Poetics

She fled
the house of abuse and horrors,
into the promise
of a new sunrise.
 
Hopes shattered,
she was plunged deeper
into the scorching heat–
from one level of hell to another.
 
She stabs
into the visceral, deep-red silence
of the heart
for a moment of final release.

*the title and the poem are a reference to the tragic triad mentioned in Aristotle's Poetics.

Twist

It's the gentle souls
and their cold indifference
that shatter the soul
more than a thousand blows.
 
It's the tale
of the town beauty–
a librarian's wife,
a blacksmith's lover.
 
The heart
forgets,
the skin
remembers. 

He's Stardust

He shines.
He transcends.
He's above and beyond.
He belongs
to higher realms.
He owns the heavens,
the forests,
the winds,
the caravans,
and every creature
in every shell.
 
She
owns him.
He needs her
like a firefly
needs darkness.
He can't resist
the allure of
her biting wit,
her wild tantrums,
her earthly beauty.
She keeps him grounded.
 
She's
the water of the mountain springs
born
to temper his overpowering essence.
She's
the salt of the earth,
the glow of its core,
the dance of the mighty river,
the storm in its element,
born 
to tame his hubris.

The heady appeal of the ocean

I soak the aching soul
in the salt of the waters
for hours
under the harsh sun.
Ocean
is 
therapy.

Night falls.
Moonlight stings,
the crabs storm the gates,
fear
dances on uneasy waters.
I bury my feet
in the warmth of the earth,
the sands
swallow me whole.
 
I am born again
at the golden horizon.
I jump into the waters
for yet another baptism.

The Revelation

It’s the silence of a July morning,
it poured torrents the night before.
It’s thirty minutes past five,
It’s me, my racing thoughts,
a cup of hot instant coffee,
and my hands deftly slicing a pomfret.
 
The dead eyes of the fish
implore me for a final release:
Is this free will?
Is this a dream?
Is this buried trauma, revisited?
Is this programmed?
Is there a fly on the wall,
an elephant in the room,
or skeletons in the closet?
Amidst this noise,
I cut my finger.
Blood drips on the wooden cutting board.
The thick droplets
assemble into grisly patterns,
there are faces everywhere –
a screaming woman, a wide-eyed child,
an anthropomorphic bunny,
and long-haired demigods with hollow eyes.
 
I look outside the window at the heavy sky.
The clouds stare back at me–
fractals
of the same grisly faces.
This unholy unease,
I have felt in my bones before,
this striking sequence,
I have seen this before:
in a past life,
in another dream,
or in another level
of the same game.
 
The déjà vu
is the giveaway. 

Promise of the Premise

Every time a person dies,
a library burns.
- Alain de Botton
 
He observed beauty
from a distance
but never immersed in it,
never got entangled in its web.
He thought it wise
to err on the side of caution.
 
It was the season of misty mornings and fireworks.
He was drawn to the scent
of fleeting skirts and pearl earrings.
He was bowled over
by the chemical rush that hijacked his senses. 
He took the plunge–
the inevitable happened.
After two years of courtship,
she said he was not enough.
He was in pieces,
fragmented.
Pieces, 
when put back together,
didn't become a whole.

When the noises were quietened,
he retched at the stink of his grief,
he heard the stars twinkle–
like pinpricks in the eardrum. 
He witnessed the slow passing of time,
one devastating memory building on another–
of the sparkling, good old times.

Under the lights of a new, warm home,
the exhaustion wore off finally. 
He dipped the brush in reds and yellows
and pressed the bristles against the canvas.
The dance of the wet paint
dripping on the background
transported him to an afternoon
they made love
like possessed, unhinged beasts.

He was faithful to his tragedy
but was unfaithful to his memory of it.
His broken heart
spoke a new language,
its grammar, majestic,
its flow, lyrical.
He painted still life,
frozen moments,
dried flowers in vases,
sleeping cats on carpets,
women in deep gossip in the bougainvillea shade.

