Letter to the Tattoomaker

Ink me a scar

O, designer of pain.

Make it deep, dark, intricate.

Add colour if you may.

Let it whisper my tale from afar

Of that love's stain.

It's never too late,

For all the things I couldn't say.

It could be that fallen star.

Brightly shinning in vain.

Befallen to ill fate.

While it shone on many a day.

O, won't you mix in some tar.

Dark as Hades mane.

Put in a drop of blood as bait.

Red - to tease that tear at bay.

I'll look at it - as a melody cut to a bar.

Sing the song of that lover's lane.

Where I walk now in numbness - not love or hate

Carve, pierce, fill - so it forever on skin will stay!

Ghosts of Convenience

O, most convenient Ghost: I find

I entertain you in my mind.

So come and sit, we'll chat a bit,

Your cup will overflow with wit.

Trying though you are, my friend.

I like your haunts, they shall not end.

We waltzed once to 'Hope, Disbanding.'

Now we dance to 'Understanding.'

That's your cappuccino, there.

Need more sugar? Take your share.

Nothing's worse than bitter drinks --

Except, a bitter heart, methinks.

Time : the greatest sinfree sweetener

Rightens things misthought before.

One nervous, gnawing night in bed.

I knew: I'm living in my head

Recovery Mode

Woke up for the first time the animals were gone

It's left this house empty now, not sure if I belong.

Yesterday you asked me to write you a pleasant song

I'll do my best now, but you've been gone for so long.

I can't remember the last time sleep put my senses in a coma. Almost every morning I wake up with a teary-eyed blur. It's nearly as if I spent the night moaning and whinning. But strangely that's the part I never remember in my disturbed slumber. I don't even toss and turn so much as does the turbulent fluid in my brain. The slightest whisper in the alley beneath my third floor windowsil or clang of the iron gate brings instant recognition. I even hear the 5am Aazan wafting in kilometres away or the cackle of the irritable pigeons. I smell the filthy blood from the butcher across the lane and the frying paranthas from the kitchen exhaust downstairs. I feel the warming wind by the morning sunrise, the pillow spooning my back, the thin cloth under me. I yearn to find some music in this periodic reverie of everyday waking up, but all I hear is nothingness. All is feel is arrested numbness.

The window's open now and the winter settles in

We'll call it Christmas when the adverts begin

I love your depression and I love your double chin

I love 'most everything you bring to this offering.

I love winters. I am a complete snow baby. I was born during the coldest recorded winter in the subterranean Himalayas. There was rains, sleet, hail, fog and floods. At the crack of thunder, I cried. It sounds dramatically romantic, like a Hindi serial. But the cold sets in a sense of belonging to time. I feel warm within the more the mercury dips. It's a strange body reaction, but the bile within seems to rest merrily. I glow like a woman pregnant with life. It's almost like first love again. High school perkiness. It's been a while since I've seen winters. It's been a while since I've given birth to joy. I've been mothering loneliness for way too long.

Oh I know that I left you in places of despair

Oh I know that I love you, so please throw down your hair

At night I trip without you, and hope I don't wake up.

'Cause waking up without you, is like drinking from an empty cup.

You know that sense of completeness when you put the final full stop at the end of a never ending story. The sense of freedom. The slight sadness of letting go. I love romance. I truly think all historical romances were written about me. All Greek tragedies and Godly oracles and mystics were characters God made me play. I live in a constant dream sequence that will never end. I don't seem to want to wake up. I don't want to put that final full stop. I'd rather extend the dot in a coma.

Woke up and for the first time the animals were gone

Our clocks are ticking now so before our time is gone

We could get a house and some boxes on the lawn

We could make babies and accidental songs.

I recently discovered a truth about myself. I don't know how to mourn. I am so generally consumed by the lightness of my own being that loss evades my senses. I am the original gypsy heart that'll flock away when love settles in. I'll wear your clothes and be yours to keep, but before you leave the tent, I'll sing you a song, give you a kiss run to the sea. I swim all to well that I'll soon forget you existed while making love to the waters that surround me. At that time I won't be able to seperate from the tears and the ocean around. The longing and the loss all at once.

I know I've been a liar and I know I've been a fool

I hope we didn't break it, but I'm glad we broke the rules.

My cave is deep now, yet your light is shinning through.

