Double Cross

Love me as you would love a woman

No child, no whore, no mother am I

Just a double cross on your single Y

Can I hold a kiss and never let go?

Build temples and worship your toes?

Live every day like it were the last

each moment with you as if the first?

So love me as you would love a woman

No god, no dog nor the ocean’s blue

I am a two-faced bitch, its true, it is

Turn me around and you will find

a saint, that’s right and a sinner without bound

I seek in you what you seek of me

The missing part that was made not to fit

Lightness, laughter, limericks and all

Lifes’ unbound charm, its deep chasms for free fall

Open winds, open wounds, closed to the world

on cloudy days and rainy nights,

I seek of you what you see in me.

Do love me as a woman, I am

but a double cross on your single Y

Lies

Delicious lies, sweet lies,

Oh do spare me those facts

If this fib is what I have of you,

All the more, all the more

Fill me with lies and I will 

Make them my truth

Pining, Again

A few pages a day, they say,

That's how long it took to process

The Bible in times before the printing press.

Pray what about their poets?

Did they scribble into oblivion frantic lines?

Cryptic windows Into everyday

glories or mundane miseries?

Urgently, on cue, from somewhere within,

Write, write, it will be over all too soon,

Rush through all your ruptured thoughts,

Say all you want, before silence returns?

So where are those tomes of love-lorn souls?

Pining for beauty, and a few words to live?

Here there are only people, memories and moods

All printed, bound, mass produced and then, neatly arranged.

In never-looked-at-wings of life's lengthy libraries.

So much to learn, who cares to pine?

One Such Day

And then there are days when

All I want to do is to run

Away from your worries, activism

Climate change, babies breaking careers

Bright new kids' uniforms, your rush hour.

Locked in the dark room, some days,

I unlock my treasure chest of treats,

Indulge each drop of unshed tears,

Bathe in smooth, base, male voices

Singing of a broody moon and meteoric loves

And when the storm comes,

I embrace it, embrace you in it.

Handicapped By Language

Under open clouds and flickering sun

I crave to pen lines and lines,

Erase, write again, fill spaces within

With sounds unheard, arcane

I pilfer words, perhaps in vain?

Speak I must, but how must I

Describe Hiraeath?

A longing for home in the lilt of our tongue,

that which first drew me to you?

Or Cafune?

That mellow stardust you sprinkled on my hair;

arousing tears, who knew, who knew!

Insouciant was I, when winter passed

and blood coursed afresh in every vein

Fingers met, duende reborn;

And Cingulomania?

Just me and you, in one world, all of the world.

Oh bring me words, do bring me more

Give me a language in which I can write!

Of all my feeble attempts to say just this

Love made beauty impossible to miss

Till then, I was blind, just blind.

Text Messages

With honeyed prose, burnished verses,

and fiery flashes of brilliance,

they burn to ashes: my daily grind,

tombstones of ambition, existence.

Mystic secrets, verily, your text messages.

A quantum entanglement, verily,

this affair that never was. Colliding,

embracing; weaving tenacious ghostly tenons

in absence and presence; You and I

Probabilities, one among many

The present is alive with you, in you

What has passed and what is to come?

Time's curved arrows, meanwhile ripple through you.

Spinning multitudes of me.

Mystic secrets, verily, your text messages.

Broken, Different, Me

You are broken, so am I

And so, I will try

not to set it right.

Come, lend me

a piece of you

So I may be

a different me

In part.

A better me, or worse.

All of me is just

Shattered

Bits of him

and of her.

Lend me your bruised

Red heart, black-blue blood,

mud-walled dream

Of stark white space within?

If all you have are pieces

That will do too. Will do.

Cells grow, galaxies too

Duplicate, multiply in

Fibonacci sequence piles

Neat geometries, precise portions

But we? All we

can do is collect;

Pile up, add on

And hope to grow.

with fragments.

So lend me,

a tiny piece of you

For I may then be,

a different me.

In part.

Touch

I seek your skin

and crave your lips

My blood rages, surges

With all the heat of the galaxies,

I burn this lamp of desolate wait

Empty space reaches out to emptiness

Aren't we after all,

Bundles of atoms?

Large spaces of

almost nothingness?

And yet, skin seeks

Smoothness of your skin.

Hand reaches out to hand.

Surely,

What is touched is not just flesh?

Broken Figurines

Porcelain figurines,

Made by hand

Multi-colored

Glazed, bejeweled.