The tragic hero,
his transition
now complete,
arose from the gutters.
The eyes of the sunflowers
stared back at him. 

A sky full of stars

Things have become prettier,
beauty – more perfect,
language – flawless,
colors – more saturated,
experiences – unrestrained,
life – optimized,
with more time between the ticking–
a day has more than twenty-four hours now.

The trees have more fruit,
the forest has fewer trees.
There’s less doubt between strangers,
and more space between lovers.
The elegies have become more profound,
the spaces between words – more hollow,
Lips and breasts have become fuller,
words and feelings have become empty.
Outside, there’s less terror and more peace,
inside, there’s more terror and less peace.

I wake up in the morning,
heavy headed, foggy-eyed,
I look at myself in the mirror.
The outsider
waves back at me.

Voyeur

Amidst the deafening growl,
the ground breaks open
just wide enough  
for the innards of the planet
to peep at the voluptuous beauty
of the dark skies.
 
The downpour
quenches
an insatiable thirst.

When a tree falls in a forest

In every battle
of arms or the heart,
we don’t return home
unscathed,
we lose a part of ourselves,
sometimes a sliver,
sometimes a hide,
sometimes a moral,
sometimes a soul.
 
On the darkest nights,
when I stare from my window
at the desolate streets,
I see
spineless, heartless, soulless creatures
roaming aimlessly
like voiceless remnants
of an emotional apocalypse.

Red Herring

I always thought
the smothering stress
of the rat race
or the overbearing expectations
of my mother
would pull the trigger
and fire the fatal shot,
not until
his debonair charm
took my breath away.

Inheritances

The horrors of childhood
cast an engulfing shadow
beyond adulthood,
beyond the final breath.
The nightmares
creep into generations. 

Be aware
of what you put out into the universe,
the light bounces back,
so does the darkness.
Be wary
of what you whisper into a child's ear,
a lullaby
returns as symphony,
a word of hatred
may break a heart
or make it bleed rivers.

Ellipsis

Heavy clouds
loom over the ivory towers–
expansive spaces of isolation
nurtured obsessively
by ordinary people.
The silence that infests
inside and out,
hangs upside down
like snoozing bats.
 
The unspoken
becomes the soul’s slow poison.

The Discreet Charm of Not Knowing

The aching urge
to peel and nibble at cuticles
is fetishism 
that doesn’t know itself–
fetishism to taste your own element.
The beauty of twilight–laid bare,
is a wet dream 
that doesn’t know itself.

The wild swaying of the branches
to the monsoon winds
is juvenile playfulness 
that doesn’t know itself.
A late afternoon dream
is unfinished business 
that doesn’t know itself.
The inner child
is a fading shadow of the past 
that doesn’t know itself.
The unbearable weight of the ticking
and the hollow spaces
are life’s curtain call 
that doesn’t know itself.
The muted voices
and its tender ache
are the full stop 
that doesn’t know itself.

When the stone melts...

He’s dealt
with the worst in men,
desperate, hungry, lawless thugs.
He’s witnessed
the worst of the world,
gangrapes, mass murders, forced conversions.
His best friend died in his arms
in the battlefield,
he lost his son
to the madness of brainwashing sermons,
his brother resigned to the deepest darkness of the cellar
and is terrified to see the light of day.
 
Nothing moves him anymore.
The cruelty of life
hardened him,
his sanctum – petrified.
 
Late one autumn evening,
when the air was loaded
with the unbearable lightness
of pellucid wings and wayward spirits,
he knelt by a lantern
and recited short stories
to his seven-year-old granddaughter
from the yellowing pages of a secondhand book.
When he finished narrating the tale
of the reunion of a mama bear with her two cubs,
the little girl pulled his shirt
and hugged him tightly.
He abruptly dropped the book to the floor
and did something
he hadn’t done in the last six decades.
He hugged her back
and cried uncontrollably
into the strange silence
of the unrushed hour.

The Odds

With the few words I know
I weave a million stories.
Most of them
go unnoticed,
one or two
resonate.
 
