They Sound So Damn Cool

Blue fire empire words
star beautiful elemental overuse
stone king dawn self-important
black light sword wind abuse

potent eyecatcher

imagination winder
heart stirrer
mind holder


empty powerful
fantasy novel title.

I bought the books.

Nov 12 2008

Overlooking the Obvious

Like elaborately looking both ways before carefully crossing the road

and before a feeling of supreme accomplishment or heave of relief

running straight into an able fellow master planner,
briskly and competently embarking from the other shore with the same irreproachable foresight.

Nov 12 2008

Overlooking the Obvious

Like elaborately looking both ways before cautiously crossing the road

and before a heave of relief or a feeling of supreme accomplishment

running straight into a fellow master planner
embarking briskly from the other shore with the same irreproachable foresight.

Nov 12 2008

Beauty

The setting sun painted the chalky grey blue horizon
in sensuous swirls of pink, orange, purple and gold,
looking furtively down at its flickering tar road reflection
in a glimmering multicoloured oil spill, for clues.

Oct 29 2008

Doubt, Un-doubt

Doubt
Nebulous potential poetry swirling hazily in my mind
broken mirror splinters of things I've seen, heard, believed
They surface more than once, taking over the verse,
and I irresistibly write of no more than what I know
Where do I draw the line between admirable poet's trademark
and stagnant over-used recycled rubbish?

Un-doubt
One of many minds filled with poetry-stuff, I am
seeing a fraction of the world,
living a moment of its time
writing an inch of its verse
So I write what I can
Any poetry I don't write
someone, sometime else, will.

Oct 29 2008

Integration

A crumpled brown paper bag of a leaf
knocked uncaringly one afternoon
by a passing gust of fate
clattered unexpectedly at unassuming feet
that were headed purposefully to Calculus

I, blameless, stopped
watched it backwards

The leaf levitating,
fluttering up to to the grasping gnarled fingers
to live green and grow swiftly younger,
disappearing into the bark of the tree
The air thick with swirling masses of fallen leaves
whole groves of trees wheezing in the dead,
their limbs fantastically shortening
Shrinking down to timid saplings
then to tiny leaves sprouting uncertainly from the soil
then disappearing into the earth

I stood still for a moment, math class forgotten,
a blank expression on my face
as my mind constructed cinematically for me

the planet incredibly diminishing and ceasing to be
the solar system quietly dissolving into an unflattering speck
the galaxy unapologetically and violently collapsing onto itself
The cosmic motion picture wildly playing backwards,
stars and galaxies and quasars and whatever I used to be
racing inconceivably towards
a single
bright
point
of

Oct 28 2008

Robert Brown, Army Surgeon, Botanist, Fellow of The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, Woke Up One Morning

Dust reflecting light,
a liquid presence of moving white stars
burning bright and pleasantly vanishing,
the harmonious tide swirling gently and tolerantly
Unmindful of the watcher,
unconcerned with the world's monocotyledons and British Museums and shipwrecks and obscure species of Australian flora

A window, a beam of light,
and the earth dancing up to meet the sun.

Oct 22 2008

Leaving Home

I write a poem
How much does it owe its existence to me?
a careless word from another, an image or a thought inspired it,
and as it soon as it leaves the safe womb of my mind
to the harsh clinical whiteness of paper,
it is imprinted, exposed, vulnerable
in a dimension of its own making,
forever out of my reach
Can it only ever mean what I meant it to?
and people interpret it differently,
see something in it that in it I shall never see,
taking away a part of it from me for their own
Or can I say, fondly, my poem's growing up?

Oct 19

Ghosts

I stumbled upon a book of poetry in the library,
words cautiously hedged away in some anonymous corner
until the torchlight of chance or intuition moved my idle fingers to it
It fell open on a page, the shape of the unknown poem stenciled onto it,
a mass of language composed by an unimportant human
whose whole existence was merely a book on a shelf amidst other books on a shelf
I wandered, unconsciously, my mind on the books uncomfortable under my arm
the edges of my thought on the clamouring jungle of other books waiting impatiently in line,
until a word or a string drew me in
The book unforgivingly heavy and unforgettably familiar in my hand,
the poem fully on my mind
and the being that constructed it in another time
resurrected,
standing for a quiet, understanding moment with me
looking down benevolently at a book of poetry
in a library.


