He particularly cherished the toilet breaks he allowed himself. The lavatory was his private sanctuary in the midst of the frigid, tubelit, bleakly pastel expanses of his office floor. His first break was scheduled at 11, after his breakfast which usually consisted of three slices of bread, some butter, and a cup of coffee. While he ate alone, the constant hubbub in the canteen (with its peals of tired laughter, its stale air of oft-repeated jokes and the squawking sports channels on its lone television set) rendered the canteen a place ill equipped to provide the warm, comfortable, enclosing privacy of the lavatory. He always took great care in wiping off the seat and placing three equally long strips of paper to form a U on the seat before dropping his pants. The warmth inside was cosy. The fresh breath of just-sprayed deodorants (sprayed every 15 minutes by a blue-liveried attendant who was diligently liberal in his zeal to keep things smelling of lemons) was a welcome change from the soulless odorlessness of the office floor. He would gently slip his shoes off and run his tuberous toe over the cool uncarpeted marble. Some days, he would spend upto a half hour tracing snaking lanes of journeying veins from one interlocked slab to another. He never felt at ease urinating along a line of men into, what he considered with a shudder of disgust, an openly inviting ceramic maw. He found no great pleasure in inspecting the arc, the texture, the flow of his urine nor was he so curious about his fellow men as to evaluate them by the way they set their feet, the bent of their upper body, the one/two-handedness of their grip or the hissing fall of their urine. Indeed, he was quite diffident by nature, with a marked tendency to speak at the collar of those who were taller than him and at the ear (whichever seemed closer) of those shorter or of a height with him. There were moments when he could even be termed shy but these were few and usually involved a social gathering of sorts. So it was that he always carried with him a few choice pebbles that he collected each morning from the assorted refuse on the road on his way to work from the bus stop. These, he would wrap in paper and carry with him into the lavatory for times when his intestines were not inclined to void themselves for his benefit. He would perch himself the usual way and softly plop pebbles in the water at two- or three-minute intervals. He always ensured his phone would stay at his desk for the duration of his breaks. For these were the few choice moments he had that were his own, when the world was a different planet in a different sky, and he, a lone nomad, content in his box floating through a deep dark space of nothing.
Another attempt at a ghazal
Another attempt at a ghazal. I do believe I am getting better at it.
A ghazal of the sea
Leave now or you will see nothing of the sea
The dark outside is the night doting on the sea
Another round, and then another. Tomorrow is still two days away.
Remember, all is forgiven for gangetic ash floating on the sea
Father, fate is a life lived backwards. I abjure it
I have found something better in this constant groping of the sea
Love is a song you have sought at the rim of a valley
Have you never heard its quick notes loping on the sea?
He lived by the beach but left and retreated into the city;
His eyes turned inward by the slow encroaching of the sea.
Call me at midnight. Perhaps I will have an answer.
Your question’s been outsourced to the smartest dolphin in the sea.
If night is the long silence of open skulls,
evening is a cluster bomb exploding on the sea
No more people, no more! Send them all away
And make my excuses to those out moping on the sea
‘Krishna, will you steal away without a goodbye?
Must we look for you among the corpses bloating on the sea?’
It has been a while. Here is something.
Happiness
1. Nokia is excitement that has found a settling down place. But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.
2. Tata often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.
3. Sony pulses with every beat of my life.
4. LG is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it.
5. You will never be Samsunger than you expect. To change your Samsung, change your expectation.
6. Reliance is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
7. Money can’t buy you Maruti, but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.
8. Success is not the key to LIC. LIC is the key to success.
9. Airtel is a Swedish sunset — it is there for all, but most of us look the other way and lose it.
10. Titan is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
11. We tend to forget that SBI doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
12. The foolish man seeks Bajaj in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.
13. Even if Hero Honda forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.
14. Reebok is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
15. The ICICI of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
16. The pursuit of Vodafone is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue Vodafone you’ll never find it.
17. Colgate isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember.
18. People take different roads seeking fulfillment and Bata. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.
19. Haier is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
20. Raymond’s is a form of courage.
21. He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek Adidas by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
22. Godrej is a conscious choice, not an automatic response
23. HP is a direction, not a place.
24. Lux is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it
25. I have learned to seek my Philips by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.
Sources: http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-indias-50-most-trusted-brands/20110120.htm
http://ryankett.hubpages.com/hub/Quotes-About-Happiness
http://www.quotegarden.com/happiness.html
What should be the last NaPoWriMo #22
This poem is a name
It springs off your tongue like a rabbit,
two small hops and a final lunge out beyond
the space of your parted lips. You whisper it
to your cupped palms, an absent wind
beats against your fingers. You whisper it
into a half-full glass, the whiskey settles
like amber trapping its flight. You say it
to an open window, a yellow leaf turns
and turns again. At 2 AM in the morning,
you say it into a phone and from far across
the empty night, you hear the smile
in her “Hello”. A rabbit hops across the moon.