I cover my eyes, still all I see is you.

Last night I slept. I really did. It just came. I just dropped and woke up with a slobered mouth. I still smelt of body shop, my nightcream. I didn't feel the morning warmth yet and I could hear music from the I-pod I forgot to turn off when I fell unconscious. I had slipped into coma. I could fell an inkling of the winter chill - more one running down my spine as I struggled to peel myself all too quickly away from the bed. Head Rush, it must have been. I missed the Azaan and I had a blank mind. I didn't remember my dream from last night. I had no reference point to begin my story of the day. For a while, I couldn't even remember my name. And then it hit. A wave of pure emotion. Those tears just came. The flood within rushed on a crack of thunder. I laughed and I cried. The sound mixed. I made music and I grieved. It's been a year and ironically it's been a little over 24 hours again since the last attack. I'm finally growing a lover's heart.

(lyrics intersperesed 'Animals were Gone,' by Damien Rice)

Meeting you

we treat each other with exceeding courtesy;
we make love each time we meet

our tigers drink milk
our hawks tread the ground
our sharks have all drowned
our wolves yawn beyond the open case

our snakes have shed their lightning
our apes their flights of fancy
our cats exchange their licks, paws and lives
the bats flew out of our hair long ago

we fall silent in mid-sentence
all smiles, past help
our humans
don't know how to talk to one another

Entropy

“I probably need new sheets,” I thought to myself

“Yup! That’s it. Fresh off the Laundromat.”

“White light too,” I switched on nervously.

“The orange is making things a bit too yellow.”

“Maybe it’s the settled dust,” I reached out for a rag.

“It’s taken over my senses. My mind is registering dirt.”

“I’ve got it. It’s the floor,” I frowned in inspection.

“The broom will whisk those monsters from under the bed.”

“The curtains, the curtains,” I tore at the filth swaying heavily in the breeze.

“It’s always these drapes that breed and hold the demons.”

“These clothes,” I looked down and gnawed at my skin

“The sweat, the grime is polluting my body.”

“I need Valium,” I thought to myself

“Yup! That’s it. Fresh off the shelf. For a new whole me.”

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"I need love," I cried to myself silently

"I can't kill this entropy."

Abortion

Last night, a giant moth pregnated

And laid its coccoon over the fields.

Covered the mountains and the plains.

Close knit to the ground a nest

For its young to be born in.

The next morning the Sun and the man

Bore gaping holes in it.

Chordance

Amiss

My own solar system blows apart,

Now the debris of my world floats aimlessly.

The rest of the planets going nowhere.

They are leaving their paths

No more sun to keep balance,

Or to sustain life.

If I left myself float on,

Memories are painful.

My fellow friend now gone,

And where I do not know.

/-\ B |_| S !E !)

Monday : You are a canvas, and he decorates you

with grotesque shades of fresh magnolia red and prussian blue.

Tuesday : One look at the always-honest mirror to see there are

vomited bruises all over your reflection. It never lies.

Wednesday : Someone took your rosy coloured glasses and now you have your own rainbow

black blue black blue black red purple.

Thursday : "I didn't mean it. I'll never do it again. I love you,"

his lips are talking.

"I love beating you. I love possessing you,"

his white knuckles are whispering.

Friday : True beauty is real pain: true pain is real beauty.

(by these standards, you are truly gorgeous)

Saturday : A is for abrasion, B is bump, C is for contusion

The A-b-c of how he loves you.

Sunday : Body Shop, paint job, red rouge.

When exceptional plastic features look ordinary.

The artists canvas be fresh for the next week.

Shied Wisdom

Flowing off a tongue, words seeped in soul contemplation

a thought stored in heart, voiced in constemation;

for meaning, greater than a hollowness in a mute enounce

wrought through by doubt, of why they should so resound.

Spoken in that twisted language known for it's unknowing

captures whispering word, of another's thoughts bestowing

it upon a limited and descriptive, burst in quite verse

there lays a beauty, in truth shyly locked away in time.

For all who may doubt, the winds of thought so brought

despair in one's seeeking for more than sould thought words

a clarity is that said, which comes from heart not head

truth, quiet shouted nouns or verbs, so completely read.

To waste away and forget on one moment's truth and shame

is to face, one more daring and fear filled day to come

for a word to become as closed, within an unspoken soul

is to languish in a void, as one's true thoughts unfold.