Oct 19 2008

Someone’s Standing on My Grave

Sometimes,
while doing perfectly ordinary things,
like walking down a road,
Do you wonder what there was
on that very spot long ago
or what the future will see?

Are you stepping on someone’s long lost treasure
or on the bones of an extinct creature,
swimming in a long dried up lake;
or standing in a nuclear reactor to come,
walking through a still un-conceived
botanical garden or airplane runway of the future,
over someone’s ashes to be dispersed
or last earthly resting place to be?


Early 2008

Evolution

I note the evolution
of the highway

as it speeds along to places,
from scruffy potholed disgrace
with swarming masses of local people infesting it,
to sleek grey snake
yellow barriers on either side
keeping bipeds out

It winds scenically through mountained countrysides
with flowering trees thoughtlessly waving in line on its spine,
a strange unpeopled spectacle, like out of an unidentifiable foreign postcard
beautiful but characterless and sterile

I watch with a delight
only inspired by things that never change

as a man muddies the vision
threadbare towel draped over a bare shoulder
thin checkered lungi slung around a dignified waist,
happily, unblushingly, and incongruously, picking the flowers
[that the highway and everybody on it, leaves behind in the mad rush to go somewhere],
perhaps for the morning puja on the other side of
the not so intrusive,
nor so immune after all to Indian-ness,

highway.


July 26 2008
(Note to self: Inspired by a road trip to Chennai]

Things of Old

Things of old
are survivors of a bygone age
remnants, left behind
to see slow crumble to oblivion

What foot trod there
what hand touched with practiced indifference
what eye unseeingly saw everyday
what tongue talked of it as nothing out of the ordinary?

What built it and what felled it?

And unchained it

from a being, now long dead
from the embrace of bygone lives

Doomed to be
a victim of fickle Time
an aimless phantom


Until retaken and remade
to grow old again.

June 29 2008

Tribute

Upside down anemone
flightless seabird,
Everlasting night breeze
or furious raging storm,
Bane of fiery weather
singer of lullabies


Alive or lifeless,
bladed wind-mover
at my command,
Sweet fan
gentle electric ceiling fan

June 29 2008

Another Begining of an End or To the Last Man

The last of the army was surrounded. The thick air of dust, sweat, and grime, was settling down, preparing for the eerily still aftermath, lulling the survivors into a half-awake trance.
They did not glance at each other from under the torn, blackened wreckage of wood, stone and bone. One man had lost both his legs, another an arm. No man was wholly untouched. But they were oblivious to all other senses, clutching their weapons in already dead hands, their keen ears listening for the last sounds they would hear.
When it came, it would be the end, and they would fight and die alone.

Their bodies rolled down the rocky slope, littered with other corpses, almost noiselessly, and one off the edge of the cliff, where stood the last great watch tower that fell, overlooking the glowing embers of their burnt city.
The sun rose up, almost shamefully, behind the gashed, blood soaked battle field, the mountain casting harsh, unforgiving shadows on the enemy army and the city it had won.
The war was lost, but the victors did not cheer or even seem aware of their triumph as they knelt in tired morning prayer amidst the grey stone remains and toppled pillars, their voices echoing mournfully over the silent towers below, and its silenced inhabitants.

A lone man stood by the only wall that remained of the tower, gazing distantly over the edge. The Master of the enemies.
There was a long, comfortable silence, unbroken by the army that awaited him.
"Rebuild," said this man, not turning around. "It was a great city once, this city of our enemies. A worthy opponent, a worthy nation."
He glanced back at them for a moment.
"Rebuild."
As if understood as an order of definite meaning, the army began its winding way down the steep sides, to the city and to the new empire.

One man remained, watching them go, with fire in his eyes, still and irresolute, his grime filled hands clenched to his sides, the expression on his face wrought in unreadable stone.
"What," he said bluntly, his voice shaking, "was so evil about them that you killed them all?"
"Nothing." said the Master, musingly, after a long pause. "When blood-lust, and the fear of blood-lust, conquers a man, his hand spares no one. It was them, or us. The time of their world ended, like all things must. Our time has come." He gazed thoughtfully at the hopeful, brightening blue sky, "Good and Evil does not exist in this world of men. Only things that have happened and things that will... There will come a time when ours will end."


