Collision Course

The Window in the Wall

2012-01-23T23:01:00.000-08:00

It was a feathery morning full of surprises as the soft breeze tickled the curtained windows. Your shadow fell across my floor and merged with the deep tones of wood, caressing your silhouette as though it were welcoming you in its embrace. The sheer curtains fluttered as you moved slowly from one window to the next, peeping to check for any sign of life. The dampened earth sent a whiff of rain and of smoke as you gently moved it apart, rustling softly away to send shards of aureate sunlight slanting onto the empty bed. 'Boo!' you screamed and sent your tinkling laugh dancing into the dusty room. Then you saw, as your eyes slowly widened, that the decrepit silent room was empty.

2011-11-19T03:23:00.001-08:00

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Mary Frye

'39-'44

2011-07-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

The fact that one person
convinced billions others
to annihilate 6 million people
because he wanted to
proves the extent of any man's goodness.

The Sixth Nipel

2011-07-15T12:52:00.001-07:00

A breeze filled with hot buns
And peace and an ocean
The day sparkling on the waves
The nights of music
And the breeze and us

We dance on the sands
That tides wash away
Quickly else all may remain
We dance into the sparkling moon
Nights of fire and
Smoke
Of strangers in the night
And shacks of hay and love
Of memories
Quick forgotten
With the tide

Of starlight and stories
And rocks clashing
against the vastness
of fear and hopes
gone to eternity
with the waves

Of times

Oh dear solitude
What if I never had you too?

2011-07-12T13:52:00.001-07:00

Yellow stains spread on an image
Of a child in a white dress
Shading her eyes from the sun
Laughter rang out through time
And the image eventually faded

Tired and weary, the men returned
Back to their huts in the mountains
At the close of another day
While the cool night wind stirred up
The woman’s dress, as she breathed in
The scent of the trees

She knelt in the glade
And laughed, a laugh that sounded through the woods
And smiled as she shed a tear
And stuffed her pockets with stones

I come to the mountains,
looking for you
Where the howling wind
Turns icy at night
I stand in a familiar glade in the forest
And discover
That a river runs through it.

2011-06-15T02:40:00.001-07:00

He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.

- Arundhati roy, The God of Small Things

2011-05-25T09:18:00.000-07:00

All emotion devoid of reason makes a mockery of men. All genuinity devoid of the fundamentals of logic destroys the source of it.

Another one bites the dust!

2011-05-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

Softly
I will kiss goodbye to the
morning
And the lizard that scampers
away
from the dawn

I ask you
to send me a
levanter
and I will know
the wind that caresses
You; my hair
in the morning

What words
can describe you
dear dawn
When morning uplifts
the blades of grass
and weary eyes ease
their souls with
your touch

What words must
describe you
to a traveler
when everyone is lost
seeking out
a course through
the sullen carcass
of mille-seconds

Should I describe you
by words
memory denies me
or actions
that surge ahead
to destroy or negotiate

I must describe you
as you were to me
that lonely dawn
Quiet, and soothing
as can be
to a mind
that sees no travesty.

2011-04-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

It was a feathery afternoon
full of surprises
and pink Asters
as the soft breeze tickled
the curtained windows

The ants crawled along
a Diagonal
trotting towards the
carcass
of a raw mango
Bruised and Lifeless

The crushed blades of grass rose in
a sweet perfume
and trembled at the approaching
groan of thunder
fleeting into the Memories
of a Girl in a mirrored lilac
room

Slowly she felt the curtains
as she drew them open
and unlocked the Window
softly
she climbed onto the sill
and turned her head
to catch a Last sliver
of her hair
in the mirrors behind

I went home
late
last night
after a Feast of Friends
You told me you were going
for a run in the sun
to a place
farther
than you'd Ever been before
You told me to drop in
Later

I came home
Late
last night
after a feast of friends
You were not in
the night watchman crushed
a beedi he was smoking
and Informed me
of your Absence

-28 April, 2011
Bangalore, written outside my house on a brilliant tungsten afternoon

2011-01-03T08:38:00.001-08:00

Do mirror reflections cast shadows?

They do.

2011-01-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

The laughing pretty faces
frozen eternally on a sunlit
yellow
winter afternoon
Cast shadows on the brick wall
outside my fence

I settle in my armchair
smelling the scent of coming spring
and its distant whispers
and remember

The day you fell out of grace
The night I did
The distances
and the hours
between unaccustomed landscapes
of every tortured mind

When did I become a romantic?
Why didn't you?
The day you died
with my laughter

Why the pain?
Why the longing?
Why the rain?
Why the hours?