They stand

Frozen-dancing.

One by one

Counting miniature

Smiles on full red lips

And vacant spaces

Ever so thin.

Fragile, delicate!

Be careful!

If you can,

Don't touch at all.

All it takes is a tumble,

An elfin fall

Broken, crushed, they

Will cost you as much;

If not more

Were they full.

Now

Someday, another day

One fine day, maybe not today

Why not today?

Lies, lies, it's all just lies

Today is just as good as any

When was it about the date?

It's here. Now? How?

No, how quick!

I miss air, get it off;

A reason, purpose, will

to pick up my coffee cup

Coffee clears the head

Why not a drink at seven?

And then?

Jungles, mountains, oceans

Come to sit with me

Invite the moon for our party

Who is missing?

Too many, too many to breathe

Crowded, noisy, barren streets

Running, choking, clogged streets

I miss air, hey get it off. Now!

Someday, one fine day,

You will, I will too.

Only You

I write and delete. But write again.

Your pen, the way you spin your pun,

Warm fingers, dark rooms,

Crisp bedspreads,

and time, such time!

Hours glide into the setting sun

While I hunger after 

Wild lilies, sweet honey, monsoons,

Your kiss! Your eyes which sing

naughty melodies, smooth and naive.

I write of storms but no, it's silent here.

I write of wind but see, no leaf moves now?

What is true when you are here,

Is the only truth when you are not

Silence, storms, kisses, songs

All with you, in you, only you.

I write and delete. And write again.

Your name, your name. Only you.

Abhaya by Sai Swaroopa

This again, is a post from here that I have reposted in my blog for the sake of, well, archiving, I guess!

“My love for Krishna started when I was on the threshold of adolescence…In my quest, I found my flute holder grow up to become a king maker, a philosopher and a Yugapurusha. Accordingly my feelings transformed from infatuation to reverence to continuous enquiry (Jignaasa)”. With this personal story, the author Sai Swaroopa, draws us into her world of Krishna Leela as showcased in her novel Abhaya. Herworld with an emphasis because this novel is distinctly feminine in its observations, analyses, faith, love and dare I say, the writing too?

Why do we love stories? What is it about myths that linger in the womb of a civilisation which remembers, rejuvenates, and renews them with retelling the old tale? Is there perhaps an inexplicable, transcendent truth beyond the obvious? Could it be that stories are a way to temporarily reach out to an experience beyond the definitive and replenish your soul? Our tradition seems to affirm this, with the many variants of “katha kalaskhepam” found across India. And Sai Swaroopa chose the leitmotif of a “pittakatha” – which is typically built around but digresses from a mythological story to verbalise a political or philosophical concept for telling the story of Abhaya.

So this novel is about Abhaya, ‘the fearless’, princess of a fictional kingdom Anagha.It is about her world view, her struggle to maintain independence in thought and action; faith and despair and her altogether unworldly love for Krishna. Altough the novel is set in the time of the Mahabharatha, the only familiar characters from the epic besides Krishna are Subhadra, Mura and Bhauma. Each character that you meet here, however, is carefully crafted to showcase the ageless clash of conviction and fear- two sides to the coin of survival. Every discussion on societal change here hinges on the fulcrum of individual purpose and fulfilment but goes beyond and is at once is reverent to the effect of time on all aspects of human life and pertinent to current civilizational discourse in India.

Do you remember watching the tele-serial Chanakya and gaping in awe at the dextrousness of Chandraprakash Dwivedi’s art in which the narrative about “rashtra” and its corollary of statecraft was succinctly woven into the story of Chandragupta’s coronation? If you do, you will find it easy to appreciate my awe of this author’s skill at entwining this rather relevant theme of today- the interplay of religion and politics – into Abhaya’s saga of self actualisation.

This then is also a story of three kingdoms- and Avanti, Kamarupa and Indraprastah, – each at different levels of consolidation of political, economic and religious power and their struggle for survival. Avanti is a clearly prosperous and hence influential kingdom which counted smaller neighbours such as Angaha among its allies for the sheer magnitude of its socio-political influence. Kamarupa, the seat of the Shaktha Shrine of Kamakhya is ruled by Bauma and his evangelistic missions have strong political ambitions which he is shrewd enough to hide even from his closest allies and using them all the while to advance them; And finally, Indraprastah is the new comer and harbinger of hope, which with Krishna’s backing is surely on its way to charting a new course for Bharatvarsha’s future.