There was a flash of steel and the Master had a weapon pressed against his neck.
"Not ours... You killed them all. No, not all. Not all... Everything is gone. I will avenge them with your death!" said the man incoherently, his wet face white and his hands shaking with rage.
For a tense moment of silence his gaze was fixed on the ruins below them; all that remained of his city - ghosts and memories that would fade away with him.
His weapon dropped, the sound echoing loudly and falsely off the orange face of another cliff. He was suddenly calm, his eyes were dry, and his anger had left him.
"What am I doing?" he whispered, his unseeing eyes roving over his thoughts, as if suddenly unaware of the other's presence. "I have no where to go... No place in this mortal world. A corpse left behind. An aimless phantom."
He knelt down on one knee, his head bowed low over it, "You must kill me now. The gods have made a mistake in letting me live."

The Master of the enemies turned his face, furrowed with pity and sorrow, away towards the sun. He passed a weary hand over his eyes and then held it out to the last of his vanquished.
"I humbly thank you for letting me live... What use would your death be now? Some more human blood spilt by human? Another body to burn?
Rise, brother. The war has ended. There are no enemies now."
The kneeling man slumped forward silently, peacefully. He had quietly bled to death from his many injuries and unseen wounds. He did not hear his enemy speak.

The Master laid him out on the earth, to send him more easily to his resting place. He bent down and removed the man's ill-fitting helmet, out of respect for the dead, and found that the last of the conquered was a woman.

Feb 1 2008

The River

The river flows.

The waters are tamed by men, bound by dams and enslaved to work on wheels. Human structures weaken over time and the tireless pounding of freedom. The winter-melting river bombards the walls with chunks of rock and ice. It falls, flooding mills and breweries.

People despair, fall on their knees and beg God for mercy. It becomes an accursed forbidden place, its evil stories passed on to succeeding generations, the original corrupted through the passage of such time.

But no matter, for none venture there now, on the banks of the river.


The river flows.

Somewhere else, in a peaceful downstream perhaps, winter-weary travelers seek the waters of spring. They come upon this stream, its waters flooded with mead and sun-dried grain basking on its banks.

People rejoice, kneel and thank the Almighty for this miracle. It becomes a holy place of worship and draws the coming generations from far and wide, the story of its founding falsely flowering through the passage of such time.

But no matter, for many come there now, and make a home on the banks of the river.

And so, places are made and undone, on the banks of the same stream.


Feb 28 2008

The Traveller

I was setting off at a brisk canter; dressed as usual, as a man; hoping to reach Jaisalmer by night fall; Chandini's midnight black Marwari nose pointing westward and southward; as the sun gained height and heat over the orange sands and vague dusty attempts at vegetation.

A cloud of dust rose in the distance, but I could make nothing of it, as the desert, like the sea, has a treacherous way of deluding the eye as to make distinction between near and far nigh impossible on the unmarked plain.
I rode on, not yet uneasy, but keeping a sharp eye to the northern horizon. There trouble would come, if there was any to be had.

It was noon before I halted at an oasis, frequented by merchants from Delhi and from as far south as the Deccan states, where I would not be noticed. I did not talk to anyone and did not remove the cloth that covered my head and face, as is normal to wear in these arid lands, not yet for fear of recognition but simply because it was too hot and dry to suffer exposure. I had enough food for the day but replenished the supply of water, not before giving Chandini a long, well deserved drink.

As I rode on into the late afternoon, clouds appeared in the sky, meagre wasted cotton that I knew, as did anyone who lived there, was too high and too cruel to stop by with rain. I was stopping for dates and water when I saw a disturbance in the east, whence I had been riding all afternoon. A sudden unreasonable apprehension took hold of me. I cut short my break and resumed the journey at once.
Could I have been recognised? Not impossible, but highly improbable.

Half a dozen grey horses were now distinguishable from the sand they were kicking up, by which I could tell that they were moving incredibly fast. To flee now would be as foolish as futile, so slowing Chandini to a comfortable, convincing canter, I prepared myself for a confrontation, my long knife concealed just out of sight.
It was not long before the mysterious men, who were all as carefully protected from the elements as me, rode up in haste, and the rider who appeared to be their leader drew abreast, his weapon in plain sight, its jeweled scabbard betraying the status his shabby garments vainly obscured.
Before I was convinced that his piercing black eyes saw through my pretence, he brought his mount directly in front, cutting me off, the other riders forming a tight trap. As they drew there knives, and I mine, I realized that these were no fellow travellers hoping to swap stories - they had come for me.

