Surpanakha's soliloquy

My much-loved friend,
my most despised friend! 

We loved the same man

rightfully yours and

oh so wrongly mine!

It's a chance that you stood

behind the protected zone of

the lakshman rekha and I

on the neglected other!

But you became the Goddess

and I the whore!

Your unwavering love became his support and my unconditional one his deepest secret! My dearest friend, my most despised friend, I weep for both of us. Your silent scream matches mine my darling sister my most hated sister we are each other’s hidden secrets we are each other’s secret pain. I cry for both of us for the life that gradually drips away from your fingers and the illusory one that I struggle to hold in my palm, we the beloved and the betrayed you the Goddess and I the whore we are the She; day dawns the same for you and me. .Ref:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surpanakha

The third ...

The Third

is like an elf,

cute and coiled

with a snail face

and a needle nose,

always existing in marriage.

A child or adultery,

tea cup and cigarette,

television or silence,

there is always a third 

with its shadow looming tall on a wall

that does not depart with the Sun;

Also, those worry lines on your forehead

that has nothing to do with age.

It’s a snail, withdrawing the tip of its head

into the stone shell

at times, poking its head out

winking,

moving inside its hard robust covering

even when not seen. The third is

a rotten fish smell that reaches you much before

you go to the market place.

You, her, I and the third – we all eat and thrive on betrayal. 

living ...

 Parsley, spinach, celery or lettuce;

get those green leafy ones;

they are good for health.

If you can’t buy, just pluck them

 from here and there.

Soak for a while in hot water

drain and dry

and you would be able to smell the

apple-green freshness.

Tear off the part that disturbs.

Sit gingerly,

 segregate the good and the rotten ones

with deft fingers dancing in a mysterious grace.

Snip off the blackened part

Split the spoilt edge

Slash away the bitter stem

And slit the thickened chunk.

Just a dash of salt n pepper

and sprinkling of sauce n oil;

Celebrate the union

and it’s magnetism in a bowl.

Eat them with rice or bread

Or even raw if you fancy.

Or else, feed them to a cow;
it will bring a li'l change
in the whisper of a breath,
in the echo of a smile
take a chance and just see.

Find a place in the soil and plant your destiny.

Water it with your own hands and

let a creeper of hope grow.

Pluck and fold the dreams neatly

clean it

clear it

and keep them fresh.

Find the corner under its shade and

 scream if the pain does not heal, and then

dump the rotten part

drown the noisy drum

straighten the uneasy bend

smoothen the roughened bounce.

Remember to eat well your leafy green vegetables.

My predestined lover ...

 I could only see the jaded green frame of the window.

Dust has settled along the pane.

Once upon a time, there used to be a face of a beautiful woman

whose eyes were hungry with hopes of tomorrow.

But now

There is a strange eerie silence in the darkness behind.

And then, suddenly, on that day as I looked up,

hoping to see the same uncanny blackness,

 I saw Death; his shadow

perched on the windowsill.

Death had dropped in for a chat, on that day.

He wore the same rugged look and

 was dangerously handsome with his locks

 that were as tangled as my existence.

When I told him that he is Emily’s lover and

it would be a sin for me to come close to him

He laughed in his usual baritone voice

 that was irresistible and

 I found a thrill in this adultery!

He wanted to know, why I keep resisting him.

Why I fight the battle that eventually would be lost?

He smiled, and I knew at that moment

he would come to meet me now and then

till I surrender. And eventually we would be together

and it is going to be an insane love affair.

Death, my predestined lover,

I knew at that instant

 I would throw away morality and caution like shabby old clothes

 to live those dizzying moments with you.

Clasping concern with one hand

gagging conscience with the other

I will come to your arms with a readiness of a rain drop

that rushes to kiss the Earth.

But

Till then let me breathe the splendour of an airborne acrobat.

Till then let me kiss the roasted golden Sun. 

Let me whirl and pirouette in a tango

with my brittle thoughts and unborn hope.

Let me be the lover of rain and bear him a child.

Till then let me try remaking life

with swatches of stolen memories.

 

a cup of coffee for you...

I want to make a cup of coffee for you

at dusk

when the sky will be fuchsia pink.

While hearing the tip-tapping rain in the wind 

and the thud thudding heartbeat of the soil

I will let the liquid dreams and

fragrant desires to blend and simmer.

I will wonder, as I whip gently the

pearl white of the milky cream,

how the coffee tastes against your

lips, your teeth, your tongue.

