'the world of children'- poems on innocence

1.THY NAME IS...

Nethra  firmly believes 

We have failed miserably

In naming  Animals..

Especially, the cat..

While We call it

‘alex’

Or ‘sweety’

Or without reverence, simply as”hey cat’”

It  cries in dissent ...

‘meow’ – introducing itself

Which is its proper name..

Or so she believes...

In the naming game, i lose her..

'Vivek' seems  philistine  to her..

She calls me ivik..and i am just a four letter word after that

in her world.

She calls the dolls by their name

And talks to them in earnestness..

Without losing sense of the etiquettes, manners and such,

all the while..

In the older quarter of our house,

The grandma is slowly dying..

At the end of a life oceanic in itself

Confined, though to her single room

with a keyhole for eyes...

Nethra has not yet named

‘death’

2 .THE BATMAN'S SKY

i opened that window to the east
still
untainted by the algal chain of sentiments....
and then i wriggled my head out
and spread my hands
expecting feathers to sprout out
from the tips..
then realizing i am not the batman,
i looked below
where the groundfloor boy
accelerated on his invisible motorbike
at the speed of light...


3. THE MOST PRIMITIVE EMOTION
          

          1


grandma always warned of this world,
as being a big inert tortoise..

i said i didnt believe her..
her ancient knowledge came from her
tussles with the foxes and the crows
and the infamous vada that she eventually lost

i didnt give a damn..outside in the valley,
niveda was running across ..
a butterfly on legs
chasing rainbows and fireflies in the morning sun
she gives me those flying kisses as she speeds along..

i pointed to the grandma
how the world moved on a hare's legs..
a tortoise could never have hare's legs..

she grumbled and went away to the moon..
she set up  a pastry shop i guess is running well ..

                                     2

on a rainy night,
when the streets of this world
closed all their windows on you,

you , who imbibed the most primitive emotion
of this blood stained earth
let out a curse that has  haunted its womb
from the moment
our brother committed his first murder
with the jaw bone of a mammoth..
his brother lay dead in the mountain cave..
the jaw bone was the first crucifix..
revenge sustains human appetite..
killing gratifies the yearn of our song..

        3
on another sunny day,
from my porch , as i saw niveda watering the hibiscus in the garden,
 a soft spoken businessman stealthily
swindled her  playground..
buying the stars that mourned
at a price  he as usual, fixed....

on that night , niveda's eyes turned
the shade of the jawbone's stain..
as she slowly imbibes that primitive emotion
the earth  has always offered...

the world suddenly waddled like a huge tortoise..

as i looked up, i imagined grandma laughing..

the next new moon night,

they fixed the inauspicious dates

for the apocalypse.

4.THE SACRILEGES IN A SUPERMARKET COUNTER

now we were at the counter

to price our soaps and hair oil..

the wild child with her trolley

of chocolate boxes

and pink teddy bear dolls

hustled with her sullen mother

putting in a new pencil box..

the  orange t shirt counter man

looked at us

through eyes that have been through..

he lifted the bear by its ear

and put it under the red laser beam..

the chocolate box child

lifted her toy gun at this sacrilege

the  counter man refused to die..

5.  GREAT GRANDFATHER'S SPOTLESS WHITE HORSE

Hoofs used to fill my ears 

or did i really hear them..

white horses and red ants, 

coffee berries and the monsoon rain..

fiction and truth , starting where the other left off..

the dampened red soil of fantasy blending 

with the coffee brewing in the dim kitchen ..

in the nights i would miss my mom, 

and  clutch grandma's  arm, 

as she  told me of the great grandfather 

and his famed white horse ..

guarding the hills , the house and the shrubs..

he came from a very small tombstone

in the hill side..i remembered it had gathered moss

and he brandished his sword on those bad bad guys of childish universe..

and probably watched over my paper boats and cricket bats while i slept..

now the spider spins its web

in the northernmost corner -

and in the yellow plaster that peels away 

is written the loneliness of having to live out of a room..

where are the guardian angels..

and great grandfathers.

and their white horses.. 

what would he have become now.. 

the great grandfather?

a chauffeur ,

trading his horse for a limousine..?

in the world where everyone can be bought,

would he have become a seller..