Despite the agony over my fate, I was obliged to stop there. The oppressive summer heat had induced me to get up for the fan. I stretched my sore neck and stiff fingers, and laying down the pen and notebook, I proceeded to make myself some well-deserved sweet lassi.

March 10 2008

Twilight talk

I stand on the terrace
and at the threshold of dusk,
for a time above the human world
that so seldom looks up

The haunting soulful call of the muezzin
competes with the haunting soulful
calls of the other muezzins,
above the canopy of trees, inadequately
disguising evidence of human residence

One crow starts it, or a dog,
the hour of nature's communion

The vagabond birds perch impossibly
on the high reaches of bare branches,
more often on pipes, tops of water heaters and tanks
and other human contraptions so part of urban crow lifestyle
Cawing importantly, they cock their heads after a signal,
sending black messengers in a flurry of different directions,
hidden birds actively answering from near and far
Scouts pompously perch glaring at other pompous fowl
and efficiently announce the arrival of the kites,
who shriek, lazily circle, have a chat of their own
or join their avifauna brethren

Dogs bark in the background, not far below on the streets
of the neighbourhood; some domestic, some stray, all dogs
and thus piously howling the hour

The sun goes out
and there is immediate respectful silence

Birds retire to tree nests and convenient hollows in human constructions
Dogs go back to prowling, snapping or napping according to breed, bearing and up-bringing
Nature takes its quieter shift with the coming of night birds and the dark insect kingdom

Humans, ignorant of twilight etiquette, insensitive to the air thick with cross-special discourse
speak obliviously, loudly and incessantly throughout, rudely ignore the hour of conversation
and indecently continue to speak ineffectually and out of turn, ever after,
honking vociferous vehicles and cranking sleepless screaming machines
that make a lot of ostentatious noise but hardly get an idea across

Creatures we share our planet with say of us:
These chatterboxes seldom communicate but never shut up!

Feb 5 2008

The Watcher

Hidden in shadows,
mirrored in feeling, watching oblivious
passers by

Caught a glimpse
shiny white, in
a glance that showed us kin;

Watchers watching people going by

27 March 2007

Names

Often wonder if the meaning of a word
in one part of the world,
could mean something else
in another language, in an other?

My name, in India, means moon,
and India in Chinese;
Maybe, somewhere, the plural for cheese or the singular for trees,
and maybe somewhere else, loon.

Jan 5 2008

On Wrapping Paper

Civilization, language, papyrus
writing, print, media, civilization

Wrapping fish, bananas, spreading
on the floor while whitewashing

We see it, everyday, we oblivious;
we seem to have forgotten,
or else are decadent;
We crumple the work of evolution,
industry, and chlorine refinement
in a moment of fickle thought,
to pile up in the waste basket or decorate the floor
like they do in the movies

Paper comes from trees?

Say,
Why then, when those who have not seen,
or else value it, lavish wonder
on multicoloured, shiny wrapping paper,
which in different angles shines red blue yellow green,
which we rip, crumple and throw away
do We,
Sophisticated as we are, look upon them patronizingly?

Jan 5 2008

A Play in Three Acts

Hustle and bustle, the great day is here,
A wedding in the family, a day to cheer!
Chairs laid out in the great hall, orders
issued and followed rarely,
Flowers are up and proclaim grandly,
So-and-so weds so-and-so's cousin's nephew's niece!

The ladies are up to dress up the bride,
the guests, family, relatives flow in, a tide,
the groom with the fellows, chats merrily
and the maamis await the hour anxiously,
the chatter fills the air as the tension is mounting;

The baby's mother is helping the bride with her chain
while the babysitting grandfather much to his pain,
discovers the disappearance of the precious grandchild,
Oh! in panic drops the fruits in his hand,
the concerned authorities not notified
the guests, faces grim, have outside filed;

Let not the hosts know! cries a voice,
Oh yes, agrees another, we have no choice,
the roles are reversed and now,
the guests play their parts
and Act one starts with searching every crany
While the bride appears on stage to start the ceremony;

The guests are reseated and shift nervously,
their faces, their secret concealed painfully,
and the mother smiles a foolish ignorant smile,
Slowly but surely a few slip out, in the streets calling
the drums beat and the nagaswaram plays all the while
Pujaris chanting, tension ever mounting, and the groom smiling;

