Viewerscope / Solipsism
In a flash, I can turn
Darkness into light.
In a zooming jiffy, people
Become larger than life.
All I do is change the metaphor,
Really. I mix a tinge of black
With the red to make it maroon.
I can make a big tree and
A small boy. Or vice-versa. I can make
Moons fly, I can make men stand
On their heads, I can overturn
Buildings. Perhaps empires too.
I can turn that frown
Into a smile. Just a concave
And a convex difference, really.
I can make things blurry, I can
Make ‘em clear, I can make
The merry go round go faster
And faster. I just need
To change the lens, really.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Metempsychosis: a poem for Virginia Woolf
Metempsychosis: a poem for Virginia Woolf
Me-tem-psy-cho-sis
Said Joyce, is transmigration
Of souls.
If a soul from any earthly body
Flew into me, it was your own.
Perhaps it was made of fire and dew
In a rainbow. I have a spirit
Fashioned of your spirit.
You unearthed dormant rage in me
And let it live. You made me see
Myself in a mirror, fashioned out of
The clear depths of a river.
You helped me accept
This image in the river, you led
Me by the hand, whispering softly
Oh, ever so softly!, you lifted me
To ecstasy, you made me plunge
Into deep pain, you played
Havoc with my soul. I am a half-full
Cup of grief
And you make me whole to the brim
As you lead me
To ever-widening
Moments of being.
Me-tem-psy-cho-sis
Said Joyce, is transmigration
Of souls.
If a soul from any earthly body
Flew into me, it was your own.
Perhaps it was made of fire and dew
In a rainbow. I have a spirit
Fashioned of your spirit.
You unearthed dormant rage in me
And let it live. You made me see
Myself in a mirror, fashioned out of
The clear depths of a river.
You helped me accept
This image in the river, you led
Me by the hand, whispering softly
Oh, ever so softly!, you lifted me
To ecstasy, you made me plunge
Into deep pain, you played
Havoc with my soul. I am a half-full
Cup of grief
And you make me whole to the brim
As you lead me
To ever-widening
Moments of being.
Parrot Parody
Parrot Parody
You hear them chattering
in the hidden green, long before
the red of its curved mithu-parrot beak
comes into view.
Leaf green, parrot green
Bright emerald green.
Tai-tai-tai-chai-chai-to-ta-to-ta
Preening, pirouetting
Prancing, dancing, proudly pecking
Strutting they seem to parody
A bunch of noisy women.
I fly with them to my favourite places
To you, and you, ..... and you.
You hear them chattering
in the hidden green, long before
the red of its curved mithu-parrot beak
comes into view.
Leaf green, parrot green
Bright emerald green.
Tai-tai-tai-chai-chai-to-ta-to-ta
Preening, pirouetting
Prancing, dancing, proudly pecking
Strutting they seem to parody
A bunch of noisy women.
I fly with them to my favourite places
To you, and you, ..... and you.
Diwali- a Holy Night
Diwali --a Holy Night
This amavasya night
This glow of candles
This lit-up darkness
Makes me believe.
Tracing your name
In smoke-trails with the phuljhadi
Makes me believe.
Green-yellow lights wind snakily in the lawn
Up-vine-down-trellis, strangely eerie
The burning flame in me grows stronger
Creating magic with quicksilver heat
the flame of my belief in you.
This is the flame which lights me regardless
All doubts scatter in surrounding darkness
Rangoli patterns my fingers etch draw life
From this flame which makes
This smoke-strewn, flame-strewn
Night holy.
I am the blue of the flame
Beyond touch, beyond reach.
Horizons
Horizons
Vermillion sun
In purple sky
Dips down dusk, as pink
becomes ink. A pale moon
Faintly shivering hovers.
Lowroofshighroofsbuildings
Acrid smoke mixes with winter fog
Scraggly paint peeling off bare walls
Dotted lights in twinkling windows.