In this clash of the titans, which virtually destroyed her kingdom, Abhaya has to find a purpose for herself, face her demons- both inner and otherwise, question her faith and altogether overwhelm you as a reader with her unrelenting quest for the ‘cause’. In her journey, we meet women- strong willed such as Kadambari who chose to leave an unsuccessful marriage and pursue her spiritual growth; masters of strategy such as Subhadra who can teach Krishna a leaf or two on political acumen, wise and open minded like Sheyni who pursues love with as much rigor as her freedom to chose. We also meet women such as Dhatri- gullible, self-deceiving and perhaps rendered vulnerable because of her turbulent past. What is striking is that none of the women portrayed is looking for a saviour. But yes, Krishna, the universal lover, is always in the picture, yet never quite there- at once mysterious and human, wise and whimsical, crafted by the author’s pen into a man who is man enough to let a woman be herself (a far cry from the many mythological movies I grew up with).“Can we combat the fear with faith? Can we keep our faith undeterred when the last traces of hope melt away? Can we receive blame and adulation, accept them and yet not give in to them?” He questions and ponders. Not Arjuna’s self-assured guide, Krishna here is one with Abhaya in her persuasion, uncertainty and diffidence.

If the book were any different, I would probably have dwelled frequently used inanities and cribbed about how much more natural it would have been to use Telugu terms of endearment instead of “Bhagini/Bhrata/Vatse” and about how suddenly it ended (that it ended at all!). But after eating an eight course spread on a banana leaf, one can only describe how wholesomely fulfilling the meal was. How beautifully it brought forth the relationship between existential questions of spirit with that of the corporeal. If the spice in the rasam was a little too much to bear, I didn’t even notice.

What I ended up pondering on is the endurance of myths. While myths are timeless, the messages they seem to convey are certainly not static. I wondered if Abhaya was a character in the Vyasa Bharatha, would she be worshipped like Radha? And then I wondered what happened to Panchali? Why don’t we worship her anymore? Somewhere do we all succumb to the use of contemporary frameworks in identifying the “sacred” in traditions? Why is it that today we (Hindus) seem to prefer keeping the sacred separate from the ‘profane’? Is the fear of being misunderstood by cultures foreign to ours shaping our ethos slowly? Or is Abhaya’s Krishna questioning us “Can we combat the fear with faith? Can we keep our faith undeterred when the last traces of hope melt away? Can we receive blame and adulation, accept them and yet not give in to them?”

Gandhari

This is reposted from the site I originally shared it on: Visit it here

It is said that you never read the Mahabharatha for the first time ever. That story of warring cousins and their illustrious lineages, those twists of fate and subsequent tribulations, remarkable acts of nobility, dastardly greed, blood-curling call for revenge, equally unnerving hesitation and doubt and the greatest song ever sung and all its associated idioms are so ingrained in our day to day life that when one actually gets to read it for the first time, déjà vu kicks in. Sometimes, however, you read a poem on the epic and the images that it brings forth linger in your mind. Slowly these images converge into a strident question, seek out collective cultural memories, split into many “what ifs” and “why nots” and write their story, albeit an unconventional elucidation, that resonates with one’s experiences in life.

Pindam mukkalu pillalu tolli, kunda penkulai migilira talli?

Rundikanorigina kodukula, bandhula peruperuna talachi, dukhilli

Kandlu gundamai aggini kuriyaga, krishnude karta ani enchi kopilli

kadaki yaadvula vidhiyunu yideyane, Dwaranathudu navve pranamilli

These lines from the 108 poems of the Vakbharatam expounded by Vakkeli (@ivak99) on twitter brought forth one such time-lapse image of Gandhari to my mind. A tall and exquisite lady of regal bearing; eyes blind-folded; standing erect and pounding her womb with violent and unspeakable anger at some mysterious fate which determined her share in life and decades later, finding her foetus that had spawned her a hundred sons, strewn on the battle ground in shatters: gruesome and limbless. Her blindfolded eyes watched the spectacle of death – headless corpuses and jackal-gnawed carcasses of her sons, brothers, grandsons, kinsfolk – and brimmed over in another fit of ire. This time, her rage had a target –Krishna. “May your Yadava clan too be destroyed this way” she cursed while the Lord of Dwaraka smiled.