6. PINK SKIES AND BLUE SKIES

Niveda wants to make a perfect paper boat..

in these dog days ,

she is counting on the mirages to set sail..

while we dissatisfy her 

with our pragmatic talk

she is learning again 

her alphabet lessons..

probably thinking 

 the grown-ups

must practice them too,

daily ,in secret,

long after she goes to sleep.

after all, W is not an easy alphabet..

not in the practice books..

she colors her skies pink 

and dresses up in bright yellow..

the crayons accompany her 

every afternoon in those siesta lands..

she sleeps with her mouth open 

always, three pillows around her..

i am contented with the imperfect hull,

anyway, 

i have stored it in my warm cupboards 

for the rainy days..

in the half completed drawing books,

i paint the skies blue

dress the little cartoon  in black and white..

for the offices of the future..

now the homework is over

and i remind myself 

to tell niveda 

to use the toy cars 

in these hot summer roads..

7.TO SARAVANYA... WHO STILL SPEAKS IN THE PUREST OF TONGUES

It was dark..
we are too afraid to reach our fingers
For the door..
The air  is suddenly sick
and sickness seems transferable
flowing  from one vessel to another and infects us
with mysterious slime..
Then she drops a chuckle
into our pestilential  universe
accustomed to one rupee coin donation boxes
kept in medical stores
for the welfare of the sick.....
But the lid broke open
like a dissected artery
and a thousand suns blossomed in the vulnerable flower heads that
turned towards the moon
to watch her smile

8.  A NEW SUNSET

 1

what did you do with your elder son today ?

did you refuse to sign his notebook

for not topping the class

did you forget the everyday kiss 

slumped in your dusty office files

did you scold him for chatting 

with the flower girl and the servant maid

                                     2

what will be the issue with your neighbour this evening?

will you quarrel over the 3 inches

his compound wall intruded on your side

or take up your wife's side

in the skirmishes of metro water pump

perhaps it will be the  war for the drumsticks his little daughter 

stole from your overhanging branches..

                            3

let the engines of production halt ,

turn this city over in its sleepless awake 

let the skyscrapers come down on their camel knees

stop teaching math and science and blood tainted human history

just for today

bring the children back home 

and bestow kisses in compound interest

for all the forgotten days..

take them to the beach and lie beside their tender hearts

twine their hands with yours

and teach them how to love

a new sunset is unfolding before your very eyes now..

on love and loneliness; 14 poems

A NOTE; i have always believed men in love cannot live beyond their amateurish , quixotic attempts at poetry..very rarely do we touch the true blood of a well lived moment..the romanticism confuses us, i guess..hence , i ask you to read these in their due context and laugh it off, if you have to..for , when i sat down to compile , a long time after these were written, the person who wrote these seems very alien to me...as alien he may seem to you

WHY I AM SMOKING THIS CIGARETTE?

i would have preferred
your lips darling
would ve been sweeter
or perhaps
your words
that angrily beseech me not to smoke ..
the hint of love in that sternness
like sunshine through my cracking roof ..

or the scent of your anger
childish and useless;

like fighting your dolls
, advising them ...
codes of conduct in a filthy world
of unkept promises ...

it has been a long time, darling
three months and twenty days
since the last one
..in my world this is
a light year traveled at the speed of snail

but this will be an exception .
just this one..

i want to see
if i can be playful and dead serious
flirt around with lies
and yet be completely honest..
cheat you badly and still be loved

intrude into soft territory
yet not be caught stealing;

still in bed
yet awake to your tenderness
and warmth

the cancer creeps down and
the smoke moves up;
death and life caught in the
the vacuum in between ;
magdeburg's hemispheres and a dozen beautiful horses
trying their might
prying apart a coalition made in heaven ..


but the look in your eyes..
tender coconuts
and kitkat wafers...
brown outside
and white inside;
breaking first
and jelling next;

what are you telling me ..
yes this WILL be the last..
promise ..... 

