artfully
sold me away.

Source: http://ow.ly/JuUg

Babysitting

Sprawling in his roundness, curling like a little eight, he sits, fragrant with talc, cushioned on a cold floor, four walls surrounding, the whirring of a fan above, time makes no sense, time is an endless loop of sleeping, waking, eating, getting cajoled over. Little diaper prince, fixes an arresting gaze, captivating marble sheen eyes, do they see you at all, telling one from another, or is it just one great blur, this speedy passing of bombarded frames? 

(Penned Dec 14, 2009)

While you were away

Do you know

What all happened
While you were away?
The mother pigeon
Nesting behind
The air conditioning duct
Lost her solitary egg
Which rolled down
7 floors to a splat.
I forgot
All about the rice
In the pressure cooker
And now
It’s burnt to a crisp
That even the maid
Cannot wash off.
Father was here
Reading by the window
He slept off
In his chair
And someone
Ran away
With his glasses
Stolen, through
The open window.
Your very favorite
Little neighbour
That little brat
Broke
Our Kondapalli doll
With his famous
Penalty shot
The daal crisps
I was making
To send back home
While set to dry
On a sheet on the terrace
Took off
With the wind
Like a magic carpet
Nothing went right
Until I sat to write
The day’s stories to you
I will have more
For you to know
Tomorrow
Like everyday
While you were away.

(Penned Dec 12, 2009)

Disruptive

Aren’t you
Just the most
Remarkable likeness
Of a fluorescent
Pink toadstool
Wedged
Foothill to barks
Awestounding
Near diminutive
To dense canopies
Pebbled ‘midst
Mossy rocks
Gleaming like
Stars in my eyes

(Penned Dec 10, 2009)

Little things

I had a longish discussion with someone about something I would've normally not had.

I said out loud things I have always known exactly the way I sensed them, not today but from many, many years ago. Then, it would never matter whether I said them or not or who’d give a damn. But deep down, I always knew that I wasn’t off mark about it then, nor am I today.

Its a little instinct; faith perhaps in the simplicity and goodness of people and a little naïveté. Bad, bad combination.

But it brought a remarkable sense of peace, the utterance of this deep rooted, earnest belief, which has nowhere to come from really. But it does not go away. It silently rings true. Everytime. Like the unregistered chime of a little cuckoo clock, tucked away in a little corner of a room full of people at a cocktail party.

And it felt quite nice. For the peace to be home.

Déjà-vu

You leap out of paper.
The familiar curves of you written
Contort to meet my finger tips,
Across a glass wall.
The sensation races down nerves
Searing a mark, branding soft flesh.
A thousand paper boats set sail at dusk
On the flaming waters that consume you.
They drown, each one of them.
He who set them there, had a plan;
For things that just cannot belong. 

(Penned Feb 27, 2009)

We like

Amiyo by Bisso na Bisso (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisso_Na_Bisso)

Vous pouvez l'écouter ici http://bit.ly/7rlKrm

You can listen to it here http://bit.ly/7rlKrm

Les paroles sont au-dessous. 

The lyrics are as under.

Amiyo (Bisso na Bisso)

Mystik
Debout telle une ombre au milieu des tempête,
Mon cœur couvre une sale angoisse.
Comme Sedar Senghor, je chante ta beauté qui passe.
Amiyo, je mange seul à table, a pointe Noire
Je suis seul sur le sable Ozala Ki yembele,
Yembele siatapatatra, quoi que tu fasse,
Tchoukouroukoundou te rattrapera
Notre belle maison au bled est vide,
Je me sens perdu tel un cheptel renié par son guide

Passi
Mon colibri je serai la Terre, mon fruit de la canne à sucre.
Tu jouira des récoltes et des autres trucs tracs trucs.
Je te kiffe comme un récépissé,
Mon laisser respirer, j'te laisse pas passer.
Passi te veut au présent, futur et participe passé.
Dans mes rêves d'Adam et Eve tu as gagné la fève.
Douce doudou, tu es mon pandou et en la matière je suis orfèvre.
Sans ton doux goût, ni ton mougou,
J'avoue, je m'achève et si tu pars
Oh ! Amiyo c'est la fin, et de la faim je fais la grève.

