Dream Catcher

She wove me a web - of thread, and colour captured in patterns of pain and passion.
She laboured her love for me for hours and hours,
As she looped each dream around a bare steel wire that is being forced into a path
That must meet the following vein leading to the outer circle.
No, it's not her fault, she labours in love.

She doesn't know that I slept with spiders in my bed last night.
No they weren't there because I didn't clean my room.
They were there weaving my old memories into a web of their own,
And hanging by the sticky, grey threads waiting to meet me halfway
Between my dreams and nightmares.

No, there's nothing wrong with me.
My dreams are just a tad bit darker than hers,
And his', and theirs and yours

I dream of dark places sometimes
I dream of decay, of death, of autumn, of winter.
I dream of things that can't be spoken of and people who can't be named.
I dream of times when I've been left aghast under the weight of my own desires.
I dream of being held captive by the misery of resounding silence of solitude.
I dream of being allowed to mourn.

Time and again I will go back to the places where it smells of his fresh cigarette ash,
To the sound of his walking stick hitting the ground in his rhythmic motion of
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
I look for that pattern of eight constantly in the beats of a drum,
in the time signature of a song.
I'll even count my steps sometime to match that pattern
Or hold onto the second arm of the clock and break into ticks of his walking stick.

I'll await a cold winter's spell to seep into my open pores
And the fog to cloud my senses numb,
Just to feel that wrinkle of old, drying, scabby skin on my arm.
The way the middle of my arm would feel when they wouldn't stop poking his bony limb
To find his veins to inject him with the venom to kill the cancer that had been eating away at his flesh.

See I have tried to feel his pain, I wouldn't lie.
I have wished for that disease to eat away at my living being, just so I could feel closer to him.

I told you this wasn't a dream you'd want for me.
This is the dying wish of a living soul.
Just so I wouldn't forget what he looked like,
What he wore,
How he spoke,
How he smelled,
What he imbibed for me.

This is somewhere between a nightmare and a dream.
This is just where I want to be.

Will she catch this dream for me?

What Light?

He doesn’t reside within
It’s a lie
The spear-tailed demon
and the luminous angel
The ambiguous creature
We all must fear, must hate, must love, must emulates

There is no divinity
There is no eternity
There is no freedom

He picks at your flesh, like your vapid carcass
Who’s already given up
in this summer-fed heat

What hope do you seek within?

This world is a product of humanity 

Resolution

I resolve to dream bigger this year.
Oh no, maybe I shouldn't say such things anymore.
A better poet… heck no a better writer,
Yes a better writer.

A better singer…of many a bathroom serenades
Made to the shower head while breaking the crescendo.
As that sputtering water cascades down on my face, my skin
Clearing away the blurred lines made by the fuzzy memories
of the year gone by.

A whole year went by and I am supposed to have grown
stronger, sadder, simpler because that is less complicated,
But you know what if I am complicated?

Does it matter that the water couldn’t blur away the stretch marks
the sun burn crevices, the wrinkles and the worry lines, the stray grey
that’s hidden in the black of my hair with its sullen wisdom?

The bones and muscles that are
that more likely to break and break down now than they were the year before?

Does it matter really if I laugh that less louder, or if I sometimes try to yell
welled up with emotion - but the sound just doesn’t come?
'Tis not the teenage angst, but the vocal chords doth do protest much. 

Does it matter that this body and this mind are ageing?
Is it a bad thing? But am I not a wiser this year?

They tell me I am ageing like it’s an irreparable damage.
They tell me I am not young because
I can’t stay up all night, pass out due a shot induced comma at dawn
And wake up instead with pouches under my eyes and dark circles narrating
tales of an era that’s gone by in the darkness of just one night.

They tell me I will never be as I was a year ago, because my body
is that less desirable, my hair is that less smoother and my eyes that less brighter.
You wouldn’t want to lie with me under a starry-skied night anymore
Because my inter-planetary, space travel stories don’t charm,
Don’t ooze with magic and sparkle with the burning joy of my fast expiring youth

But

I am growing older, I make better resolutions, I am not less magical
I still dream of blazing comet trails brightening up the night sky with great light and wonder
My eyes still shine and my skin still trembles with the idea of a world that is beyond the horizon.
I don’t want answers anymore to the what ifs, but instead I ask now what else?