With the 'ever-evolving' constants,
countless worlds and timelines
emerge from the womb,
merge into the womb.
Most of them
dissolve into the mist,
one or two
become self-aware. 

chocolate over vanilla

I play the game
a million times.
I choose
black over red,
gills over wings,
clubs over spades,
sense over sex,
or otherwise.
Whichever path I take,
whatever excuse I make,
I end up doing the same shit
over and over and over again.
 
I stare at the same skies
and bathe under the same starlight
across all the universes.
I smell the same flowers,
play the same cards,
I holler through the same hallways,
sleep through the same rollercoaster rides
and scenic drives,
I dab the same vapors
and dabble with the same odds,
I jump into the same valleys,
float over the same fog,
I fool around
with the same friends
around the same streetcorners,
I fuck around
with the same chances
in all constructs and deconstructs.
 
I play the game
a million times,
same code, different skins.
 
The gods
laugh at our drama
and our petty troubles.
They stoop
and whisper to the winds:
Choice is an illusion.
The game is fixed
and the dice are loaded.
 
We’re told:
The fallen hero
rolls the boulder uphill
to witness another glorious sunset. 

String Theory

Puppetry:
I shake my limbs to the music
like a manic ape, scared senseless.
Her ghost sits across the room
in a secluded corner.
The weight of her presence
drowns the beats and the dull ache.
 
Her Solo Performance:
I drag my frame across the cold mosaic,
assaulted by shame and stink.
She beckons me,
holds me by the nape of my neck,
and strokes my bruised back
like she’s playing the cello.
 
Tethered Cords:
I relive the horrors of those final seconds
in the overpowering stillness of the night;
glimpses of her
through the shattered glass,
fragments of her
through the shattered memory.
 
Haunting:
I close my eyes, sometimes forcefully,
sometimes in silent resignation.
Her laughter cuts deeply,
and her whispers
dance on the flimsy strings 
of my existence.

Sliding Doors

Should I take the train
for a 'happily ever after',
or miss it
and let the anguish
gaze into the abyss,
birthing a thousand elegies?

*title of the poem lifted from the 1998 movie.

Soul-in-a-Pod

Pods are flung into the air
by the wild waves of Time,
like orcas playing with a seal.
 
Beyond the chaos,
carried by the salty winds,
a few lucky ones
drift towards the golden sunset. 

Midsummer

I sleep
in a sea of wild grasses.
 
The blades stretch skyward
thirsting for heaven and sun,
and sway
like tethered spirits
of fallen warriors.

Once upon a time in a simple world located far, far away

A room is no longer a room,
once a blooming garden
of flutters, kisses, and caresses.
A wall is no longer a wall,
to keep us safe
from the monsters.
A painting is no longer two hills,
a sunset, and a flowing river,
a pure-hearted expression on canvas.
 
Love is no longer delightful,
its loss, no longer bittersweet,
the world,
no longer forgiving.  
 
Scribbles on newspapers
were pure random joy,
lullabies
wooed us to deep slumber,
stories
spilled magic into the forgotten corners of the heart.

We grow up
and we complicate.
We lose the power to let go,
and harbor memories that push us to the edge.
 
We learn
and we complicate.
We write lengthy essays
for what a child may express in four words.    
 
We live
and we complicate.
We try to cram more life into that little dot of time,
until we die trying. 

Crush

It's never a broken heart.

It's a sore heart.
It's the sting, 
like skin getting scraped
against the asphalt.

It's a heavy heart,
immensely heavy 
and pregnant
with an unbearable void.

It's a wailing heart,
crying out like foreboding, wartime sirens,
weakening the joints,
making me collapse like a ragdoll. 

It's a bleeding heart,
color - deepest crimson,
warm liquid oozing out across,
like a vessel with a thousand punctures. 

Or may be, to call it a 'broken heart'
is an well-intended euphemism. 
Giving it any another name
might mercilessly crush the bearer.

monkey see, monkey do

They're told:
A little curiosity will land them in hell,
so they play it safe
and don't go very far.
They don't break the walls
or climb the mountains.
 