I will stir the sugar and allow the magic
of the steaming cloud hang heavy and

I will test the ready ness of the cup 

imagining

will it sting or will it be just right!

The vapors from the storming cup

like rust golden beads on my forehead

and I will pour that anticipated light brown

into your cup,

a shade that fits between the tamarind of my skin

and the golden desert sand of yours,

almost the colour of my possible child.

that obstinate headstrong life-force ...

 I wonder how I

constantly tread this hyphenated zone!

If I turn off the light the moths will die

and so will the bats if I turn it on.

Should I spend life searching for an anchor

or shouldn't I just tear off the sails

and let it be?

How good is living

on a handful of yesterday,

an existence

neither real, nor fantasy,

like the alluring horizon

between the Earth and the Sky,

at an arm’s length away,

but ever distant?

Why do I fill my book of poems

with haphazard listless things?

A mail box with drafts, remotes, phones,

a crossword page of an old newspaper,

five odd books, a gift that you had refused to take,

some songs that I listen to endlessly,

a few old snapshots;

all flung heedlessly, uncaring,

here and there;

Just about anything to fill the void

that once has been your side of the story.

YET

even now,

 between the breaths

lurks a stubborn dream

defying all other doubts;

A dream that often morphs into a bird

and take colourful wings

preparing itself for an ambitious flight

to soar higher and paint the sky.

And I throw away my existential despair

like a pair of old, worn out shoes

and I remember to plant a seed, all over again,

and wait for the moss green sapling

to raise its obstinate head!

a poem, incomplete ...

Once, into his ears I had whispered

the story of those glowing fireflies.

And since then,

 during many mysterious nights,

under the magenta blue sky

my whispers deepened

and the story became a dream;

a dream of a tomorrow, pregnant with today,

a dream of an unknown joy

with strange pains, hidden,

a dream of a horizon

towards which I had turned my back long ago.

The dream was soaked with the moisture

gathered from the monsoon rain. And then

he became my rain. Now,

He keeps drizzling in my brain and

 I carry him within

Like the fragrance of the hasnuhana.

But I know,

Soon, a silence will grow heavy
burrowing roots in the corners of the house,

and  the rainy season will change,
leaving behind
memories of a rainbow sky,
that I alone shall have to carry

into a warm winter fire,
struggling  to decipher
the mysterious monsoon,
recalling
of having once been soaked
in the rains;

wondering occasionally,

if it still rains where he lives

and if he still thinks of the paper boat

that we together tried to make!

Answers to which I will never know.

And till then, each time he will say he loves me

I would be surprised why there’s a lump in my throat

that refuses to dissolve into tears!

untitled ...

What if I become a snail struggling to hide my body into a stony silence?

What if I become a porcupine and you can’t make love to me anymore?

What if I become a comma and fill those empty pauses?

What if I am a riverine nymph and swishing my fishy tail escape into the ocean?

 

What if Hitler’s mother had Jew connection and Osama bin Laden’s Hindu?

What if my mood stops changing like the monsoon sky?

What if I become You and I peep into your soul?

What if someday you get the strength to let me go?

 

What if I become my eyes and close it against the world?

What if the blue black night becomes me and you watch but can not see?

 

And

thoughts are a museum; pictures on a wall ...

you leave it but it never leaves you!

for my unborn children ...

I have looked for you

into the pregnant river water

on the right side of my bed

in the crevices of my long stretched days

in basil leaf and jasmine flower.

I have looked for you

among the happy giggles of children playing.

I have looked for you in his warmth

 in his heartbeats.

In the day, night, dawn and dusk

and in the coiled vine of desire

I have looked for you.

When insomnia becomes an infection to the eyes

I  colour your apples

Name your dolls

Sing you lullabies.

When the night becomes a blue-black bruise

I look for you.

When the orange Sun looks like

an excess bleeding in the sky

I look for you.

When he holds my face in his palm

I look for you.

I lie

I nurture secrets

I long for the sticky knowingness of his skin

I die to see myself in his eyes;

All for you

Only for you.

Waiting for you to be.

Wishing for us to be.

happiness ...

‘I will call you for sure;

We shall meet again’ he promised...

 

In between the velvety folds

of those promises she built a house, long cherished.