Why don’t you see me the same way I do? 

Am I suddenly not a dreamer because my body is now becoming an eye patch
that you’d shut your one eye behind, while the left strays idly in boredom.

Age is a number and a growing sign of my mortality
Age is grace and a chance to break free from "dignified morality."

I resolve to be a bigger dreamer this year. I am a weaver and a catcher
The night sky shines bright even during the day, but you’re blinded by its sun-lit beauty.
Look beyond the blinding white light, hear beyond the shrieking white noise
I’m going to lie down and drift to another universe with eyes open wide,
do you think you could dare to dream too?

I Remember 1984

I want milk. I want milk Ma. 

Screams ran through our rental in Chandigarh

On the morning of October 31, 1984

I was one year old and I was crying in pain, in want, in denied comfort.

All across the streets outside my tenement

Turbaned men and their women cried in pain, in want, in denied comfort.

You killed Indira Gandhi. You murderers. You Freaks. You Whores. You Sikhs

For an era those sounds will come to haunt.

Of bullets raining like fire, 

Of knife cutting through flesh, 

Of bloodcurdling yells from raped, burnt, discarded bodies, 

Of footsteps running in triumph and fear.

And smells of burning tires, of rotting flesh, of flowing streams of dirty blood.

But I slept through it all. I was simply an imp, an infant 

Crying for milk the morning they hacked people of my faith

Through curfew-imposed days when we lived like caged animals

They hacked us into fear.

But I, I slept through it for 29 years. 

Till today

Today I am awake

I hear it in the court rulings, 

the acquitals, 

in rioting thousands everytime there’s a question of religion

I hear it in the silence

of orphaned lots who not only lost their parents

but their faith

I have not forgiven Godhra

Yet I have forgotten Blue Star

I am the child born to a faith repressed by you high warring lords

Keeping your chairs and sticking by the guns of your voting banks

I am the woman whom you martyred at the pulpit of religion

You castrated my men, burnt my children, dismembered my soul

I am the man whom you forced to take a knife to my hair

Strip-searched to my naked skin, stripped of my identity

I am the forgotten blood

I am the forgotten Pain

Mine is the denied justice

Mine is the ignored hate

Like a third-rate step-cousin to the Hindu or the Muslim 

You kept me out of your prayers, your jihad, your Ramnam

You have forgotten me.

But still

I am the muse of your jokes

I am the strength of your nation

I am to die to keep your borders safe

I even do the Bhangra for your stage.

I remember 1984

I smell the gunpowder

I remember the massacre

I remember it all Ma

I am 30 years old and I still cry in pain, in want, in denied comfort.

Toss and Turn

I am a whole string section

Of heaves, horns and noise

A humdrum of vacant feelings

Color cuts through me

As melody does through verse

I lie in your embrace

Drifting mindlessly 

All thoughts at sea

Drift

How about I just slip away
And yet stay anchored at the shore
May I ?

Lasting memories

... And then there is loss

Which doesn't explain itself.

Some kind of silly arithmetic logic,

Division that partitions lives.

But boxes don't hold bodies,

And fires don't swallow flesh.

Souls are immortal or so they say

like mummified containers filled with anti-death preservatives.

But whose to say it isn't already dearly departed.

When breaths become a mere measurement of ventilator puffs

And the mind begins to disconnect from limbs..

A picture in my mind will forever rest,

A memory box will sketch a new stick figure - -

Of flesh and skin and blood and bones and hair and fingernails.

A creature fueled by a soul.

Immortal in spirit, frozen in time.

When curls were brown, breath was regular and mind secure.

When the heart beat in rhythm to unpolluted seasons.

When Kasauli and Rauni were homes alive with shrubberies not weeds.

When cancer and bipolar were definitions only medical manuals explained.

When songs, dance and long walks was the only prescription drug for the day.

A reflection in the mirror that no breath can cloud over,

Lucky few can see the bloodline alive in them as I do.

