The last photograph

You break into pieces
When you fall to the ground
From the picture on the wall,
Separated from the memory
that tied you down.
You fly, riding on the wings
Of your guardian angel,
Miles away from your last photograph
Taken with me(beside you),
Moments before you crossed
Into the light.

Night

Bare, you move your eyes over me
Like the first rays of morning
Caressing the fresh green grass.

Bare, I covet those unknown lands in you,
Those tiny lanes and pathways
I was too afraid to cross.

Bare, you lie down for me
And I find home in your arms.

I bathe in clear waters of your bare chest,
Twiddling with the little black weeds
That shine in the light of my dim eyes.

Bare, your skin and veins become tender
Unlike the masculinity of the day.

Bare, shapely, vulnerable,
Your silhouette reminds me of
The rim of a half-moon
I saw from my fantastical window.
Your pineapple cheeks,
Apple ears,
The lean nose-ridge,
The highways of your neck
Drive me down
Into the night.

Naked

Naked,
You’ve shed the clothes of fallacy—
the coats of conditioning,
the shirts of societal norms,
the pants of sexual suppression,
the ties of bogus human bonds
and now you stand naked.
Prepared to be judged
for the shape of your nipples
and the size of your genitals.
Criticized for your courage
to reveal the nooks and corners of your torso.
Ostracized for your freedom
from the illusive undercover world.
Uncovered,
undressed,
stripped,
unprotected,
exposed—
free from vanity.

Show me the way

Sitting with a friend,
staring at the blues,
looking at life
from the bandstand view.
Looking for a chance
to sing and dance,
looking for that one moment
to sweep me away.
Feeling like a tiny piece
in the big puzzle of life
and blowing with the wind
of many directions.
Feeling stuck on a treadmill,
I run without covering the distance.
Waiting on you to come by
so I can follow you up there.
Show me the way
when right doesn’t feel quite right.
Show me the way,
when I lose the spirit to fight.
Show me the way
when night disguises as day.
Show me the way
When the blacks turn to grey.

Squirrel

Lying safe in a bark hole,
using my poems the way
a squirrel would its tail.
Making do with plant buds
of small, simple words in time of spring.
And feeding on someone else’s ideas when faced with hunger.
For then I won’t have to migrate to keep alive
because I love to scurry around familiar territory,
discovering every new tree for a new story
and every piece of ground for nuts.
And I wish, so wish that on rainy mornings
I could snuggle in my own fur
of books, movies, music and tea, and
never have to leave my drey for inspiration.
June 28, 2009

Arrangement

I place a piece of banana
Beside a drop of honey
Repeat the lines a hundred times.
With every count I wonder
Is this really me?

I pose for pictures
In the evening light
Trying to smile my true smile
I try red,
pink, brown and white
In the end I wonder
If all this is even right.

I word my qualifications,
My likes and my dislikes
As if hunting for a job,
And hiring at the same time.
Stating my good points
Leaving the bad ones out,
I attempt to sell myself,
Sell out to the business of life.

Why would I want to be with someone
Who’d want me not for me
But for what I reveal of myself
And what I promise to compromise?
But I go on
because everyone else is!
And you’ve got to fall in line.
You’ve got to be happy
With the norms of an ideal life.
Desperate, with every passing month—
As if you marry or you die!

Don’t wear your glasses
Click one in a salwar,
Smile and be decent,
Don’t tell you drink
And don’t reveal all.
Oh, you’re short, look for a 5.5 footer ,
Oh, you are old, try for someone older.
Oh, you are dark, forget the fair guy,
Oh, and you’re a fool
Fooling yourself.

But I’m running late
I need to meet the next candidate
At a coffee shop or for dinner.
And seek a connection born out of the mind
But wonder if he’s going beyond
the clothes, the salary,
And adjusting with family.
Then I meet the next one.
And question myself,
“Why am I even here?”
Then I meet another
Who has no idea what he’s looking for.
Then another who asks,
“What are your hobbies?”

And then I run, run fast
And hide away this feeling
Of utter despair
at being forced to find love
Over an arrangement—
An arrangement of convenience.

worms

Little worms creep,
crawling out from tiny holes
an apology for a snake.
Longing for that one drop
they cross over
the death-like stupor to wake.
But the gaint world, unable to fathom
your lilliputian hopes
pushes you to the brink
of a shameless escape.

Language

I try to mumble
but my broken tongue and paralysed lips
fail.
Can every emotion find its way
into the world of words?
A world with confused grammar,
punctuated sentences
and organised paragraphs—
from one chaotic world into another.
Tangled up in the “rules”,
I try but the wild insane overflow
of feelings speaks in tongues
alien to you
and powerless against the wall
you build around your senses.
I wish you could fly you blind
strands with stray dreams
and build a nest inside
the heart of the one
who can’t understand
the language of love.

Fool

Singing the song of a romantic hero
struck by the cupid of a mushy film,
he imagined of love and its expression
under a European countryside sun
in the company of a hundred Russian dancers
jumping in joy like insane lovers.

He transported himself to a snow-clad mountain
with his skimpily-clad shivering woman.
Then to dancing and grooving in the rain,
in the city’s deserted tiny lanes
his sexy siren drenched, moving in a wet sari.
He fell into the joy of a cliched love story.

He spread out his arms
full with flamboyant charm
and mouthed lines to invisible music.
He gyrated and threw some pelvic thrusts
to shaking hips and heaving busts.

He let go of his same old boring life
with his regular so-not-starlike wife.
And went back to slow motion running
(Lalalaa..la..laa..lalalaa..la..laa)
His wife’s hair flying in winds unseen—
a fool in love with the silver screen.

I said go

I said go.
But you could have stayed.
You knew the midnight moon
Was calling you to wrap
Your light around my night
Untill the ray of a new day.
But you left
Leaving my hand in hesitation
And kissing me good night
Yet another time.
One more incomplete moment
added to the hundred
Moons you saw from my curtained window
Lying in my arms.
And still you leave me behind,
Once again, to count my blessings,
Wishing you’d know
That everytime I said go,
I meant please don’t.

Celebritisation

The beauty queen-
she married a tree.
It's regressive, but freaky!

That hunk
in a yellow trunk
is sleeping around
I smell a scandal!

Here's what I really love to read,
the thing that makes for headlines-
Reality TV show wannabe,
the pin-up boy's infidelity,
the item girl's fashionable tights,
Married star's bedroom fights,
A gay director's sleeping partners
A fatso actress's slimming orders,
A smoking star's self-glorification,
An infidel socialite's clarification.

I, the voyeur,
the lover
of the rich and famous.
I'm obsessed
with aspiration;
giving into
celebritisation.

CRY

Indu Anto,
16,
poisoned.
"I have failed."

Abraham Biggs,
19,
drug overdose,
"I hate myself and I hate living."

B Govardhan,
18,
cut wrist.
"I was ragged and humiliated"

Rucha,
19,
hangs,
"No one loves me."

Pressure,
disillusionment,
false idea of joy.

Depression,
impatience,
loss of love.

Fear,
and the loss of love for life
cry of teenage suicide.

The soul cries
the cry for help.