And the jester said to me:

This is just the storm before the calm!

For fools like us,

Happiness is only

An open mouth.

Rats

I was thrown into this world
a little sponge.

I absorbed first my mother
and then my father
before I went to school
and sucked in all the
lessons, children,
parents, teachers,
guards, bus drivers
and random strangers
who came my way.

I was a big sponge now
(but still a sponge) and I
leaked at times, and I hated
what oozed out of me
so I regurgitated what I could
and set about despising the rest,
disappointed.

I began to fool myself into thinking
that I was not a sponge
but a rat.

So I began to look for holes
to hide in and to stuff all I stole
and my little rat friends came by
and we ate our cheese together.
This went on for quite a while.

I ran around from hole to hole
looking over my ratty shoulders
for the cat I thought would eat me
but never came.

I ran from my parents,
older rats, younger rats,
lies, truth, honesty,
dishonesty, good, evil,
from the greedy fat ruling rats
and the stubborn reds,
from the police.

Everyone was a rat to my eyes
because I was one,
naturally.

Things happened, my perspective
started changing. I began to see
things in other rats
that I didn't before.
I saw those things in myself.
Sometimes I even forgot we
were thieving rodents.

Then I met a great doe
who thought she was
a rat too, but i knew she wasn't
and then I knew I wasn't.

She was a sponge just like me.
And though she leaked
sometimes, I took that
and began to accept it in myself.

I hope I can remember now
that I am just a sponge.
And if I forget,
remind me.

Dubai

I sit
in an empty parking lot in Dubai
with both hands
on my temples
and think about the girl,
about other people's troubles
and I realise I haven't had a drink.

Then I realise that I can't, It's Dubai
and I start walking,
suddenly I smell a sea.

I stand
next to an empty beach in Dubai.
and the water doesn't roll in waves
It just goes up and down,
pissing me off.

I have reached
an empty residential colony in Dubai.
Not really empty, they're all just asleep
and I think
they must have drank at their homes.

I stand at the center
of an empty crossroads in Dubai
I'm getting tired
and all the cars are doing a hundred and twenty.

I look up
at all the towers
of oil-money Babylon
and i curse them.

Fifty dogs start barking
and somehow I am terrified
so I run.

I find
an empty cab
and beg the driver to take me to some alcohol,
I think I was crying.

He brings me
to a hotel bar
thats open all night.

I sit at the counter
the 'tender is polite and Sri Lankan
a beer costs 50 D
but i still
tip him.

And
there is no pain in suffering
should you know you can teach in song

And
there is no sin in bluffing
should you know you can right your wong

And there was a gaunt man at the window
his palms were on his knees

And
his eyes were almost tears
his mouth a halibut
his ears were almost gills

And there was a lady on the still
hand on cheek and still
Shining bright
seemed topaz dyed
Couldnt hear her
her eyes were asking for a favour

Whiskey breath is old now
and years are marked by candles blown
but there is still
a girl on the sill
Baffled man has paused till
she speaks

And its clear to both of them from time to time
some heads must meet only under the sky

And sometimes generations masturbate themselves to sleep
and generous time will have huffed and puffed
unlearning its patience

Unlearn yours.

Malbenis.. It's a shame,isn't it?
Seems fine to me.

And
he was a fine man in his youth
Odd faced but solid as rocks
And
all his women were fine
specimens of a
common affliction
often the affliction was him

As he grew older though
the woman on the sill never
changed
Malbenis raved in middle age
and loved the people he scared
A common affliction.

She never looked at him different
he bathed forever
in naked splendour
in the pools of her ample eyes
And she smiled on the sill as he banged doors, kicked cats,
drank spluttered and wandered back exhausted.

It took him eighty yeas to
burn through eighty lifetimes

Morning glory on the sill smiled still the same

Learnt it, they'd rather have you dead.

You could love them, you could give them all
You could swing it so they never saw you fall
You could mask yourself with the merriest tune
You could smile your prettiest smile with all the tenderness inside..

But all the lovers that you sought
You're just a soul that they bought
You will never have a home
just an ever-empty room with a hint of sweet perfume
that you caught maybe ten years ago..

So I admit it, I do not know how
to live in a dead head
and an ever empty bed where I got lost forever when you left my hand.