Who was this Gandhari? Could it be the same pious, helpless queen of Dhritarashtra who spent her marital life blind-folded in an act of solidarity with her congenitally blind husband that we have read about in the Mahabharata? Or is there, like in you and me, another Gandhari? A Gandhari of thwarted dreams, of bitter loneliness who was still spirited and capable enough of seeing through the smoke-screen of rules, ritual and hierarchy?

During the Mahabharatha era, it appears that the Kuru country was the most powerful sovereign in India while Gandhara was a smaller kingdom to its north. Bhishma, the eldest of the Kuru clan and its most respected mentor sought the hand of its princess Gandhari for his protégé Dhristarasthra. When Bhishma’s messengers came to the Gandhara king Suvala with a proposal for her marriage with the first-born of the Kuru clan, Vyasabhrata doesn’t make a secret of the fact that this offer was rejected at first. While expected, given that Dhristarashthra was blind and also because his disability would likely prevent him from becoming the Kuru king, it is not clear why Suvala eventually gave in. But one can assume that such power asymmetries leave little choice to smaller kings. Vyasabharatam states ‘Gandhari hearing that Dhritarashtra was blind and that her parents had consented to marry her to him, from love and respect for her future husband, blindfolded her own eyes’. It also mentions that at the time of his marriage to Gandhari, Dhritarasthra also received other women as brides from the Gandhara kingdom including her sisters.

I have wondered at times, what would it take for a young woman like Gandhari to sentence herself to an existence of sightlessness once she heard of her father’s decision? Is it an expression of her impulsive nature or was she irrevocably hurt by this politically enthused matrimony? Could it be that by blindfolding herself to the Kuru clan, she symbolically repaid them in their own coin – a blind spouse? We draw inferences of piety from her decision to deprive herself of sight, but by refusing to be Dhritarashtra’s vision, did she display her defiance too in equal measure if not more? Whatever be her motivations, it is clear that when faced with the prospect of a conjugal union with someone who is visually impaired, she didn’t merely accept it as her fate – she did make a powerful statement- be it of love, virtue or defiance.

Arriving into the Kuru family with its internecine feuds, secrets and palace intrigues, she devoted herself to her vows of chastity while the sullen Dhritarashtra set his heart on the temporary throne which he got to ascend when Pandu left for the forest. What hope of redemption from a life-time of second-ratedness could she cling to except perhaps, for the promise of progeny? When Vyasa blessed her with a boon of a hundred sons, how eagerly must she have counted each day of her unusually long pregnancy? But once again, life threw her a curveball – Kunti, the wife of Pandu delivered a son who would now be the rightful claimant to the kuru throne. Who would have imagined that Pandu who chose to led the life of an ascetic could father a son? Was it merely jealousy then which compelled her to batter her womb with such violence? Or was it her pent up rage at her clan who married her to a blind prince who would never be the king despite what would have been her certain repugnance? O perhaps resentment at some mysterious fate which seems to determine who owns what and for reasons that no one knows?

This is not exclusively conjecture though. In a heart-breaking soliloquy in the Streeparva she exclaims to Krishna “All my sons are lost. I am unable to behold the distress and suffering of my daughters-in-law lamenting the deaths of their husbands. I do not know what sin they have committed to suffer this mental agony. They are innocent. They do not know the politics. They do not know how and for what this battle was fought. But they are the worst sufferers of this battle”. In her lament for her daughters-in-law, can one not glimpse her anguish that went beyond the war, empathy for those whose lives are torn asunder by the political aspirations and stratagems of the powers that be and her discerning grasp of the workings of authority and hierarchy?

The painfully intense first line “Pindam mukkalu pillalu tolli, kunda penkulai migilira talli? of Vakkeli’s poem captures Gandhari’s story of dejection and loss as a mother. Perhaps she was assailed by self-doubts as to her fulfilment of the roles of a mother and a wife then. Or blamed herself for giving birth to Duryodhana and not having abandoning him when all the Kuru elders advised the same. Who did she hold responsible for such carnage on the battle ground? Did she curse herself for saying “Yatho Dharma Thatho Jaya” every day of the 18 day long Kuruskhetra war when Duryodhana besought her blessings? Who looks on indifferently to the cries and woes of millions of earthlings- commoners, royal born alike and mete out only what their fate decrees? Is that why she cursed Krishna and his clan and not the Pandavas?