Pretty girl child, eight months old,
searching all the back, front, mud,and tar streets
but to that question, nay, they are told
Act two begins and the drums quicken their beats
the mother comes out by some strange chance,
Grandpa gives away all, at a single searching glance;

Mother turns pale, guests nod as the news spreads
the bride, notices the sudden change
as the uncanny silence descends
and whispers to her mother, Strange.
The groom's smile fades as decibel levels rise
people stand up, disbelief questions truths and lies;

A kindly gentleman, brings some order to the mess
biding enthusiastic musicians to please halt
the guests clamour and compete to confess
Silence! called for again, Grandpa admits his fault
Looks of horror are exchanged by ignorant ones
while others confirm the safety of the other little ones.

Great great grandma says, you silly little boy
and Grandpa studies his shoes like a guilty school boy
The ancients sit back with a disapproving air,
the search resumes, upstairs, downstairs and under the stair

A dramatic piece begins act three and ends act two
played with gusto by the musicians at a cue
from a guest who's identity no one knows for certain
An admirable ironing women streets away, cast as the finder,
steps in and holds forth the child explorer - tableau, curtain,
who remembers that day as her first adventure.

Language -Thought

What have you eaten? blink, make a mental note to remember contents of every last meal-

You have grown so tall! standard fare, an achievement, smile modestly-

Walks just like her father! undecided once again whether to say Thank you...
or whether once again can pull off surprised Really?

Words not listened to, but the feeling behind
so spew at random but respond in kind
unchain frustrating English-thought reason

Non-words peppered with the physical and drawing from the vocabulary of exclamation
throw them madly around the room, there's enough to pass around
Some over-used, un-genuine sound?
then construct not, play spontaneity

Feelings then surface, while words are nascent
equations with no shape; euphoria, concern, pity
Sit back now, and watch embarrassment
change into the indescribable, except in poetry.

Jan 3 2008

Study Time in ISC Science

ISC books decorate my table,
Physics, Bio, Math and Chem,
There's nothing more satisfyingly comfortable,
than going to sleep with my head on 'em.

Dec 12 2007

Thoughts on a train journey to Chennai: Foreign Lives and Home

Every foreign shore
strange rugged beauty
docks a native boat
which takes for granted
every exotic pine or palm
that may move a stranger
to wonder

Now beauty in countryside
lies further away in further lands
faster planes and deeper pockets
The land you abandon in search
for more, is visited by another
in the same pursuit

Rocks rumble, mighty aging machines
churn out life soil
Trees are born, die or are axed down
Trains wind corridors of steel and
return from whence they came
River run their course one way
Cities rise, empires fall
graves lie forgotten
lies float unchallenged
history rewrites itself
Countries are named
invisible lines, uncrossable
borders defy monumental
canyon and Caradhras
Each speaking their own
keeping their own
Forgetting the one land
that wraps itself around
the core of a planet
bathed in living seas
.

12 April 2007

Thief in the Night

Disturbed slumber
through the night,
To mosquitoes, surrender
the only way to fight;

Dark shapes and fans
buzz till light,
A thousand ruppees stolen
and kept out of sight;

Bags turned inside out, a mess
in a vain attempt, quite useless,
Eying eachother with doubt
while a clever liar slinks about;

Compensation pooled in and payed,
A small price compared,
I snigger softly to myself,
and at what I dared.

On Self Awareness

D aylight speaks a thousand words,
A thousand smiles that hid and slept
W ake now in self-wonder, a brighter light on the mirror,
N eutral and eloquent, detached and reassuring.

Sept 8 2007, Jan 4 2008

Sun Stroke Hangover

A touch of sun,
Brain floating free
Laughs unrestrained,
provoked by everything

Like a drunk,
the headache catches up
much later,
to the free floating,
Touch of sun

21 November 2007

Ant Trivializing Human Fear

I have often to tell myself,
when in the thick
of perceived doom,
everywhere I look:
Math, War in Iraq, College Applications, Global Warming
and the like,

of the Ant;

If you were as small as that,
you would fear the tremble of a leaf,
the drop of water, the breath of wind;
You are not.
Don't.

Jan 4 2008

Flying

I reach up,
take a deep breath
leap with confidence and
launch myself into the sky

Powerful strokes bear me afloat,
the sun in my eyes
the wind in my face
bearing me on its back,

Higher, to the clouds
below, tree-tops and towers

Flying is like swimming in air
until, earthbound, I wake up.

