Love & Illusions

JULIO

2012-01-12T00:24:00.000+05:30

No poem was good enough for Julio, so here is a love story. It lasted not more than a week, but what seems like a lifetime. That is the magic of love, I suppose: it allows you to live several lifetimes in one.

It was a severely cold January when I met him first: the third day of the new year. A handful of students, who had stayed back on campus during the vacation, flocked at the market, probably trying to hold on to the elusive festive spirit the way I was. The queue at the golgappa stall meant I had to wait. There he was, sitting still like a stone, not trying to avoid but ignore the trampling of the crowd engrossed with their savoury delights: a wet, cold and terrified ball of fur.

Why doesn’t anyone bother to move him away from there? I realized I could just as well be that anyone. Picking him up was no trouble, but putting him down proved to be a challenge; he would meow his way back into my arms, and soon enough, into my heart. There was no way the authorities would allow scholars to keep pets at the hostel, but it took me not more than ten minutes to decide on gifting the poor dear a home. How strange is it for someone who never identified as a cat-person for thirty-two years? I suppose it does not matter, for I did no adopt a sick, shivering, frightened little kitten that day; he adopted me.

What does one name a white-and-brown kitten, with whiskers only on his right side? ‘PoMo’ was an instant hit with my friends and associates (yes, you are allowed to snigger at the myopic vision of the architecture academia), while ‘Baburam’ came to me naturally. For a while, I also contemplated on names with an initial R, thinking of christening my new-found love in memory of the love lost. In the end, I decided it was all unfit, as it had to be about him and not about me. Julio, a sad pun on hulo,was an epiphany, possibly somewhat catalyzed by Paul Simon’s music.

***

Two days after we met, returning from my morning class, I found myself in my room with no trace of Julio; not even a suspended Cheshire smile. The only way out of the locked room could have been my second floor balcony, but all I could see form there was a completely different cat sun-bathing on an assortment of rubbish piled below. I do not remember what it felt like (or I am too embarrassed to admit it), but I reached out for a pack ominously imprinted with ‘smoking kills’, and in spite of having no hope, slowly trudged down the stairs to inspect the site of the possible accident. The gentleman was sitting there all huddled up and frightened just the way I had found him not too long back; thanks to his patchy coat, I had been unable to make out his divine presence from the upper floor. How is it that I felt lighter on my way back, even though I was carrying him then?

Julio seemed to have learnt his lesson: after that day, he didn’t venture too far off the room unless I was in visible proximity. I started to leave the doors ajar, and even if he bolted out with his natural sense of responsibility to enquire the cause of strange sounds and smells, I knew it would not take him farther than the stair-landing, and he would scamper back the moment I went up to him and walked him back to the room.

I collected several pieces of common knowledge: tom-cats do not make the best of pets, and do not recognize anything beyond momentary self-interest. I kept preparing myself for the day he was old enough to run away and fend for himself, and regularly mentioned the immediate possibility of such an occurrence in my casual conversations with friends, possibly trying to convince myself I was comfortable with the idea. However, I wished for it to be a distant reality, and, may be subconsciously, hoped for it to never happen.

***

A kitten made a father out of a silly love-lorn bachelor, and almost mended his erratic, whimsical lifestyle. There is no way you can stay up all night, aimlessly surfing the internet, if your bundle of joy creeps up on your lap, and demands to be caressed to sleep. A few times I had tried quietly lifting him off my chest, and putting him down on the blanket, thinking he was fast asleep, but he would just open those drowsy eyes, and without much ado, crawl back onto me. He made me choose between an exciting flux of virtual socializing and a singular but living, breathing, meowing love; reality won.

Gone with the nights of insomnia, were the days of waking up at noon and lunch for breakfast. He would be up early, but strangely, never made me get up until I was ready to; though, with my first foot down on the floor, his reprimanding ensued. I could never be quick enough to stir up his platter of morning milk without feeling guilty of making him wait for it too long… far too long; Julio sure knew how to sound plaintive. His thirst quenched, he would make an amusing display of the proverbial feline curiosity: running after bits of paper, fallen leaves and bugs, pulling at shoe-strings, pajama draw-strings and belt straps, hunting slippers and shampoo bottles, inspecting laptop keyboards, and exploring the dark worlds hidden behind doors, suitcases and cupboard shutters. It did not go on for long though, for my kitten was even more capricious than me. My attempts at starting the day’s work had to be punctuated to personally entertain him with kill-the-ball combat trainings, come-bite-my-finger drills, and okay-I-shall-brush-you-to-make-you-purr routines.

All of a sudden, I was left with no time to even consider how laid-back and easy-going my life was a week ago. I had to keep running to and from the shops, buying pail, jar, fish and milk to arrange for his meals, bucket, mops and disinfectants to clean his shit, a ball to keep him entertained, a pair of slippers to replace the ones he had ripped apart, and of course the injections I had to take because he had scratched, and made me bleed. Add to that the hurried bicycle rides back to the hostel room, flung between classes and café-symposiums, to replenish his pail, clean up after him, and check if he is lonely. Surprisingly, now that I had to be busy for him, I suddenly found all the time I needed to complete the work I had piled up over months, thanks to my erstwhile, incurable procrastination. Winter too was kind; the chill gave way to days of sunshine and I was full of energy. A friend rightly remarked: was I a blessing for him, or was he one for me? Life works in strange ways; one of the strangest of them is love.

