Oh I have one!

To start a blog took little bravery

In earnest was it to be literary

Well that didn't happen

So grossly mis-shapen

Here's a bit of godawful poetry (ahem para break)

To indicate serious intent

There will be considerable content

You'll start with a frown

And come hurling down

Oh yes like it will be so potent- (ahem para break)

Ly so somniferous and even

Soporific soporiferous

Tonight I will write

Yes! I will benight

This blog withthe way of my errors (Fin)

I

On most days, I am Rip van Winkle crushed by ambition. I would relax, let go and be a perfect bum if it weren't for the constant, niggling need to at least try and be all I want to be...kinder, more generous, a little more wicked perhaps. Mathematical linguist. Someone who knows what that term means. I want to be able to open hearts and minds with a tune, as I dance through currents of words and string them together to form magnificent water garlands of soul, expression and poetry. The waking dream of a genius poet of ocean eyes and honest countenance. Ocean eyes that are at once gorged on and starved for depth. I want to be omniscient, sensually peaked, immortal. It's no wonder that I usually disappoint myself.

But sometimes, almost like a reward for wanting, just wanting, to be more, I feel happy like a little pigtailed princess. Alive, awash with rhymeless glee, askamper by the absence of guilt. Paranoia? What means that? Compulsion? Tchah and pfoo!

It isn't the hearty, chest-inflated satisfaction of righteous indignation or the smirksome, gloatful leer of cynicism. It isn't that perverse contentment claimed by self-proclaimed martyrs. Nor does it spring from being loved, liked or admired. And It's not that warm feeling. It's a feeling of certainty. A point when time, space and consciousness are all in phase.

It's most definitely not a return to innocence. That would just be two steps back. The Grand Trunk of life is an uphill one-way. And sometimes you have the good sense to get out of that damn box. Walk, run, drown in the sunset, hang by your tail off a branch, get high on spirals of warm air. So you don't remember if you were smiling or bawling your guts out. So when the clinical grip of thought yanks you back to caution and habituality, you'll know. When your little gift of precious years runs out, and you ask yourself...did you feel it? You'll know you did. And until you master this feeling so that it comes as thoughtlessly as breath, the rest of the shebang - career, success, people, beauty, knowledge, winning, losing, acquiring - is just incidental.

I hope to understand. I hope to lose my mind.

Pose-try

Meeting is over
Wisdom pretended
Bellies distended
Smugly appraising
A job not quite done but then sagely appears otherwise

Fingers are twitching for
Soddenly dancing
Play a musician
Play bard or poet
Play an adult, plodding to a respectful demise

Words twist to meaning
'sploding, asunder
Whipped into metre
Swift, short-tailed offering
Curse all expression, can't think of a single last line

Sepia

Flat, warm beer
Mutilated, consumed candle
Unfinished sentence
Jaded eyes
Abandoned dinner plate
Coffee ring on the ledge
Shards from a flung glass
Charred house
Dead phone
Another abortive attempt at the great romance?
Murdered child, frozen for autopsy
Whodunnit with the last chapter ripped off
Caked blood
File open, file closed
Orphan girl
Mum's b/w photo
The earring that wasn't lost
Hoarse throat
Letter lost in mail
Padded white cell
Raided tomb
Faith
Hell
Love
Life
Eternity
22/7

(Things rendered poignant while waiting for an answer)

Suspended

'Tis improper for a wench
Of pond'rous (wee) built to then
Be likewise p o n d e r o u s in bent of
Mind

Lest when time's
Wheels have turned
And returned

Hope has bloomed and withered, After
Springs, autumns, cocoons, metamorphoses, After
Women and cities ha' been raped and rebuilt, After
Space's orbs have shifted their arcs, Again

Heart has weathered slights, storms, More yet
Have grown childhood's playmates
Time has eaten into itself, More yet

She should be here
Still ponderous
Still
Ponderous
In built and bent

The Birds and the Baee

There are, broadly, two types of creatures that make a lifestyle out of walking on two legs: birds and humans. I believe that my maid, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the latter, is actually a highly trained ostrich or another of such twiggy legged birds who are proud possessors of a vacant stare and an unshakably thick air.

