Month: July 2022

Won’t kill you if you talk to her.
Perhaps she knows a thing you don’t.
Perhaps she’ll tell you something real.

Despite her reels of Instagram,
Despite her kitchen whirrs and trills,
Despite her calls on speaker phone,
Perhaps she hears a thing you don’t.
Won’t kill you if you hear her out.

Perhaps you’re wrong. It happens, dude.
Won’t kill you to admit as much.
Perhaps she’ll tell you what is right.
She may not know it, but she might.
Won’t kill you if you take a chance.

Perhaps she’ll help you loosen up.
Won’t kill you to relax a bit.

Despite your poetry-tinted specs,
Despite your thousand books of facts,
Despite your love for your own words,
Perhaps you’ll never write like her.
Won’t kill you if you read her out.

Won’t kill you if you love her back.

Yo, didn’t we process all my pain?
So, why am I afraid again?
Of hugging after pandemic?
Of laughing after silent grief?
Of talking after arguments?
Of looking after documents?
Of running after ghosting goals?
Of asking after troubled souls?
And, why am I afraid of love?
Of life and every part thereof?
And, why am I still paying you?
Is anything you’re saying true?
You think I cannot heal alone?
I cannot do this on my own?
Well, what is it you say again?
I know me best? You’re fired, then.

I say, “I had a lovely dream.”
“Which colour?” is all you ever ask.
“Red,” I say. “A lovely red.”
Like fireworks lit with incense sticks.
Like phoenix cremating into birth.
Like bleeding tree barks for bleeding days.
Like potash fingers on gardening jeans.
Like breezy grass on Orangutan skin.
Like boxers spitting into the ring.
Like fried garlic peeled with bitten thumbs.
“A lovely dream indeed,” you say.

He ripened fruits with just a look.
The apple browned within the hour.
The orange challenged him a bit,
But in return, he’d take a gun,
Arrest the orange tree at noon,
And warn it with police-like shouts,
Until it dropped its fruit grenade.
He’d move in with the stealth of cats,
Inspect the bomb with army shoes,
Ensure the pin was in its place,
And pick it slowly in his hand
To turn it till he found the dent
In which the fruit had peed itself.
Securing pistol underarm,
He’d tear the rind around the bruise
And look at it with focused eyes.
The orange browned within the hour.

On shore
A wave hits her sole
Returns
Some memories sour
Of a day
A caring hand set sail
Leaving
Tapoi sore

The news arrived
“Got lost”
Somewhere in the ocean
“Waters”
Aren’t always as nice
“You”
Blamed all of them
“Get lost”
Cry, run and hide

DeepInsideTheTigerWoods
TheyTakeLikeTheSeasTake
ButSomeoneCameToHelp
TheInnocenceInHerHeart

Souls returned on Boita.

The problems solved by friends with ease
Appear large, Atlassian loads
I cannot hold, or shrug, or throw.
In loneliness of solitude
I curse the guts of Hercules
Who tricked his labour on to me.

My friends are moving mountains there,
And here I lie so paralysed.
They, Hanumaan; I, Lakshmana.
Though both the instruments of God,
Though both in service of Divine,
For now, I’m hurt, and down, and lost.

And yet I am no Aurora,
No helpless Sleeping Beauty cursed.
No true love’s kiss I need to wake.
I have with me my salvation.
And only I can call it forth.
The only thing I need to do
Is raise my voice and ask for help.

And, say, they do not come to aid,
And, say, for all my cries of help
I only get Promethean pain –
Eviscerated every day –
I’d know my dream was worth it all.
For I have stolen from the Gods
The fire burning in my eyes.
No eagle, raven, owl, or crow
Can catch and tear a dancing light.

Awaiting at his trophy home,
His trophy wife, his trophy child,
His trophy dog on trophy leash,
Congratulated, welcomed him.

He kissed his wife, he kissed his child,
He kissed the collar on the dog,
And let them have the trophy cup
He picked up at the latest match.

He trusted them with everything
He did not mind dispensing with.

A year of monthly unpaid bills,
A month of weekly pouty drives,
A week of daily quarrel calls,
And, finally, a teak was chopped.
Their grandma’s kevlar canopy
Had, finally, a bullet hole.

I have to bridge the gap between
My rumoured health and tumoured strokes
To share with all the beauty of
The mojo in these chemo jokes.

I have to bridge the gap between
My daily needs and nightly knacks,
To stand the tailing heat behind
The comet in my income tax.

I have to bridge the gap between
The “Aah!” of myth and “Ain?” of facts
To wrap some meaning all around
The text inside my best extracts.

I have to bridge the gap between
My ripened being and peeling breath
To go with sweet aromas of
The God inside my mango death.

His freshly-ground Robusta’s still
Adept at open-sesaming
Forever tangling neural nets
Inside his muse’s fishing hole
He daily melts with caffeine drips
Escaping down the leaky mug
He’s stolen from Alzheimer’s desk.