Who is this Gandhari who felt so helpless against destiny that she could only vent her frustrations on her unborn foetus but when she lost all her sons, could curse the Lord of the Universe Himself? Isn’t she like you and me, be a mortal caught in the web of life? Who else but the Supreme Lord could see her for what she is and smile at such a terrible curse?

Undone

Waking up to my yesteryears

In dreams, today of one day, one day!

Hold your hand, tight, again, once more

Or even once, will do, will do.

What is in touch that's not in words?

Presence and warmth that's not in sounds?

Velvet murmurs of petrichor,

your fingers;

tracing patterns through my hair

Oh what is in your words that is not in mine?

Presence, warmth, or madness, full on?

Magnets! Yes magnets, your lines

Nuts, bolts, screws and all, unraveled,

Coming undone.

I run, I run, trying

with whatever is me, Away.

Holding on to my word-horses,

meandering in the dense miles;

Of yonder thoughts and dreams.

Of yesteryears and hands held,

Velvet murmurs of petrichor

Your fingers tracing patterns

through my hair.

I run and return. Again, I do

For without those nuts,

bolts, screws, your words,

I am undone, undone.

Holi!

Colors of spring, bouncy swoon

Serein, today, from dawn to noon

Dance to the many names of bliss

rhythms of rapture, no beat amiss

Holi, love god's ephemeral death,

His ageless rebirth in life's very breath

Sweet kisses, love bites, stardust

He is behind every desire, love and lust

Kama, the cause of Shiva's cosmic dance

Aims his arrows of bhang induced trance;

So dance today to the many names of bliss 

Rhythms of rapture, no beat amiss

More or Less

No, I am not, fat!

Well ok, maybe,

Overweight, tubby.

How do I look?

Does it show?

I am on a diet,

Will be, will be.

Svelte and pretty

And then, and then?

I will be lighter,

Perhaps a little

brighter?

Sweeter, better,

Friendlier, all of that

And more

But wait, do wait

Have a tiny bit

Of me, go on,

Do taste,

Is it true then,

Less is more?

Alright then,

Diet it is

Less of everything

To eat, to drink

And I will have

Less of me

No, wait.

Less is more!

Krishna

At the scarlet dawn of history

I raised the first scimitar;

plundered, murdered, stunned

into submission; you all

Standing above you, sixteen springs old,

Shredding to tatters: your faded fabrics

of social lore, robes of rituals,

hallowed roles, cults, gods.

I stood, naked, in front of you

And from my flute to your soul,

Held eternity in a thrall.

I taught you through strife and strength,

How gains are snatched from losses

And lifetimes from a moment.

I spoke of the relentless wheels of time

Devouring and creating, each day anew;

Of action, the only truth;

And of desire, death's only foe.

And you?

You made my dark, glorious images,

Dressed them in silks and gold,

And sang lullabies to put me to sleep. 

Draft

In your urgent tangible desire,

I found my driblets of transcendence 

In my relentless pursuit of passion

You sought your temporal thrill

Miss you

Good morning. Say something.

Vacant reveries in wakeful nights,

Verses, sonnets, phrases lined up in

Metered rhythm or just cadence of love.

Or maybe just this will do

Good morning, I missed you too.

Today

As an unwavering fifth note of the scale,

You rendered my first note into music.

And when life carried you on its waves,

For a brief moment, your being must have resonated,

spun with some secret understanding

in the same frequency as something within me. 

Your song loops itself around my mind

And you haven't left. Yet.

Like a baby discerning its mother's breast

I knew you from your redolence of

mossy verdant forest paths.

And when life carried you on its waves,

For a brief moment, your being must have vaporized,

distilled in an untold hoary formulation,

your essence and sprayed it on my soul.

Your perfume lingers on my skin

And you haven't left. Yet.

Your thoughts direct this universe;

My quixotic pursuit of life, fate, fortune.

Your absence holding me closer and tighter,

More than your presence ever did.

But, it is easy to say this today

You haven't left.

Simple

Happiness has a

straightforward address.

No one can lose their way

on its path, after all.

Once you know

where to find it;

It's very simple isn't it?

I hugged it once,

Mislaid it, found it again

And wondered

if it was happiness

after all. And so,

I lost it all too soon.

It's very simple, isn't it?

Happiness has a

straightforward address.

Saudade

Do not ask me why I write.

I do not write, do I?

Of all those moments

which need to be bundled,

with sea-breeze and sandalwood

Smells of temple rituals?

