Equals

Much comes undercover in darkness, not

just the knives of knowledge splitting hard spines

open to bone white; a lifeless life still plots

its course, joins dots, fills in blanks, realigns

the needles when due, minutely adjusts

to grains of paper, grains of feelings, slopes

of steep time, the slow build up of threats, dust

storms of hope and hopelessness, it still gropes

thin lightlines, turns its fingers back to pinch

itself, its open, oozing flesh, dabs at pus

and blood, congealed velvet that makes it cringe

and turns back and goes on, hungry, listless.

Much comes in darkness, but it still goes on

presuming epiphany somehow equals dawn.

In packets of dark

Knowledge comes to me in packets of dark

always in wraps of blood, in clots of hearts,

enveloped pangs that force strange question marks

into ramrod straight, aligned like broken parts

from a meteor-flight, erased slow mo sparks,

pixel blooms of a darker black on black.

In the lightning lunge of a knife sharp truth

unseen because it comes in at the back

unfelt till it strikes skin in one smooth

movement and falls into a million cracks

the shattered baked-earth idol of a god

a minor deity in many-petalled mess

both worshipper and worshipped fractured, flawed

split in zigzag fissures of a marbled darkness.

Serene

Yellow the dried leaf in fall

yellow the hibiscus blooms in spring

golden serene the sun this dawn

and serene again at the ending

nothing serene when your come in

I have just learnt better control

the wild pulses of heart and skin

in all seasons: both spring and fall.

Draupadi now

  

Anguish burning behind skins

like flames behind colours of

see-through stone. Burning love,

exploding sparks of bush fires in

forlorn grasslands. Proud edifices of travertine

laid to desolate waste, utter ruin,

stripped to nakedness, still

dignified, untouched, tranquil.

They can set the spark

to burn my anguish, work

at trafficking every body part

fine tune rape into a performing art

strip me of every love, and each caress

they will not be able to undress

either my bodies or my souls. 

I spin my own yards of fabric rolls -

sheer, translucent pleasure, and thick pile wool

blankets of independence, shaded tulle

in colours both frivolous and grave

hopeful and despairing, timid and brave.

Every thread a fine point weapon.

They can’t have me bared, or broken.

Rage burning in leaping tongues

of a saffron flameball.  Like the young

sun shrugs off the restraining horizon,

somersaults into a wide blue freedom.

The slow burning of trust

quietly guarded small flames suddenly crushed

between callous fingers, wicks nipped

stand wisping smoke, still red tipped.

They can use their fingers, steel-cold, cruel

to nip my wicks, siphon away every fuel

that I have for happiness, pinch

off every source of joy, lay bare every inch

of flesh and bone, claw and snatch

at every covering. Still I’ll detach

from their grasp, no hand hold,

no firm grip on my bodies or souls.

I spin my own endless fabrics

in colours of alabaster and marble, jade and onyx.

In textures of silk and steel, of resolve and grief,

weaves of milky mercy, intricate loving motifs.

I spin my own immeasurable veil

the borders dark, the rest shimmering pale,

confident and free, the way it drapes

around my core and around its outer shapes.

I don’t wait for saviours, I call upon no prophets.

I am clothed in my own humanity, I cannot be stripped.

Draupadi is a character in the Indian epic Mahabharata, her husbands' enemies' attempt to publicly disrobe her is foiled by Krishna who answers her call for help. He makes her garment endless, and her attacker tires of trying to pull it off her.  This event is one of the triggers leading into the climax of the Kurukshetra war.

Out at the inn

The choice’s never between you who pour

and what you pour, that specific wine

how chilled the ruby red depths of colour

the fruit plucked off which pedigree vine

and in the graft of sweet on strong and sour

if the stock and scion correctly combine;

and I reckon it’s perhaps a little more

than the curve of spout and its scrolled incline.

The doors beckoned, and I didn’t bother

what’s inside - the inn is also a shrine;

you pour the glasses, I pass the hours

weaving your smile into my verse and lines.

Suppose I had knocked at some other door

at a different turn enticed by different signs,

no doubt the hands seen there would still feel yours

the roof and walls equally feel like mine

it’s no mistake, but all that’s here on offer

this tray of glasses in some random design

are these a choice, or is it all written before?

no matter; in the end both will turn out fine.

In Memoriam

I know when I open the door

the rooms will be empty, and dusty.

Their dust has long been scattered, washed

from the river into the sea;

there’s just the photo on the wall.

I know that I must turn the key,

yet I stop and raise my hand to knock

as though someone still waits for me.

The streetlamp in front sputters and glows

unsteady in some Morse like code.

A car’s long hand on the horn

skims down from the end of road,

the silence inside screams once, and twice

and then goes into rustling mode.

I turn the knob, the portrait is there

just that it's a bit more yellowed.

The light’s a whisper of the dark -

the frizz of smoke blown from its lips.

Silk thin shadows their edges blurred,

a sunmoonstar in reversed eclipse;

the dust a plume of a lonely search

paused before some rambling scripts

and death’s life with its grim mouth pursed

drumming the silence with fingertips.

Splash

the moon has sucked its belly in

a wisp of white thread and thin

did you look up at it in the sky

and for just a moment imagine

the same splash of space as I did

like a silent sigh of sound, fluid,

invisible, feather-cool and dry,

a grain of rice carved slow and languid.

Is that a rose?

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen
and waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

                        ~  Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Thomas Gray.