Flicker

Three candles are lit with a spark

Each one does fade away the dark.

Each one shows us the way

Each one turning dark nights into day.

The first one gave me a smile

She said, "I’m going out in a while."

I say, "when you die where do you go?"

She said, "I’m going to fall with the snow."

The next one looked into me

She said, "where do you wanna be?"

I said, "I wanna fall with the snow.

But where do you wanna go?"

She said, "I’m gonna fly like a dove,

Through this world to search for my love."

Last one dances while dies.

She says, "when the turn comes you will fly."

I say, "what if I fly the wrong way?

I’ll need you to turn night into day."

She said, "I'm gonna shine with the stars,

So Ill always be where you are."

We’re joined with the soul of the world

Found in every boy and every girl

Ever tree, every sea, every hill

And in all of the men we kill.

Every bud, every bug, every stream

In all of the sins we redeem

Its in all of the songs we sing

Its found in everything.

The Gypsy Heart

Sinful simple sins :

(in) countless cluttered cobwebs

Laboured loathsome lies :

(are) raging riveting riots

Barren banal broken :

(is the) hoping harboured heart

Spirited solid semblance :

(has) jolted jaunty joy

Uncouth unreal unsteady :

garish gradient (of the) ground

Pricking patient pain :

inverts insipid insanity

Dreamy delightful doubts :

teases tangible trance

Love livid life :

alive acrid aspirations

Faint facsimile fantasy :

weary wanton wonders

Ornately operated organ :

throbs torments tarnishes

(Yet) Pride pretty praises

nonchalantly nudges 'nhappiness

Mimicking madness mind :

(like) generous goblets grin

Wandering wilted when :

(commits) sinful simple sins

(image courtesy Jatin Gandhi)

Obscure

This circle bleeds without an edge As sanity deprived of thought These fingers grasp a shifting ledge Of ice Of melting frost Of one blank page without a plot This drifting orb of silence dwells As a finger brushed ‘cross lips Froth of enmity laps darkened swells Of lies Of broken truths The blank page folds and rips These nails of darkened earth reside Blind as mountains’ sight that’s felt Resigned that autumn’s leaves confide Of loss Of memory thawed This page lies smote by snow’s first melt Creaking leather aches, recalls Bones of dusty corpse of earth In shrouded cloud, a roiling pall Of love Of burning love The page there smolders in broken hearth When read again, one line remains A line, no thought, and only pain.

Post-it for self II - *Disoriented*

Sight

Variegated Hues of Magenta,
Bounce off pupils blistered,
Raw from too many days wandering,
A bleak twisted terrain,
Ghostly apparitions swirl,
Above the surface, waiting,
With baited breath,
As the last shreds of this reality,
Slip quietly away,
The moment of reckoning is drawing nigh,
Falling helpless, prostrate,
Before the mirror of life,
Staring death in the face,
Until sweet darkness descends,
Into welcome oblivion

Wake me up when it's morning...

C () !\! T /\ ! !\! !\/! E !\! T

In the Valley, o'er the hill

I heard a folklore that made me still.

Sturdy to scurry, too scared to flee

It reeked, eeked, creeked of moments to be.

Visions - they play constantly on my mind

Of memories, to memories I must myself bind.

An aged tale - a rickety brick

Cememted - yet betraying like a prick.

Fearlessly treading, righteousness on shoulder

Hate, angst, love, passion make the heart smoulder.

Containning life, holding memories

Sliding, but never releasing out of symmetry.

I see colour, I confess with pride

Hues and rhtyhms, taken with every stride.

The King's possessions be not dearer to me

As the slaved nobel locusts, angels, demons can never be set free.

The meter may go endlessly unwinding

But can light really be that blinding.

Wish I could let out a scream, a yell, create a brawl

But I'm only a well, a rope, a drawer...

Image courtesy the sketchbook of Sameerkulavoor

Lonely Hearts Club

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Dont give up until you drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky

For sometime now, I have been waking at the crack of dawn. The first ray of light is about to hit the skies and its still not day yet. Just the anticipation of it. The moon is still glowing but I know the moment I shift and dig out my head from underneath my pillow, there shall be light. The tenement window that peaks into the open skies ,with the thick palm tree grove that is my boundary wall ,will twinkle the sun in my eyes and I will have to stir out of bed. Every morning, I wait for that moment. I have been beating sunrise. I have been awaiting sunrise.