Or of blessings from departed

souls at farewells, weddings,

feeding the first rice grain

to a six-month-old curious mouth?

Neither do I write, of

Soft stars falling from open

skies onto my bed at night

Showering me with white

jasmine blooms; weaving

countless tales of valor,

of sparrows too and of

those infinitesimal permutations

of the sixty four squares

of this game of life.

If I write, I write of regret, of loss,

a sense of unfulfilled belonging;

Kisses unreturned, tears unspent;

And of dreams dissolved, reshaped

Coalesced with the lapsed;

Familiar faces, new people, always people.

I write of you and of me,

who were in one sacred nook

of time and space, together

Bundled with everything that is alive.

Temple

My eyes caught yours in a shiver of bliss

And how quickly we ran into the woods!

To build a secret temple of words;

Gathering mud from mixed memories,

sweet waters of imagined perfection

and colors of our borrowed lives;

What an image we fashioned for our worship!

You merging into me, and yet being you

Lighting up the sky, and being my star;

Dreaming letter by letter, an ageless song

of desire,

We set those notes to the meter of your lines,

Today, when the full moon rose behind the hills,

I sang those songs until the eastern sky blushed.

Did you light the lamp in our temple?

Leave No Room

Say it aloud, desecrate;

Leave no room for resurrection.

My name mingles with yours

Just as the sun, facing his moon.

Never alone; earthly shadows

Within, in between.

Hold on tight, violate,

Leave no room for resurrection

Fingers printing strange letters on mine

Just as my lips touch your coffee cup

Never alone; warmth of your mouth

within, in between

Perish, kill, strangle

Leave no room for resurrection

Erase those words, mute the lyrics

Extend courtesies of polite accord

Never alone; deafening silence

within, in between.

Give Me, Yet Again

But taking, it comes

so easy to me,

I was born taking

from you after all;

Your blood, breath,

Your womb and warmth;

From your soul to mine

For hungry nights at your breast

And scared moments,

for as long as I did;

I was born to take.

And you? Giving, loving,

missing, toiling, gritting

Wonder if you had given me

All of your life too

Amma, won't you smile again?

Give me your life again?

Silence

Heavens gushing into the nether

Echo my throes of thrills

Interlacing arcs of content

With agony, thunder with moans

All in two rainy afternoons

The sun is out again now

Casting wooly-grey shadows

From behind bleached-cotton clouds

Silence is white, I learnt.

Reborn

And what does it mean to be reborn?

Eye meeting the eye, fingers entwined

Memories of your past, distinct from mine

Not guilt, not love, not memes even

Carnal desires, common idioms,

Softly whispered names, neatly written

couplets on yesterday's sands;

Forever drenched on nostalgia's shores

Losing sense or becoming aware?

One gives and the other gives too

Who takes? Who takes all that is given;

Rushes back to the shore and dumps it all?

And with a smile, says goodbye, goodbye

I leave with your light, a piece of your heart;

To all those galleries, coffee shops, poems and nooks;

Which I will never go with you,

say goodbye, goodbye.

But then again, in every coffee cup,

your poem, that gallery, each nook lit by

forlorn shadows of the tropical dusk,

I am there. Somewhere, reborn.

And Now, You are Gone

Did you knock to be let in

Or did they open the door for you?

And now you are gone, you are gone

But I see images of you

All around me, laughing, hugging

Sweeping me off my feet 

Gentle, passionate, disturbing

Rocking me to sleep, hold on.

Hold on. You are gone?

Where are the tears?

Bring them out, have a blast,

Celebrate: your life, my joy

That snippet of soul that you pinched off me

And the forever hole that you left in me

Does it keep you warm, does it make you safe?

Did you need this hole to cross the door?

And now, you are gone.

Leave Him Alone

There is a whole lot 

that is wrong with my

world.

People, noise, crowds

Cynicism, sorrow, gluttony

Oh does this list ever end?

But wait,

Perhaps falling in love

Has nothing to do 

With this list? 

And so shall we leave love alone?

Let him weave a few false

Bouquets of roses together

Let him lift a few souls into 

an awakened sense of being

And tiptoe his way around

Reality, Improbability, Boundaries;

People, noise, crowds

Cynicism, sorrow, gluttony.

That won't make him right, true.

He is not all that wrong anyway. 

Past

Today I am Belgian, I am

Charles, the Frenchman

I also am a European, Human.