My friends also supplied a continuous string of complaints: I was smothering him, bothering him, restraining his freedom, and making him incapable of fending for himself. Sometimes I wondered if I had done worse with my lost love, and backed away, but never for more than a few hours. Julio accepted my continual attentions with only occasional and feeble objections. He would meow now and then when I cycled with him haltered in a scarf, and protest by pushing off my hands when I cleaned his ears with cotton-buds or pick out fleas. Other than the bathing, which happened just once, there was nothing that he wouldn’t agree to, once I managed to catch him by the collar.

***

It had been an exhausting day at the university, and gulping down my black coffee I rushed back home to see my feline son. Taking him up in my arms gave me the usual sense of eternal bliss. Julio had had an extra pail of milk with his fish lunch, but I decided to give him another extra pre-dinner serving; he did seem hungry. Leaving behind half of the warm milk, Julio suddenly bolted out of the door. I went after him after a while, and was alarmed to see him not on the corridor anymore. But a flight of steps down, he was loitering around: I would like to believe, waiting for me to join him. Each time I went to collect him, he went down another flight. Finally, I quit following him and just let him go on. I was simultaneously annoyed at his new-found audacity, expecting and hoping he would return looking for me any minute, scared of being all alone and away from his father, reasoning and defending his action against my own emotions (after all, my room was too small to keep him entertained), questioning the adequacy of his diet, and disoriented by the idea of spending the night alone, with Julio somewhere out there being preyed on by the many tom-cat thugs.

I went out for a cup of coffee and promised myself I shall not look for him… after all he is sure to come back at night looking for the warm milk, the warm blanket, and the warmth of my caress. A pragmatic and rather mean alter ego reminded me that it was equally likely that I may never see him. On my way back, convincing myself I am not looking for him, I went down to the courtyard while trying to figure out an alternative reason for going there. Julio was amongst the other cats, and did not run away when I caught him by the collar; I was relieved to take him up in my arms.

As I walked back up the stairs, I realized he didn’t really like it. Even if I was doing what I thought was best for him, who was I to decide that anyway? Wasn’t I just being selfish in love? As he struggled to get off, I gently put him down on the steps and watched him run away, without a valedictory meow.

At night I went around looking for him one last time, but all the cats of the world seemed to have gone to their hidden world. I console myself: Julio must have found his place amongst his kind. Winter has suddenly decided to come back with all severity, and I just hope he finds a warm spot for himself.

***

I expect to spot him sometime amongst the other cats down at the courtyard, surreptitiously waiting below the concrete benches, and running after morsels of food carelessly dropped by the university scholars. At night, I keep my door unbolted and a platter of warm milk ready.

In the end, like all love, it is about learning to let go.

PLUNGE SINK DROWN

2011-12-31T16:47:00.003+05:30

Singed breath and twitching limbs in

Liquid sleep gushing onto ‘morrow

With blended dreams of rage and longing

A cloudy morn in its ebb

A tortured night in its tide

What would it take to get over that smile?

STRANGE

2011-12-20T00:42:00.000+05:30

Why conduct a cacophony
Of my unrequited longing?
O! Not all love need be declared
Some sorrows may suffer smiling
And so I'm strange, as a stranger
Should be. Strange, thy name is me.

2011-11-18T12:00:00.000+05:30

Sometimes I think: do you think of me sometimes?

INSOMNIA 4

2011-11-15T02:28:00.001+05:30

A metronomic ceiling fan measures my hearbeats: a deja vu of separation.

I remember your brow against my breast; do you remember my stifled sobs from the next bedroom?

Now the night alone thinks of me tenderly.

PROPHYLACTIC

2011-11-11T22:16:00.001+05:30

The dear doctor decided
I should be cured, forever
Neither pain, nor anguish
No more tears

Now, I look at you smiling
From the LCD screen, and
In vain, search for sorrows
Familiar

Only a faint memory
Of a tortured existence
Murmurs from across keyholes

May be the dear doctor meant
I would be fine, forever
As the pills give love parole

BLUEBERRY NIGHTS

2011-10-29T16:29:00.000+05:30

I am here now,
And you are over there,
But our time
(It was good) is gone.

Time
Never leaves us the same,
And if I step across that door,
Friends would meet as strangers

I'll never step across
That door
Being scared?
Or obstinate.

Life was good
Life still is
Life shall be
As always.

I await my blueberry nights.
Wish me luck;
I think I know you would
Love.

Deepavali

2011-10-27T01:15:00.000+05:30

People laughing close by
Laughing, talking, shouting, screaming
Bursting crackers too
Merry people close by

I disapprove
Why must you disturb my slumber?
The somnambulist that I am
Walking through life in a daze

All you people close by
Go elsewhere;
You must have better things to do
Than heighten my sense of alienation

It is official now: I hate festivities.

When did I last tell you that I miss you?
Or did I ever?

WHERE WOULD YOU FIND ME?