2 .       AUTUMN OF A LOVE 

we looked at each other
 and that
was the beginning
and the end
 of  a  geography drawn with a charcoal stick
 by the shaman of love

in that land
we commonly own
but cannot take home
like a piece of stolen cake ,
dwells our little daughter
who will never be born

the color of the blossoms
flowering in her head
we will never see but
always scent

for in the autumn of our lives,
we would  stand under an odd tree
that still blooms yellow flowers like spring
while you continue to blush and refuse
like in the teens...


p.s ; inspired by the song- carnival of rust- poets of the fall

3. INTERPRETING LOVE

The wetness in the evening light
  is  a paradox,
coming  with the only streak of light
that drifts into our common room...
the wetness reminds me of  darkness
and still air..
and also  a pristine voice  that
is clothed
only  with your prejudices...
it is a nakedness that talks to mine
it is feminine and motherly
and uncold ...
then it leaves me altogether
and
the morning light next day  is  a perversion-
that brightness  is a poison

4.DESERT THE FOUNTAIN


perhaps i could start like neruda
we could retire to our private horizons in a venetian gondola
and there we would kiss  till i die..
no, then , i know even dreams are not that merciful..
and romance has  not been my forte ,
since we chose to burn the small town down..

everytime a word or a phrase that would twist itself
into that funny place between love and dream
in a cosy poem, presents itself
i dread it, transform it into a passage about
kindness , charity or sympathy
and finally smother it out of existence.....

and then i mourn alone
the slow death of  a flower
that blooms in a forbidden city
everytime  a man falls in love...
and withers
when his love dries up...

the sadness is in drying up..
and
in waking up at odd times
knowing you cant really love again



....
p.s. thanks be to abbas , who inspired certain lines of this poem and sir ed hart whose words sparkled it
...

5. WHERE ART THOU, SHAKESPEARE?

  we go playacting
     again
   in a stage where
all the men and women
are already actors

our act is an act
within an act
our dialogues are anticipated
but not rehearsed
our gestures follow the rules
but carry a mysterious symbolism
that only both of us understand
 too perfectly

and hence mock the stage
and other honorable actors

but your eyes
and that look
today
were neither anticipated nor rehearsed

those eyes of
an angel
with pristine wings ,
unbelonging and far away
alighting in my lowly earth
just for a light second

that , my dear
was OUT OF THIS WORLD


 6..ANCESTRY, ARCHAEOLOGY AND OTHER THINGS
1 millionyears ago , a man appeared out of lake turkana in kenya
he had buried his twelve year old son in its bank,
he had a sloping forehead , half the brain of a modern human
and no chin..
he ventured out of africa .and his sons and grandsons copulated with
the chinless women of middle east and europe..
some of them went to southern russia
and rolled with the wild horses and tribes of the never ending steppes..

they were to enter india
scores of lakhs of years later..
the half brains grew double, the chins appeared out of nowhere.
and the sloping foreheads rounded beautifully,
women and men were presentable.
then in india,
far south of the himalayas, arising from a subspecies
born out of a climatic divide,
a brainless youngman(as they always are, when in love)
is working out his ancestry..
thinking of his ambitions in a queer world
cursing his ancestors for his failed love..
once in a while rubbing his
slightly sloping forehead  that
came from the twelve year old boy in lake turkana ..

now described by the archaeologists who dug him out of his grave..
as
A COMPLETE FOSSIL SKELETON EXTREMELY USEFUL IN TRACING THE
EVOLUTION OF HOMO SAPIENS...



- written by the young man with a slightly sloping forehead
december 2009

with significant information obtained out of reading the morning HINDU one thursday

7. A SERIES OF JUDGEMENT DAYS
another  time you walk out my door
that was never closed ..
your eyes are on me,
i turn into shades of colors
myriad and unnamable..
is it your color screens
or my chameleon being..

i never wished i knew..

another time you pass that judgement and wait for my eyes..
waiting to see what i would become
under the slowly descending hammer
and broken fountain pen..

i shrink away as a snail would..

away from your pincers
into the web of my own questions
ceaselessly knit by a spinster woman
in her choiceless loneliness..

with a throw of your head,
another time you walk out the door...
you walk out on me..
 away from me..

as i watch enchanted, for the one thousandth time ,
madly in crazy love..

and in vain, i try to walk out on myself
through the door that was never closed..
through the door that was never closed

- june 28, 2010

8.LOVE IN THE TIME OF TIMELESSNESS

   1
i switch on the audio
this song transports me
thousand years back
when i had visited the earth again
you were in the prince's court
and we sang ballads in his praise
there was no rock music then

then one day
the prince flogged us in the
open
for transgressing the law of the slaves
and shamelessly falling in love

we wondered then,
how long...