And perhaps more than anything

Sad, hurt and dismayed.

Am I allowed to be angry though?

Anger burns bridges they say

Violence multiplies itself exponentially

And so lets drench our anger in ink

Write, invent a world of peace

A parallel universe of candles,

art and agonized passion

For the downtrodden,

for the black shrouds of

misunderstood oppression

For the beacons of hope that blow themselves up, For their

misinterpreted language of vengeance

But smile, grit on. That war which

They declared is centuries old

It is surely not mine or yours. It's past.

We will fight a war of colored flags,

TV speeches, peace and present hope.

The future shall bring harmony, you will see.

Meanwhile on his way to meet his three year old,

a school teacher runs into the master of his destiny

All in a split second of slow-nurtured hatred.

It is past. And today, I am Belgian, 

I am Charles, the Frenchman,

I also am a European,

A little less human maybe.

Love Again

Love is your soft lashes

brushing my cheek

The way my heart beats when

I wait to hear from you

In the song that you had sent

And the place I was when your

"Want you" text beeped

Love is fingers wrapped

around coffee cups

Open pages in the books

you read; cadence in your poems

Passion in your voice

When you speak of worlds

Beyond ours, people,

plants and our planet

Love is gratitude for being yours

In a tiny space, for a little while

Greed for a little bit more,

just once more;

Solitude meant for two, 

emptiness that only you can fill.

Love is just you. And just me.

At times, it is about two being one.

At others, one plus one

Is somehow none too.

Sunny Side Down

Traveling across the skies;

relentlessly setting,

flaring, burning and rising

Setting the daily rhythm of life,

its very cause and purpose

you seem.

And yet, when you disappear

behind clouds, shadows, horizon;

Gloom and darkness gnaw away at

My uncertain faith

There is something that tells me

That you will be back again

Tomorrow, if another day really,

Will only come when you return

Conviction and cynicism

Mingle in this circadian

Opera of the skies

Creating rainbows,

Twilight and all that's

beautiful about melancholy

And yet, who cares, who cares?

It is what it is

Cycles, seasons, love and life

Even the Sun after all,

It is what it is,

What's more to it?

Immigrants

They said new people

have come to town.

Move aside, let them in,

it's freezing here, let them in

Their land far behind, people,

memories, riches and needs,

a place to pray, cemeteries

for the dead, all gobbled up:

Violence with or without a cause,

Needless lives, needless deaths.

They said deathly winters made

them flee. Warm your heart,

they are of sinews, flesh and blood.

And like you and me, ape-descendants;

Together our era has found gravitational waves, gene therapy

and why, the god particle itself.

Move aside, let them in

Roll a smoke, lead them on

Write a story, take a picture

Feed them, famous, quick,

Strike a pose. And yet, and yet

The need to belong is still theirs.

They said, move aside, let them in

And when you did, did you truly let them in?

Love again

Broken, twisted, fated love

Ordinary, unappreciated;

Sometimes returned,

at others ignored.

No buildings to celebrate

No sonnets to recite in regret;

This love that moves on and

Wakes up in another's arms,

This breaks no hearts,

sheds no tears,

leaves no memories

To return and haunt

Make fun of it; Here, go on;

You can have my story

And have a laugh

I loved him.

And he loved me too

But only for a while.

If you measure it with

"how long it lasted",

Ofcourse, it isn't love.

But only for a while.

An Affair That Never Was - 2

This is a story of an affair that never was. 

Long long ago, in a tiny island

Crawling with crowds, dreams

confetti malls, coffee shops and

Printed balloons for every event of life

A lonely little missus met someone for coffee, once. 

And once more. 

And for the last time, 

oh please, just once more.

What stories, what beauty, what rain!

His words brought back to her,

a world she had shelved 

in her locked-out drawer of 

never-to-be-visited-memories. 

The lilt in his language taking turns, 
in unclothing her and dressing her up 

in white silk sarees, glass bangles, 

sweet wet sands of moonlit beaches,
 forgotten tastes, idioms of beauty, 

Handwoven jasmine garlands,

Armchairs meant for dreams of

two; cool coconut water in

hot sultry fields. 

Time-lapse images

of could-have-beens, 

have-beens, what-ifs, 

why nots. 

Now when urgent, intense 

memories wake our little missus 

from her daily grind and dingy dreams

there is no drawer to lock them up.