2011-10-06T03:58:00.002+05:30

When I run away, away
Through the midnight streets
Of a steel city, guarded by

Halogen eyes of Praxair towers
And dark silhouettes of giant
Mechanical sentinels,

Along boulevards of conspiring
Peltophorums in a wintry dawn,
Sighing lemon yellow flowers,

Along accidental highways
With coke-shops and temples
Haunted by the ghosts of melancholy

Evening bells and passing orgies,
Along derelict downtown markets
When all the cars have gone

Home, and three stray dogs
Bark around the ice-cream parlour
While bulls and bullshit litter the desolation,

And through jogging tracks
Of history and alacrity.
When I run away...

*

An invisible fish subsides,
Inscribing silver ripples
on the wasted waters of the Jayanti

March moon-lotus drifts along the Kharkai
A speckled lizard scampers from 1/4
to C8, leaving a trail of click-ticks

Confirming some unutterable misfortune
An inflamed Sakchi sky
Pitted olives ham and peach

Linger in neglect, on bygone
Tuesday evening shelves.
Life is a long due bike ride.

*

Cheap motel toilets
With white lights and
Green linoleum floors

Tea-stained blanket-sheets
Sighing ceiling fan
A notebook of Poems and

A pack of cigarettes. Each night
Death lights the Zippo
In return for fellatio.

*

Maybe I don't remember
Your touch, distinct from
The lovers and pimps,

But I do.
Maybe I should claim
It does not matter,

But it does.
My skin misses you as much
As this thumping pumping organ

Now diving down to
My navel and loins in an
Oppressing Dakshinayan.

Two years of love and
One year of penance.
Now you shall find me

With white hair,
White breath, and
A white pyre at Manikarnika.

Devipaksha

2011-10-05T13:36:00.001+05:30

Old friends inspire old memories
Vintage heartaches seem like day-old wounds
Yesterday I thought of love, despair
And today, of the dead, between hours
Of sleep, prolonged.
The living are corrupted by the
Present.
Only the dead speak to me of days
Of innocence.
A living beyond life, and loving
Beyond love.

A FAMILY MAN

2011-10-05T01:44:00.001+05:30

As I witnessed the match-making bear fruit, I distracted myself with a fling with a masochistic poet. It made my room-mate jealous and sad. Arousing such despair, the fling could not last. I survived the wedding-planning days by howling through the interminable nights, and making tea in the mornings after. Finally I escaped, in time for the engagement ceremonies. The days of the wedding I spent in an ancient city by the river: a place we should have been visiting together, as per my naive daydreams.

Back in the metropolis I started seeing other people. Nothing did compare to those two years of happiness; it was an unfair burden. I immersed myself in the old University. A year went by. When the madness and heartaches of new loves subsided, a longing, a despair for my days as a family man kept coming back. What had started with the summer heat and bottled cures for hair-fall, ended in everlasting sorrow.

END NOTE

2011-10-02T23:31:00.000+05:30

Picking up the residual shards
Of a failed attempt at life,
I struggle to move on,
Too often convinced
It is best to give up,
Let go.

For how much longer?

Mother-Father;
You who brought me into being,
And loved me till time's end,
Towards you my duties
remain shamefully unfulfilled.

My sisters, my blood;
If I leave you with a heavy heart,
Know a heart was too tired to carry on.

My friends, and little ones;
Grieve me not:
There shall be other things in other places
For charming momentary amusements.

And my unborn son;
Like you, my love shall remain,
Endlessly scattered in the smiles
Of the world's innocent children.

ANNIVERSARY

2011-10-02T21:02:00.001+05:30

I think, believe, hope

I cured myself of you

Once more.

Finally.

At last.
There: I turn a smile at life,

And the tendrils of longing and despair

Twirl round my guts, unawares.

Once more

Sorrow sprouts like a cancer.

Let me scatter into a million minuscule fragments.

Without shame, or reproach,

And without permission,

I shall dust your shoulders,

Kiss your brow,

And find everlasting sleep,

As I disappear into your breath

Finally.

SMALL TALK

2011-09-29T00:33:00.000+05:30

Though you complain of my reticence,
I shall rather not discuss my life,
Which revolves around your memories
In ways that you would not approve.

Let there be talk of ailments and ill-weather
Sandwiched between hellos and goodbyes.
At least, there shall be no need to
Resort to a subterfuge of silence.

Remembering the ninth year of the millennium

2011-09-22T01:23:00.003+05:30

My mornings’ glory, my evenings’ nest,

You were my mooring in life’s unrest.

(But let us agree it was not love, if that is what makes you feel good: we never even had a song for us.)

Now all that I have must seem enough

For nothing more can be had.

On a stained pink bed-cloth lies tarnished,

Freezing, frozen Silver.

DELUGE

2011-09-09T14:30:00.000+05:30

It continues to rain here,

And all is soggy,

Clammy,

Muggy.

A damp delirium

Punctuated with Wittgensteinian yawns.

In centuries like these

My petite ponderings seek refuge

In damp margins

Of university notebooks

Shoved under dorm pillows.

