Saturday, February 19, 2005
Icebox of stuff I like
Send me the kind of winter I like
The kind that layers my breath with fog
Courier all the stuff that falling orange leaves are made of
Buy stamps worth eleven bucks this Wednesday
And stick them on to the paper of memory
Thump it well so it wouldn't come off
And mail it to me
ASAP
Pigeons, Sparrows and even Crows will do
But Humming birds I'd really like
If they happen to scratch your surface
Admonish them but after a while
Or send them back in a locked box of ice
Elements
This is the body that I live in
My skin…my flesh…my bones
My hair and my nails…
All of them are parts of a plethora of elements
My body is due to each one of them
There will come a day when this body will be overdue
And then two loving bodies in another time
will take a loan of happiness from the Elements again
Another sun's rays will deliver me to you
You will find me waving from the crowd
Again after a few lifetimes
I will raise my hand and wave to you
You must recognise me in that moment
You must not forget.
Anything
Monk
You could ask me
Why the compulsive expressionism?
And why the hunger to speak on my behalf?
Why should I be so hungry all the time to taste
Taste the very blood that love and life is?
Eat the flesh of my circumstance and receive every moment
with reverence that only a monk has
The monk who happens to be a thousand years old and one
I could tell you several of my reasons
One being that my expression is the reverence
of that thin old monk who survives on it
The joy of my expression is what he has been meditating for
A thousand years and one
You could ask me
What do you want of me?
I could tell you to revere my expression of joy
And bask in it
Search
What is it that one searches for?
Like a cold desert wind tiny words chill your bones for no reason at all..
You live in the cracking paint of indifferent walls of a home that isn't really there at all…
You just imagined it because you would have liked for it to be real…
You need to have a definition all of a sudden, they tell me that there is a gargantuan thing called an identity and it's made up of several things that one can list down as matter of factly as the grocery list that you might have made as a matter of the day's course…
Let's talk about the first thing that anyone will ask you
- Are you gainfully employed?
Yes that is one of the things that paints the picture that everyone else in this world is supposed to identify you with…
What is the point?
The point is success? Now is it?
Is it the fact that you are supposed to be this person doing all the right things at all the right times and doing it at the satisfaction of everyone that you know and happen to have the good fortune of knowing…
What do you want to do?
Right now at this moment…
REALLY what would you rather be doing?
Would you rather be some place in the past or may be some place in the future… anywhere but here like the movie title goes … and they will tell you that you are supposed to be living in the present all the time… I wonder why? What is the great mystery of having to live in the present and what is the great compulsion to do so for that matter. Why the guilt when you take time to sleep just for the sole purpose of having a dream that is so bizarre and unreal that it beats the daily reality of life any day….
What is the point?
The point is survival? Now is it?
To live is to eat everyday and make sure that your heart beats regularly and you get enough sleep and exercise…hmmm … one wonders about that, now if that's what it's all about then why do I need to have new shoes so badly? Do I need them or is it the picture, the unfinished picture of me that needs those shoes
Those shoes that are preferably with high heels like the one some vague image of a supermodel wears or the kind that one sees on women with 22 inch waists, you don't wear shoes because of your waist now do you? But it's better when they are supporting a 22-inch waist… right?
And then another time you may be in the trap of doing what it is that you would have been doing had you not been in the so called ' middle classness of life' that's a phrase someone I know uses ever so often and he gets me to wonder… is it really the mosquitoes and the stench that make you want to leave a place? Isn't it always the people that want to make you want to pack your bags. Isn't it the fact that you would rather not be in a situation that needs you to be in a state of permanence of any sort because there is the monster of boredom waiting at the other end of the rainbow.
So what would you want to do. Leave one piece of earth to go to another one and then begin the search for that elusive 'quality life and quality time'? What? What? What? What is it that you really want to do, no matter how many times you ask yourself that and no matter how many times you get an answer…. You will never have one that might satisfy you completely…. Simply because you are growing yes growth that indecency is growing in the physicality of your being.