       2
two hundred thousand years back
we did not need marriage
to make love in the wild grass
one day i left you behind
in search of breakfast

you never heard of me after that
there was no blues then

dying in loneliness
we had wondered then,
how long..

   3
the song is over
now i wonder

you left me yesterday
professing radical feminism
(though i agree with you)
while being in love with the whole of your being
your resistance, your callous palms
and your never ceasing bellicose laughter,

how long ....

 then we both wonder

how long

 9. THE TWILIGHT GIRL

i kissed her hard
in  yesterday's half-dusk
the twilight girl ;
she is so beautiful,
but i must go..

my thick red blood conjures a canvas
the landscape of a disease
in the hypochondriac's nightmare ...

my body is now  a mushroom bomb
waiting to blast over..
but the twilight girl is beautiful
though i must go..
 so i feed on my nausea
and travel to the distant desert land..

there , i lie down
and wait...
for the final act...

10.MOON RIVER

Music falls like the pebbles dropped
In the lakes of morning silence..
World is filled with silence
And silence
The latter is an euphemism veiled
Hitherto  as music..
I am telling you
One thousand stories tonight..
The music player could be
A lonely tap running in my lonely bathroom..
Or the moon drawing blood on the unseen river
of a forgotten jazz beat ..
What  difference will it make?

I have to bide this night alone
Trying not to think of you

11. UNTITLED-

the morning light
confesses in feeble tones ,
meekly failing to cleanse my mind
of your thoughts,
pleasing to my senses
as the convectional rain
of hot summer days...

those eyes which once
dispersed a block of ice
into a solid rainbow
now lie behind
the horizons of time ..
i tire , stretching my hands
in mute despair

12. GHOSTS, GODS, WINE AND MUSIC

i am some years past my mother's hug
when i roll around , feeling the rough threads
of my bedspread and insomnia..
my moustache has grown..
i am five inches too tall..

i look back
at her, that  uncertain relationship
with the most beautiful woman of my life..
at our ragged palms bleeding ,
polka dotting the snow of our separation..
as we pulled at the ropes
of each other's hearts,
sometimes pining in the effort,
sometimes wishing it ended..
the blues and greens, golds and whites of
the trails in water
 of that crazy eel like love..

now i am going back to the black
of a night that wouldnt give me sleep..
of a dawn that wouldnt assure me
ambitions or tears or relieving failures..

somewhere in the cacophony
of the ghosts, gods , wine and music
i fall asleep
and wake up again...

13. SHELLEY’S SPRING

sweet angel somewhere..
my immortal beloved..
i have not thought much of you these days..
perhaps you left behind some of your rain clouds
that trail you like a disappointed balloon vendor..

i am down with fever
shivering like an abandoned squirrel
beneath two blankets made of fur...
this winter is cruel, my once sweet love..

a spider is spinning its life inside me
memories laugh at me like the forgotten dead
at odd hours....

and all things around me..
the steel chair and straw mattress
they suddenly have waged a silent war..
while all i want is a hug
and something to hold onto
as i sleep... animate or inanimate ..

so,i have left my lights on,
they warm up my body..
but their stare
is so cold upon my soul..
friendless and unloved...
the last smite of a street urchin's staff
on a man dying of consumption..

the winter has come,
my dear ..
will i survive till the spring

 14.LOVE, REDROSE AND COMIC BOOKS
from behind the coconut tree household,
the sun comes up every morning
chasing crows across the day sky

i collect their shadows and lost feathers ..
keep them in a private safe

i think of mother,
when she fed me with riceballs ,
sun was a cartoon in the comic book
nestled between two mountains , always unnamed ..