WANDERING 'WONDERINGS'

2011-09-07T16:02:00.001+05:30

If ever a morning, lost, finds its way

From the gutters of my dreams,

Through the wasted gargoyles

Of your downtown church,

To your quizzical frown,

Would you wish it well?

Would you take him home?

Dear R

2011-09-04T00:13:00.008+05:30

I was naïve, thinking

Someday I shall accomplish

Loving you no more.

Is it foolish to

Love, when one is aware of

no hope, no hope, none?

Yes, I am a fool.

I continue loving you,

Always and forever

May you find love, true,

Wherever you desire.

Happiness and peace.

APOLOGY

2011-08-09T02:16:00.005+05:30

I love you.

I shall never say that again...

Cross my heart.

AN ATHEIST PRAYS

2011-08-09T02:04:00.000+05:30

I knew no God;
Love had made you mine.
Then, grant me this:
Let love not touch my heart
Ever again.

WHAT YOU HAVE IS WHAT YOU GOT

2011-07-28T21:21:00.000+05:30

Waiting.
Mainly, waiting.
For messages responses calls anything nothing something please?

And worrying.
Is it fine okay unusual strange something bad over?

Feeling anxious,
Helpless,
Agitated,
Insecure,
Miserable.

AHAIM

Consoling myself, rebuking myself, crying myself to sleep.

These are the things that I shall miss from now on.
It feels strange to know
There is not even a hope of being let down tonight.

JUST AN EXPIRED DREAM

2011-07-27T04:33:00.002+05:30

Hold me close,
And hold me tight
Whisper how you want
Me

Somewhere it’s all fading,
And you’re too scared to think
Don’t know what to make of it:
What to make of us?

Think about it when
You are slightly more free,
And you’ll know how it’s all over.
Over.
You’re free.

Planet Romeo

2011-07-06T15:40:00.001+05:30

"Ah! My mucus past compare
These dewdrops bright I wear
Am I not Prima Insectum?"

Behold how my scales glisten
With hues of the burnished sun
My down so white and fluffy
Like a fruit of the dandelion,
Ripened by the caress of autumn.

Where have you seen
A proboscis more elegant:
Curved like an Ionic volute,
Or a thorax more gracefully formed:
Ribbed as English smocking?

Gaze in to my luminous ommatidia
Graze my tarsus-tibia
Feel me, feed me, fuck me
But first, admit you love me.

(Originally published as Nubile in Kindle, June 2011)

To a young man, distant in space and time

2011-07-06T15:39:00.001+05:30

Great days roll along
Great loves die
Only the hope
That you shall remain
Survives
In promises and wishes.

R

2011-06-29T06:36:00.002+05:30

It rains tonight
My longing bounces forth
Like droplets off the puddles,
But never reach you,
Nor your dream.

I imagine your soft breath
From an evening of love;
Your eyes, comforting
Like the nest of a bird at sundown,
Remain closed now...
Oblivious of my distant gaze.

If I could visit your dream,
Would you remember in the morning?
May be the brow shall carry
The memory of a kiss.

I love you; no love is ever too far.
All shall be well, as you read this...and forever more. :-)

LAST LOVE

2011-05-14T22:24:00.003+05:30

I did what I had to,
You did what you could.

Did we say goodbye that wintry morning?
Memory fails me.
Is it Time's mercy,
Or my usual forgetfulness?
Imploring all my senses
To capture each moment
For eternity,
I had lain awake all autumn.
Yet so little remains,
Except a distant ache.
Now the leaves of summer
Glisten by
A thumping rumbling vector
Hurls me to new destinies.

You did what you had to
I did what I could.

(First two lines courtesy Shreyasi Bose)

DREAM

2011-05-02T02:29:00.004+05:30

The storm abated
Moonlight on my bed
Let's make love
Hesitant and soft
A nocturne of Chopin
Peace

Complaint

2011-03-05T23:45:00.001+05:30

You have spoilt me for others
O Malady, suggest a cure.

MISSING YOU IN BENGALI

2010-09-11T10:09:00.001+05:30

As it ticks and it tocks and it inches along
There will be no my side of the bed or the wardrobe
Somewhere sometime soon you shall no more
Miss me in Bengali or in any other tongue

INSOMNIA 3

2010-09-05T23:22:00.002+05:30

I feel you sleeping by my side
A softly heaving silhouette
Of dark against dark
Curled and wrapped in a blanket

I presume the usual frown
Is frosted with sweat beads
The familiar twitch around those lips
travels down your limbs

The heavy breathing needs
an adjustment of the pillows
But sleep on my love
And let us rise to a new morning

S&G&R

2010-08-22T03:03:00.003+05:30

A glance used to float
Up a flight of stairs
And vanish round the corner.
Often a smile, a nod.
"I have a photograph.
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you"

UGLY

2010-07-25T20:55:00.003+05:30

Look in the mirror
That is not you
You would never love him
Sour cigarettes and heartburn

Mottled leaves in green bottles
That was home sweet home
Heartthrobs and heart throbs
They shall cut this tree too

Rain, rain, pour

ON LIVING A COMPROMISE

2010-03-11T23:43:00.000+05:30

Thirty makes you think
Thirty makes you wise
30 allows fooling yourself knowingly