This is for all the single people
Thinking that love has left them dry
Dont give up until you drink from the silver cup
You never know until you try

There's a theory to this. I am convinced. A law of proportional dimension. Can't decide if its a direct or an inverse. But I completely believe that if u will it, it will. I have bad knees. I trip all too often. They bear those permanent scars of childhood adventures indulged in. The left one is melancholic and leaves me on many occasions, till I weep and will it back home. Age, they say, will fade them away -the scars? Only, I need to grow up and stop falling.

The relentless heart tries too often. It wills too often.

Well, Im on my way

Yes, Im back to stay

Well, Im on my way back home

Geese flock together. Twigs branch out from the same tree. Glue naturally sticks to something. Gravity invented touch and attachment. Flowers bloom out of a seed. Bricks need cement. Doors need hinges. Music needs an ear. It takes two to tango. You get pairs of everything – shoes, socks, legs, curtains, pillows, screws, glasses, eyes, buttons, quick fixes… But my arithmetic always starts with one. The calculator seems to be broken and home seems too far away. What was it again? How many steps backwards? Home is lost in translation.

This is for all the lonely people

Thinking that life has passed them by

Dont give up until you drink from the silver cup

And never take you down or never give you up

You never know until you try

I have a mirror that shows two images. A magnified and the regular oval shape. More often than not I choose to see the regular one, after being conditioned to the distracting magnifying glass. It’s on the left and my line of vision betrays it each time. I choose to look right. Its deliberate training and it works. Ignorance, they say is the easiest way to kill love and perhaps even will your flaws away. But what if the flaw itself is to kill love? It’s like that tooth that aches but you tongue it to feel the pain anyway. The poking hurts irritates but you poke anyway. The knees are week but you try anyway. The heart is still bruised, but you finger it anyway. One still needs another, so you add anyway. Home is still far, but you walk anyway. Will end up alone at the altar of judgment, but will hope to keep company anyway. It will be daylight soon, but my head will dig out from under the pillow and steal a glance anyway. You know you will fall but you love anyway.

(lyrics interspersed 'Lonely People' by America)

Vodka Straw

I think,
when the light goes out
reality twists.

A million ants in this ant hill.
Whatever career fits.

Stumbling past neon lights,
thinking of chances I missed.

And I wonder.
Maybe there's love somewhere
haunting my dreams,
a figure with sturdy hands
longing to find me.

I know.

My stomach twists and turns,
I haven't slept in days.
The sky turns a purple haze,
waiting for a brighter day
when this crystal city crumbles.

I'm coming to find you.

I stir my vodka with my straw
and I'm sure we both know

That doesn't seem like me,
does it?
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when disjointed lines come together on a scale for poetic disturbance on inebriated nights. My version of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind...

Soundtrack

Lost in creativity, I hear no other sound
The music flows freely and holds no bounds
I can hear you in the melody guiding me
Showing me the chords patiently.

Gently moving my fingers into shape
You keep me playing though I blister and ache
Teasing out the emotion inside of me
Until it expresses itself in harmonies.

You show me the notes to sing away my blues
B minor the chord I choose
Then when the music stops and I have my song
I reach for your hand and realise it’s gone.

Rhythmic Rant

Shuffle! on the sunday afternoon and the seemingly spirited shred of the violin streamed through the weekend workstation. Remnants from last night and I suddenly smiled. It was the same song, with the same guitar riff that lead into the same mellifluous voice reciting the same verse. 'Mysore se Ayee.' It was Raghu Dixit's playful barritone and I was ready to dance again, without ghungroos even.

If music be therapy and new age yoga have found its perfect guinea pig - then I offer my testimonial. I have healed. Twenty four hours, in the grasp of music and I am finally beginning to hear my heart skip a beat again. My skin is awash with tenacity and my mind has goosebumps. Muddled up senses - just perfect. Too many verses from too many moments and too many lines are coming together. My mind is writing disjointed poetry and my heart is watching them jump on a scale. I am writing again.