Refrain
Amiyo ! Ton cœur est ma maison,
Mon amour est ton toit, j'ai besoin de toi.

G-Kill
Evadons-nous du côté de Tokyo, New York city
Pourquoi pas Rio de Janeiro.
J'arracherai même mes trois crocs en "roro".
Ma vie est une histoire d'amour, je suis ton héros,
Et vis, vibre, entends-tu cette résonance.
Mon cœur est rempli de chaleur et je pense
Que nous sommes fait pour vivre ensemble.
Bolingo na nga yaka zon ga, restons ensemble.

Ben-J
Je ne peux plus penser mes sentiments tout bas.
Je ne peux plus supporter ces maux au fond de moi.
Amiyo, c'est en public que je te déclare ma flamme,
Je souffre d'avoir succombé à ton charme.
Je me suis noyé dans tes yeux de velours,
Tu m'as enivré de ton élixir d'amour
Tous ces mots pour te dire que je ne fais que souffrir,
Affaibli par ces maux que toi seul peux guérir.

Refrain
Amiyo ! Ton cœur est ma maison,
Mon amour est ton toit, j'ai besoin de toi.

Passi
Amiyo, j'ai gardé les photos quand tu es au village,
Sur d'autres, t'es belle en maillot, chez nous les pieds dans l'eau.
Pour toi Amiyo, je parlerai au dieux comme Don Camillo,
Tu es ma joie, mon joyau, Amiyo ti amo, na lingui yo.

Mystik
Même les larmes ont déserté mes yeux.
Viens qu'on se serre les coudes
Car ici dans mes yeux, le temps se trouble.
Je sais qu'on t'as dit : "Ah Mystik c'est un salaud"
Maintenant je pleure seul comme un poisson dans l'eau

Ben-J
Je me suis noyé dans tes yeux, je veux nager dans ton cœur
En apnée au fond de toi, notre avenir sera meilleur.
Combien de temps vas tu encore me laisser souffrir ?
Tu es mon souffle, mon oxygène, sans toi je ne peux plus rien dire.

G-Kill
Nos paroles sont sincères, toutes douces et franches,
Allons vivre loin de cette douce France
Je suis franc avec toi, fini les Christelle, Géraldine,
Pour moi il n'y a que toi. Oh! Amiyo !

Refrain
Amiyo ! Ton cœur est ma maison,
Mon amour est ton toit, j'ai besoin de toi.

Source: http://www.hiphopfranco.com/lyrics/2919-bisso_na_bisso__amiyo

One from 5 years ago

Threshold
(Ode to Frida Kahlo)

The glass showed me
scarred
Until frogs lept
Out of wells

People shredded
Bone charred
Frames woven
By web of strength
spurt whence
Blade pierced

Scarred is not maimed
Maimed not disabled
Disabled not dead

Guns, I implore
Find thine mark
For that which does not die
Lies beyond
the reach of knives

I take
Far more
Than I think
I can

It is indeed
A life shallow
One that
Escapes the knife

(Penned July 25, 2004)

Funnest wedding invite (ever)

Source: http://www.sharesomecandy.com/2009/06/matt-dorfman.html

Far

we run away
no one knows where
even to look for us
the television runs on mute
the phone blinks, its endless ringing
changing nothing
the seconds ticking
the endless cooing
of the night breeze, of crickets
right outside the window
a half moon night
tea running cold in the pot
paint, captive in frames, slowly ageing
it is very quiet
like no one is home
this candle flickering night
flames dancing on the walls
some corner of the earth
where blue algae, glows up reefs
glinting off your eyes
no maps, no watch, no compass
no one knows where
even to look for us
we run away

(Penned Nov 28, 2009)

Uprising

Plush green field

Grass done short

It has just rained

Green as far I span

I step out feet bare

The family pet barks

beckoning 'Come back'

Clouds parting grey blue

A most pleasant waft skims

Chills doesn’t hurt

Each step euphoric soft

I have time cover land

like my feet would never die

Breeze don’t blow me down

yes do

That I fall back

like down a high rise

Cushioned

Then rising

There is no field

I am still smiling

(Penned Nov 27, 2009)

Witchbrew

Plotting ellipses
Into imaginary clay
Rising into form
Into which cascade
Drapes of words
Lazily, in free form
Marinated
Over sleep or waking
Making selective sense
Non-sense
Do we not prize
Such muse incited
Knick-knacks
Of senselessness
Bottled on the shelf
Labeled
Nothing special
Yet something ticking.

