Growing up – II

You find the heart is a zeppelin with the simplest needs:
just enough wind to keep it bloated, just enough
pressure to keep it from bursting. The stomach
complains in ways you never imagined it could
as a child when you stuffed it with a crayon,
a wriggling ant, roadside bhajiya’s that sank
like meteors into its enduring depths. Now,
a rivet groans, long suffering machinery squawks
its resistance. You wander from cafe
to bar to a midnight stall by the roadside,
wherever this churn inside you subsides the most,
wherever you can stand at ease with shining eyes
and look and be looked at. Some days, you feel
you’re filled with smoke. Some days, it is ash
that weighs you down. Others, you lay still
finding a corner, a stool, a fallen remote control
to stare at; to imbibe their silence through
the pores of your skin so whatever it is
that boils up into your throat, that creaks
its protests down some fast moving track
in your guts, that sends rivers of molten
sludge flooding over an intestinal levee;
so all of it will calm the fuck down
long enough for your afternoon nap.

“I have looked at terraces”

I have looked at terraces

dimming in the night and wished

for things to perch themselves

on an edge, nod once

in resigned acceptance, and step

into hollows I cannot

allow myself to enter. I have wished

for that last look, that long

held pause of chips breaking free

from a wall and their

casual light-toed dance

down nothingness. As if, 

with the right temper, 

at the right moment, even air

lacks the courage to stay

emptied and opens itself

like an abandoned lane

waiting for someone

to stumble in.

Meditations – 5

Meditations – 5

It is imperative you rip your shirt in two

at least once, during a date. There are glands

that require regular secretion, remember to secrete

in public places. The men sipping furtively

from brown paper bags can be safely punched

in the paunch. Office-goers must be kneed

in the groin for maximum effect. Do not litter

your mouth, always spit. Masturbate from rooftops, 

pretend you are a pigeon. Scrawl your name inside

lifts, it is good to be remembered. 

Always pause when crossing the road, 

let the man who does not

run you over feel better about himself

if just for a day. 

A poem

I

 

We have learned to align ourselves

to the gaps between his fingers. We brace

ourselves against the terrible pressure 

of his wanton grasping. No one said freedom 

was going to be easy. We thank the Maker 

for Her thoughtful design that allows for spaces 

even in the most constricted of fists. 

Later, when we are wriggled out, when he has 

unfurled his sky above us and broken the earth 

between his toes, we turn back to the mud, the still

naked soil, the clumps of defiant green that have

escaped his uprooting. 

 

II

 

                         Once, we remembered trees. 

But then, a day came with a terrible gale. (He sneezed.)

The trees dug in, roots reached into the roiling

centre of the earth. We did what we could. We hugged

the trees upright when they bent before him. 

We tied ourselves to their shredded barks, our flesh

shields ripped and twisted by his cancerous

breath. We stuck leaves back to drooping limbs, 

where his drones worked their routine genocides. 

One morning, he darkened his brow and that was that. 

The trees died without his light. They shattered

themselves into twigs at our feet. He punched

mines into our vacant mountains, spat bile into 

our rivers. He built anthills in the sand for us. 

Now, his nose hangs like a falling cliff above us.

His thousand eyes watch our furtive steps

like baleful stars.

 

III

                    By night, we gather what is left. 

Decade over decade, we stitch twig to twiglet, 

leaf to limb, flesh to bark, blood to sap. 

A night will fall, we know (oh, we know)

when there will be no more twigs to bind. 

When this tree of trees, this totem of a thousand

deaths, this spear of destiny: we will raise it high 

higher than his shoulders where his brooding drones perch

higher than the dark oily borders of his backswept hairline,

higher than the floating eyes of his cameras

higher than the reach of his grasping fingers

higher and higher until it breaks the sky

and all comes tumbling down. This time when he is pinned

and writhing under the debris, we will not

shift the rubble. This time when the sky

falls apart, we will not put it together again. 

We will allow no heaven to stand above us

to mark us one people, one nation. 