O princess of the plains
Why can't you keep me now?
Every sound is too loud and the limbs don't move anyhow..
A man is at your door and you dream of seven more.

Admit it, you'd rather have him dead .

He came through valleys and brooks

Twenty hours for a glimpse of you

He slept on a vomit stain

A trash pile by his brain

But his fate is stranger still, you were just one danger,

who knows what lies in store?

Lock the lover up, for his own good, for ever more. 

Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

Malana

Merry boys and dogs administer cold justice to cold mountains with the patter of their feet.
Ancient peoples cluster on overhangings to remark at whiteman's ascent
for green and gold; them both.

Whiteman clings for sweet sensation in empty, empty samsara
and boys and dogs clatter home.

Fool's gold was foretold to be the next deity by them past .
They strayed for it, it was their original sin and lightening;
and boys and dogs slept nights, empty as sweet samsara.


Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

GRS (When found before the flood)

Whence have you come from, soft children of mine own mind?
Take refuge in my darkness; boughs of roses you will find
atop a breeze, for only what flies can hold up my sentiments.
I stand undressed before glories of natures before me
but thick window-glasses separate me,

Mother, take me. Nurses are not women.
Teats do not satisfy, divinity remains sheathed,
Gory armies till land in my hand as i am fidgeting.

But you! Silly children! Stay and sup to my cooking.
I delight cretins, i was raised by jugglers.
Curious broths escape my kitchen
Rows of running shoes in line make wine.

And i drink! How i drink!
I drink to paintings yet to be painted
I drink to myshkins yet to be tainted
by the blood under the wheel.

The wheel churns mercilessly outside my window to the underworlds,
but the glass repels my bombs.

A flood is imminent; those above shall hear mere whispers
and I will float.

The scum will breathe
and climb down the trees.



Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

Clockwork Man

Dawn to dusk; lust for food and gravity
Clockwork man chugs on happily.
To be like you! With a mere smattering of thought.

You show me the time time and again
I waved you away too long.
Straight lines and simple rhymes
to illuminate your shadow.

I was pulsing like bad quartz
You were smiling behind the counter
as I vomited seeing your daughter play
with miles of wolves around her.

Wise men's tyrant-frenzy of impotence
and fretted conceit have killed me twice.

Sharpen knives.



Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

God's Retarded Son (Hereafter GRS)

Weary of the thin men
Weary of the tin men
and people's sorcerors.

Bounties of grey
and dirty underwear
Is it all for us?

Brass coins jangle among my loins
while the long-haired one drinks wines
that were once water.

Why, Father?

When i was three,
I sat atop this tree
and watched you teach him the grind.
But it's fine.

Why, Mother?

It is dank and gloomy in my basement-cellar
a row of mindcells lead the way
to the awaited jailer.

I shall find him, I timed him: Arrival at ten past.
At last, sweet torment!
You have borne the moment.

But is it time?


Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

Rasa continues

In the midst of my proclamation i paused in between
and eyed the vile woman as she fled the scene.

There was as yet no sense in the stars and the skies
I was betrayed and mocked in chide
by the man who draws the straight lines in time.

Flee! Thankless servants of time and place
Your false employers have forsaken you,
cease to adorn this space.
We'll make something new.

I dipped a toe in the pond ("Sea!")
and careened on, my eye straying to the horizon.
I was late in coming to you.

For many hells went past and the sun grew stronger
and in spite of myself i saw my arms get longer
in order to wade to truth.

I dipped my toe in again, the animal mooed atop the hill!
Why swim when there is time to kill?
 


Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

Unrelated - to be continued

Did I tell you about the day we went to meet god?
We had a picnic in his laboratory.

I played chess with his retarded son
but we both lost and got angry
and beat up on the other one.

He pleased me, this magnificent cretin.
Sanguine specimen from the veritable stable of Christ
gleefully jumped and down
upon yells of crunching bones in spite.

At the next he was content, his tongue rolling out of his face
to merely taste the air, not to lap up spare praise
as the townsmen are wont to do, from the unworthy sane man I am.

His old man beckoned, and I parked myself next to him.
I looked upon heavenly coffee, eggs, butter and jam
but they tasted the same.