Feb 19 2008

Voices in the Rain

The sad white car on the
long dark road, yellow lights winding
by the tree that never grew
Sad angels' voices and tears
pattering down like rain
at cold words that never were true.

13 Feb 2007

Of Washbasins and Electric LIghts

They do not see what I see
so clearly,
as I madly extinguish inadequately used electric lights
A world in my lifetime
where light is saved
to illuminate only when the last rays
of the sun have disappeared
the human eye now blind
And then only in dire need
like cooking or writing;
and not when sitting around talking of a lighted past
gone as fleet and bright as a transient fire

A dear light in an empty room

paradox, do lights burn when there is nobody to see them?

wounds me as much as to see
water gushing down the drain of the basin
as the owner of this appalling invention,
a creature remarkably adept at discarding the precious
as it were a careless trifle,
obliviously studies
a pimple on the left side of its face.

Jan 6 2008

Moonshine

Aging forges of profound space,
above pretentious city flares,
vaguely speckle the dank smoky blankness;
And through the corner of the eye,
behind the glow of the face bulging
from another uninteresting part of the sky,
Flit like tiny, shiny moths
around a large fluroscent bulb.

5 April 2007

Lone Spectator

Evidence does point to the existence
of other conscious creatures;
But my world consists of me, seen through my eyes
with its particular arrangement of rods and cones,
My nose, hands, body, a bunch of hair, now and then,
in clear focus in all photographs stored in the brain -
Am I the only one then, watching
everyone else, mere characters,
everything else, mere props,
in a cosmic multi-dimensional arena,
enacting a particularly convincing play
The lone spectator in the stands?

Feb 1 2008

Thought for the Day

We were sometimes taught to see life in a candle
transient, luminescent and mesmerizingly beautiful,
gone in a flash when lit,
and at others, in an ice cream,
with a cautionary enjoy it before it melts

We were not taught to talk of buying new wax or milk
or of less profound electric bulbs and refrigerators.

Jan 30 2008

Besieged

Oftentimes, in quiet moments
of solitude, I am besieged
by images of the past
Another's, imagined, and most often my own

A vast non-linear dimension on which my consciousness constantly and incomprehensibly treads

Faces, names and times forgotten,
places, undated unidentifiable photographs
Shadows of happenings remain, whiffs of the atmosphere,
strains of feelings, voices and music
Vague regrets, lost objects, things done and not done
Mostly disappointment at being left behind

A poetic moment of melancholic stillness in the paused present
as if to look back, false promises, and let a past, catch up;

though both know it never will.

Feb 6 2008

Wordsworthian Notes on a House

Great vines and creepers
hold it in its final embrace,
It sinks to the earth
in a silent slow pace;

Bright yellow flowers
bloom where it falls,
No memory lives on
of its towering walls;

I look at this poem long after and see,
though people move on and places forget
In my words, from time you are free,
little house, you live forever.

Nov 25 2007

Only Human

In Bad news there's tons of money,
while Good news, on the web, is free
Murder, conflict, blood, mystery
struggle, terror, revolution, flight
life in mud and poverty;
Nobody would find it worthwhile to read or write
a book on a happy childhood
or a world with world peace
or a land of no pain or dying
No, our mortal minds would find immortality
invincible or otherwise, quite boring;
Why? I don't know, it's beyond comprehension,
being after all (as might have already been guessed),
only human like the rest.

Jan 5 2008

Of Death

The title thus bids me speak
of dark and gloomy superstitions
bloody skulls, mystery apparitions;
On which the poet cannot
pretend to throw expert light;
In knowing this I am strong-
what I write cannot be right,
cannot be wrong.
With certainity I can only say
the moment great science is revealed
[for there is romance only
in the uncertain, the non-existent or the forgotten]
the poetry in death will be dead;
So pitiful poem, the time will come
and when it does, may you rest in poetic Pace.

Thoughts on Vision

Glasses now and then
most of the time without,
these magnifying devices to compete with the eye

How perfect can perfect vision get?

Yawn, tears, wet lashes splay light
drawn in rays away from its source
the unconscious link
between
image and the next
I wonder would the world look
any different if I never had to blink?

Feb 6 2008

Watering the Garden

Curled in a corner, asleep to the unwary eye
Spouting precious liquid at one end,
at the grass, as often as I can
and at me, as often as it can;

I wrestle this plastic pretender comatose,
which fancies itself long green slithering serpent sly
- this garden hose.