And it all happened with a morning meeting with a former popstar who is singing again. "If life be art," she said, "then I am living it." The settled gleam in her eyes and the certain smile made me believe. I smiled back and for a moment, hours later in the local back home post a plate of Reshmi kebabs and sweet lime gorged on on the side of the historical cricket pitch, the line held me in a pandemonic trance. A volte-face. Like I was somehow carrying the legacy of the heroes and heroes that will be. My mind had begun to hum a raw melody and my fingers instinctively formed chords. The afternoon humid flush on my cheeks made for an excellent cover-up.

In a city of cubbyholes, carcasses of plastic, colourful horadings and cultural cosmos crowding roads - to hold onto a muse is the toughest thing to do. Every corner inspires and every sound grabs attention. In this matrix of images, a lucid interval doesn't exist long enough to take it all in. But my melody in the tropical heat did find its harmony. And it happened at the Channel V Concert for Change. Three new bands will committ their original sins and four artists will hone their stage. And it began. First with a baul-grunge band from good ole' Kolkatta. Cassini's Division and their interpretation of fun. With Reverse Polarity who gave masquerade madness a whole new carnivale of meaning with their deep throated guttural angst and their incindiary-notice-my-anguish heavy metal squeals from the lead, the bass and the drums. And later with a humble fade out by simplistic genuity by Faridkot when they sang to you.

But the best dwindled between the many. The Raghu Dixit Project. The songs gave me my harmony. The sarangi, the guitar, the bass, the drums, the ghungroos and the voice - and I believed. The men smiled, wore their lungis and drove in a wave of emotion. They felt each note and sang into the sunset. The Helium globe dipped and Raghu sang folk, sufi, qawwali. There wasn't a face in the crowd that wasn't looking up, not an arm that didn't rise, not a voice that didn't sing along. He conducted. We perfromed.

For someone who visits concert halls, campus grounds, open-air-arenas and festivals with a raised eyebrow, through the worst and the best of all - I wouldn't call it the moment for it wasn't. It wasn't mind-numbing and it wasn't the brilliant sound that would hold you in a trance. Rather it was the familiar sound of an instinctual learning, a deja vu from within. Even though the thousands were only a few hundred, music had been made. Art had become life. My heart was ready to skip a beat.

... And it did.

Waiting for Normalcy

Amiss...
the bud
the ache
the love

Unmoved...
the leaf
the muscle
the heart

Tattered...
the branch
the will
the soul

Forgotten...
the trunk
the touch
the life

Numb...
the earth
the eyes
the organism

Cup of Tea

The tea you pour is black and strong.
It doesn't taste like tea to me;
I must have been away too long.

It isn't Assam, Suleiman, oolong;
It tastes like an apology—
This tea you pour, so black and strong.

Where's that old fork with the bent prong?
What happened to the hemlock tree?
Have I really been gone that long?

I think I hear the saddest song;
It has no words, no tune, no key.
The tea you pour is black and strong.

You're careful to say nothing wrong,
You seem too eager to agree...
Yes, I've been travelling far and long,

And now it's clear, I don't belong.
I watch you sash your robe, as we
sit, sipping tea that's black and strong.
I went away too far, too long.

U !\! ! !\! S P ! R |E !)

See the tree, the brown leaves fall.

Be the flea, the clown seems tall.

Ride the clown, the circus fool.

Hide the frown, the mirthless mule.

Donkey ride, the shoreway treat.

Wonky slide, the broken feet.

Aching legs, sit on the grass.

Breaking eggs, and breaking glass.

Shattered window, open door.

Scattered hedgerow, oaken floor.

Wooden planking, dance away,

Hooded monks in chapels pray.

Ask for peace, thank for gift.

Masked police, tank for rift.

Tear the curtain, look for me.

Bear the burden, see the tree.

Alcoholics Anonymous

The vodka bottle sits on the dresser

half empty,

half dead.

The setting sun reflects off the smooth glass,

creating a prism of rainbow light.

It could almost be beautiful,

almost be perfect, if you don't stare too hard.

don't get to close.

No one would ever know

that the stale smell of liqour sat so thick

it seemed to seep through the paint in the walls.

No one would ever know that empty bottles

happened often around here,

as if they grew from the weeds in the yard.

And no one would ever know

how often those lips kissed those bottles

in a romance all their own...

She sits on her bed,

half empty,

half dead.

The setting sun reflects off her smooth cheeks,

making her skin glow abnormally warm.