Confusing love with habit
Cohabiting without love

Thirty turns you moody
Thirty gives you whims
30 gifts you blues: to paint your toenails

In ever-changing hues
Ever-changing ruse

Thirty brands you tired
Thirty says you’re spent
30 gets you sick: throw up on mush

Only to live again
Only to love again

Remains of the day 2

2010-03-11T09:52:00.001+05:30

There was music, there was light
Eyes twinkling, smiles bright
A champagne flute lay broken on the floor

Buy cheese, buy squash
The carpet needs a wash
More lists more chores more life

Remains of the day

2010-03-11T09:31:00.001+05:30

The gusset plates of lust
Are all rusted, spent
But, unlike love, still real

Now I sleep not too well
With funny scary dreams
Disquieting images of
Bonfires in catacombs

Lady T

2010-03-11T09:22:00.002+05:30

She shadows me everywhere

Waiting and watching

Shrewdly whispers in moments

Of weariness: hoping to reap

Her harvest

I laid in her arms once

We were almost one

Anti-peristalsis

Thus I jilted Lady T

But she be patient

The end is soon and she

Would surely bed me in

The END

NO DREAMS FOR AN INSOMNIAC

2009-11-19T00:39:00.003+05:30

Because you have no comfort in dreams
Because you see no reason
Because you realise...

The sooner the better.

!

2008-10-07T17:47:00.000+05:30

Love knows no reason
And Reason knows not love

Early morning, rumpled bed
Taking stock of life
The dawn of an age of reason...

POTOMOI AND ALL HIS FRIENDS (aka WHY I LOVE GINGER ALE aka THE NONSENSE SING ALONG SONG)

2008-10-07T17:36:00.002+05:30

Potomoi! Whoa! Whoa!
Ink and books and boa
But it’s not easy when you turn me on

Lilly in the valley, goes she
Down the murram road
Pitcher full of ale

Tincan whines Tincan’s woes
Tincan, yes can, goes
Tin can full of ginger ale, he knows

We-we cheeky, We-we drunk
We-we topples on my trunk
Ouch!

Imzy distant, Imzy far
Imzy on a topless car
Imzy on a parcel box with ribbons on the floor

Figgy whimpers, Tony sings
What the heck! O what it brings?
Ridge and Ridgey, there they come…they go

Puffy Ronnie ginger ale
Grapes are sour, grapes are pale
Downpour on the windshield, fresh yet stale

Cosy blanket, treasure trail
Now we triumph, now we fail
O! Will I not won’t I not can I not, Now!

Crazy fat-boy suffers so
Southern sepoy wants to go
It was not to be: she sees the snow

Sunshine, ebony, sugar sweet
What a pain, what a treat
What a time, O, it used to be

Cans and cans and cans of ale
Same old story, same old tale
Enfin.

ADVICE TO A YOUNG LOVER

2008-06-08T23:21:00.000+05:30

Darling, if you love me
Never tell me so
Words of love are tedious
They lost their meaning a while ago
As I woke from my noontime siesta

No better than caterwauls
Or screeching chalks on blackboards,
Declarations of love are annoying

Grapes are not sour;
Post-glut, I am hyperglycaemic

MONOLOGUE

2008-06-07T23:03:00.003+05:30

*PROLOGUE*
I thought I had seen it all,
Heard it all
But you prove me wrong yet again

I agree I owe you one, la vie

*I*
Mercury-vapour lamps with halos; cupric ripples in jet black puddles; lonesome croaks in dark thickets; purple sky and violet billows…
It is drizzling in the provincial roads and by-lanes

Is it the same now, in a distant city of students and steaks? Or in that bumbling metropolis, which stifles me, where dwell the lovers and the fools?

I entertain myself with nouvelle dresses and dishes
And paperbacks to devour
And iced drinks to gulp
Ashtrays urgently waiting for refills
Tangling unsuspecting victims
All unexpected trysts with bliss

*II*
Let us go then you and I, where velocity dwells upon the sky
Like a Windows’ Starfield screensaver
And I shall confess how I love you no more
How I love no one
How I can not, any more
And may you witness the spectacle of
Boiling blood bursting like bubble gums
Erupting from my ENT cavities
Grass green bile
Oozing from sundry lacerations which
Decorate my drain-board abs

*III*
She waited, in vain
It was stupid of her
I waited in vain, equally so
But now I wait no more

Confused, you say…
Been there, done that.
Survival is 42
I danced in the rain all evening
And I never felt like crying.

*EPILOGUE*
Thank you for all the fish
You owe me one, la vie

Tagore: PRAKRITI 118

2008-05-01T01:21:00.003+05:30

The night reverberates with the monsoon’s drone
As I string the aching memories all alone
The door to my room, dark, is kept ajar,
I wonder in what oversight
I suppose my companion is coming:
my friend for this plaintive night
With his coming he renders music to the rain
And the Kadamba grove shivers in pleasure
Even if he never arrives, I shall hope in vain
Placing our mat on the dust for good measure

MEANING

2008-05-01T01:20:00.000+05:30

I ask you: ‘Is love still there?’
‘Don’t know…think so’, you say
Meaning: there is none.