Jan 30 2008

Sylvan Massacre

And soon, calm green fields lie exposed,
hewn limbs of lumber bleed in clinical rows
Over the ravaged stumps of stillness,
faery dragonflies hover and catch the sun
Buzzing like feasting flies on a field of the dead.

25 Sept 2007

Remembering the Nail-Cutter

Half moon edged, pearl hard
Nestled in rosy softness lay;
Killer claws, deadly pard
In others simply cut away.

28 March 2007

Construction Site

Lay the foundation, plaster paint,
Toil that is not for hearts faint;
Now come the colours and fixing spray,
One coat, two coats, reader don't stray;
See not apartment building base,
Look in the mirror, behold a face.

28 September 2007

On Reading a South African Newspaper

Front page, back page,
the fading smell of foreign paper;
Holding an alien culture in my hand -
So strange to me, but taken for granted there,
just as I don't hold the local newspaper delicately,
or bestow upon it careful folding or fond storage;

people places restaurants

I soak in all the words,
glimpses into everyday life
How like my world it is!

Look, there's a concert on -

Dark skinned men, familiar, faces, colour
joyfully perform on stage, frozen, in black and white print

venue timings tickets

The illusion of kinship is shattered
when I see that

No guns, weapons or arms of any kind are permitted in the auditorium.

Jan 5 2008

Unnatural Earth

Cows daily plod
manuring the unyielding sod,
Trees drop seeds generously
[twigs and leaves as potential humus sent],
Dogs do their established duty
on its pavement;
Men on motorcycles
stop at nature's call,
demonstrate healthy human cycles
on the side wall;
Charitable people pay
as if to a God to whom they pray,
nutrient garbage homage, to the clay;
Still, impassive barren grey
Not yielding growth or greening,
oblivious to forces conspiring,
the resilient road goes on its way.

27 Sept 2007

Traditionalist on Much too Modern Poetry

A poem in either meaning or sound
or both, must give pleasure.
Not make you go around
in vain circles looking for some impossible treasure.
Otherwise poetry reading is frustratingly like a chore—
scramble unsightly words stamp out annoying punctuation or the depressing lack of it scream
at deliberate pretentious vagueness murder excess profound adjective and finally scrub the place clean
—and becomes quite a bore.

Jan 5 2008

Cycles, Circles and Other Round Things

Money makes the world go round-
That has some truth in it,
Cheese makes the world go round;
Hairy dogs make the world go round;
Purple T-shirts make the world go round;
You make the world go round;
I make the world go round
Then a billion light years away,
Something big and bright and invincible smiles
and shakes its great head with laughter,
"I don't either."

8 Sept 2007

Monsoon, Urban Disillusionment

After rain,
grey fields of
water
soaked garbage lies sweltering in the damp earth
brown rivers carry floating white plastic that arrest the eye, sail and are
caught meshed in the fingers of low plant forms

After rain,
pools quiver, reflecting disillusioned trees, and mangled cables stretched across
water
fills the labours of road work,
forever begun on the verge of the rains,
that hacks at bough and living root



Unbalanced on her man-mutilated roots
the beautiful red tree
defenceless

against the once conquered
monsoon

lies on her side,

her
limbs
sprawling

reached

across the wide grey road

defeated.

20 July 2007

I See Ice

After driving on the right and left sides of roads,
celebrating with Armenia,
walking through the choked streets of Beijing,

and swimming with baby seals;
I see him
quite suddenly


a white man, his blue eyes
peering out
from behind the curtains of another time
amidst blue water and ice floes
and hood and goggles
and a black camera contraption
dancing on the surface
like a dangerous sea spider

the white ice glistens
the frigid water climbs
up to my neck too

our eyes meet briefly
profoundly
I am transported
and reality is irrelevant

or else

He exists in time and place
for an eerie instant
of tranquillized time

looking only at me
as I look only at he

The creature revives
the window closes
and reality is real

Faded,
he becomes

a flat photograph
on
an unremarkable page
in
a mere magazine
in
my dry hands
on
unfrozen land

once again.

