Cinderella

Did you realize we shut the lights
Long before it was midnight
And prostituted our souls to each other  
Conveniently forgetting semantics because
Once it is midnight
We're going to pay.

Love is Growing Fat Together

There was casual separation
And a stiffness to their position
A sense of awkwardness to their expression
And surreptitious glances of hesitation.

He was going to say something,
But then,
There was something else that would have been interrupted.
She was going to say something,
But then,
There was more meaning to silence.

But for the sake of convention,
And conversation's sake,
Some action had to be made.
So they glanced at their menus
Two strangers on a date.
Call it serendipity, or simply fate-
But the first thing they said
Together, was, "Blueberry cheesecake".

Six years down the line
Amidst the clattering of china and glass
An abstract pattern of white camellias,
The husband and wife looked away,

But when it came to vows of forever
They glanced at each other
And smiled, knowing no words needed to be said
After six years of regular blueberry cheesecake.

6th May, 2014

What Love Should Be Like

I need you to understand

That I may move out suddenly

From the bed

At 3 AM like

A word I had been hunting down

Had returned to me

And I will offer you no preamble

Nor let you ascend the solitary train

That goes where greater forces force it to

But simply say, 'I need poetry.'

I will describe the exact specie of the poem

And look at you, hungrily, almost Electra-like in my desperation

And you can Google a poem if you like

And read it out to me groggily,

And that would be enough to let me sleep for the night.

But I would want to hear you whisper a name

Like it was permanently lodged in your memory

Even if it had nothing to do

With my particular specie.

I will smile at you

Offer no epilogue

And sleep again.

It was not poetry I needed

But the knowledge that if I did need it

Even at,

Especially at,

3 AM

Your voice would be enough.

Three Verses on Lingering and an Epilogue on Not.

'I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
and that necessary.'

I am walking home.
The heat has burnt me
Like an incense stick
If you will
Believe that I lack any palpable scent
Nor am I that that fleck of food
Stuck between your teeth
Leaving a bitter after taste.
But I have been split from home
Leaving a ghost in my absence.
They'll call out my name
And mid-word; stop and shake their heads.
I am a word
Referred to in third person.
As if euphemisms are to pain
What condoms are to sex.
Protection.

I am wearing a new pair of pants today.
Mannequins wear no expression
Yet whisper, 'Come hither'.
From now on, when I am attracted to depression,
I will think of mannequins.
When you put your hands into a bowl of water,
Science predicts they will look different
They are still the same.
I have bathed in so many kinds of water
4 AM, Holy, Tap, Chlorinated, Toxic
You'd think something would change.
You can put the best clothes on mannequins
But they wouldn't know, they wouldn't care.
They are still the same.

I am making my own pasta.
When I envision myself, it is always in third person
Like eye is divorced from I
And like eye c I better than anyone else possibly could
See
I mean, better as in
Better version
Like I was white and put into a pot and simmered until I turned into alien colours
And if you weren't there to see it
You wouldn't know if I've eaten.






Epilogue
'Tell me a story.'
'You're beautiful.'

Anatomy of an End

Come away then,
Because I do not know how
Else we say goodbye
Except tearing limb from limb
And letting limb come away from limb
And even then there are
Phantom limbs.  

Vaguely lit half lit dusk lit
Faces
Phantom faces
Are like the irritating redness
Of closing your eyes shut
Sprawled beneath the light,
Defeated by the sun.
The redness that punctuates the blackness like
You can know no single thing
For even your lonely will be broken in
By period shaped blood.

When you lie down on your bed
Do you press yourself against it to see
How much can be swallowed up
How much can be emptied
And do you try to make every part
That tries to maintain contact
Silence itself and become numb
Dumb?

I can see you still
Like you aren't a phantom limb
But a definite solid breathing
Living thing
And I know where your body turns in and out
And where it remains so straight
That I could conjure you out of nothing.









I try drawing a smile
On a fogged up window pane.  
I draw the anatomy of an end.

