El Desperados

How desperate we are to laugh-

To chime with a can of laughter-

Exhaling nervous relief,

Reassured that it wasn't a can of worms.

A concert is over.

See you at the next one.

In the meantime

We shall continue to create and assimilate

The sweetest music ever-

Silence.

A response to the Zubin Mehta concert in Kashmir.

First published in The Kashmir Walla, February 2014.

Trade-Off

I have traded the sea of humanity for stretching deserts and sombre mountains. But I don't seem to hate them. People find ways of seeking out friendships they need in order to survive. I find myself wanting to run the back of my hand across the yearning bellies of the sand dunes and watch the grains tremble down gratefully. If I cannot be comforted and feel reassured about my importance, I have to comfort and prove myself useful. It is the same urge that makes me ache to bloom into wild flowers on the mountains and tell them with smiling eyes that being old doesn't mean new things do not like to hang out with them. I wish I could let them know. Pity. Pity.

First published in Metaphor Magazine, 17 February 2014.

The Ride before the Fall

Sweet insists on coupling sour to give that ingenuous taste; rhapsody fondly carries on its back the promise of self-ruination. The certainty of obliteration keeps the forward march on. There is just so much of this life that was worthy of living. Now a new one must be created, which can’t happen without effacing the previous. Therefore this joy in destruction. The tremors are not those of fear; the shoot trembles in trying to tear through the roof of the soil.

First published in Metaphor Magazine, 17 February 2014.

The Games We Play

No amorous play

compares

with the high engendered by flirtations with the self.

Present it with honey-dripping couplets,

brush light, feather fingers across its skin,

swear with wonder to its extraordinariness.

When it greedily begins to lap it all up, asking for more,

tease

push

prod

provoke it

to do

the scandalous

the outrageous

the ‘impossible’.

When it bites the bait,

steps outside ‘itself’

and goes on

to do what you had fed into its imagination,

go ahead,

meet it,

give it

a noisy high-five,

while it grins from ear to ear

in shy, incredulous happiness.

Then get together,

throw back your head

and laugh,

with the blood rushing to your head.

Heady, heady delight.

I hope you dance.

when you walk.

And float.

when you dance.

First published in Metaphor Magazine, 17 February 2014.

Look, over there

I wish to be the chord against a violin – to be lifted and grated against it soulfully and listen to the music I just produced. To be a magician’s assistant and be cleanly slit right through and have torso and bust come together in perfect unison. That’s what I am crying out for – to be entirely broken into atoms and feel like I am all over the universe; then to come together as a whole and feel that the whole universe is in me. And it’s so perfect and complete that I cannot dream of keeping it to myself. How can I not feel this urgent need to share it with everyone I know, and know everyone I didn’t until now, through this sharing? Especially to share with those who need to have their faiths reaffirmed in something. Especially because I could not give them something of my own and I just want to distract them for a little while by pointing out what’s already there, in and around them.

First published in Metaphor Magazine, 17 February 2014.

Cardio-Diagnosis

A heart bursting at the seams with unspeakables.

Restraining orders no good.
How can bubbles be compressed into droplets?
What the heck, then. Burst it will.

First published in Metaphor Magazine, 17 February 2014.

Quarter-Life Crisis

when the years 

spent

in 

making

frantic

efforts

at

self-realization

finally begin

to throw up

results

that show you

are so full of

stuff and nonsense

that 

to make

an altogether new

you

you

need

to begin

a-new

beginning

to

start

all

over

a-gain

First published in Altpoetics, 3 February 2014. Inspired by Mani Rao's poetry.

Roman Holiday

They were accosted on the gondolas of Venice,

The honeymooners, and asked, ‘Why must you love, if you please?’

They hemmed and hawed, made much ado

And then decided to do as Romans do,

Finally declaring, ‘Let it suffice, O Rome,

That we think of each other when we think of home

And if the home and the heart live together

It means we have homes everywhere.’

First published in Altpoetics, 3 February 2014.

Fillers

Interlinked fingers

A face buried in the hollow of a neck
Lips tracing the meanders of an ear
The swirl of a tongue around a navel

An embrace erases the gap between arms
An entry swallows up the chasm between legs

For love is all about filling the void

.As is sex

.First published in Altpoetics, 3 February 2014