This is not the wild surmise of an individual desperately trying to make sense of the world around her. Although I am. Desperately trying. From what I’ve heard, in ways more than one.

About the maid-ostrich association, it is a conclusion I have drawn from experiments repeated more than once, always yielding consistent results:

• I point out to her that she hasn’t cleaned the counter under the stove. She gives me a glassy stare, cocks (or hens) her head, blinks a number of times and then proceeds to clean the counter around the stove.
• I show her a utensil which bears traces of last night’s dinner. She asks me in a high-pitched voice that resembles a bird squawk trying to be a bird song: Will four chapattis be enough for the evening?!
• I ask her why she didn’t dust behind the television. She asks me if four chapattis will be enough for the evening.
• I bring to her notice the fact that she was late coming for work today as well. “Will four chapattis be enough for the evening?”, she squawks.

If that’s not a pattern, Britney Spears sings. Cognitively capable beings do not respond in such a manner. I came up with different questions. She could at least try to come up with different answers. Of course, the picture would change in its entirety if she were a highly trained ostrich. So an ostrich she will be, highly trained. And if you’re trying to work out what that makes me, stop right there. I’m sure you have clothes to fold or something to stuff into something else.

Caress

I took a bite of the food before me. It was sweet. It was sumptuous. The alcohol that went with it was bitter. My taste buds were pleased. But I was satisfied only because I felt each bite softly settle on my tongue and each cool sip roll down and soothe my parched throat.

I saw a painting. Strokes and splashes. A startled moment from a distracted conversation when the painter caught something that didn't belong. A flash of sadness in a face contriving to be happy. Furious, inspired fingers scooped paint and stretched it into slopes and curves. Blades and brushes were employed. A face was born. Eyes took light. And my hands demanded to be laid on the picture.

I found a song. I was waiting for it, longingly, lazily. The song found its way to me. I listened. And again. I listened with my eyes open. I listened in darkness. I cupped my face in my hands and listened with the beat of the air rushing in and out of my lungs. Then I listened to it loud. Really loud. It seeped through my skin, quietly surged through each cell of my body and burst against my heart. Then I lost caution. Found myself expecting soft breathing on my back. Smiled as I imagined a smile behind me. And waited for a touch.

We think. We create. Love, ideas, images, music, poetry. A magnificent universe of intangibles. So much of it a collective dedication to a touch. That once was. Or happily still is. Or the dream of a touch. Infuriating hope that refuses to be quelled. Agonizing, undying dream of a touch that might some day be.

An Absurd Little Bird

Mmman it's a sucky day!
No no no no none of that Bridget's-having-a-bad-day material. We're going to write something deep today.
Aaargh!!! Feeling lazy, crazy and out of control. Can never do anything right
Come now, focus focus...try pickin' a subj. Music? Hmm? Philosophy? Try Life. Yes...LIFE
I mean...really...how did we get so incompetent? such an ear-reddening experience, when your colleagues look at you as if you were a sewer rat having a go at a job. Who do they think I am!?
Who am I? See that's a good start.
Oh zip it Aristattle. Zip it good. Zip it tight. Zip it like a body in a bag.
I -
And did you see the look on her face yesterday? She's been trying to teach me to sing for years, her effort mounting to millenia..
See...that's your problem. Always overdoing it. Joy, grief, lust, self-reprimands, eating, fighting. Always over the top..get a grip chickie.
What are you my mother now.
Of course not. I'm you.
...................................................................
HELLOO VIEWERS! I'M YOUR HOST, VOICE like HONEY. WELCOME TO ANOTHER EPISODE OF 'WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE ME', A FASCINATING (script to the crypt buddy. can't stray from the lines) PEEK INTO THE WEAVE OF CONTRADICTIONS THAT IS LIFE. MY LIFE. YOUR LIFE. OUR LIVES. SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO FEEL ALONE AGAIN (although you're probably not anyway, what with the thriving cosmopolitania in your bopper, whacko) TODAY'S SUBJECT HAS ALSO BEEN FEATURED IN THE HIT SERIES 'VOICES IN MY HEAD'. CONTENTS OF THE NEXT HOUR OF VIEWING MAY BE EXPLICIT. WE ADVISE YOU TO SHUFFLE CHILDREN AND IMPRESSIONABLE PEOPLE INTO THE NEXT ROOM.