Old Music

Secrecy is a potent thing.
A secret kept well can develop into
A radioactive toy that some inner mechanism
Topples and turns all the time
Willing it to fall
And destroy.

Secrecy is a potent
Thing
Because there are things that
Are kept by you well enough
To make your veins question
Whether they are as reliable.
And when veins enter into that
Level of self-doubt
Blood will flow.

Secrecy is a
Potent Thing.
Your heart will keep one idea
Experience/Feeling/Thought/Idea/
Song/Dance/Poem/Memory
And/Or Something
That it will be highly selfish about
Selfish enough to not part with it
Not let it flow out
Not let it escape into words that
Have the potential to be recorded,
Even if only,
In the universe.    

Secrecy is
A Potent Thing.
Freud dissected the mind into
Unconscious
Preconscious
Conscious
And gave Freudian Slips a chance to slip from top to bottom
And reveal what is it that you want.
Really want.
But some secrets aren't slips.
Some secrets are entire essays
Called Autobiographies
That you wouldn't speak out
For the fear of giving it/you
The importance it deserves.

Secrecy
Is a Potent Thing
You uncover yourself in Past Things
That the world hid in alcoves
It forgot to              
Remind you of    
Like Something you forgot you once heard
Like Something that wasn't loved
Like Something that draws parallels between
Who you are and Who you were.

And secrets can be hidden in deepest darkest alcoves
Of places you think
You'll never remember to search
But it'll come flooding in
Catch you,
Half part known, half part disarming
And if you're lucky,
Maybe you'll learn to love
Potent things.

Limitless

"I thought we were limitless."
"We are, we are. In present tense."

*
When winter came
And lingered, smitten with the scent
Of all that makes unfathomable sense,
I waited, feeling the heavy weight
Of atmosphere
And hollowness.

Doorsteps are never easy places to be in.
They signal at half-life, half-lights
And a question mark-shaped sky;
A punctuation mark to
That overpowering, uneasy thought,
"I wonder if I can knock that door tonight."

Folded sheets.
Half-made, half-anguished retreats
Into constant, callous dreams-
Maybe under a printed sky,
I'll fathom out the night
That borrows its liquidity
From your eyes. 

*
"I thought we were limitless."
"We are, we are. In some sort of sense."

*
Technically, a minute is sixty seconds long
But some minutes are longer than others.
That sort of discrimination 
Is born in only some desperate sort of
Anticipation
And you know what is truly desperate
If you've stood with your hands in your pocket
In silent, suffering, limitless wait.

I know the limitlessness of thirty seconds
Can be equated with an infinity of patience
Of watching, hoping, wishing
That you'd turn to see
The limitlessness that comes sealed
In a minute of watching you 
And being me.

*
"I thought we were limitless. "
"Well. Yes."

*
I like our limited conversations.
They entail nothing, contain nothing
And the greatest inventions were born out of
Nothing.
Except, of course,
Wishful thinking. 

I happen to know a lot of words with d, 
Having Dissected, Dismantled and Defragmented
Every conversation we've ever shared
And on finding nothing to them,
Another d-word:
Despair.

*
"I thought we were limitless."
"Yeah. I guess."

*
When summer came
And shook its flower bracelet
Right into my face,
I realized sunlight had me handcuffed-
Today had to be the day. 

"I don't like doorsteps!"
There are some words that mark a threshold to new beginnings
There are some phrases that are make the greatest openings.
There are some thoughts that go unnoticed
Even if there is a whole crowd listening.
There are some sentences that
Become ink-written on heavy paper
Because no one realizes the desperation they came in
Until much later. 

And no one will hear, no one can hear,
Unless they've seen that same fear
Staring, wide-eyed at them, 
In the mirror. 

So I walked up and said,
"I don't like them either."

*
"I thought we were limitless"
"We were. In ... past tense."

*
There are some diagrams
That you can never forget
Because pictures have secrets
That make insomniacs of men
Who wonder if they ever will be
The drawing of the most complicated kind-
A straight line
Which is to say,
Whether they will ever be
Limitless. 