---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- ---- ---
There is life beyond the horizon, my friend.
Vermillion sun
In purple sky
Dips down dusk, as pink
becomes ink. A pale moon
Faintly shivering hovers.
Lowroofshighroofsbuildings
Acrid smoke mixes with winter fog
Scraggly paint peeling off bare walls
Dotted lights in twinkling windows.
---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -- ---- ---
There is life beyond the horizon, my friend.
Self-Preservation
Self-Preservation
I seek you within the pages of this book
I seek you through your words, I seek you
Through mine. I seek you within
An anonymous crowd. I seek
To resurrect you through memory
In flesh and blood. I type your name
In the facebook search bar, in vain.
And then I seek to believe in you
Through memory fantasy words silence
Dead, self preserving habit
Has made me say itsokayitsokayits
Okayitsokayitsokay for too long.
Because I know I must say
Itsokaytohurtallover
I know I can’t fuckyouoff
I can’t discard you like a useless
Scrap of waste-paper.
Dead, self preserving habit
Has taught me to smile.
I seek you within the pages of this book
I seek you through your words, I seek you
Through mine. I seek you within
An anonymous crowd. I seek
To resurrect you through memory
In flesh and blood. I type your name
In the facebook search bar, in vain.
And then I seek to believe in you
Through memory fantasy words silence
Dead, self preserving habit
Has made me say itsokayitsokayits
Okayitsokayitsokay for too long.
Because I know I must say
Itsokaytohurtallover
I know I can’t fuckyouoff
I can’t discard you like a useless
Scrap of waste-paper.
Dead, self preserving habit
Has taught me to smile.
Snails
Snails
It is a snail
Withdrawing the tip of its head
Into this stony shell.
Poking its nose out, blink-ing
its eyes, removing itchy sand
Moving inside this hard resilient cover
For protection against barbs
It plods through life, secure
In this shell, fashioned by words
And sometimes by empty silence.
But you never knew. You took it
For a piece of gravel
And trod on it.
It is a snail
Withdrawing the tip of its head
Into this stony shell.
Poking its nose out, blink-ing
its eyes, removing itchy sand
Moving inside this hard resilient cover
For protection against barbs
It plods through life, secure
In this shell, fashioned by words
And sometimes by empty silence.
But you never knew. You took it
For a piece of gravel
And trod on it.
Babble
Babble
I speak incessantly.
I talk. I repeat myself.
I repeat, I repeat myself
Over and over again
I overdo it. I overspeak.
I speak to myself.
I am so afraid of the depths
Of silence.
But when I come to you
When I come to the depths of me
I gaze blankly at the wall.
I am in the other world now,
Gazing, my eyes moist and glistening
In trying to find you within myself
I have reached the depths
Of a silence
That is almost Joycean.
I speak incessantly.
I talk. I repeat myself.
I repeat, I repeat myself
Over and over again
I overdo it. I overspeak.
I speak to myself.
I am so afraid of the depths
Of silence.
But when I come to you
When I come to the depths of me
I gaze blankly at the wall.
I am in the other world now,
Gazing, my eyes moist and glistening
In trying to find you within myself
I have reached the depths
Of a silence
That is almost Joycean.
What Ifs
What ifs
What if I fall on the highway, crushed
under a car superspeedrushed?
What if, some random day
I take a bus to nowhere , and run away?
What if I apparate in Ithaca Lesbos,
Houyhnhnms Hogsmeade Ozma’s Oz?
What if horses were green, and elephants blue
And all of us lived imprisoned in a zoo?
Squibs giants dragons house elves all
Lived amicably in one big hall?
What if I could become YOU
Or look into your mind if I wanted to?
What if Hitler’s mother was a Jew
What if I had never met YOU?
What if I went into delirium
Did crazee stuff with fraught e-qui-librium?
What if poems were written dia
Gon
alley
and life lived synchronically?
And what if a poem stubbornly resisted
To fit and sit, no matter how you persisted?