You meant life Nana Nani, more alive than the picture on the wall.

The clouds hold your lives now, as children of the sky.

RIP

Sukh Sekhon

Sohan Singh Sekhon

One drink too many

Fuzzy and smokey, creamed and strained
Clap on, clap off, cornered and drained;
Seeing is sawing, kneeing and gnawing
Hammerhead rhythm, red herring brain.

Do you want more sentimental sleaze?
More fat kids, diseased?
Perhaps Superman will fly in and drink Gin
With you and your Uncle's mad niece.

I like my flat swept, my Vodka strong
My ghosts to stay dead, my wood to last long.

Slippery and slimy, or scaly and dry
Cankered and cancerous, bloody well wry;
Being's believing, but knowing is fleeting
Fifty steps down to the what and the why.

Would you like more sentimental drudge?
More holier-than-thou septic sludge?
Perhaps Baba Ramdev will cure your homosexuality
And leave with a wink and a nudge.

like brats to stay online, my demons in bottles
My kittens with cream and my train at full throttle
I don't want your soul, but I'll take your body.

Just

Long time coming
Fleeting moment

New job
new life
new confessions
new honesty.

Come undone

Somewhere, in the recesses of my memory, is a half finished song - it was blues, till it became too pop, turned metal with range. Right now, in this moment, its a piano solo against Joni Mithcell's voice. Only I can't remember the tune anymore. It's half a melody in the mind.

Along the way, I've learnt to mimic relationships - feelings, togetherness, respect ... only endurance is a big-word and nothing can mask a loner's heart. Not even a half-hearted love.

At some point in time, I befriended words. They seem to know me more than I could comprehend. With every strike of the spacebar, another word would scribble itself as if my sub conscious was talking back at me - chiding me, describing me to myself. Lately Ive been filling empty gaps in newspapers as writing. Half voyeur.

This half being has managed to fill a certain half emptiness, making it look half full. Once in a while, I lose the connect. All I am now doing, is half living.

An interview with Buddy Guy

Buddy Guy mid song at Mahindra Blues Festival, Mumbai

'Shh…I ain’t finished yet'

Hip-hop, blues, BB King and Eric Clapton …are just some of things five time Grammy winner Buddy Guy is all about

In the audience of a blues legend, you do feel him all around. At the just concluded Mahindra Blues Festival, ‘74-year young…’ Buddy Guy (like his song) walked through the crowd, talked to his audience in melody, played his guitar with the drum stick, his teeth and even holding behind his back. He even indulged us in a small duel with his pianist Marty Sammon. The oldest soul and blues musician held the crowd captive for nearly two hours and kept saying ‘Shhh…I ain’t finished yet’ every time he felt the pulse of the crowd dip. We spoke to the showman beneath that fabulous hat.

That was a fabulous performance over the weekend. We loved the way you kept saying Bombay in your lyrics. Are we aiite for Buddy Guy?

Well I had fun. Now see I knew I hadn’t played here with my whole band before. It was great to have Marty (Sammon on keyboards), Tim (Austin on drums), Orlando (Wright on bass) and Ric (Hall on guitar) here. They are solid men. I liked working the crowd and people here knew of me, my new album Living Proof. Some of you had heard about it. Then Shemekia (Copeland) and Jonny (Lang) joined me on stage and we sang them blues.

Speaking of Living Proof (buy here), congratulations on your Grammy nomination this year. Are you hoping of winning your sixth?

Well I don’t know about that, but where I come from, every little bit helps. BB King and I have been great friends for over 53 years. BB and I did a spiritual song for this album on ‘Stay a little longer.’ We were both excited. Before all of this technology, we all would listen to the spiritual groups from years and years ago. This album is Living Proof of the old times, of our old times.

Are there plans of playing with Eric Clapton soon?

You know, Eric (Clapton) had told me that the last Crossroads (Guitar festival) would be his last one, but I think he had a lot of fun at this last one. He’s coming back on tour this summer. I’d a said he said he’d change his mind. We are going to have one more.

What do you think of the new blues talent?

