gardener

don't go, there's

kisses to be planted in a row

along your jaw

sighs to be exhaled into your collar

they are still brewing

deep inside me

your sooty lashes

need to be straightened

by my tongue

you're weeding my arms

from your neck

laughing at my surrender

not now, not now, not now.

i have built a trellis

around my heart

so your words can climb everywhere

the tendrils will get caught in my hair

just like your breath

gets entangled sometimes

so don't go. don't go

because i'm still trembling

from being close to you.

images

garlanded me with a tire
'call hanuman now', they said,
and set it on fire.

two held me, one stripped me,
'kill the katua!' they said,
and hung me from a tree.

flaming crucifixes outside,
'no rights' they said,
we hugged death inside.

wrong side of the wall.
'wrong papers,' they said,
bound and gagged i fall.

deaths on tv, i must confess
are terrible, but the worst
is death by loneliness.

lust object 1

my world is made of routines

and aloneness, carefully constructed.

no time for clever word play,

lazy motorbike rides or rhum people.

you are intensely distracting,

and it's not fair

that you should flash your smile

and play that wicked tune

on the silver harmocia,

you mother gave you

on your twenty-first birthday.

it's not fair, not at all,

that i should need bitter oolong

to get the taste of you

from my lips,

that you should exhale smoke

into my mouth, and so easily

entangle my hair into your stories.

stories that would be illogical in daylight

funny even to eavesdroppers

sitting at the next table

comparing our kiss-filled nights

with theirs.

of course it is not fair

that you have turned the meaning

of adharam madhuram

so unholy now.

i am not crazy but i can hear,

the dj at totos is playing vitthala vitthala

while you figure out

complicated math

on the abacus on my hands.

i think i am ready to carve

your name on my heart

and mine on yours,

with the new ginsu,

that arrived by UPS just last night.

puzzled

there are thorns

that have tasted my blood

on paths you have not

dreamed of crossing,

my hands have grabbed flames

that gobbled marshmallows

from fires that have never

burned your insides,

there is no ice in your eyes,

none around your heart

you've never felt the twist

of a rusted blade in your gut,

you've never crinkled your eyes

to the relentless desert of yearning,

you've not needed, wanted,

preferred death,

or laughed hysterically

at the futility of prayers

when you woke up to taste

yet another day break,

then why are you supporting

my rum-soaked walk

under dust infected stars?

why are you in my head?

on carton road

tired of walking upright,

i found myself sitting on the last

of the two rows of red plastic chairs.

then crumbled into tears.

it was only

when they brought in a woman

dressed in red,

that i saw the wood,

the shed,

the pot of fire,

the smoke,

and the people.

but they did not see me,

so i was content to sit.

later it was an old woman and then a young man,

more people wringing hands

at flames,

and the smoke got into my eyes.

an old man with tired eyes,

asked me what i was doing there,

'koi saga thaa kya?'

not 'who', i wanted to say,

ask 'what' had died.

and yes, it was 'sagaa', very personal.

i collected my defeated shoulders,

stood up straight

then walked home. who'd have guessed

so close to the neon lit cafes of carter road

there existed, a perfect refuge.

waiting

i have extended my arms out

to the night, waiting

for a star or two to fall,

the sand beneath my feet

is smooth, even,

as if drizzled from some hourglass,

it feels cool under my toes,

distracting my attention

from the pointy blue stars.

then exhausted by the blueness

knifing through the darkness

i close my eyes, and inhale the stardust

i think i am ready now

let the pain come

it will last only from the time

i close my eyes to the blue

lean back and exhale, fall.

illogical, but i feel like gulliver

my hair now entangled in sandy fingers,

the back of the hands, the small of my back

and my legs bound,

the sand is cool to the touch, smooth, even,

fills my lungs so easily, quickly

and ears too. the last sand scratched sound dissipates

into the blue puncture in the skies.

origami

score art cards

with the blunt edge of a knife

cut just deep enough to fold

but not tear

fold the edges in

push corners out precisely

into fine slits

tear away along perforations

snip, snap, snip.

you allow people to do just that. isn't it?

they mark you and stab you

score points and lines...

and you scream sometimes

but let them cut you

hoping that at some point

you would be art.