i reverie her warmth
that first taught me the science of love
i m searching for the lessons i didnt care to take notes ..

love travels like sunlight on water
and drowns deep at nights..
while aeroplanes travel the star studded sky
of a poet’s cliched world..

the groundfloor boy rushes in for the video games..
i picture him ten years later..
and want to hug him and cry..
but i m the secondfloor anna who knows everything
who couldnt be weak..

the crow feathers are crawling out of my safe
drawing on the night ..

keep a red rose on my cemetry
for the love i couldnt give this world

9 poems

1. AFTER MY DEATH 

After my death

give my eyes to an old man

still married to a wife

whose wrinkles , talk incessantly

Of  a love blind to  his blindness....

Let my heart  be with

the little girl

whose  heart is beyond repair

but  her smile still blossoms like a rose everyday

and her chuckle never fails to amaze...

give my fingers to the groundfloor  toddler

I have always wanted to

Caress his cheeks…

Give my skin to the chameleons

Let me live

sans the politics of colours  for sometime..

Send my kidneys to

the anatomy lab ,

a specimen immersed in formalin…

Whoever needs shall avail

of my spine..

it is not much in demand as much it is a necessity...

give my legs to my best friend,

he has to walk a long way,

away from me…

throw my brains to the last desires

of a dog awaiting execution

to feed  the insatiable appetites of multicuisine restaurants  ..

finally

when everything is over,

something is still left..

in the battle against death, I only want to lose…

now , erase all my memories

and submit only my love,

unconditional and limitless....

to this world

   2.  A NOTE ON RAHUL K

1

I gave a friend  request to rahul k 

twenty days after he died...

his password must have burnt

inside the electric crematorium..

his profile would look like this always,

to the unfriended..

just like he has become,

alien,and  distant 

after his death

                2.

i first met rahul k 

in the obituary banner

 outside his school

by  friends who think they know him well

because they were with him all the time

they are the ones that believe they know themselves well

because they are with their own selves all the time.

               3

i have never met rahul k

i can never be friends with him..

noone knew him

better than the median of the road 

his superbike hit...

it met him without prejudice 

without the batter of his friends,

without the hullabaloo of adolescence

without the money of his dad

and with that mercilessness ,

crushed the  flowers of his innocence

all of us had ignored when he lived..

           4

then in the darkness ,

he remains as a profile in the facebook

and a few photographs that 

wouldnt yellow with time..

and that is just about the only thing

the internet saved for ' us'

from the sands of time...

DEDICATED TO RAHUL KOSAKI AND EVERYONE ELSE HE EPITOMIZES

3.ONE MORE INCH

yesterday, 

i murdered three men 

in my dream

perhaps,

conscious that i wouldnt be liable 

i pushed the switchblade 

an inch further

this morning, 

in the bathroom sink,

i washed my hands 

again and again

mother was calling me 

for breakfast

4.THE DEATH OF THE STORY TELLER

I tell stories 

for a living

stories 

I eat and sleep with..

fight with..

Or  flirt with..

the clientele 

decides 

where I start 

and how I twist..

when it is my sister's little daughter

i elaborate on the

newest adventures of dora

or chip in with a word 

about the carpets that could 

fly her outside  classrooms 

for my dad,

I conjure 

 a new  life in late grandpa's house
after retirement..

mother needs a story 

where I get married 

to a girl of her  wish 

neatly combed and shaved for the reception

for my friend 

I reserve a quarter whiskey 

and 2 packets of cigarette to last the night

i borrow my dad's voice 

when i narrate to my kid brother..

.

I tell a story that wouldnt 

make 'her' regret coming to meet me in 

that forlorn park..

I wear the clown's bonnet 

and commit my little suicides so
she smiles with scorn.

then when everyone has slept 

perhaps assuming 

I  dont need a tale ,

I  search my notebooks

and bookshelves..

fall through staircases

of libraries stuffed with 

bedtime stories...

and roll in bedrooms

full of madly wandering pages

I  am lonely when I  have no stories to tell

5.THE LONELINESS OF THE MASOCHIST

in my lonely verandah,

everyday i fed the crows

coming by punctually

i felt they smiled

and opened my cupboard 

reserved for  warm  words 

and embraces..

yesterday 

they pecked at me

and dropped crow shit

on my blue shirt..

sure enough

they crow-scowled at me..

so i cursed them and 

returned 

satisfied after ages....

