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
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
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..
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.
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....
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..
his naivety
lost sleep in their cosy beds..
children thronged his corpse,
waiting for the dragonflies and bananas
he promised them everyday.
he promised them everyday.
the rain that began then
did not let up
for three days and nights.
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
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
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...
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
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