Our diagram,
Was a circle.

*
"I thought we were limitless."
"I... have something to say."

*
The first thing I ever said
Right after you knew
Of all my anticipation, all my wait, 
"I'd always hoped we would be like a line."
"Like a line?"
"A line. Limitless."
Silence. 
"Are we?"
"What?"
You repeated.
"Are we going to be limitless?"
I smiled.
"We are. We are. In present tense."

*
"Why don't you like doorsteps?"
"They embody ... indecisiveness."
She smiled and said,
"You know why I don't like them?"
"Why?"
"Once you've crossed them, 
You don't know whether the place is always
Going to be the same."

*
It wasn't the same.

*
There are some diagrams
That can never be made
Because those pictures are people
Who lend the liquidity to the night
From the listlessness of their eyes
And they are the drawings of the most complicated kind-
Alive;
Which is to say,
Everything but
Limitless.

Love exists,
In anticipation. 

*
"I thought we were limitless."
"I want to separate."

*
Doorsteps are never easy places to be in
The signal at banging open that which 
Locked itself shut
And an echoing silence,
The wordless timpani to
That overpowering, uneasy thought,
"What has she locked inside?"

*
The last thing you ever said
Right after you knew
Of my love for d-words, was
"I don't like doorsteps!"
Ink-written on heavy paper
Because I hadn't realized the d-word, Desperation,
They came in
Until much later. 

*
"I thought we were limitless"
- Funeral-sized silence.-

The Dilemma

I suppose there is no reprieve
From the anarchy of the two polemics
Within me.

But had I wanted them to stop
I woulf have exercised control
But the dilemma is,
I rather like the divisive politics
Of my soul.

Lesser

Did we let ourselves
Fall into old patterns
That seemed alien to us
Once
Once, very long ago?

Did you stop to think
Before you leaped into the wilderness
That disillusionment
Guaranteed?
Or did you tilt that teacup
A little more to yourself
Than a younger self's
Younger mother
Would consider
Appropriate? 

Did you even wait
Until time could soften
That firm resolve
Like a chicken
Marinated in its own fluids
Or did you choose to offer
Your legs, thighs, breast
To make an identity of
Yourself?

Did you want an expected 
Penny under your pillow
Or maybe ten
But had no teeth to give
So you gave up your soul
In exchange?

Were you more
Were you lesser
Were you half a pint
Fitting into a thimble
Test tube baby of
Generation This.

Were you more
Were you lesser
Were you made-in-China
With a sticker to make you
Authentic?

Were you more
Were you lesser
In the past tense
Secretly making big plans
For a future self?

You were nothing,
Insignificant,
Nothing, then.
But at least you were
Firecracker
Maybe you were defective,
But now you're 
Lesser
And you can't live again. 

River

(This is a really old poem, which I'd forgotten about, but was reminded of by a co-conspirator, and my constant crisis situation supporter. Thought I might put it up. Cheers! :) )

A river of the shade of azure
Flows near by, near the dark moor.
Long have I known this engaging beast 
And seen it change for men of sparring histories. 

A tuneless timpani in the backdrop.
A raging savage descending from the hilltop. 
An ascetic's unravelling epiphany.
A necklace beneath the crepuscular moonbeam. 

The river whispers its thoughts of clandestine, 
To the epimorphic rays born of the divine. 
But I have seen it sell its true enigma
To a soulless, world less traveller. 

A sinless, singular stretch of blue.
A captivating nymph, dancing beneath the moon. 
A devious, scheming train of thought.
A safe haven for the enactment of a fatal plot. 

On the bank of the river which flows beyond the Viridian creek, 
Is where I saw her, tied tight and incapable of speech. 
Torn and broken, two specks of nothingness held my gaze 
As I watched, silently, from the encumbering wilderness. 

A shallow and screeching piece of music.
A soul stripped and scarred of everything abusive. 
A violated shade of red, spilling on a canvas, 
A darkening river, washing away a cask of ashes. 