In the front yard, a plain hibiscus blooms;

the rose’s glamour is on show at the back.

The gardener does not enter my rooms

he knocks, and I open the door a crack.

The guests wipe their feet on the front door mat

but the hibiscus twists shut by then;

it’s a simple short-lived, no-perfume format

rather like a pebble in the garden;

a pebble splashes only when it drops

a few ripples and the surface is blanked;

the rose meanwhile preens its bushy red mop

the closed hibiscus lies wholly outranked.

But just the gardener and I see the shows

if no-one sees it bloom, is it still a rose?

The Teacher's Fee : Excerpt

Eklavya’s not quite a hero, a bit player

many like him in that ancient epic

a one-off conflict, a scene here or there

and promptly dismissed in a casual flick.

How does that justify writing long odes

the complex crafted lyrics, line by line

moving glass beads of sounds on an abacus?

all praise’s for demigods

why should anyone carefully realign

the praise towards a mere man with so much fuss?

The quality of steadfastness is rare

rare indeed the mind which has the intrinsic

strings in place to wing it on a prayer

with a statue overseeing his technique

his aim and skills, all arrows straight, all lines toed

and stand fast at payback time and not decline

the cruel fee: his weapon arm made useless.

Admit it. It was odd -

that a Master should spot the statue at the shrine

and gauge the pupil with an eye this ruthless.

Ghazal 25

Pour a glass with those hands of yours, my love

Pour it and let things take their course, my love

The muezzin has just given the midnight call

But few men prostrate on the floors, my love

Some turn east, some west, some look to the stars

but my compass is at your doors, my love

Whatever’s poured gets a rim of froth and foams

even when the best of them pours my love

So you too will fill the glass with emptiness

half headiness and half remorse, my love

The night’s a barbed flash of long blue lightning

and the earth burns its bridges and mores, my love

Not one properly teardrop-shaped

Perhaps the matches were damp, steadfast flames

didn’t burn in teardrop shapes, the ones I lit

sputtered, went out, and I never could claim

perfect mastery over fire, or matchsticks.

There was no moving warmth, except the burn –

fierce in my pot,  but that was more like acid,

salt sharp, shrivelling – it took years to learn

that only certain fires warm relationships.

The ones I struck fluttered the wrong colour

saffron and not crimson, blue and not brick

if they caught at all, burnt lower and duller

the spectrum just not mainstream attractive.

But they’re also fine. This salt being a misfit.

Flames that burn short. Alone. And damp matchsticks.

Recipe

Do this now, with a great amount of care,

split the pod of this body and expose

the nuclei that have passed for my mind -

(I’m not so sure of the immortal soul)

flick a nail down the line of join and tear

the kernels like plump peas into a bowl

prop the shell against a surface, because

all said and done, no pea is quite designed

to be without its shell, dangling from - what?

so keep the cover handy, though aside;

press the plumpness between index and thumb

or spin it in a tunnel in deep earth

centrifuge it, then see what you can spot.

I’ll bet the shell, for whatever little it’s worth

that nothing poetry can be teased and spied

no fancy love slime dredged up from the crumbs.

Amazement does not leave a single trace

and blasé curdles nothing in the blood

it throbs or plummets once, and it is done;

split the shell and spin the nuclei

search fibres in the guts and in the face

crack straight backbones and slipped discs of the eye

and still there will be nothing, not a shred

however fast the particles are spun.

The leaves that I have turned, the paper thin

beams that vaulted over cobbles of dawns

the jewelled dew scattered on dead grasses

monsoon rain-misted roofs and mountaintops -

nothing remains under or on the skin;

a purple pulse might quicken, but then stops,

resumes its sedate beat, wonder passes,

so does boredom, both froth of pheromones.

Take the pods, unravel every helix;

and split the hair as fine as it can stand;

gaze into the bamboo hollow navel;

dissect each limb till you are satisfied;

and still you will find nothing in the mix -

how smiles and tears were made to coincide.

Deep into the subatomic level

rung by rung, climb down into the grand

atrium of the heart and the great dome

where bare-arsed, bare-fanged, famished nightmares pace

along the walls, chafe in their prison cells

and fringed dreams swish like stiff, curled mongrel tales.

Go over it all with a hound’s tooth comb

the froth and spit and fluids, each detail

and then put back the halves, close the pod, and tell

me what kind of love rhyme is in my face?

Themed in the next one

You know I tried many times to write to themes

parenting, jobs, sex, cities and such, but words

won’t be segregated – love and sorrow, dreams

defy limits, don’t agree to be bordered,

resist the lures of heavy grammage and gild,

spill across in slurps of untidy noise

billowing emotions, but still iron-willed;  

so I gave up, mustered whatever poise

I could in that messed-up meaningful wild

and wrote and left, tail between my pens, or keys

more often than not nowadays, my brain child

turned out to be less mine, scrolled memories

of verses, blown out feelings like popped balloons,

radio voices babbled over party spoons.

Loveweak III

love me as though you’ve loved and lost before -

unzip me along my backbone, undo

and smooth down the silk of flesh and sinew

love me as though you could not love me more

love me like it is your very first time

as though you’ve never loved, nor suffered loss

as if love does not fade, it only grows

untainted by grief, supreme and sublime

love me as if we’ve neither been heartsore

disrobe me of these outer skin membranes

splay me open and kiss the pulsing veins

school yourself for the scars you will ignore

or love me as if the wounds that were once mine

were meant as gifts for you, my valentine