And to live in an imaginary house is the best,

her house, built from the grit of memory

has no trial and no test. 

good to have a fantasy house with hopes and dreams so little,

as the walls of which bear no rhyme and not another riddle.

no expectations, nor fear in the mesh of other allusions,

longing neither to belong nor to search for meaning in this illusion. 

Resting under the painted ceiling out of which Images grow,

she feels happy as the walls cannot anymore smell of sorrow.

Not aching to make sense of the day or the night,

she doesnt weep any more, try as she might.

For she knows this is all there is, and this is so,

there’s no panic of an end, and no one to leave and go!

 

 

an utter mistake

Her father did an utter mistake

of not holding her

of not carrying her on his shoulder

showing her the world.

And you too have done the same

of not binding her with the sacred thread

or a stained centre parting, the mistake

of not giving her someone to carry your name.

So she never learnt how to belong

She never felt home.

 

And she kept dreaming

of roaming in faraway places,

of the night sky

all alone,

her fists closing on strangers’ stories;

 

Now, often,

she becomes a kite, the string lifts her and

she flies.

She feels that she bears a river inside her

her hair floating like water-weed,

she lies still and listens

to the upsurge of a river within her,

the water rises, rippling in circles,

legs, waist, arms ... and

she paints a blue bird on her navel ... 

And she never learns to belong
she never learns home.
 
They made an utter mistake
Her father and you!

for http://magpietales.blogspot.in/

untitled ...

One day

a bird named fear

flapped its wings and sat on your shoulder

whispering sweet nothings  into your ear.

When you closed your eyes in pleasure

It hooted and entered your head.

It furled its feathers and made a nest there.

Since then you hear the beating of its wings

inside your skull.

You see its jet black rapid eyes wherever you look.

Now, you smell the bird even before it appears.

In the night, lying beside your man

feeling his body against yours

you wonder whether you belong,

 a place

as uncertain as your unborn child!

waiting ...

for http://dversepoets.com/
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.in/2013/03/poetry-pantry-143.html

How long are you going to wait for him?

The night has fallen. Go home, woman!

There might be a storm.

The dust on the street is swirling

with the stray paper and plastic bags,

night has consumed the signboards, windows;

buses, scooters, flashes have turned around the culvert

and now there’s only a left over sound.

The insomniac night is seeping into the breath of the trees,

the insomniac night is licking the roof,

there’s a strange restlessness in nearby skyscrapers,

night is swallowing the shadows.

Go home woman

 wait for the man, no more.

Go and see

The day that you had left behind

fell asleep waiting for you.

a few remedies ...

If you feel lonely
read a book
or watch an ant,
stand at the balcony
and observe
millions of same story
in different clothes,
you can even think of that person
whom you carry in your brain
like a nagging dripping rain,
listen to the footfall of the day
that had already receded; or
stare at your sorrow.
Your sorrow is a tree that was pulled out
but whose roots had spread all across,
your sorrow is an old photo on the wall
that was removed long ago
but the square imprint remained,
Your sadness is a blood red hibiscus
with a red bud and a red corpse.

And then, suddenly, ... perhaps ...
in the smell of a dovetail autumn wind
or in between your shadow and the soul
you may find peace.

Relation ...

Written for http://magpietales.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/mag-159.html

I am afraid of your scientific mind;

I am frightened

that if you give me finite answers

there would be no space

for hope

for daydreaming

for yearning

for longing

for my search of myself

in you ...

So let it be vague,

abstract,

like eternity

like an ocean; 

Do not try to find the imprints

of moments

of memories;

Let it be the whisper of the waves

amidst all other noise!


 

 

Rain ...

You stayed inside the house
guarding your peace.
But I had nothing to lose
So I came into the rain
and danced to the end of its alley. 

Rain
I didn’t know earlier
that you could have wings
and that I can fly with you! 

Rain
cover my agonizing veins,
whisper me your secrets,
I will collect your words in my palm,
tell me that I am the lover you dreamt of!
Let me touch your toes
and play with your tendrils.
Tell me you have come to lick my sores.
Caress my insomniac moan with your fingertips,
go round around me,
run after me,
settle in me.

Rain
Let me bear you a child.



I will surrender only to the Rain....

... ...

Beloved moments

Please stay;

I am frightened.

What if you aren’t true?

Stay with me,

keep touching,

take my hand and be close.

I am afraid.

Hold me

the way 
near ones hold the dead at a cemetery.

I fear

this moment also might be

 false

like those endless yesteryears

like the uncertain timeless future!