Kiss

Like drops of blood
from a bitten lip
falling into a bowl of curd.

Who played the music?

Who played the flute,
the music that came from a cosmos
the soul of which doesn’t wriggle as ours,
the music in which is mirrored beauty -
the light of that alien world.

Who played the flute,
though for a few seconds,
reflecting the serene face of that universe
which, alas, cannot be ours
for ours is suffering and sweating too much
loving, laughing and crying too much.

Who played the flute,
singing the glory of that eternity;
that ever dreaming eternity
unlike our ever despairing eternity.

Or am I mistaken,
Can I rejoice?
Is there any chance that the music I heard now,
the flute I listened to for these fleeting moments,
chimes not the soul of a different cosmos
but mine own, ours own?

Images

While I waited for the bus
amidst a hundred people
and deafening horns all around
there stood a man beside me,
a dark skinned old man,
a corn vendor,
busy boiling the corns
on the stove in his cart.

Later, standing in the bus
I saw another man in the street,
again an old man
with unsteady, drunken steps
trying to enter a shopping mall -
surely in his drunkenness -
and being blocked by the security guard.

Still in the bus
still not getting a seat to sit
I saw the moon -
an almost full, bright, moon -
in its cool, refreshing, whiteness
through the glass window
just beneath the roof.

After I got down from the bus
waiting for the traffic signal to turn green
there was a blind old woman
standing a few steps away from me
moving her stick
up and down,
up and down,
for God knows what.

These were some images painted by
the night of 21^st January 2011
in a Bangalore canvas.

I wonder
why is it that only some images,
only these images,
leave an impression
while the rest of the images
that same night had painted
are forgotten as if I never saw them.

Scribbles from a diary

A few words from a diary note,
words like these -
cowbells, music, nihilism -
words which time stifles
words still hungry for a form
words less and hypoxia more
words searching for life in Art
words in which life itself is searched.

Working here
as if in a brick factory
smothered in the soot and dust of triviality
I do not know how many
words, phrases and semi-sentences
will die half-born as my time here ends
and I myself, with my veins aching for a heart,
turn to grey coloured ash
and go up in the wind from the paddy field
and take rest on the plantain leaves.

Once again about this city

One

This city pushes all men
into a corner,
like a hoodlum.

It catches our collars
and lifts us
and holds us in the air,
like an insensitive hoodlum.

In its
obscene tongue
it whispers to our faces
that it will kill us for sure.

And timid,
helpless, weak men that we are,
we whimper like schoolchildren
cry in front of nasty, bullying boys.


Two

Like a cow tied down
to an unseen tree stump,
hidden by dark corners of this city,
I am also chained down by this city.

It seems that all the ropes
that should have been used
to tie down these wandering cattle
are used for tying me to this city.

My neck
and my nape
carry the wounds
I have incurred while
trying to break those ropes
with which I am tied down.


Three

Like the claws of eagles
keeping watch of this city
scratch open all its secrets
with their screeches
these auto-rickshaws
scrape away
even the remaining traces of
my silence.


Four

Sitting in this
closed room
I struggle to write
a desk haiku about spring birds.

At least with that
let me watch
what this city does not show me.

Five

Let me take a stroll
through this city’s dustless nights
and its roads, forever under construction.

Perhaps I can win back
my poetry which has been stolen, or lost.

Maybe I will find it
beside the inn after that corner
or maybe in the waste-bin
near that opulent shopping mall.

It is told
that this city has robbed
the sky off its stars once long back.
Now it has stolen my poetry
which I had secured beneath my chin.

Music

Vyas,
about 28 years old,
architect,
short,
slim,
shaven head,
with a goatee
and his raging guitar.

Vandana,
about 24 years old,
fashion designer,
short,
slim,
bobbed hair,
with a shy smile
and her swaying dance.

What bliss it was for Vandana
to take Vyas down to the kitchen,
and with a wife’s kiss
coerce him to have some cold fried rice
after six hours and more
of his continuous strumming
on countless shots of rum
on the Saturday night.

What bliss it was for Vyas
to just drop his plate down
the moment he heard them
begin a favorite tune
and run back upstairs,
back to his bewitching guitar,
after planting an elusive kiss
on Vandana’s forehead.