Then why do you call me so,
Talking of life and us?
Meaning, there is none.

DREAMS FOR AN INDIAN SUMMER

2008-05-01T01:12:00.004+05:30

By the window, pretty mauve
Flowers quiver in the breeze
Now you place one in my hair,
On my forehead: a moist kiss

The mauve blossoms have withered
To traces of sickly pink
The bleaching glare of summer
Leaves colours in dreams alone

The heat, the haze, the fever
The wakeful dreams in stupor
Long are these days: never-ending;
The nights, sleepless and sweaty

AUTBIOGRAPHIC HEPTALOGY

2008-04-28T00:49:00.002+05:30

I

I could hear the ravens caw
In a sky of vaporized blood
I could see the shadows move
And they called me, called me, called me.
I could hear the whisper still
O how that nightmare lingers

II

Wishing upon a star
With an ache and furtive sighs
Quietly first love dies.
I could taste the teardrops still
O how the friendship lingers

III

Now my bed is grass
Now my cover: the night
Raindrops in halogen glitter
As I tread along in stupor.
I could feel the shivers still
O how the madness lingers

IV

In an unknown city you lay
Up unknown streets and quarters
But do I find you there?
I could smell the damp fags still
O how foolishness lingered

V

Have we been together a week?
Or may be for a year
So, I stab you with a knife
And I stab you with a knife
And I stab you with a knife.
I could see the warm blood still
O how the heartaches linger

VI

You cry, I weep
I cry, you weep
We fail and try and fail
Now am past all words
Now am there no more
Snakes in my head and lizards in my shanks
O how existence lingers

VII

Six feet under earth and poop
There burns my final pyre
And I hear the ravens caw
And I taste the salty streaks
And I feel the chilly wind
I smell the dreams all up in smoke
And I see the gaping wounds

PROMISES ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN

2008-03-25T22:15:00.000+05:30

We wish you were there
In drunken dreams, in love
In times of desperation
And aching gaps of existence

Former love, we say
But who are we kidding?
We long for you evermore
The present lies steeped in a past

It was so full of dreams of the future

One tires of love and friendship
One tires of all good intensions
One really does tire of good advice soon
I guess we shall never love again

I pass on the coin you gave
I trample, I tread, I slaughter
What goes around, goes around, around
And promises, they are meant to be broken

NERIUM

2008-03-16T23:06:00.000+05:30

Save me from life
I shall give you love
And the sour Plumeria stalks of my breasts
The sweat-moistened softness of my breasts
The speckled-viper poison of my breasts
The cinnamon scented peaks of my breasts

With every bite and moan shall I receive heaven
And my blood will blossom in Neriums

Save me from life
I shall get you death
And a lance-stab pain in your breast
A pulverised heart in your breast
A wide open split in your breast
Maggot-infested holes in your breast

With every bite and moan you will embrace hell
And your blood shall blossom in Neriums

2:45

2007-12-15T02:52:00.000+05:30

Right here is a world of dreams
And a world of wakefulness
Their denizens, you and I
It was all very charming though!

The smell of garlic, sautéed
Huge fluffed pillows, black
Gin ’n’ apple nectar, 2:00
Movies and cigarettes

May be a lunch for the three?
(Speaking for me, rather not.)
Yes, you always did believe
All that I said, to a fault.

Not being able to say
What I ought to: that was mine
So, did I come here for this?
Not merely, at least…I hope.

And I keep asking myself
Was this first visit only
To say good bye to old times?
More convincingly, may be?

WINTER IN THE CAPITAL

2007-12-15T02:29:00.000+05:30

Cold hands, cold feet
Just the memory of a sun
Remind me again, why I'm here...
There — the phone rings.

That does ring a bell too:
You have surely moved on
So have I, I suppose
Just a pang still remains
Lost time never returns
Nor love, when you give up.

Tagore: NATYAGEETI, 11

2007-10-30T23:05:00.001+05:30

O friend, what is care? O friend, what is pain?
You all talk of ‘love’ time and again —
What is called love, O dear friend?
Is it full of woes to the end?
Is it only tears? Only sighs of grief?
Such plight men desire for what relief?

All I behold is beauty divine
All full of youth, all is so pure,
Verdant gardens, and skies azure,
Petal-soft moonlight — all is like mine.

They know only laughter, only songs do they know,
in playful mirth do they come and go
No trace of sorrow, no lament to share
They know not the distress of care.

The flowers, they wither with a smile
With a smile does the moonlight fade
Scattering laughter in an ocean of lights
The stars disappear in the shade

Who is there as contented as I?
O friend do come by my side —
With a gay song of my heart’s delight
shall the weight of your heart be light

You only want to grieve everyday
let us make merry for once
For once forgetting all sorrow
let us all sing and dance

L’ABATTOIR De L'AMOUR

2007-09-26T22:34:00.000+05:30

With words we duel
Beastly lord and me, nightlong.
Pitiless passion

Tired submission.
And the beast evanesces
His oestrum sated

Tattered I lay
On the shores of a moon-sea
Caput mortuum

HAIKU

2007-04-04T19:53:00.000+05:30

Shivering winter.
Lonely on a double bed
My blankets miss you.