Aging

Drink makes me gregarious. I make good conversation when under the influence. I'm true, honest, articulate and definitely not boring. Well, that is at least the impression I have impressed upon myself.

Accumulated data suggests that the defendant can get crass. Can be as crass as that athletic little fillie in a hot pink lycra dress, who gaggles on about her genetically inherited figure and then lists the number/amount of each type of fatty food she ingests in a day. Crass, yes. However, a loss of delicacy certainly does not imply a downward spiral in deliciousness of soda-fountainhead generated life truths, spasmodically spewed to the general glee and ticklement of little innocent bystanders. No, not little, innocent bystanders. Little innocent bystanders.

The downside of this apparent lightheadedness is that one lets one's guard down so that when one is quite merry making an ass of oneself, misery pounces on the unwitting singular. Or compare it with climbing a masochistic ladder and then wheee-ing down the slide attached to it, at breakneck speed. It's fun till your bottom hits the bottom a little harder than previously expected. Leaving one gawping and on the verge of tears.

On a portentous evening not too long ago, my climb up the ladder began with the unfortunate realization that all the people around the watering hole (or at least a few to many) were looking at my two pretty friends. Before you grunt as a sign of disgust and fatigue, let me just say that humans have had vanity challenge issues ever since they were lice-picking monkeys. So puh-leese. Anyway, didn't a sodden old joker once say life's all about the small things.

Zen knows I won't be the first one in the line of word-users to admit to the ugly-duckling complex, with a Hyde twist of course. That said, I also do feel pretty sometimes (sheesh) and have an absolute blast splashing around in the shallow and scented.

To stick to the point though, I was mighty pissed for not getting any attention in spite of the fact that I should be used to this sort of thing by now. Did I mention that everything that’s not matter in the Universe is in fact my ego? Be that as it may, I was pissed. Then I was pissed about being pissed. You know the sort of thing. Too tedious to elucidate.

At such points in life, the Wise One in me disentangles herself from the mess I’ve got myself into and speaks to me in the second person. We had the following conversation the next morning:

Me: *!@!$!#!@
Wise One: You need to stop being repetitive.
Me: All a guy ever wants in a girl is big hips narrowing into a waist like a bottle-neck and then blossoming into just the right amount of bosom.
Wise One: Yes, you were very voluble in stating that opinion last evening.
Me: Ye-es. Apparently not the sorta thing one’s supposed to declare to an unsuspecting clientele. I think it’s perfectly tame. Well at least I tried to be poetic with it. No-one was looking at me! (Burble burble).
Wise One: Is there a mandate on that?
Me: Oh shaddap. I’m funny, witty, talented.
Wise One: So?
Me: Well they should at least glance if not swoon and die.
Wise One: Don’t people have the prerogative to look at anything that pleases their eye or otherwise?
Me: I suppose so (whiny and spluttered)
Wise One: Well what in the name of grunge are you sobbing on about then?

That was the clincher. Vain I shall probably be forever and more but it’s ludicrous for me to expect the general public to indulge in my vanity with the same degree of zest as me. What's more, it's absolutely and unconditionally unpardonable for me to then get self-righteous about the whole thing. So as things stand, I have conquered the beastly brat within. Life promises to become interesting. Maybe I’ll even start writing in the third person.

On the Rocks - Bottom

Signing in. Drunk. Desperate. Progenitor of bad jokes. Graceless. Words desert me. Humour feels betrayed and returns in kind. Grace is the end of hypocrisy. Grace is unachievable.

The story one might barf at if it hadn't really happened

Consider two women. Call them A and B (for want of wanting to come up with better names). Bosom buddies. Siamese twins in an ethereal way. Love to love each other, love to hate each other and all that jazz and a bit of overkill even. Have disturbingly similar taste in men. Must always stay on toes about that. Sometimes compensate and at other times heighten each other's flaws. Have most satisfactorily overlapping moral sensibilities. They both share the opinion that put together, they might make one really decent person. Except that either is much too much in love with her most imperfect (and never claiming otherwise) self to think about being put together with anything. That would be too easy, says one, screwing up is the funner way of growing up.