What if I fall on the highway, crushed
under a car superspeedrushed?
What if, some random day
I take a bus to nowhere , and run away?
What if I apparate in Ithaca Lesbos,
Houyhnhnms Hogsmeade Ozma’s Oz?
What if horses were green, and elephants blue
And all of us lived imprisoned in a zoo?
Squibs giants dragons house elves all
Lived amicably in one big hall?
What if I could become YOU
Or look into your mind if I wanted to?
What if Hitler’s mother was a Jew
What if I had never met YOU?
What if I went into delirium
Did crazee stuff with fraught e-qui-librium?
What if poems were written dia
Gon
alley
and life lived synchronically?
And what if a poem stubbornly resisted
To fit and sit, no matter how you persisted?
Making Love
Making Love
I want to make love.
I want to make love
To the glittering, frosty edged moon
That cuts through the cold,nipping air
Like a curved sickle.
I want to make love to the full moon
I want to worship this purnima, I want to gaze
Longingly at this white misty dream forever
As it plays hide and seek with the clouds.
I want to make love to this lone tree at night
when its bare branches make love to the moon
I want to hug this tree, and rub my cheek
Against its grizzly trunk.
I want to make love to the whispered secrets of the forest
Aflame with pink, yellow, and orange
I want to make love to the firy red leaves
Of the fall, the hidden violets,the thickest green verdure
I want to lose myself in this green and make love
To the rhythmic beats of the barbet
To the golden notes of the koel, the red of the bulbul
To the magpie, the hoopoe, the jays and the squirrels.
I want to make love to them. I want to make
Love to this river, it speaks to me in meanders
Reflects my dreams and the leaves of the trees
The waves frolicking, carrying me, playing with me
And I want to make love to you
I want to worship you, I want to hug you
I want to touch your hair. Softly.
Making love to the trees and the moon,
The birds and the river was after all only
A way of making love to you.
I also want to cry.
I want to make love.
I want to make love
To the glittering, frosty edged moon
That cuts through the cold,nipping air
Like a curved sickle.
I want to make love to the full moon
I want to worship this purnima, I want to gaze
Longingly at this white misty dream forever
As it plays hide and seek with the clouds.
I want to make love to this lone tree at night
when its bare branches make love to the moon
I want to hug this tree, and rub my cheek
Against its grizzly trunk.
I want to make love to the whispered secrets of the forest
Aflame with pink, yellow, and orange
I want to make love to the firy red leaves
Of the fall, the hidden violets,the thickest green verdure
I want to lose myself in this green and make love
To the rhythmic beats of the barbet
To the golden notes of the koel, the red of the bulbul
To the magpie, the hoopoe, the jays and the squirrels.
I want to make love to them. I want to make
Love to this river, it speaks to me in meanders
Reflects my dreams and the leaves of the trees
The waves frolicking, carrying me, playing with me
And I want to make love to you
I want to worship you, I want to hug you
I want to touch your hair. Softly.
Making love to the trees and the moon,
The birds and the river was after all only
A way of making love to you.
I also want to cry.
Crow- Cawnversations
Crow-Cawnversations
A flutter of wings
a whirling blur of black
four pointed beaks
between two stringy wires overhead.
The crass cawing of this crowy crew
Screeching themselves hoarse
fills the air with raucous shrieks.
One inquisitive pair of eyes
With spread-eagled fan-like wings
Swoops down low to my ear and cries to me.
In every black blurry flight
From one stringy wire to another
He swoops down low and crows to me
Is he angry, do I intrude? Is he
crowriously curious? Or,
does he croon and make love to me?
A flutter of wings
a whirling blur of black
four pointed beaks
between two stringy wires overhead.
The crass cawing of this crowy crew
Screeching themselves hoarse
fills the air with raucous shrieks.
One inquisitive pair of eyes
With spread-eagled fan-like wings
Swoops down low to my ear and cries to me.