Ramblings

2010-10-04T07:51:00.001-07:00

Green were the veils
of yellow sunlit dawn
the urchins traded mindlessly
between teacups
and saucers

While the snake swallowed its own tail
Toujours

Closure

2010-10-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

“Your call will be monitored and recorded, kindly be online!”
We came sniffing fields of purple lavender
waiting to hear the melody
of a Sun dipping under the horizon

Golden grew the dawn in sighs
& salutations

Numb faced, we tread the path of
wilderness
Recall,
the taste of salt in your mouth
late one September evening in the tide
Smell,
I sniff the scent of the earth
from your bare shoulders,
Look,
I see your perfect face
smiling at the dawn
Listen,
I hear your sigh
as you ponder the world
Touch,
I feel the heavy cold beside you
of ever-growing solitude

I will be your friend
in dark horizons of loneliness
lighter though they seem
with time
I will nourish you
Slighter, though you seem
with rhyme.

I will remind you of time
when you’ve forgotten the hours
And I will trace through oblivion
And trembling, lucid stars

And then you will know
the road you’ve always fought for
was already yours.

2010-06-22T10:48:00.001-07:00

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows. Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide. And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart... I carry your heart, I carry it in my heart.

E. E. Cummings

2010-06-20T13:58:00.001-07:00

You can lay your infallible trust upon only two things : Music and God.

2010-06-20T00:34:00.000-07:00

Slender waisted, bright as a song,
Dark as the whistling-thrush at dawn,
Swift as the running days of November,
Lost like a dream too sweet to remember.

- Love Lyrics for Binya Devi, Ruskin Bond

2010-05-18T12:53:00.001-07:00

Blue strokes stain the canvas
of loveliness and lime
release the pain
and
embrace the beauty
of the melody

2010-05-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

Sepia creeps across the blighted letter
ripped along the midriff and scattered
to the cold valley beyond

Bombay lights twinkle against the water
against the wedding procession
with the pallbearers striding through the rain

Loud booms of laughter echo
along the yellowed airport corridor walls
brought forth by the familiarity of a long forgotten
and safely concealed homeland

But there remains
a reticent young woman I know
who asks
Would you trade in your thoughts for emotions?
Would you give away the hours to eternity for perennial sunshine?
Would you colour your hair blue?

There is a woman who wishes to know
The reason for the joy found in an abyss
The source of the trembling earth late one moonless August night
Death at the bottom of the creek behind the hut
the scent of the incense that burns through her sleeping mind
I have been her

A cat yowls and skips across the rafters
a car stikes up a din on the highway road
a guard lights up his beedi
and with a bang of his lathi, resumes his vigil

And I succumb, drifting into clouds of the rich perfume
of slaughtered time, and all its virtues

Random

2010-05-12T01:51:00.000-07:00

This is just a roughly observed thought that I haven't researched much that I wanted to pen down somewhere.

I just noticed, a large majority of politicians(who have some real worth in our country and don't comprise scum) and civil servants usually have a BA in history which of course leads to other post grad trophy degrees like International Affairs and International Law which invariably may or may not lead to a stint at the United Nations...etc.

Point being, isn't it ironic how studying the history of civilization gives us clues about leading the present generation into a better future. Then would I be wrong in paraphrasing : the past and the future is actually now, this moment? What was = what's going to be = what you do now.

Interconnecting spirituality and cold hard facts :)

3 Nov '09

2010-04-23T07:20:00.001-07:00

There will come a point
When every memory of you will be forcefully washed away
By the happenings that curtail
Every object that reminded me of you

And the chirp of the first morning bird the day after
Will only mean that the last was more glorified
Because it was before your departure

Nothing will be
the same

Bleary

2010-01-30T14:57:00.000-08:00

There exists a void of eternal abyss
That springs forth from the mouth
Of a pomegranate
To visualize a fish
And a tiger
And a woman, bare-breasted

Dreams of surrealism
Paint my nails
As the sun breezes through
An empty window of a cold
February afternoon

I trusted you would regard our acquaintance
As a lead
Try as they might, to break me into a habit of their kind
Salvage, I do, a great deal
And confine it to the reserves of beats
And words
Silences, I have seen, drive me to incompatible needs

I may regard you as a beacon
In the tolling of faraway, war-torn lands
But I still await the flutter, in a mid-summer nights dream
of an apparition
in dark, stormy nights
and unseen sands.