She could almost be beautiful, almost be perfect,

If you don't stare too hard, don't get too close...

Rusty & I

He was as soft as rainwater - the day he came to our house. He came in our car, snuggled between my mom's arms. Just a little over 2 months. The most incredible deep dark brown flesh, peering through greenish brown eyes. We called him Rusty, the same day.

It was monsoon of 2001, I remember. His jittery paws were hesitant on the gravel and his little body jerked a little every time a new pair of legs approached him. "Surprise Sherry. We got someone for you," my mom's mischevious grin got me on the driveway. That's how I met him. He found the middle of my arm as his anchor and looked at me expactantly that he was home. Was I his new mumma, sister, brother, master??? He was pulled out of a pile of puppies, nestled next to his mom. In alien, non-furry, distinctly two legged environment; this was his first moment.

He didn't like the car at all. Especially when it moved. Movement to him was four kegs or maybe two. He had not yet invented the wheel. He would lay behind my neck in stoneage despiar, not rigid, but heavy, as his bladder would empty each time even later, and the black leather seatd were puddled under puppy rain. He would always stagger out the same way, as though it were the hold of a slave ship and hm left aboard for six months or more. And it still is a task to pull him in. His size may not be manageable, but in mind he's still two months old.

The tug of war and the reverse fetch is still his favourite sport. Mariah Carrey is his favourite singer. She sings him to sleep even today. He sleeps outside my room even though I am not there. He hates being left alone and tears up his world apart in protest, finding the naked floor his sleeping companion often. Storms and Diwali nights are distinctly hated. He loves to whistle and he is amazingly good at it. If I'd known better, I could swear he's a Janis Joplin incarnate. He rebels, growls and has the most guttural barks. But he loves endearingly. He still meets, greets, awaits everybody the same way. Gravity, head down, feet up and Rusty on top - always. He still snuggles under our legs, one at a time, after taking three customary rounds under them. He slumps, slouches when he doesn't want to eat or walk and maybe sit in the green a little longer. He still shies away at eye contact or if you kiss his nose. He still calls you traitor if another dog smells or takes a fancy to my hand. He's smell, investigate and sulk till you hug his frame and say, "Sorry Rusty!"

But at the heart, he knows he's grown older. His limbs crack a little, everytime he tries to move a little more enthusiastically. He's still a crazy diamond. His face is greying and the corners of his mouth are drooping. But call cat, good ole' friend Brutus just once and he comes running straight for the leash yearning to be lead out. Rusty will be eight this April and its been six months he's grown apart from me, instead of together. This time, I'll let him lead me out the door for our walk to water the greens. I hope it's monsoon again. Rusty loves the rain. We ponder and prolong the rain in our heart and have let the floodgates open together.

... In every life, some puppy rain must fall.

A day at the Movies

Some days you wake up with a resolve. To put things right and to bridge the gap from acquaintance to family. To marvel in sincity and hold wonder in abridging visions into a montage of feelings. Amidst cups of chai, coffee, smokes and some overdue Goa sand, S&I, found two moments of celluloid that would go down in the annals of Z’s history.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for afternoon, with the hope of finding a faith in an uncertain tomorrow. What an incredible story – and how well extraordinarily told. A life of a commoner, a riveting tale, of life in the reverse. A blueprint reeling backwards, all portrayed in the graphic texture, rewound. Like Mr Gateau’s reverse clock at Louisiana Train Station. Or the boy, born with arthritis on the day the World War -1 ended, who dies of dementia as a one year old wrapped in a crocheted shroud. An ordinary life lived with an extraordinary gift and the ability to watch many dawns on the pier.

Milk, the story of a queer revolution that made you believe that fate can be altered if devotion and belief be by your side. Nothing could be more endearing than to hear the silent rumble of a many thousand rising in a single echo of recruited fervour. When boys were boys and handsome butt cleavage all too pretty!

Now back in my insulated ivory tower away from the great revolution, thinking of the 7th lightening and hoping for thunderstorms within the self. Thanks S, for the love, movies and the sand. Jim Carrey can wait a day. :-)

Rubber-Band

Crack it open like an oyster. Let it ooze out

the way it should, scoop it up, then shuffle it

in a deck of cards too stiff to handle.

Make it call you by your name, learn the

features of your face as well as any friend.