Love is there no more

And I am done with mourning.

Only weariness.

The hours crawl by.
Creaking stretches punctuate
Listless existence.

ON BEING SINGLE AGAIN

2006-10-25T18:45:00.001+05:30

Ah! The geyser is working again. The fruity smell of the shampoo trickles down the spine washing away a whole day at office. Wrapping around the dry freshness of the towel he emerges into an evening date with self.

All books are reread, all paintings unripe, all music jarring for the hour. The blanket suggests tobacco and Trika. Insects gather round the brilliant filaments: epitome of absurdity…epitome of life. He switches off the lights.

No ring disturbs the slumber
But a 3:00 a.m. nightmare and tears, none to hold him close.
In the morning however, it all feels liberating.

C'EST LA VIE

2006-09-26T19:22:00.000+05:30

To love is an exquisite pain
Being loved is only half as interesting.
*
Life is a great big booze party
Death seems to be the hangover.
*
Undying love requires the peculiar passion of youth
Then over the years, it becomes an occasional feeling.

ABSURDITY OVERCOME

2006-09-08T19:01:00.000+05:30

A hot shower
A worn out silken scarf
Chicken broth and toast

The smell of well bound books
And Linseed mixed with turp
The light at the end of a wakeful night,
Tobacco, toils and burning eyes

Simple pleasures are the only luxury the complex can afford.

Tagore: PREM O PROKRITI, 71

2006-06-27T13:08:00.000+05:30

Nothing shall remain as you take your leave
But the pain you gifted me in parting

In your whim you come to my arbour
All shall I cover that you trample on your way
Only sweet pain will keep me company
As the darkness descends at the end of the day

The plaintive strains of the farewell flute
Now fills the evening sky
O beautiful sorrow shall live evergreen
Nurtured by the tears of goodbye

THE WHY AND WHY OF THINGS

2006-06-12T17:43:00.000+05:30

No one knows how the story began
Nor why it ended so abruptly
Separation of light-years within seconds
A tangible, palpable separation
Aliens from amigos
Strangers lost in time, space
And fondness

But I know why
It was love

It was love which grew out of nowhere
For no apparent reason
And with no possibilities

Great expectations mushrooming unnoticed
Unintended
Uncalled-for

Unrequited love
(They have made it a cliche)

But now, attachments none
Habituation of the heart brings only pain

CAFE

2006-06-12T17:41:00.000+05:30

Loneliness engulfs in noxious vapours
Drops of longing trickle by my heart
I order another coffee

It is innocuous actually
There has been more harm for far lesser cause
Been more crazy for far less love

INSOMNIA 2

2006-06-12T17:33:00.000+05:30

My ears still remember the whisper of your breath
My skin still bears the warmth of your limbs
The fragrance of your curls still linger in my dreams
But you are not here anymore

As I lay tossing on my bed
Waiting for the truant sleep
An electric dream burns my vision
Oh! What shall be my penance?

INSOMNIA

2006-06-12T17:31:00.000+05:30

I see you sleeping by my side
The fullness of your lips quivering
Your breath I long to feel them
Your hands I want to kiss them
But sleep on my love
And let me die a million sighs

STEEL CITY DIARIES

2006-06-10T14:20:00.000+05:30

Dear R,
...I realised that I shall miss you more badly than I ever imagined I could; even more than I was ready to allow myself to.
A.

Try to keep in touch, what else?...
R

NOCTURNE

2006-06-09T17:53:00.000+05:30

The rain cried with me all night
The wind, she held me close
I lay there silent on the grass
Kind darkness kissed my brow

It was a night of dreams
A shreiking night of dreams
A shattered moon lay floating on the pools

HERE AND NOW

2006-06-09T08:31:00.000+05:30

Who has seen beyond the frontier?
Not you my friend nor I
I do not know if we shall meet
After the last goodbye

I do not know what lies ahead
Of wake from restful sleep
So just lets live and just lets laugh
For nothing is to keep

THE GIFT

2006-06-09T07:16:00.000+05:30

Do ask of me anything
Anything that i might give you
And i asked for these twenty four hours
Just Twenty four hours for you and me
Dangling between chores of existence

But the ephemeral moment was pregnant with a promise still born

What a fool I was
in my heart I surely knew
What i seek is the earth and sky

SUBMISSION

2006-06-09T07:06:00.000+05:30

Is love a competition?
Then surely am defeated
No power nor will to wrest my claim

So let me turn my being
Just turn it right inside out
And paint it with stoic indifference

RETROSPECTION

2006-06-09T02:39:00.002+05:30

It has been long since I longed for you
And life seemed full of lonely sighs
Quite a while has it been since I wept for you
(Like I did for all subsequent goodbyes)

Without you, I had thought, I would not live
Thereafter I knew I would survive
Though with each evanescent love
Somewhere a part of me died

Mon Frérot

2006-05-20T17:27:00.000+05:30

All that has been said seems so trifling
All that has not shall never be
But how do words count?
Let silence sing for me my friend
My ode to you
My swansong

WINTER MORNING

2006-05-19T19:28:00.000+05:30

Untie the shoestrings off my imagination
Let him tread bare on the grass
Let the dew dampen my parched mind
Bring life to the old carcass

The whispy fog which floats like a veil
Woven with memories
Let it melt with the morning sunrays sweet
Adieu old love stories

I reached the end of all future
Now i start to live anew
With every step on the green green grass
speckled with the glistening dew

REST

2006-05-19T18:52:00.000+05:30

I have been a man of many loves:
A dozen in the past few years
Searching, not knowing what i seek
Clutching at a million fears

It has not been an ordinary life

But now I am lost and tired
Now i am spent and plain
O girl who loved me once
Will you sing me to sleep again?