In this blink of time
on this insignificant speck,
which stance is wiser?
Be wary of the wrath of gods
and accept the narrative,
or deny the bullshit
and take the journey inwards,
and outwards?
In the end,
none of us will make it alive,
and none of us
will be any the wiser.
 
When the volcano erupts,
the frog in the well
and the thousands croaking in the nearby pond
will be boiled alive.
After the sounds are muted,
the gods last a little longer.

November Rain

He looked dapper
in the crewcut and the uniform.
He was a gentleman,
a different kind of beast,
a beast, nonetheless.
 
Grandma said:
real love
is letting him go,
if it’s for a higher purpose.
I held his hand
through the train window.
My legs were trembling,
my voice, choking,
tears were rolling down my cheeks,
and a shiver ran through my spine.
He pulled my arm closer
and kissed me on my wrist.
I felt his callused hand
delicately graze my cheeks
as I stared at his beautiful, thick eyelashes.
A storm broke overhead.
 
Hordes of thoughts thundered in my mind.
I was sweating profusely
and was about to faint.
His aftershave,
the jasmine garlands,
the stink of drain water,
and the overwhelming smell of samosas
made me nauseous…
When I opened my eyes again
the train had taken off.
 
It was a cold November morning.
He had been missing from my life
for nine summers.
When I went to drop off my five-year old at school,
it was the same unmistakable trace
of aftershave in the air,
the same unmistakable crewcut,
and the impeccably prim uniform.
His moustache was thicker,
the cheeks were sunken,
and his eyes were deeper.
The beast hasn’t changed.
 
He smiled gleefully, waved at me,
and tried to stop a couple of cars
before crossing the road.
My grip went limp,
and I dropped the umbrella to the ground.
The downpour, the honking,
and the hot flash
were overwhelming.
I knew I was about to faint again.
 
A couple of seconds
before passing out,
I felt his tight grip on my waist.
My eyes were closing gently
as I saw my reflection
in a tiny teardrop
glinting from his boy-like eyelashes.

What the squirrel heard from its burrow

Every object—
a chair, a tree, a rock,
the wriggling worms underneath,
a spider weaving its web,
the throes of its paralyzed victim,
a spoken word, the unspoken,
a brushstroke, a birdsong,
church bells, funeral pyre,
jubilation, innocence,  
the mountains, a cloudburst,
an overripened sky,
is its own philosophy. 

Every man, woman, and child
is their own philosophy,
whether they choose
to fall or rise,
to hold on or let go
to speak or not to remain silent,
to love, be indifferent, or to remain hostile,
to learn, unlearn, or be stagnant,
everything we consume
or purge,
every drug
that enhances, excites, 
or softens the experience,
is a variable in the equation,
is a part of the becoming.

Whether we choose
to be or not to be,
we add to the experience,
we merge into the consciousness,
we become the oneness. 

Scalpel

Chaos, stillness, timelessness.
Myth, gravity, fragility.
Incisive, piercing, lingering. 

Eyes
that cut through
the suspense of the moment,
bear
the weight of the words,
unravel
the magic of life itself.

Hamstrung

I saw
cannons firing in the sky.
I watched the spectacle with my father.
There was one that landed too close.
We tried to run for our dear lives,
but we froze in time.
The whirlpool above us
sucked us inside.
A string snapped,
the dream vanished.   
 
Our reality
is a reductionist tale
of the insecurities of the gods.
Millions of them
walk in and out of our dreams
trampling the canvas,
setting off a mindless stampede.
We survive
because of our myopia.
We open our eyes
and we forget everything.
Anyone with the mental capacity
to think beyond
or to remember more than they should
either goes insane
or kills himself.

The perfume she wears on Sundays

Time—
gnawing bits of her scarce joys,
chipping away at her appetite for light and hope,
scraping her element,
peeling her essence, layer by layer,
eroding her zest for life.
 
On really bad days, time
plunders, butchers,
forces itself on her,
gets away clean,
until what is left of her
is a mere shadow.
 