(Penned Nov 25, 2009)

The Walrus and the Carpenter (another take on_)

I came across some of my old writings last night. Among the tomes, I found my version of a satire on the classic The Walrus and the Carpenter, this being the longest verse ever written by me. Penned August 15, 2007, below is the same for a browse.

The Walrus and the Carpenter (another take on_)
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were strolling by the beach;
For lack of things to do they said,
"Let's grab an oyster each!"
"I wouldn't really mind two instead…"
"Oh that would be a peach!"

A little distance on they saw
'Most floating on the shore,
A tiny soggy little book,
Like no book seen before!
Sticking out a pair of hands and feet
Confounding furthermore!

Getting closer both, on tippy toe,
Stunned to preposterous stupefaction
Beheld a pair of saucer eyes,
Grinning to distraction!
"How d'ye you?" the oyster said.
"Let us have some action!"

The Walrus and the Carpenter,
Boy! Could they've asked for more?
Swiped napkins out, with knives and forks,
And buttered bread for score!
Flinging aside the book the oyster said,
"Wait! How 'bout a chat before?"

"No harm humoring the lil' chap!" they said.
"Let 'im have his lit' squeal!
After all, we'd have him to thank
For the tiny scrumptious meal!"
"And so how's the beach today, my tiny lil' Brother?
I'm certain you'd clearly see the fun we're having together!"

"I am no every oyster! I'm an oyster Oxfordian!
I thesize, I theorize, on all that’s non-Crustacean!
Euclid, Byron, Darwin and Rousseau, Victor, Goethe
Rest within this lil' brain, the one you're out to eat."
"Even then," rumbled the Walrus,
"It makes for very little meat!"

"I know 'bout your lil' scheme, you clean up beach by beach
Eating brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins, nephews and niece
After every massive shell-shed, what nutrition you derive?
I'm an oyster, I know! This life, it ain't no prize!"
"Well then, why don’t you give it up?"
Gleamed the Carpenter, with marbles in his eyes.

"I have a cause to champion, I'm out to save the clan!
Among every other oyster, there is born a lil' man!
No truer words thus spaketh, I do what I can!"
"Oh stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Do not soliloquize!"
The Walrus in a nauseous faint,
"I need to calm my nerves! Get him to capsize!"

"Well yes," the Carpenter said,
"It seems at the onset we could be headed for indigestion…
This oral voracity suggests great power of suggestion!
We cannot eat you Crustacean Brother! Let us thus seek another,
Who will not throw such a fit of squeal,
So we can digest a peaceful meal!"

"So you still admit that you shall seek, the vagaries of oyster meat?"
"Well, the taste is stuck to tongue! How can we stop what has begun?
But we couldn't ever eat you still! Cross our hearts against our will!
Matter not which beach we go; you your lil' book, we'd know…
Who it is a mile apart to keep; we cannot risk another meet!
We cannot risk another meet!"

The Walrus and the Carpenter
They had their lil' spell;
They were only a lil' hungry;
But they certainly meant well.
As for the lil' oyster
Should I tell you what befell?
 

Note:
In the Western world, it is well known that walruses savor seals while carpenters stick to tuna sandwiches. In this side of the Eastern world there are no walruses. This leaves our carpenters to settle for periodic shots of very strong tea with lots of sugar. Should the kind reader fancy, 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' - the original work of Lewis Carroll can be browsed at http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html
 

Strike Four (Jim Morrison)

One single striking aspect, from each of the following four, makes me chose them in particular, for this little collection over the other. 