(NOTE: There are still 7 poems to be written to round off the whole 30. They will be written but most likely not posted. If I hadn’t been busy with a new job, long hours, and a coercive state that will not permit a working man a place to safely partake of his rightful (natural right, this being) share of booze beyond an arbitrary deadline of 1 AM (this was the case yesterday), there would have been 3 more poems.
This was fun. I’m happy with this year’s efforts. They have been good for the most part. Now for the edits and a finer honing of the series of poems I started this month. Here’s to be hoping I continue writing beyond this month!)
A ten-minute NaPoWriMo #21
This poem is a pond
Here is a place you walk into backwards,
hands held out before you to push back
the reaching sky, one leg tense with the burden
of earth while the other is a jaunty angle
sinking in the chlorine blue. Here is a wind
out of water, a transparent sheet swaddling
you back into the freedom offered
by thrashing four limbs, by holding your mouth
perfectly ajar like a grotto spitting bubbles.
Screw your eyes shut against the pressure
of lines in the floating page receding
above you. When fish pass you by,
think of those friends you never called.
When the coral scrapes your vertebrae,
remember chairs you never fit into. Where
the bed breathes floating sand displaced
by your settling in, dream of nights
where stars were falling dust.
NOTE: This poem was written in ten minutes. No edits, no cuts. Raw as shark liver.
A scurriedly written NaPoWriMo #20
Breaking up
She fears the hidden confidences of bones
clacking in the dark, the secret tar of teeth
stashed behind their rotting enamel, the Lethean
flow of blood and piss. She chews crescents
out of her nails, turns them in her mouth, their edges
raking the sides of her tongue. She tastes
their sharpness, the slow unfolding of their pricks,
red and saline. She blinks at the unknown
number on her phone and wonders why she can’t
remember it.
You obediently press your ear
to her shaking wrist. “Hear, hear the rattle,
the creak. They are moving things inside me, man!”
You convince her bones can’t be bitten through,
that skulls don’t have eyes, that a ribcage
is not a prison, the heart is not a flapping moth.
You fit your arms, your chin, your lips to her gaps
You tell her she is whole.
An evening under watching
crows, she answers her phone to his voice so like an empty
drum. She lets him approach her, pull her phalanges
into hooks, find the hollow in her back and fill it with a palm.
Later, her femur nuzzles his hand, her ribs convex
pulling her apart, her eyes retreat into the vacuum
of sockets, her lips peel back against his lips. She finds
she must smile as an engine churns inside her,
to the rhythm of clacking bones, the forgetful
murmur of blood and piss.
The morning after, you see
the precision of her steps, the easy flex of her fingers,
the copper flow of her hair. When you take her hand,
there is no rattle. When she answers her phone,
her smile flashes like steel. You watch her walk away
heels clacking over your oblong shadow.
(NOTE: Today was my first work day after a long 6 month haul of idyllic berozgaari. As such, since the first day is usually just filling up HR forms and smiling at people and getting one’s tongue desensitised to the muck that passes for food in the office canteen, I found myself with not a lot of time on my hands. This poem was mostly written in snatches, in whatever time I found myself free and unburdened by the curious/accusatory glances of passing bystanders. I will only say this poem is about body issues.)
A sleepyheaded NaPoWriMo #19
Perchance to dream
He dreams of a lit matchstick, the hollow weight
of a gun, the tip of the bullet he swats away, the end
of his hands blazing like exploding suns. He dreams
in bullet time, the graceful arcing of arms, the light
press of the trigger, the slow dance of bodies
crumpling like falling sheets, the inching trickle of sweat
with each recoiling thud. He dreams of flight, of rooftops
and a searchlight moon, the pulsar shifts of sirens
below, the urgent need to scrape his skin off. He dreams
of a door kicked in, stairs falling away in an endless spiral,
the flaking white of walls on his groping hands, laughter
behind closed doors, a key in his hand, his fumbling at locks.
