A Friend's Visit

Like a reminder of my lost world
she came

All the way

Forenoon was music time
A new picture emerged
as music released memories
of her lost world

of a little mallu girl in Borneo
peeping through her window
watching people dance
in the forbidden world
as Frank and Nancy Sinatra crooned
‘Something Stupid’

She enjoyed my biriyani
which was not my best
Then from the beach
we watched the sea
philosophizing

And then she said
‘Confront yourself
how long can you hide from yourself?
Your tete a tete with death
write it down
all of it”

True, I told myself
all of us have a tale to tell
but do I want to tell mine?

She left by the evening train

I was touched.
Coming all the way
just to see me

‘Tell your story’
her words kept coming back to me
To be rid of them niggling at my brain
I started my story

Mirage

Infinite possibilities
Of childhood and youth
Create castles.
Archtectured fun.
Where are they?

Vanished without a trace
In a moment that eludes memory.

Furrowing to release
The silver flashes
From the suffocating heap
Of restrictions and pain.
Where are they?

Vanished without a trace
In a moment that eludes memory.

Wallowing in the mire
Clinging to sanity
And dignity – or trying to
The lurking suspicions
Grow into tangible shapes.

Why this torture
Of vanishing dreams?

Atlassa

They keep apart
Heaven and earth
Twixt twenty five
And fifty five

Neither young
Neither old
Neither man
None to care

Gritting and baring
Frustrated teeth
Blamed and exploited
Poor milch cow

She’ll never shrug
Fearing the chaos
The tortured blades.
They couldn’t care less.

Did Rand get the sex wrong?

Deshamsham / 10%

Good people all
They buy up land
‘Cos land is gold
And gold is all

Good people all
They buy up land
Here on earth
And there in heaven

Just ten percent
Of life’s earnings
Will fetch you land
In the world to come

That ten percent
That magic po(r)tion
Alchemises
Ill-gotten wealth

Hungry mouths
Naked penury
Made worthwhile
By deposit eternal

Meanwhile

Jesus Christ
Lord of love
Turns and turns
In his grave

The Missing Artefacts

In my saner moments i think i must be mad

Mind-boggling philosophies that'd dethrone Nietzche
Shed blood at the altar of paradigms.

No hoax, this sacrifice.

Clinging to roots that clutch
And to the steel bar with a toe on the footboard
While eyes dart frantically
Now the clock, now the milk about to spill over,
Now the name boards on the superfasts.
Wincing at the ‘over’ signal
Of the BPL washing machine,
Jumping out of the skin
At the whistle of the pressure cooker.

Seismic rumblings erupt and flow
Into shapeless scorching lava.
No moulds to trap the molten flow
Into Artefacts.

Words fail.

In my saner moments I think I must be mad.

Written on July 11, 1994

Mother Earth

Feel not honoured
That the planet is allotted our sex.
Be not proud
Of that unchivalrous equation.

Trod upon
Spat upon
Shat upon
Desecrated
With chemicals and sputum
Denuded and polluted
He claims she's the epitome
Of patience
And endurance
And tolerance.

Beware
She has warned.
Let quakes and cancers
Viruses and droughts
Be heeded.

OR

All hell'll break loose.