APRICOTS FOREVER

2006-05-17T19:03:00.000+05:30

So what are you doing now?
Having apricots
What?
Apricots

I like the way you say it: a-e-pri-cots
Huh! What is so nice about that?
Nothing! Just like it, you know:
The way you like certain things
Without any rhyme or reason for doing so?

Flash back
Good night and apricots
Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce
Apricots are any day better

MADIKERI

2006-05-15T19:10:00.000+05:30

I saw you in my dreams last night
On the Madikeri hills
We walked in silence hand in hand
All else just stood standstill

I saw you in my dreams last night
You blessed me with a kiss
I could give my all my love
For a night such as this

I'll see you in my dreams tonight
I'll stab you with a knife
I'll sing to you my love-song
And then I'll take my life

AUTUMN: RESURRECTED

2006-05-15T18:48:00.000+05:30

On the wings of the crow evening descends
Dripping from a tangerine sky
The scattered stars, a buckle moon,
Gleaming lantern festoons
Grow bright as the light slowly dies

An evening breeze gently blows
Gently lifts a fallen leaf
It flits, and it floats, and it flies
It gets lost in the dark,
In the lonely city park
Will it ever return if it tries?

BOHEMIA

2006-05-03T14:51:00.000+05:30

Did you know in delicious dreams
I carry you over to the bed?
A kiss and a million
A screw or two
We lie peaceful, dead

Oh yes it was fine indeed
The Smoke from our cigarettes mingle
Though you are not my type, and others do dwell in the cranium
Indeed, it was just fine
Fine in a delicious dream.

But who is it now, darling?
Just guess who it shall be
Is it another epiphany
Or I hear the telephone ring?

ANOTHER DAY, WINTER (THE LOST POEM)

2006-04-11T08:59:00.000+05:30

Sleep's sweet poison lingering in my lashes
Huddled in a little warmth i lay
Mingling in the morning mist dreams a night old

Cup of coffee and cold sandwiches
From a blue tiffin box
My break is in the company of thoughts

Rushing in a cab
Past the lonely city lights
I come to a home all full of longing

I keep dreaming all night
I keep thinking all day
I keep longing all my life for you darling

SPRING: REVISITED

2006-04-11T08:55:00.000+05:30

It is spring. And I shall not dwell in gloom any longer; that I do promise myself. The golden sunlight rolls over and trickles down the lime green leaves into the gurgling kitchen drain which twinkles with bits of diamonds bouncing off the ripples. The breeze is gentle like the breath of a sleeping child, fragrant like the rind of a tangerine. Misty white wisps rise from my tea cup and turn into golden fumes at the touch of the splintered light straining through the kitchen window, dancing and swirling with the white lace curtains to some unheard tune. The whispering melody flows into my mind, my veins and capillaries; filling the languid stillness of the morning with some joy unknown. I remain happy just to exist. A mere particle in the cosmic chaos, oblivious of any fatalistic outcome of the great pattern, but filled to the brim with its fair share of joy, ready to bounce off and roll over the hurdles that the present day might offer.

IN CONVERSATION

2006-04-10T20:48:00.000+05:30

And yet life is lonely
As the floodgates open in drunken stupor
Drops, drops and drops
The soul thirsts for blue poison once more

An inebriated kiss trickles down the edge of an eon
My eyes, they close
The birds of the blue earth fly into abstraction

In eagerness I ruffle my feathers damp
Bits of scissored neon light remain scattered around the grille
Shall fly into the black embrace of night
A darkness without address, without even existence
But alas! The wings they are severed

Only shadows remain scattered
In all light, in all darkness
Not a feather, not a drop of rain
Not you, nor I
Only gusts did I gift life
And the boat was lost in the river-breast
You keep waiting for the colours to mature
Meanwhile it rains in the canvas
Washing off all fairytales
Just a fistful of sand left behind

But may be those are not shadows
Fistfuls of stardust are strewn on the dunes
Sheathing the moon, sheathing the clouds,
May be shadows they are not
May be it is I
After silent departure

Someday the boat was to be lost in foreign waters
A mistaken address
The wrong river
As the shadows merge between the stars
All that remains is an oceanic night
Waves,
Tides,
And a girl, hiding her face in the dunes
The girl from the poet’s diary
The girl who could not return in the nick of time

A one-night-stand
A millisecond of love
No recognition thereafter.
And that is how we receive anew
Comprehension nil, neither any effort at it
This is not mind, nor brain…just the intoxication of life.