April 02 2008

Rain

Doors slam shut, off-stage
birds of prey float
under immense islands of bulging black cloud,
gleefully battling the high winds

Intimidating and awe-inspiring,
the Sky
leans over the prone
Earth,
issuing fearsome rumbles

Electric white streaks,
powerful beyond good and evil
smite some building unnervingly close
to where, atop another dwelling,
I watch action beyond my mortal understanding

[in pitiful defence,
I draw my feet up on my cane mount,
half-wondering if paint conducts electricity,
whether the chair is more paint or more blessed wood
and half-wondering if I would be struck down
in an instant
if I dared make a dash to safety]

Coconut trees amidst the grey houses
toss about their heads in wild passion

[and me like a microbe
anxiously watching the outcome
of a volatile encounter between
two multicellular creatures,
veritable planets not aware of its existence
nor the least bit bothered
at the prospect of squishing it]

as the earth is speckled by the first drops,
almost instantly,
the torrential rain darkens the soil

[Now safely beyond
the reach of nature-made electricity
and the sounds of nightmares,
I tell myself
it is the inconvenience of getting wet,
not some primeval fear
of the weapons of the Gods of Rain,
that drove me indoors]

April 30 2008

Letter From the Afterlife to Cheerful Sign on Bangalore Road

RIGHT IS WRONG
AND
LEFT IS RIGHT!

Start, confused -
Wonder at its cleverness -
Philosophize the true nature of mortality -
Ponder the existence of human invented
Right and Wrong,
Heaven and Hell,
Virtue and Vice;

Left, not right,
No, right, not left -


Nobody who has read your advice
on lanes, has survived the attempt.

Meeting

Strangers met,
a thought, a smile,
a shared opinion, interest,
a common fear, sorrow;

A pleasant surprise,
an unlooked for connection,
lighting a fire of the intellect,
a momentary brush with another soul
looking at the world from the same hill;

Binds them together a moment, a year, an eternity?
or breakaway to calls of different ways, paths,
other pressing conflagrations to be lit or put out;

The moment passes,
the fire cold
Strangers met,
leave,
strangers again.

Prayer to a God of Sorts

That calculated invitation,
prepare a plan, under chains, practised gestures,
worn greetings, heads nodding, hands clasping,
the bone cold-hard under the deceptive warmth
that nobody is deceived by;
Faceless guests, predictable words,
empty conversation, routine rituals,
A great act with deliberate precision;
one toe out of line and the heads turn
-expelled from the list
None caring for the other, all a facade to please,
To please that immortal, ever-watchful,
invincible tyrant Society-
Let it hang itself. Amen.

28 July 2007

Moment, with Bird

I look out the corner of my eye,
(I cannot be sure, but he is he, for the sake of poetry)
I see him watching me, still
I freeze, as does he,
I feign to ignore, but more careless is he,
His mind now on something more
important than such as myself;
The thrill of being trusted by a wild animal!

Jan 4 2008

The Gravity of Pointless Profound Ponderation

The crescent moon glows inconspicuously from
a mesh of clouds in the grey blue evening sky,
a snowy white one extends a vague cloudy paw towards it

I look up at it, my back planted firmly on the ground
as the Earth goes about rotating and revolving
and other planetary preoccupations,
gazing back unblinkingly from one droopy eye

Diametrically opposite me
on the other side of the planetary surface,
Someone is walking or juggling or bathing
with this patch of sky and satellite under its feet

My world for an unnerving instant
tilts upside down

I fall towards the moon but for
frantically
clinging on to the home planet
with my arms outstretched.

Feb 12 2008

A Moment of Musing Melancholy

Oh, Human-built world,
Earth to brick, long dead creatures to plastic,
skyscrapers from stone, bomb to bone;


You burn our forests and strangle our rivers,
Drain lakes and chop down stone mountains,

You consume in a day what the earth took a million years to make;

A long one way road - you bend
dodge, live, disregarding time,
you alone eat all, transform all,
to what end?

A fungus,
will live only as long as
there's something left
to feed it.

Jan 5 2008

Ask One of Those Things Up There

Say, who thought up twelve hours to a clock
and with much fickleness multiplied that by two
to make a day?
Why does 12 hang so lofty
while 6 languishes below,
Why do numbers 9 and 3
stare at each other so?
Why does lanky underfed second hand march about
while stately fat minutes are marked slower
and the hour barely lifts a finger?
This testimony
to human incompetency
I'd throw out the nearest window,
go
ask the sun, or the moon, or the stars,
or whoever else happens to be passing by.

28 March 2007