Well I think everybody is playing hip-hop now. My youngest daughter is playing too and she’s been opening for me at festivals. I still think there is fire in these bones. The new singers are alright too. But it’s like the era of BB King, Les Paul, Muddy Waters needs some reviving. You still hear their songs when you go to hear good Blues. I still play there songs. You can’t evolve blues. It’s the song of the soul.

Keep the gap

Between six suns

There’s still space for shadows

Between five moons

There’s still space for light

Between four rivers

There’s still a gush before the delta

Between three tables

There’s still some waiting

Between two of us

There’s still lot unsaid

Within me

There’s still shadow of the beast.

Navel wrap

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in apathy.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the lethargy.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in abstraction.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the inaction.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in indolence.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the quiescence.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in laziness.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the craziness.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in attitude.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the latitude.

Contemplate your navel.

Engage in reflection.

Permit omphaloskepsis.

Enjoy the connection.

Meet the Enthusiast

Self definition: That is pretty much the reason for any sort of being or a ways of seeking a purpose to living isn't it? It could be as basic as the daily morning ritual of washing clothes (seriously I don't know why I have that OCD) or the way a certain word skipped scale in the second verse of that awesome alternative song (and why can't I just listen to music like a regular fan and not break it down to notes!)

Point is, we all need and constantly seek ways to evolve ourselves in order to add a word or phrase to 'who we are.' You know there is addition, when at every given occasion to define yourself you constantly keep adding designations to yourself! From being a professionally defined (or not!) someone - you also become a comic collector, a culinary zealot, a professional farter . . . (how the last one made it? I blame Twitter for it) oh there is also a new one, frequently incepted (Yes I blame Chris Nolan for it).

But think about it for a second here. If the crazy researcher was right, maybe we are all incepted from time-to-time. It is literally a thought you wake up to almost everyday or at every mouse click. I think we are losing ourselves in a self-created and self-advocated matrix of pop culture objects. Inanimate things have a way of finding 3D animation inside our minds and hearts and we somehow begin to live that new Sweedish Thriller (MUST on the noveau thriller circuit), genre-bending world cinema titles (too many to enumerate), Mad Men-esque sitcoms, webcomics, trending topics, music (electronic rock and indie yes) and of course revival of the kitsch. . . it's honestly exhausting.

An idea is truly potent, yes I agree with the dream theory and I think my domino-effect-crumbling architectural flaws in designs are quickly replacing new sights, smells - in my senses leading to greater shift in inspiration than ever before. Fine, I agree I am the flawed searcher of self-definition. So much so, that important people, numbers and dates have begun to fade from my random access memory. You see, my mental hard disk is supremely cluttered and for some reason has started auto deleting past memories to make room for new information. It struck me when I was making a mental wedding guest list and every few minutes I added someone I had forgotten earlier - you know those people called friends who have lasted you through thick, thin and the debauchery (mild!). Not that I am walking down the aisle, just the thought of it!

Seriously, I draw a complete blank sometime and at those times I am only praying that my mind is rebooting with a new installed mental app. Anyway, where was I? Yes, self definition. Till a few years ago, I was simply a journalist. Since then I have begun to say writer when asked what I do and get into this mini mumble lasting a good one-minute of what 'kind of writer' I am.

Recently I had a conversation at a much-needed, de-stressing smoke break with a senior at work and she happened to narrate a certain business jargon mumbled by another someone describing one's boss to be a 'dynamic variable.' It was like a mental click. A light-bulb Homer Simpson moment if you were to call it one. While I agreed with her, bosses are variable dynamics (meaning people who can't make up their mind) But it is true. Self definition is a variable dynamic.

I drew up a list today of the things that I think defined me. Sure enough I hit some 21 points and I knew quite well some are just goldfish-memory akin variable dynamics (yes I will use the phrase again and again thank you) So I cut the crap, talked to my Ma (totally at peace with her self-definition. Mother) and as painfully boring as it might be, I just came out with one - Enthusiast! (and you thought I'd say journalist. It's gotta be a little more cooler than that!)