Offer promises you might never keep. Become its

blood brother, a cut along its edge touched to your

small cut, sealed together, pressed with need.

Bend it backward then forward, then shoot it like a

rubber band--a green one from the grocery.

Let it sing off key, tell a white lie, say that it has

real talent. Don't wait around for it to skip a beat,

take it down fast and hard, bury it in days of wonder,

nights of fever. Feed it fruit and chocolate and slow

sips of tea until it knows not the order of its day,

its rhythm shot straight to hell, its left from right

gone terribly wrong. Do all of this to your own heart

and you will know what it has been to love you

PS: -

Roll Call

Trapeze artists show perfect composure. At the height of their long, graceful, winding fall – they dive with passion, compassion and with purpose. Each stride in the air and leap into the unknown is piqued with the pride of trust in the anticipated abysmal nothingness. Yet there is the faith. The knowing smile, the calm eyes, upturned chin showing and the proudly arched back and the nodding head that revels in the knowing - there is a safety net at the bottom.

Days come and go. the shadow of the sun dial chases out the daylight. At the end of even an imperfect day - perfection seeks its head out. Abstinence from regularity is just a wild call away from reality. Wish for some randomness and it truly does seek you. That is something I learnt this year when 26 became more than a step ahead of the quarter mile. I run the main league now and sooner than later, my days might be getting outnumbered already. A-process-too-complicated-to-explain is no longer a guise I can hide behind anymore. Answers are supposed to be coming clearer now. The heart be more in sync with the mind. The knee is supposed to be in place and not wander away and well courage needs to be Dutch now.

It's the year of big realisations. I need to get a grab on the trapeze and fall knowing there is a safety net. If only I could see it...

Jugni

Jugni ja varhi hun pardes
jithe pa leya usne nakli bhes
Hun meri aa ve jugni
Tera ghar tu kyun vichora!

Jugni dasdi mainu kuch gallan
Apne pinde te usde ehne kaniyan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Tainu duniya ne samjheya khidona!

Jugni rondi saanh phar phar ke
Sun na sake koi usdi lambiyan cheesan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Teri nas nas wich ghul gaye tere aason ni!

Jugni raat raat buha kharkhaundi
Kis nu sunda nahin ausdiya haakan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Tenu bhul gaye loki vasan toh pehla hi!

Jugni baithi lassi rirhkan
hatan di lakeeran mittan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Teri kismat da kaagaz vi kora si!

Jugni bhul gayi apni reetan
Tambe te glassi vich kuch ohne peeta
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Nashe wich lidh teri khilkhilahat!

Jugni di rooh kache dhage wangu phathi
Jadon phulkari di chadhar vich simti
Hun meri aa ve Jugni Tere
ishq ne pheri apni kassi ni!

Jugni pajhi, navin raaha takke
Paara di pajeba ek dujje nal laddan
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Sansar di raahan ne tenu maari thokkar ni!

Jugni phaj aaye vaapis us hi tobe '
jithe mileya ohsnu oh moti suche
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Ohne baha te apne saare ratan ni!

Jugni hun sutti saari raat ni
Apni kothe te littaa ohne saa ni
Hun meri aa ve Jugni
Akhan toh girl gaya aakhri moti vi!

Sanitise

a long laundromat hour, an old fade, a familiar slide of time;

soap in boxes, machines of it; a

sign begs, "Keep this place clean."

outside, the bars are so wetly lit

in their silent huddled storefronts;

buses pass by in the rain with

their peculiar leviathan sound noising the night.

electricity hums along wires

strung above the street, fine web of wire.

i wait to be inhabited. smoothing laundry,

feeding the tumbling with coins,

buses swim along the street, sighing those metal sighs.

there isn't a thing i do today

that does not have your name written, sounded into it;

sounds like something maybe looking for air,

breaching above the wetness,

maybe calling a name out into that dark, folding sky.

I let out a sigh, or wait a name;

how many washes more to wash you away

Orange!?!

It's the need to be truly rhetoric.

To fall and rise

and let fate despise.

To be inebriated

and constantly sedated

self-obsessed traumas completely unrelated

yet simple verse finds a meter unprepared

words Id rather keep in than share

for with each sigh, a wound lies to the wind bare.

Keeping the glow, the hue all in

they say it will ride me through the sin.