The river had been my home of absolute solace
For eight and a half pairs of solstices
And when I become a witness to the charade of violation, 
I was bound to return to perform the encore of silent ovation. 

A scar in the lusty summer.
A playful and gushing river.
A record playing the last strains of Spring
And the colour of dark crimson slowly mixing.

Spiral patterns formed unrestrained before my stilled sight
And I watched the giant leviathan throttle underneath the sky. 
It drowned the sound of two souls copulating, 
One breathless, the other never breathing. 

A turn of the wind.
A naked offering.
A frozen body, covered in mud,
Another gyrating, then a deadened thud. 

I watched as he cleansed his hands
And looked at the heavens, for a shower of reprimands. 
All that remained was death frozen in her eyes, 
And the sound of birds chirping titillating lies. 

A perfect body, born of mud and clay. 
A hate song of the heavens, to mark the death of another day. 
A desperate attempt to move, a plea, a pray. 
Another killer returning, in a future of directionless gray. 

Long after, I saw the contours of the eternal river 
Turn black and cobalt with shades of silver 
As I witnessed the death of another dying face, 
Raped and killed near the river, near the wilderness.

A repeat of a lost record. 
A shattered applause, for the encore. 
A lost childhood, a broken man.
Another witness and a second washing of hands. 

... A trade of souls, a binding thread. 
A place beckoning the witness of the dead. 
A retelling of a story, a photograph from before. 
A rapist found dead, drowned to the river floor. 

(2012)

The Nostalgia (prequel to 'Vintage')

I don't know if you've ever stepped back
Instead of striding purposefully forward
And stood, in a shadow
Of Insignificances
Before a black or white road.

But if you have,
You would know
Nothing on the canvas is as
Brilliant as the stationary dot
That you wouldn't have seen
Had you not known.

And the perspective omniscience grsnts you
Is more purposeful that the purposeful people

Before you.

*
Before you fell for me
You said you fell for
What you saw of me
In that
Painting of mine:

You could almost discern my figure, you said
Leaning over
Making the watery clouds
Evaporate with a smile.

I denied it
Because a smile
Was not the picture in my head
When I put my first coat of water
On the canvas.

And because the waether forecast
My professor made
Was 'melancholic',
I decided to dance along to it.

But you said
'Melancholic' has some
Sense of transparent
Nostalgia to it
And though you had never
Seen me before
You knew 'Nostalgia'
Was the 'Open Sesame'
To my soul.

*

Names are secrets
That are fashioned out of
The deepest abysses of your mind.
When you give a name
You make a transient thought
Settle permanently into
The recesses of an impermanent sky.

Think of a name as a star
That your soul found
Without any intention of
Star gazing.

Think of a name like Nostalgia
Which you attach to things
Long after they stopped remaining.

*

I named you nothing.

Because nothing moved me in that moment.
I thought of nothing whenever I would paint.
And when they asked me where my inspiration lay,
I said, "Nothing."

*

Some colours stand out
More vividly that others.
Some colours last longer
Than a few forevers.
It's a matter of perspective, they say
But I know all perspective requires
Is a bit of love and blood.

So when I made my soul
With colours that refused to be sold
I knew it was predestined
Because the only thing
Worth your soul and blood,
Is Nothing.

*

When you fell for me
You fell for melancholy
But melancholy is a
Name
Half- part bitter
And half-part sweet.
And when my professor declared it
"Melancholic:
I drew only one half,
But you fell for the half
That did not exist.

I don't know if you've ever stepped back
Instead of striding purposefully forward
And stood in a shadow
Of insignificances
Before a black or white road.

But if you have
You would have known
Sometimes it's a part
And not the whole
That is beautiful in a soul;
And if only, you had known.

And the perspective retrospection grants you
Is more nostalgic that The Nostalgia
You thought I drew.

(Here is the sequel, 'Vintage' : http://betweentheparenthesis.blogspot.in/2015/04/vintage.html )