I grabbed some breadsticks and pondered my fix.

To ponder my egg-taste findings was the mission
and (of course!) how it mirrors the human condition.

I didn't get far, I didn't get long
as in time food projectiles starting coming at me
from an arm so strong.
I simpered at the cretin,
and a loaf of bread stuck itself in the hole in my face.
And God chose to use the whips
dutifully brought by the smug elder basket-case.
   


Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

Rasa's Lament

They could not traverse me;
I am an archipelago. 
And they knew not how to fly
and the sea made them sick.

I could not forsake me.
Try as i might, I was cursed with second sight
which showed me the darkness in light
and emptiness in the full.

Someone told me to ride the bull to the mountaintop
There I sat still, and the animal meditated in its own way.
Many moons passed, and finally i strode to the edge to see
this pond spread fifty leagues below me.

"Pond? This is the sea."

Call it what you will, I rolled down the hill
and encountered an old hag with a bag.

"You have done well to come this far!
You have done well to keep your seat.
My masters are the masters of this land
and they have sent you treats!"

She leered and pulled out myriad silly things
many, rattling and shining things.
I trembled, I knew not who operated this ride
I cried,
"Where have you sent the other girls and boys?
And why have you brought me children's toys?"







Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

Alankrit continues

I did not run, know this! I cannot.

I walked, I could not walk well either. But the ground feels good beneath one's feet.

Often i think, why does the ground sanctify me? When nothing else does?
But why shouldn't it? It sanctifies all else.

I did not trust vehicles, but it was my raft that carried me forth from the isles of Nietzsche.

It rained seven days and seven nights, but that placid sea gave not a murmur. And this was
not stagnancy. And I grew to love the sea, and I think I might join it again. But then I saw land again. And curse me for chancing upon it!

This isle was sweet, this isle was green. There were no rivers here, yet soft ground was plentiful. How was I to again find the sea?

I could not see a shore, and the sun chose to bashfully hide itself. But what bakes my ugly skin?

I have just emerged from a cramped space. I discover my arms and legs are long!
Presently they helped me lope along.

"Can you crawl ?"

"Thieves crawl."




Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

Both of them

"I imagined this. You had a guitar."

Alankrit laughed.

"What brings you here ?"

Alankrit speaks

One summertime Saturday I heard a sound as i walked silently around hilltown Picadilly.

It was the hissing of the snakes. But there was nothing they could do. I treaded above them: just merely, slowly.

Above my head there was a cloud, but inside there was nought.
The beams were tight, the ropes were taut.

Tightroping along with the frayed temerity to pause
to remind oneself of all things - no matter, no cause!

I wrote love, they loved me!
without merciless big city cacophony.

And when I lay awake and absentmindedly strummed my heart, it gave sound!
I sat up with a start.
I lay down again, same outcome.
Since then, in all solstices rose my sun.

She was firm, yet yielding. I entered the building.
Single stair, single step, simple hall: that's all.

And now when they hiss, I puncture them with my bliss.
They weaken. They cannot die, and neither can I.

The Prince
found peaceful coexistence.  





Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

About the boy

Rasa sat at a distance and looked askew.
Rasa felt strange. Yes, she felt new.
Gone was the throbbing in her head of many's frivolous pastimes.
The boy glanced at her (along the same lines)

Alankrit

In grey Doon a boy was born
with many neighbourhoods to haunt.
Mama's god gave him words as sweet as wine
but not as sweet as what he wants.

He slept with a weaver bird's nest above his head
around coloured books in shelves.
Around midday baby loved reaching up above his crib
and slothfully stretching himself.

At fifteen he was confused,
society bade him choose sides.
To protest all that was wrong with the world
he left his shoes untied.

At eighteen, placidly among the rabble he took to talking like a sage.
Mother bade him be like the other boys and dream dreams of maximum wage.

"Act your age !"

Away from sallow guitars! Away from plaints of the shattered and the broken...

he ran to the bottom of the lake.

 






Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

 Chapter III



Rasa skipped off again, behind her shrieked the birds
"Least leave behind your footprints so we can shame them with our words!"

