Zen-ing

Hand-me-down molecules from
the millennia before last, each one
a prostration of the fourth dimension.

Intention is a world away from
perception. Just as you are
your own world, and I am mine.

Sixth Sense

I stand beneath streetlights
agog with fireflies who do not
know fear in their passion for light.

Molten light snaking into my lungs
while I hear exasperated nuclei
in the throes of a nicotine death,
I feel the touch of a scream on my neck -
this must be the kiss of death.

And yet, tomorrow I shall awaken
to the taste of plasticine faith,
the ultimate proof of surrender.

Surrender, to the sixth sense

Sunspot Scrolls

A resplendent shade of magic
like the first leaf of spring
tentative on the lips of a breeze.

Papyrus tales crumbling in the
ancient soil will someday form
a part of me.

Goblin fruit under marshmallow clouds
slowly filling my beer belly as I lie
on ochre grass somewhere on a sunspot.

Chartered underworld somewhere
in another galaxy stolen from the light
rules in forgetful command.

Dessicated wheatgrass on my
armlet laughs at the anklets on
the feet of a cloud, chains
extending beyond my imagination.

Discolored

And she stood there, watching,
as the faeries raped my colors.

She looked like she ate
strained turnips at every meal –
severe, spare and squally.

Her prim lips
squeezed into a face high
on economy, emerald eyes
with no reason to sparkle.

She held my vocal cords
twined around her little finger,
my brown eyes squished under
her bunny slippers.

Fleet-footed with shimmering
wings, the faeries danced across
the silhouette of a sunset
from the Iron Age.

Multihued creatures tumbled out
of her ancestral hat, a fat rabbit
out of its witch’s pointy end.

She swallowed my silence
like castor oil.

My heart doing the salsa
against my chest – it might
even have been
seductive.

My spirit in every butterfly
that ever flew in the sunshine

My mind splattered
in a thousand letters across
a page in a poet’s mind.

My body at a pinnacle
where pain married orgasms
in technicolor.

The daisies later rescued my
shades and laid them at my tomb
when it was found.

My tomb – the body
my soul resides in today.

I met her the other day.
Apparently,

All she can conjure now
is a night only she can see.

The night she killed Me.
The night, the faeries
were raping me.
The night I lost Faith.

(Untitled)

(a work in progress)

Galvanized bodies, flying sweat, doorways
too small for four but holding six.
Sighing mass of exhaustion crammed
armpit to armpit, stale perfume mingling
with perspiration and flowers falling
from gajra's in loosened chotis.

Spacelessness comes at a premium – space is
as outdated as handsewn clothes on a baby.

Assembly lines for families silhouetted
against a sky the color of an old bruise.

Indifferent little stations with straggly passengers,
a family of Rottweiler-ish street dogs.

Important stations with milling crowds,
yelling vendors, haggling customers,
the all-pervading smell of illegal fish
fresh from the Arabian Sea.

Bombil, prawn, lobster, crab -
all nourished on your own effluent
and the occasional oil spill.

Tired voices in the cacophony of
tonight's menu, nagging schools,
chilren's artwork, not-too-healthy parents-in-law,
loss of pay leave, new sarees,
flying dupattas, irregular periods, wedding plans.

Taking turns on the one available seat,
a group of working mothers.
A baby sung to sleep in a collegian's lap
while her mother relieves her tired arms.

A group of women passing out small
bottles of water to everyone. A young girl
learning to knit from her neighbor.
A drab lost-in-the-crowd face brightening up at
her first sale for the day.

Girls poring over notes on the journey home,
group study on the move, making space
for a pregnant lady, an arthritic nani-ma,
a breathless asthmatic.

The essence of humanness reaffirmed
with the only thing that counts - One Heart.

Predicting the Future

My kaleidoscope is broken.

No more will the future come in
bits of broken colored glass;
no more will you plant yourself upon
my doorstep every morning. At last, I am free.

Free to change the present.
To grieve over the past.
To dream about the future.
To merge reality of what is, with
the delight of today’s rainfall.

I’m now free of your pessimism,
your body odor, the smell of your
toothpaste, your problems, your family,
your children, your health, and that
ramp model secretary in your spouse’s office.
I need not predict her death anymore.

I will not know tomorrow’s weather;
I’d love to get wet in the rain sometime.
Or, get caught in the snow with an Adonis
without knowing the inevitable fate of our
impending break-up, so I can enjoy my
first crush, this time free of intruding thoughts.
Lose my virginity, untouched by the future.

I am free to savor every moment. Free to
experience the exhilaration of anticipation when I
open a gift, without looking for Cleopatra’s snake.
Make friends without looking for Brutus’ knife.
Live as the Lord intended us humans to be, rather than
be Caesar’s Calpurnia. I am free to live
in the present, rather than in the future.
The future is not my present anymore.