He dreams of a bed, sheets like crumbling tombs in a corner,
the slow stripping of his shirt, his belt, his pants, their scent
of lead, sweat and death, his brow a meteor crashing
into a yielding pillow. He dreams of sleep, black and unbroken
like a sky that could not afford stars.
(NOTE: Written yesternight. Edited, spruced up (as best I could) and now up. Also this was a handwritten poem, my first in the past 4 years or so.)
A short and easy NaPoWriMo#18
(untitled)
He types out a message and finds it
too casual. Another, too curt. A third,
too presumptuous. A fourth, creepy.
A fifth, maudlin. A sixth, too dramatic.
A half hour later, he settles for
“Happy birthday!” He wonders if more
!’s are needed. He decides to keep
the one and appends a “:)”
Later, in the bus, he thinks the smile,
unwarranted. Like a clown with carved lips.
He should have stuck with
three !’s, he sighs.
(NOTE: This was the last in a set of 7 or so doggerel poems I doodled earlier in the evening about Facebook. The rest are worse than this. For example, this was another: )
He sees the sand with its crouching
tables, their linen flapping at gulls.
The frothing face of a grey sea,
the palm leaves raking the space
behind her. He likes it. Later,
he muses, “She knows I am
a mountain person. Will she think
I liked it for her boobs?” He
unlikes it and sighs.
(Well, tomorrow is another day and one with better poems, one hopes.)
Something about street lamps in this NaPoWriMo #17
A street follows me wherever I go.
I hop onto steps, a corridor, a room.
It waits outside creeping along its length,
a tapeworm living off the soles of my shoes.
Some nights, I lean against street lamps,
a rising ramp. It climbs over my ankles then,
the tingling backs of my knees, the small
of my back. It hesitates at the neck,
but steels its resolve and hands raised,
marches through the forest of my hair
up onto the pole. The climb is too much.
It loses parts of itself but keeps creeping
to the sun it seeks. Some nights, I imagine
if I lean on it night after night, the lines
of my forehead fusing with the cold of the pole,
the street lamp will be coloured with the rust
of the street. Its light, a slowly dimming copper
that will die watching the tips of my shoes.
(NOTE: Yay, street lamps! Another hastily written NaPoWriMo, this. Also, an attempt at a change from what I’ve been writing so far.)
NaPoWriMo #16
[EDIT - 6/11/2011]
A temple
You allow yourself to be lead
through broken columns, stones
etched with spearing leaves and
shut-eyed women with pointed
breasts. He tells you, “That was
a temple.” A mass of bricks
like a lego set left half done
because one ran out of pieces.
You look around, was everything
here a temple once? The pillar lolling
in the sun, the empty doorways
now filled with light, with dust
with heat and the poses of tourists.
He leads you to a hole in the ground
You step blindly into the smell
of guano. Your phone throws no light.
You pass between walls, cool to the touch
and lined with rivulets, creased like
aging skin. A slope descends, you follow it.
A crack in the wall lights up a priest,
still as stone. He points, you squint
at mad painted eyes and a gash of vermilion
painted on a rock that grows like a tumor
into the wall from the earth.
On your way back, you do not touch
the walls. You crawl on all fours
to the slab of light that is the hole.
Behind you, he kneels and mutters prayers
to a mad-eyed god slowly rising through
the empty cold to the sun and ruins
it abandoned above.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————-
A temple
You allow yourself to be lead
through broken columns, stones
etched with spearing leaves and
shut-eyed women with pointed
breasts. He tells you, “That was
a temple.” A mass of bricks
like a lego set left half done
because one ran out of pieces.
You look around, was everything
here a temple once? The pillar lolling
in the sun, the empty doorways
now filled with light, the arches
standing mouths open to dust
and heat and the poses of tourists.
He leads you to a hole in the ground
You step blindly into the smell
of guano. Your phone throws no light.
You pass between walls, cool to the touch
and lined with rivulets, creased like
aging skin. A slope descends, you follow it.
A crack in the wall lights up a priest,
still as stone. He points, you squint
at wide white eyes and a gash of vermilion
painted on a rock growing like a tumor
into the wall from the earth.
On the way back, you do not touch
the walls. You crawl on all fours
to the slab of light that is the hole.
Behind you, he kneels and mutters prayers
to a mad-eyed god slowly rising through
the empty cold to the sun and ruins
it abandoned above.
(NOTE: Underground temples scare me. That is all.)
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
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