In every black blurry flight
From one stringy wire to another
He swoops down low and crows to me
Is he angry, do I intrude? Is he
crowriously curious? Or,
does he croon and make love to me?
Shapeshifty
Shapeshifty
A dragon
With a huge hump,
perhaps pregnant
And a short tail
Dissolves itself
In the sky.
Its camel head
Reared up, stretches
Into blue-white nothingness
As clouds de-form and re-form.
The whispering leaves
Of the white eucalyptus
Are fragile shadows, spying
Eavesdropping on clouds
as winged dreams
become the sky, dissolving
evolving wild horses
on a shapeshifty terrain.
---> the title of the poem 'Shapeshifty' is not a proper lexical word but has been taken from a poem titled 'Shapeshifty:a poem for Meret Oppenheim' by Nitoo Das.
A dragon
With a huge hump,
perhaps pregnant
And a short tail
Dissolves itself
In the sky.
Its camel head
Reared up, stretches
Into blue-white nothingness
As clouds de-form and re-form.
The whispering leaves
Of the white eucalyptus
Are fragile shadows, spying
Eavesdropping on clouds
as winged dreams
become the sky, dissolving
evolving wild horses
on a shapeshifty terrain.
---> the title of the poem 'Shapeshifty' is not a proper lexical word but has been taken from a poem titled 'Shapeshifty:a poem for Meret Oppenheim' by Nitoo Das.
Sad Ootin
Sad Ootin
Ootin is an elf
With a Piglet face
Pixie ears, needle
Eyes and nose.
A flick of my wand
And Ootin appears
Bowing low to the ground
From his waist. Thy wish,
He says, is my command.
Ootin has a fractured soul
A split face, and creaky arms
That need oiling. He also has
A cracked tongue.
Ootin slaves hard night
And day, catering to my whims
He cleans, cooks, washes, sweeps
And sometimes, he brings stolen
Honey from bees, or nectar
From butterflies. Ootin
Does my shopping
So I stay home. He also
Does my work.
I need to keep Ootin busy,
Very busy. Ootin, you see
Is under a curse
When he finishes work
He does mischief, he sticks things.
Yes, he sticks doors and windows
So I can’t open them. He sticks holes
In clothes, so I can’t wear them.
He sticks pots and pans,makes
A mountain of them. He once stuck
A child’s mouth, so it wouldn’t open.
For this, he is punished, yes
of course he is punished.
He is burnt in the fireplace
And beaten with a stick.
Poor Ootin. Sad Ootin.
His is a sad life. Ootin,you see,
Can stick things, but he cannot
Stick his fractured soul, his cracked
Tongue, or his creaking arms.
Otherwise
He could have been free.
Ootin is an elf
With a Piglet face
Pixie ears, needle
Eyes and nose.
A flick of my wand
And Ootin appears
Bowing low to the ground
From his waist. Thy wish,
He says, is my command.
Ootin has a fractured soul
A split face, and creaky arms
That need oiling. He also has
A cracked tongue.
Ootin slaves hard night
And day, catering to my whims
He cleans, cooks, washes, sweeps
And sometimes, he brings stolen
Honey from bees, or nectar
From butterflies. Ootin
Does my shopping
So I stay home. He also
Does my work.
I need to keep Ootin busy,
Very busy. Ootin, you see
Is under a curse
When he finishes work
He does mischief, he sticks things.
Yes, he sticks doors and windows
So I can’t open them. He sticks holes
In clothes, so I can’t wear them.
He sticks pots and pans,makes
A mountain of them. He once stuck
A child’s mouth, so it wouldn’t open.
For this, he is punished, yes
of course he is punished.
He is burnt in the fireplace
And beaten with a stick.
Poor Ootin. Sad Ootin.
His is a sad life. Ootin,you see,
Can stick things, but he cannot
Stick his fractured soul, his cracked
Tongue, or his creaking arms.
Otherwise
He could have been free.
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