6.THERE IS NO POSTHUMOUS NOBEL
   1.

you could live in 

the grandest wax palace 

you could fudge everybody's account 

and still get away

drawing gratification at the heap

curses build..

curses of people who would have lost..

you could eat the best savouries ever made

lounge in the state of art furniture

and sleep in the bosoms of naive beautiful maiden

still you might die 

the dragonfly's death

at the errant child's foot

then again, you might not...

               2

you could live in 

the grandest wax palace 

you could fudge everybody's account 

and still get away

drawing gratification at the heap

curses build..

curses of people who would have lost..

you could eat the best savouries ever made

lounge in the state of art furniture

and sleep in the bosoms of naive beautiful maiden

still you might die 

the dragonfly's death

at the errant child's foot

before the last breath 

you tend to think 

you will be remembered..

you won't be...

7.INTERPRETING MIRACLES

he never said he would walk on water

 neither did he attempt it in the neighbourhood lake

he never brought pastries from thin air,

 nor did he vanquish snakes

 slithering through our hallways ..

and it never rained

 when he played the flute..

but

 the day he died,

 there was a strange fragrance

 in  our dirty streets..

people who ran  him on  errands

 and the scoundrels who trampled on
his naivety
 lost sleep in their cosy beds..

children thronged his corpse,

waiting for the dragonflies and bananas
he promised them everyday.

the rain that began then
did not let up
for three days and nights.

on the day of funeral,
his grandson picked up a fallen leaf
from the porch tree

that was when we saw him

 arise from the corpse ,

 and walk past the mourners,

 offering his shoulder ,

 to the pall bearers...

 and 

 narrating   aloud
a  pointless joke

DEDICATED TO MURUGESAN MAMA WHO DIED OF MULTIPLE MYELOMA AT 52


8.THE LAND OF NO TEARS

in the cot near the entrance,

kuruvamma haggles with throat cancer,

for a couple of months more..

a sparrow at the mercy of the lashing rains 

she ..

ponnamma rolls her doll eyes

she wants the doctor's nod

for the orange drink,

her long time desire

since her liver broke down

and threw up signals too confusing 

for her vegetable brain..

somewhere in the southern corner,

a bottle of fluids is on the flow..

for the dehydrated ones..

a destitute mother

asks questions

no one wants to listen to..

down the corridor,

there are many more wards like this one..

many more cots,

many more cotless,

many more stories...

the government hospital

waits with its thousand eyes ,

the entries to its mysterious labyrinth 

bright and open..

this night 

people roam its halls 

with blood samples of the kith and kin..

towards laboratories 

clean and alien...

like the linen of the dead and the departed..

the ashoka tree inside the compound

silently chants to its ancient heart

stories that will soon be forgotten

and hence cease to exist...

as a  rain drop rolls over its diseased bough

a lonely  kingfisher starts off towards 

its eternal search for a  land of no tears...

and in that pretty ordinarymonsoon night,

a rare lightning in the western sky

 reveals 

just for a fleeting instant,

the grey silhouette 

of a sinister madhouse...

9. THE ART OF BECOMING SOMEONE ELSE

this road resembles so much

the one that leads to my home..

only that a hinter part of my brain

delineates the kafkaesque quicksands

the world has become

this city , eats your identity

and mourns shamelessly

while my body is lustreless as the rest

i wander in vain

trying to learn the art of becoming someone else..

i climb ladders and come down the snakes...

a magic seed has fallen in the womb

of this machine,

people barge into these institutes,

promising you careers,

as doctors, bureaucrats and technocrats ,

a poet passes these streets crestfallen..

the art of beoming someone else haunts

and reeks of an ancient smell..

a binary VIRUS in my mobile phone ,

regularly gulps down its memory..

by dint of a software error,

it professes in satanic ways,

the art of becoming noone...

the face in shaving mirror

asks me

"have you learnt the art of becoming yourself