But it's true. I am an enthusiast, a modern culture bred enthusiast - with the fleeting attention span of Spiderman on speedy pills. I'll find a new like as soon as you go to the mental press with it (some journalism in me) But what is intrinsic to me is that I like discovering new things. I am supremely curious by nature, so I will rummage through the trash even if something finds my fancy. I'll make it popular, till it isn't alternative anymore.

So here's to discovering myself - cheers to the inner Enthusiast! (vanity is pure contamination, but gets you through a dull at-home day!)

Transcribing an interview with poetry

My day job has put me to task to interview and transcribe a million and more famous people. Here's something from a meeting from a half-remembered dream

Good morning Poetry, please, sit down,
make yourself comfortable.

Q: You look tired yet fresh faced, how old are you,
if you do not mind my asking?

A: How old is time!
How old is the first breath of the multiverse!
I am as old as existence, as young as now.
I was there when this universe was created,
dancing along the veins of fiery lines.
I am as young as a newborn baby,
a brand new thought leading to the keyboard.

Q: You seem to be everywhere in the world,
what are the things that inspire you?

A: I am everywhere in the world. In a blade of grass,
unseen in the wind that laughs breeze above it.
Inspiration, the dreams that linger on the eye, waiting to float.
The colours which drive beauty into verse.
Life and death, smiling inside the circle.
Inspiration is but a whisper away, my muse is my breath.

Q: You mentioned colours in your previous answer,
if you could be a colour or a scent, what would you be?

A: I would, indeed I am; every colour in the rainbow,
swirling into each other, grinning like a pot of gold.
As to scent, fresh baked bread, morning coffee,
the decay of vegetation, of flesh in a field,
I am all of those and everything that is.

Q: What are your thoughts on prose?
Do you ever get angry with her?

A: Anger, joy, fear, love, hate, jealousy,
all the emotions harbour me, I roam their intensity,
push and pull their waves - prose, I am prose,
the underlying matrix of words.

Q: Don’t chide me for this question.
But do you poetry use drugs?

A: Ah! The sweet labour of nature.
What are intoxicants but aids to obscurity.
Defy them, they still come to me in the night.
Take them, they still lose my expression.

Thank you Poetry, for being so candid here in this little chat,
perhaps you can help me with my cantos later?

Poetry smiles, takes off her microphone and drifts away.

To Depression with Love

Depression secretly loved Suicide,

every day he would sigh and pine

for her quick slicing, painful touch,

but she never saw the rhyme

floating casually through the haze

of his dark, hungry scented gaze.

Suicide was in her own world,

leaping from building's tall ways

in her mind's soft blue clouds,

falling in Love's splattered days,

but he just looked through her heart,

never noticing her lips gently part.

Agony was killing Depression,

Suicide vowed to take Love's life

while Love sang songs of hope

to the warm night's starry-eyed strife

at missing the light of the dawn

by just a single moment's yawn.

　

Suicide undressed with shyness,

Depression submerged his head

under the fragrant foam, hoping

for the much longed for escape.

She quickly took off her panties

and pulled Depression up

from the depths of the water,

holding him close, feeling

his scarred skin rub her mood.

Suddenly Depression brightened,

he pulled Suicide down,

laughed as her head hit bubbles.

She spat a grin out and kissed him

passionately, her heart beating

promises of love; until death do part.

　

Depression smiled as Suicide blushed

her love across the ripples of gloom;

saturating the room's fragrant smiles.

Suicide caught hold of Depression's grin

as he dropped to one knee with a sigh;

fluttering through the candle's soft flames.

With a voice clear yet full of sorrow's wisps

Depression asked for Suicide's sweet hand,

hearts merged inside of cool nervousness.

The song of delight sprung from their souls

as Suicide's answer echoed off old scars,

Yes - the note was pure brilliant white light.

Musings

Pause. Breathe. Halt. These are perhaps the most belated words in the human vocab. Well, atleast mine. Its clockwork. To run. Am forever chasing, what I like to think, are cobwebs. You see I, like most thrill-seeking folk who believe they are alternative citizens, believe in keeping life complicated. Its a completely different matter that spiders weave straight lines.