Sometimes,
I stand at a street corner
to take in a whiff
of that special perfume she wears on Sundays,
or to catch a glimpse of her wearied smile
that still warms my heart.
 
Sometimes,
I wait there,
with roses in my hand,
roses of the deepest red, I told the florist.
 
My knees tremble,
my throat runs dry,
as I struggle to summon the courage
to reclaim the grown-up girl
I still call my first love.

Skin Deep

Silhouettes, shadows,
extreme close-ups, tears,
reflections, reflections on tears,
starlit skies, cool breeze
under the starlit skies,
the flight of migratory birds
under the starlit skies,
laughter, unfiltered laughter,
unfiltered light,
skin.
Unfiltered light on skin.
Sweat on skin.
Chocolate on skin.
Specks, flecks, freckles on skin.
Gloss on skin. Lipstick. Love bites.  
The curves, the folds, the pores.
The stretch marks.
The goosebumps
around the areola.
Ice on skin.
Lube on skin.
Menthol.
Thrills under the skin,
thrills on the skin,
titillating,
cold thrills, cheap thrills, chills.
The moans, the smacks,
the hush, the whispers.
Youth. Transgressions.
A life lived.
Blink of an eye.

Fallen Wings

She stares at the blue flame
while cutting lettuce and carrots,
fine chopping the greens and oranges,
mindless of the whirring, humming, buzzing,
and other numbing noises
which fill the frozen space-time
in her little kitchen.  
 
He hasn’t lied,
at least to her knowledge,
but his presence around her
is piercingly suffocating.
He hasn’t been unfaithful,
but for some minor breaches
that involved some one-night stands,
no strings attached,
no emotions involved,
no serious commitments.
He’s not capable of one.
 
Her own heartbeat
in the silence of the night
is louder than his snoring,
her muffled screams
in the shower
are louder than the roar of a passing airplane above,
her welled-up tears
in the middle of a busy marketplace
are louder than the boisterous bargains.
 
She feels
the man of the house
has a weird sense of humor.
‘Whatever she is,
she became
because I allowed it,’
he remarked to his best friend
at the dinner table,
and guffawed.
 
She feels
the man of the house
had a misplaced sense of romance.
Every time they become intimate,
things seem more distant.
He starts a timer
and writes an entry in a logbook.
He jibes:
his act of fucking
is the art of fucking.

She feels
the man of the house
has no sense of acknowledgement.
He takes her for granted:
her space,
her time,
her consent.
He loves to see her naked,
her fears exposed
and dignity bared.
 
Sometimes she stares out of a train window
or into an impenetrable void for too long
and escapes into her internal landscape,
a personal portal,
filled with swatches of neon colors
and a montage of shots from the past,
Neither sad nor ecstatic.
It’s a smooth escape
from the drudgery
and the dreadful monotony.  
Inside the sanctuary
she frantically searches everywhere
for her fallen wings.

Nothing truly belongs

Our lives
have been lived before,
our dreams
have been dreamt before,
our drama
has been played a thousand times
in packed theatres,
our stories are not unique,
our pain, our tears, our suffering
have been stomached and forgotten,
our shames have been exposed,
our vulgarities despised,
our love, our passions, our joys
shall soon be reduced to distant memories.
Like the previous generations,
we too shall pass on the baton.
 
The brightest candles
will be blown by the wind,
the loudest philosophies 
will not make sense anymore,
neither the quietest moments,
like a ripple on a lake,
like a quiet shadow,
like a season’s passing.
The cave paintings will fade,
the greatest palaces and temples 
will turn to dust and rubble,
cities will disappear,
hordes of prophets 
and pantheons of gods- 
even the mightiest, 
will be falsified, 
civilizations will be buried,
mountains will fold,
and land will become sea. 

In an abandoned playground,
a broken swing sways gently
to the whims of the twilight breeze.
In the grand scheme of things,
in the nonchalant silence of the cosmos,
the universe minds its own business.