06/02/2012, late evening

It is here
With my whiskey before me
With my whiskey burning holes
through my tired body
like focused sunlight
through an ant
With the red glow of the Privilege Inn sign
branding the air outside
like the devil’s horns
like baleful pokers stuck into
the taut flesh of a prisoner night
With empty tables laid up
around me, a purgatory
of upended bodies that will never
pull themselves up right
With the walls shining, the fanblades
shining, the waiter’s teeth shining,
my smoke shining
like so many angels gathered
to sing hosannas when I pass out
With time running itself out
between sips, between words
and spaces and line breaks

It is here
I find I cannot be anywhere else
It is here
I get the blues

3:16

3:16

And it came to pass at the end of seven days, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
“Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven:
the cankerworm spoileth, and fleeth away. And it shall come to pass,
when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD,
they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither
shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it;
neither shall that be done any more. Go, and gather the elders of Israel together
(And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD, as he was commanded),
and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac,
and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you,
and seen that which is done to you in Egypt
And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering
made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD’s.
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,
I will spue thee out of my mouth.”

When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice:
rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself,
that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up
unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.
In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not:
and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.
And unto the Reubenites and unto the Gadites I gave from Gilead
even unto the river Arnon half the valley, and the border even unto
the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon;
And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there;
and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. That the waters which came down
from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside
Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed,
and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho.

But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length;
and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh.
Then Eli called Samuel, and said, Samuel, my son.
And he answered, Here am I.

Moreover the LORD saith, “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk
with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go,
and making a tinkling with their feet.” Unto the woman (Length of days
is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour.),
he said, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow
thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband,
and he shall rule over thee.”
And when she came to her mother in law, she said, “Who art thou, my daughter?”
And she told her all that the man had done to her.
And her husband went with her along weeping behind her to Bahurim.
Then said Abner unto him, “Go, return.” And he returned.

Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.
And he said, “The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem;
and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope
of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.
But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up
his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
Thus saith the LORD, Make this valley full of ditches.”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king,
“O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. All scripture is given
by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness: For some, when they had heard, did provoke:
howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses.
For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
Destruction and misery are in their ways: Nevertheless
when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.”

John answered, saying unto them all, “God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles,
believed on in the world, received up into glory. I indeed baptize you with water;
but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy
to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see
and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness
in the presence of you all. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly
in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk
by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.”

And he made chains, as in the oracle, and put them on the heads
of the pillars; and made an hundred pomegranates,
And the sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son
and put them on the chains.
Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another:
“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds,
as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened
with might by his Spirit in the inner man; Now the Lord of peace himself
give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all.”
and the LORD hearkened,
and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him
for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water:
and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit
of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
And Simon he surnamed Peter.

[This is something of an experiment, a mash-up of the 3:16  verse of most books in the King James bible, wherever available.]

How are you doing?

“How are you doing?”

You  try to get an answer from flaking walls
in whose falling chips of paint you read
auguries, from open books on your lap in whose
blurring lines you squint to see
a well-meaning omen. You see nothing.
When evening falls, you realize
a day has passed. The street offers
no revelations. Its lamps wake slowly
to pin your shadow behind you. The traffic
screams at you to stay away. The sidewalk
pushes your feet up, you find you must keep
walking. Store signs smile like uncles
who can’t quite remember your name but are glad
to see you any way. A tree throws a bat
into the sky, you do not lurk in its shade.

 Later, you ask a friend. She thinks you’re
marvelous, she’s marvelous, we’re all marvelous!
You wonder what to make of that. Your face in the glass,
A scarred continent with its pockmarked plains,
its budding pimples like strip-mined barren hills,
its thin furrows like seething trenches waiting
To erupt in blood and pus. You feel the shape
Of a smile behind your lips. You say it aloud,
Marvelous! The world arranges itself around you.
Which is to say, everything stays the same.

You think you are at peace.

[Read this at an open mic last week to...a mixed response. Here's to hoping it reads better in text.]

Snapshots from the Life of a Man who must Work for a Living – 1

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