Growth is that process which makes your skin stretch and your mind run faster than your skin is stretching till the time that they can't keep up with each other and that may either result in the state of ' unwell' Unwell will be in the beginning of the physical kind till it begins to affect the ends of your nerves and such things. After the nerves have been corrupted you will in all probability die and that would not be so bad cause then you could go to heaven or hell and ask another question like
What is the point?
It's the same thing you see… this never gets over and it never leaves you … you just grow and then you die and then you grow some more and then you come back as a cow and you wonder why are these strange two legged people insist on depriving my child of the milk that's meant for him and then killing me for food when they could have had potatoes and coke instead.
What is the point?
Arms of heaven
Beethoven's attic
“Come take a look at my attic!” He said
There are some very old treasure chests
Buried in these dark sloping walls
Some of the Dolls still remember how to smile
Some hooks are still on the walls though unoccupied
Some furs and pictures of animals we loved
The whole place still leaks
You’ll get used to the smell
A square window still talks incessantly
Of all the children who went by
In a span of a hundred years
Come around once in a while
I saw this poem before actually writing it while listening to Beethoven... one of the most satisfying experiences ever.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Soul of his piano
It looks around carefully like a hare in the woods
My hands can hit the right keys on the paper
He’s writing my destiny with the Piano of his soul
It rains Pianos on my windowsill
The curtain of Roses flutters on my windowsill
I stand inside my sheer white dress and brown shoes on my windowsill
Right behind me he plays the soul of his Piano
And he makes it run through my heart
He’s running down the hill finally just to stop
He’s touching the memories of my cheeks so cold
He explains to me the soul of his Piano
He touches my skin with the light of his Piano
He does this to me…
He does this to me every night of these days
They colour all my pages black... his relentless Pianos
He goes up the spirals and beckons me to follow his trails
He makes me wait just long enough
He takes his bow...
and then once again...
he begins
Horizon's womb
That has never existed…
I come to you my love..
From the womb of sand underneath the sea
I have been delivered by the waves Into your life…
I’m here if you could hear my skin.
From the castaway rooms of your memory
My life is being lived these days
I’m here if you can remember what my eyes looked like last year.
Will you love me like the womb that I came from…
And remember all my colours?
Or may be if you sometimes forget you will cause me to be erased
From the cement in this city…
This poem is probably the only one which c ame to me when I wasn't sitting down to write... I was walking towards the beach and the first few lines took shape... it's written for Anshuman my husband who works ever so hard to keep the Mrs. happy. Thank you!
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Unsung songs on Sundays
And then there are days of endless cups of warm tea
Of sleeping in the arms of a cozy Sunday
Of having seven drops of rain on my lips
Of having a vision in your mind of silver
Of allowing the roughness of an old sweatshirt to touch your skin
Of watching airplanes above the clouds
Of three flyovers and several fast trains
Of careful reading of the cards of fortune
Of knowing warnings and pleasures
Of songs forbidden to be sung
Monday, February 07, 2005
Gizmo
I kept him for a few months and we loved each other... then I had to be away from home for work and he was miserable... I couldn't keep him so I left him away from the house... he came back to our neighbour's house and they brought him home... finally I found the brood that he was born with in another building... the building people were taking care f the other puppies and the mother was also there... so one night I left him there and for a while he just sat on his hindlegs and stared at me... I knew and he knew... he made it easy for me... he just turned around and walked away... this time he didn't come back.
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Nothing in particular
Here are a few lines with which the film ends...
Today at this time in life you sit with your tears behind your eyes, your voice behind your tongue, your head hurts, your eyes hurt... you must have forgotten to drink water as usual.
So many people have walked through the alleys of your mind, so many have strayed into the cubicles of your heart that your memory walks out on you saying, " When are you leaving? "
Cooking loneliness
One day may be one day
We will write an anthology of loneliness
We will define it in great detail
We will break it apart and may be even analyse it
We will discover the roots of it
In the eyes of someone lovable
You will find it in their minds
You will find your loneliness
Reflected through many windows…
It will look back at you
From the glass outside large shops
From the chair in front of a computer screen
From a sofa that sits next to you
One day may be one day
We will find loneliness…
Hanging from a broken telephone chord…
We will buy it off the shelf..
Pay for it with credit card love
Chop it up finely
And cook it well