Star Fish Gluttony
Star fish gluttony
What are the word-forms
for co(s)mic encounter
wedding flesh & mind
in one body
 
He follows a woman...
He follows a woman into the firmament
The solids, sonnets
elaborate requisitions for the god-soul

ah my bright jewelled town
a Widow's band
roping sailors & hill-folk together
congeal on this flat spire
to partake of mineral jets
"he's sick" he should be sleeping
peaceful by air, a movie of dead nights
in a wound, suffer to give out
your red-blue lighter's flame
w/ calm precision
your certainty lives in a match
or a mind
The huts are free evening cliff-dwellers
The trees, losing their variance, die sadly
w/ grandeur
O soft redness & palest blue
like a babie's window
This is the hour you rule
& invite Ventures, quests,
trips to the electric valley down

Times change, damaged
times change, damaged
cat's blood rectify in haste
cactus furrows, wild
thrift catalog of grace

The chase bore inward
raise'd wet & westward shadows
To the strange trust
on the south bow

Augment pure shouter's drawl
& light the candle
Night is comin' on
& we're outnumbered

By the waves, each soldier
bristling w/ his trowel
To search & claim us
Teach our burial

The mind works wonders
for a spell, the lantern breathes
enlightens, then farewell

Each shipmate oars to under-
stand & eyes unoptic strains
to hear:

We came from over here,
to over there

Then old we wonder
mindless to degree
Most seldom furls
in slumber, burns
begins a century

Scour the mind...
Scour the mind w/ diamond
brushes. Cleanse into Mandalas.
Memory keeps us wicked & warm.
The Time temple. Who'll go 1st?
Cloaked figures huddled by walls.
A head moves clocklike slowly.
I'm coming. Wait for me.

Source: Notebook Poems, Jim Morrison.

You're (Plath)

Something I keep coming back to...

You’re
(Sylvia Plath)

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools’ Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

Source: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=178971 

Con te Partiro (Andrea Bocelli)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcrfvP11Hbo

All in a day's wok

Sighness, her Highness
Vagueness alert

Baroque of this life

Is chase or divert

Time is all looping

Like strings in a maze

Planes are a-swaying

In a salsa-ic daze

Thus set is rhythm

Of pulses and beats

Floors are abounding

With patters of feet

Thrilling is surfing

Across wildest waves

Armed and a-ready

A few hundred braves

This is art and music

Passion and dance

My Dali, Bocelli

Neruda, Rembrandt

Ten whirling dervishes

Ten leaping frogs

Ten soaring rocket ships

Ten rolling logs

Like synchronized swimmers

Or skydivers mid-air

This heart is a-throbbing

And breath is still there. 


(Penned Nov 20, 2009)

Embrace

Clambering like a spider

With comfort, ease, familiarity

To nestle like a rock

Languoring in a hollow

Called home. 

(Penned Nov 16, 2009)

Quiescence

I can never tell you

Too much or too little

Nothing more real than

The bizarre fiction of reality

Spindles reeling off madly

Our kites soar far beyond mangling.

I remain also, bound

to my silences, as they come.

As swooshing ocean waves

Gently murmur

Our world of dialogues such

is only as rich

as your imagination.  

Penned Nov 3, 2009.

The obvious thing

Grandma looms

with love

her warps and wefts

into this brocade

which you drape

and wonder

if its the silk

that keeps you

warm.

Something for the season: Happy Halloween

Abode

The woodwork was like filigree. A tubelight inside shone through like sunbeams through soft clouds. That's where butterflies once rested and vendors thronged everyday. The worn out brass latch is still cool to the touch. I can still see so vividly how perfectly my fingers fit into its notches.

The tiles, arranged in mosaic, were something I always examined at nose's distance. That was me trying to say I do not wish to leave - do not make me go. I tried so hard to dig out the cement with my nails so I could carry some of the tiles with me, but they never came off.

There used to be a sliding door with a picture of the sunset. There used to be a wooden clothes hanger where I swung like a monkey. I can see the household with everyone sleeping, no one stirring. I remember how my heart thumped when I walked alone in the corridors in the dead of the night. I remember how I would stay awake to count the cars under lamplight and talk to the moon.