Anyway, its monsoon. Its Mumbai monsoon and its supposed to have created a clutter of chaos. And there is that much more urgency to fight for time to weave my web. But today time waited for me.

I walked. I like to walk. It was my absolute favourite thing to do back home. You see, I'm a small town girl. I had no cobwebs to weave back then, my life was plotted in sectors. But I took the occasional long stroll back home, something that was alternative in the hamlet-ghost town.

Here I'm a rootless tree. Challenged to walk mindlessly anywhere, to any corner without question or direction. You see, in Mumbai, every image even resting in the corner of your eye, inspires. This is the city acid flashbacks are made of. These are the colours that spirals in a cokehead. These are the musings of an lost artiste.

Today I walked. I didn't wait for the cab to take me home. The highway, the whizzing cars, the irritable lot stuck in traffic, the conjunctions of chaos stuck in my head quitened. White noise. I wasted time.

The milk stop, the soul street, the dazzling sign boards, the vegetated lush green of wet earth, the cottage-roofed homes - I saw the city transition to smiling faces instead of cluttered conduits of frowned pollutants.

Itd been a while. I'd been watching life passing by like a back seat driver. Collecting used and dampened match sticks in flip flops at a rain thrashed drizzling dusk. Chasing fire flies in the muddy vegetation off a polluted side-walk. Their abode hides the grime of the metropolitan, tales etched into the memory of the concrete beneath the soles of the walking denizens - narratives of the obdurate elves who pretend to live and work in the expansive cloak of what could be their motherland but is their relative land.

Passing a shop window, I caught a reflection. Glee rested in my eyes. I sensed happiness.

So this is to you Mumbai. I've loved you, hated you, gotten to know you better. You've found me, accepted me, changed me, made me a family, broken me, abandoned me, homed me and given this spider a space for her cluttered cobweb. You let me know its ok to be different and its ok to be like everyone else. You've freed my soul, like a helium baloon, keeping my extended string tied to the displaced ground. I keep losing the shifting focal point now and then, but you leave me directions by my bedside.

So thank you lover. Now back to the many more straight lines I must weave.

Expendable

I won't crash

But burn like a cinder

Keep that fire ember-ed

Won't let it die out.

I won't get lost

But walk through the walls of your mind

Dissolve the window and pluck out the hinges

Won't let the door cave in.

I won't feed angst

But will play with fury

Let you rape my mind

Won't let my sanity slip.

I won't vegetate

But let the cancer plague

Grow a mountain of sorrow

Won't climb the Everest.

I won't sink

But will lose the compass

Fall prey to the Kraken.

Won't sail into your void.

I won't peep

But will snake around your curiosity

Lead you to voyeurism

Won't lose virginity.

I won't crumble

But share the pie

Let you shred the paper

Won't sign up for recycle.

I won't die

But let you tease open wounds

Bleed till the last cell clots

Won't let out a last sigh.

I won't colour

Stay within the lines

Pick up all crayons

Won't let the white smear stain.

I will live

But will will you to kill

Yell and watch murder in your eyes

Will still will to love

When Dragons Whine

I am the product of your throwaway words,
My mother's burned-out candles,
A violent, beautiful world,
An unprescribed strip of TCA, nightly.

I am much less than the glue that holds society together -
I am a vine, a weed creeping through the preexisting cracks.
I pretend the streetlamps are the moonlight,
And I feed on last month's newspapers.

I could be the buoy you cling to, keeping you up,
Or the rope pulling you deeper below the surface.
I will shrug the salt and debris from my shoulders,
And board your sinking ship.

I am knotted together with complexes,
Shielded by my opinions,
I hold wit as my sword and pull no punches,
And wear burn-scars as war-paint.

I don't believe I can change the world,
I merely want to shatter the silence.
I will break hearts, I will break bones,
And I will have my dreams broken in turn.

I'm safe where I am, and jaded,
I am weathered and accustomed to being the ground beneath your feet.
I never realised how important I was until then.
And I despise it.

But enough about me.

PS: I hear dragons whine when I sleep.

Chordance