So when a conversation between such two females of bohemian leanings, and what they like to think of as a jointly wild and rampant spirit, took the following turn, at least one of them found it unsettling:

B: I need to get home. I haven't cooked yet.

A (triumphantly): I already cooked and came.

B: Cool. (Proudly states further) Dya know I made idli-sambar one day?

A: Ooh. You can make idli-sambar? Wow. How did you make it?

(At this point, it strikes A that with the way this little chat is going, they might as well be talking about neck jewellery from the latest serial K. She makes a brave attempt to check this disturbing stream of conv.)

A: You know what...DON'T tell me. I'm really not ready for idli-sambar yet.

B (still in the momentum of things): And badi aaloo!

A: I know how to make badi aaloo.

B: No, you don't.

A: I'm telling you I just learnt from Z's mother. It's the exact same recipe. With dhaniya powder!

Despair. The conversation, once dealing with Dustin Hoffman, had slipped to dhaniya powder and there was nothing either could do about it. So they dealt with the stress in the best way they knew how. They burst into hysterical fits of laughter. In a less public place, they'd be cackling obscenely in a matter of seconds.

It just so happens that this seemingly deviant dialogue had brought with it a refreshing aroma which rekindled an old warmth between A and B, who had actually been treating each other like cold, three-day old chicken of late. But that's another story.

By the end of the evening, B had smacked A with a heart-warming expletive and was returned in kind. They hugged and A found that she was quite silly-happy after a long time indeed.

Disclaimer: The author means not to belittle the fine art of cooking for which she has recently acquired love and respect of the highest degree. It's just that she associates culinary conversations with marriage-obsessing aunts and dragons that shriek.

There's no countin' on anything these days. Here I am watching a perfectly cliched type of movie, with no seeming danger of being provoked to thought, with a perfectly cliched plot and the perfectly cliched i-hate-everyone, gothic, tangy-outside-but-soft-and-sweet-inside chick sends a chill down my spine by chirping to the perfectly cliched geek good boy when she's ditching him on a great evening to go back to her perfectly cliched charming snake of a boyfriend (and I merely paraphrase):

I feel so Lucky. You know...how there are those couples that just stay with each other coz they can't do any better. And then there are the miserable, lonely ones. But then there are a few Lucky people who get to be with blah blah (you know where it's going).

"Fuck", I succinctly say to self.

And I don't really feel too bad for the perfectly cliched geek good boy coz I know he's getting the girl in another fifteen minutes approximately. Guess who I'm feeling bad for. Could it be a certain old, warted woman in an old age home, driving her senile roomie crazy coz she gnashes her teeth in her sleep, entirely unable to cope with an unfulfilled fantasy.

Not that I have anything against being alone but one may be excused the occasional urge for self-validation through the realization of fairy tale romances.

And thus it is that I find myself typing out a shamelessly desperate post. I hope noone I know will read it but just someone I don't know will.

Heck, I'll even heave and sigh and say, "Romeo Romeo...", or whatever else will do the trick.

Dusked

Whizzing homeward past a popular pavement

where people meet, i said to myself

Aretheyreallyinlove space helooksreligious space aretheygayorishedrunk space she's waiting...

toddling child, don't let mama go

dust cloud and that there mite i be

corn seller man, call it a day

?

"42"



...Huh?


No, that's not the question, silly...or is it?

Animal

latent play of desperation
builds up to
wilful surrender to melancholy

i mock, dismiss
the scorching brightness of success
i lightly float
upon the thick brine
of my oasis of gloom
sheltering me
from the desire
of lust of from him
of envy from her

...Now

Today I free verse
From the rusted, wasted, wearied shackles
Of self love
And self loathing
And self indulgence

Today I get over myself
Not 'will get'
Not 'should get'
Today I get over myself
I do

Today I find the grace
To ask for attention when I want it
Sans excuse
Sans apology
In just so many words
May I?

It isn't yet dawn
I am clean
Pure
Unsullied by light
Or thought
Thought about thought and over it and around it

Although that makes a good story too
Right now I must enjoy a moment of poise
With all the tension
Of fine balance
Of impending...relapse

Like being four
Tip toed and arms spread
on the single brick lining
Of the flower bed in the garden
Ready for flight or fall
Any moment now
I might burst out in laughter