Rasa got tired of skipping after a while: she started walking and went on another mile. A little to the left she observed a clump of trees and beheld a clear pond, clear as dew. Or was it a lake?
And so Rasa plunged in and slowly sank to the bottom of the matter.

There was a boy there.

"Who are you"? The words ran out of her mouth, her eyes saying something else together.

"I am the Prince.
I am the lowly.
Iam the damned,
I am the holy.
My hands are ten knives!
I am the dove
whose wings are murder.
My name is love."



Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

Chapter II


Two birds then sat in; their wings on fire, not abdul kalam
The black one grimaced and reached under its arm.
"There will always be two, Us and Them"!
That is the only way we will have great men!

The white one, a great one himself, teared up and gave spleen
"He may be right." And he vanished in between
Reapparition! And he placed a funny plant on the ground
"It is thus that they say the lord first gave sound"!

And so they sat and waited, little Rasa haunched be'twixt them
And nothing was to be seen of the loons and the thin men.


.

Little Rasa walked off alone to broaden her sight
An orb flew out from the depths of the night!
'Tu whit too-woo!Who are you?"

Choose now, it said all up in her head
Choose! It bellowed and croaked with all its fluttering might
She seemed to twinkle: and Rasa walked off alone in the night.

"Budhha nature".. A fat man shimmered up, knowing and meek.
Robes of Red and Orange, he smiled and went on before Rasa could speak.
"Budhha nature. Budhha- naature is what you seek."

To the face before you were born (that was my face too)
there is one golden path; it will reveal itself to you!
It is you you seek! Not I, I say!
It is the formless to whom those who were before the ancients prayed.

Then the smiler's face froze as the chit of a girl grew bold
"What? Half of it was in parentheses of what you just told.
There is heaven, there is hell! A thin loon on a horse whizzed in!
His head bobbed up and down. He spat. "Learn the rules of the town you are in!"
 
It's a sick world. Sick, sick, sick.

I had a dream.
We lived in a mountain village somewhere.
I would write poetry
and you would braid hair.

Of all the people I think I've known
I think I've known you the best.
But what is this thing you have brought, oh my
My friend, only an impulse binds the sky.

It was summer
I wanted to be awful bold
Its wintertime in august now
and I'm awful awful cold.

Half of your time - beside me only atmosphere
the singular - raised by heats and wet
Seems a while
Since I could smile the way you do.

One soft day when we're done
I'll make you meet your brother - he's a mess
He flunked out of art school
because the roundness of his pots was less.

All joy wants eternity, my punk philosopher said.
But servants all, he too needed his bread.
Would eternal joy still be joy?

The six of us, three waiting, three in a mindcell

We shall sit again in some orderly hell.

and i will tell them about you.

When i lay still at night dreaming

stars high and light

then i wanted to be with you, 

when the rooftops shone dark.

Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.

This is the beginning of something i'm working on. Which is the reason I'm not posting. Feedback appreciated.

“Good morning, Anaadi”.

“Yeah, Good Morning”.

“Do you know why you are here?”

“No.”

“Johnson is a good friend of yours, isn’t he?”

Well, I don’t know about that. You see, one makes acquaintances during the course of one’s life and Johnson is one of those acquaintances. He has however popped up repeatedly in my varying circles of acquaintance and as a result can be considered, if you like, an enduring acquaintance. But not a good friend.

I wasn’t being completely honest when I said I didn’t know why I was called to this psychologist’s office. This Johnson character is one of the kind of idiots TV sitcoms and movies that don’t seem entirely plausible are based on. I mean if he were given gasoline and a box of matches he would drink the gasoline and not be quite sure what to do with the matches. He has a one-track mind, and the traffic on it is very light. Once his mother told him it was chilly outside, and he ran out with a spoon. He hasn’t bought an electric toothbrush because he isn’t sure if his teeth are AC or DC. But I digress.

Besides being an imbecile, Johnson has the rare knack of doing the most  fruity thing at the most inappropriate time; a dynamite combination to say the very least. I wondered what he had done now.

“What’s he done now?”

“Why do you think he has done something?”

He said it with a somewhat forcedly neutral tone. I saw through it. The mask.

“Why do you think I think he has done something?”, I said, never missing a step.

“Have a seat. A couple more people should be joining us”.

Its a sick world, sick,sick,sick.