I remember how they all woke at 4:30 am every day; the tumblers were always arranged and how the steam made the air dance over the vessel brewing the morning tea. How I waited for 'misri' and dreamt of crossing the road alone.

-
The house is still there, ripped apart. There are no people. The woodwork is at some scrap-yard, my tiles are chicken feed. My latch is melted into a temple bell and the hanger, burnt by the slums to make hot water years ago.

Even if I ever go back, it will never be the home it was. Which is probably why, my heart still thumps when I walk alone in the corridors, in the dead of the night.

-

Penned Thurs, Oct 29, 2009.

Infusion (Oct 29, 2009)

Edging forth
ever so slowly
the sheer silken drape
of a smile, drawing
the warmth of the morning sun
brims over
casting
a welcome lazy shower.

Birthday Girl (short fiction)

‘The resinous mass trudges along forward; an undiscernibly bulbous, homogenous mesh of translucence drawing forth the other. Groove drawing groove, smoothly as if with reins unseen. Contained within a relatively impervious exoskeleton, like the see-through covering of a capsule, it is evidently in no hurry. Or perhaps time is only something we invented.

There are many such in transit, bobbing in another translucence, less dense and of questionable nutritive value. Our mass protagonist non-extraordinaire, is not tipped off (yet) on his sole purpose, something defined by design or intuition in the known human world. But our barely formless friend is submerged in formless translucence. His existence consists of endless movement, endless bobbing and the occasional bumping into, thereby changing course for more bobbing.

Once in a while, a speck previously un-encountered and unusually corrosive chews through this capsule, meeting no near resistance. Whether it means mischief or not we will never know; for our mass non-extraordinaire, is resinous and this speck is soon coated to abate friction, adding to its overall granularity. Sounds smart no? - For something so amoebic yet non cellular.

There are also occasions of diffused illumination when certain instances of brightness – sporadic or prolonged get directed onto our friend non-extraordinaire. There is no warmth coursing through him then, for what does he know of sensation beyond the accustomed bumping? Although a few subtle currents do ripple through his resinous containment, bouncing off his speck-poxed capsule.’ …

“Are you done dreaming Tumpa?” hollered Mother, storming her way onto the terrace, the clock striking moments past six in the evening, the house streaming with the aroma of maangsho-ghoogni, in anticipation of the many guests to be fed. Gazing at the setting sun, young Tumpa, just 14, momentarily blinded, gazed at Mother, a little stunned, eyes shining with hues of the ascending dusk.

“What are you doing? Who will get ready now? All your cousins will be dressed in their best for your birthday. Julie-di needs to plait up your hair as well,” Mother muttered, yanking Tumpa downstairs by the very bony right arm.

“Standing and gazing at the clouds all evening! Can you imagine that? At least when Father does it, he returns with a theorem or two to show for the time. All those books on the stars you keep reading won’t make them fall out of the sky for you. Go, go get ready now! The guests should be home any minute”

_

Any comments? Pls message on Twitter.

Penned, Oct 24, 2009

Por una cabeza http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eYH0YN_2jE

Word for sound (begins @second 1.09)
Locked entwirling
streaming spools of sky
melting in harmony
bursting prussian fuschia
making own floor
hypnotic
endlessly swirling.

Penned, Oct 21, 2009

Sous le même ciel,
étoilés en mille lumières,
on respire.
Le matin, jusqu’à la nuit.
Comme ça, nos vies
roulent.

Under the same sky,
spangled with a thousand lights,
we breathe.
From morning till night.
And that is how, our lives
pass (by).

Glad to have come across this...

In My Craft or Sullen Art
- Dylan Thomas

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.


Source: http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/

It happens

Gently seeping
this invasion
settles to levels
Unarrested
Finding ground
Its very own.

-
It feels good to be writing again. After a long time.

Spotted, beauty in verse

Came across works by poet Amy Gerstler today; here's one of many that linger...

http://www.poetrypreviews.com/poets/poet-gerstler.html
Call upon me if you need
contact with that breezy,
self-conscious type of turmoil
that chases itself all day,
forming little whirlwinds.