The Master's Return

2010-01-30T14:39:00.000-08:00

Ripe blossoms sprang forth
In the mind of the servant
Loyal, only to the memory of righteousness
And before long, were rejected by the marauders
of the vast deserts of time
Blink, simply, is all that worked for that mind
intolerant to the conniving, capricious seeds
of treachery
Faith, above all else
elevated the slave
to the likes of far beyond his kind
and flickered along the lanes
of experience
and of time

Alone, I seek to know
The Wilderness that courses
in search of an anchor, through my veins
But today, I realize
We come alone
and we dance alone
To the tunes of vast, wild eternity
and far,
far behind.

2009-11-18T03:57:00.000-08:00

Come, Edwina
It is time to show you
The sun
As I saw it the day he left
Smiling through the passenger window
At the wailing of a shattered soul

It is time, Edwina
To remember his scent
Caught in every daily memory
To pull me farther into the wilderness
Scorching scars into my mind

Edwina, we must now
Falter at the buttress
Only to tip over and stumble
Into the ever expanding darkness
Of longing and sorrow

A breath of memory lit up
In Edwina’s mind :
“He was waiting for the sun for years”
“Yes, and that’s the day he burned up in there,
There in his dusty chamber with the slanting windows…
As soon as he got the sunlight
He lit the hay with the monocle he wore
As he composed his notes
On salvation and infinite closure
And perennial darkness…
There…
On that long, long day of Spring”.

19 june 2009

2009-06-19T22:04:00.001-07:00

The boy with the Blue Bong
Sat and awaited the sentence to his fate
Do you not know the extent of control that you grant
your slaves?

The myriad hills rolled into blue eternity
It was a dark and stormy night
And the rain fell in torrents
Intertwined, fleetingy, with a violent gust of wind
That swept up the paths
Rattling along the housetops
Threatening to blow out every night lamp that
Struggled against the vast darkness

The mirror was a peach breeze
The studio was filled with the rich odor of lilies,
and when the light summer wind stirred amid the trees
lining the ridge,
there came through the open door the heavy scent of lilac,
or the more delicate perfume of the mountains up north.

Blue roses were painted on a cream wall
In the apartment you once claimed
The tangy scent of your body floated through the window
Into dreams, and buried memories
Everlasting seconds of silence, withheld
Entertained and beheld
A screaming came across the sky.
The scents, mix
And confound me

So delve, I delve deeper into your brain
While the sirens blast with urgency
Its been over a million nights
But you still don’t seem to remember me.

6 june 2009

2009-06-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Dark rooms, affirmitave to the sound of a trip
Self faith and denial, try and control the strings of fate
Can you?
Today, I met your mother
While my father screamed in self realisation
I sigh and sit in front of something old and mechanical
Doors open and close and I remain
Wooden and accustomed to the seat of preservation
Did I forget your name? Face? Sound?
No, and I never will.
You gotta roll roll roll, feel my soul
My little dog in his face
My dog in his death..maybe?
Truth and the endless winter breaks
For the want of something greater
Than the routine of the now
Today, I drank with the lord of the future beyond
Escaping eyes of myriad subconscious bells
The jokers perform their rituals
Mist balloons endear eternity
And you continue to point out non entities, as always
I sat one last time, for your sake
But today, I’ll drink for the destruction of my fate

2009-04-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

She joins her legs and says
'Think, now is when it'll come'
Shadows light up in the night; possibilities.
For what its worth,
I scaled the smaller mountains.
Reversing the damage of time,
we went back to the mist of Square One
Of clouds lighting up the loneliness
of an unknown place.
Of rapid eye movements buried in the haze.
Of strangers in the night
singing songs of magick.
Of hooded masses slaughtering for more.
Rain clouds gathered at dawn,
informing me of the arrival of a new shaman,
ceaselessly bidding farewell to the August moon.

10 Apr

2009-04-11T13:18:00.001-07:00

Transvestites in the night to blind

Today, your best friend told me everything
Succession is a sweet escape from the marring night
When once in the dream you hope
Of trials and misfortunes for a night
Of staircase conversations
Trust…
Scream the carnival jokers
Belief…
Scream the night marauders
High and babbling, believe the untrustworthy
Schemers, and tonight
Bathed in the cool grey of the moon
Beneath stars and gawdy lies
I hear the crickets,
And the hills…mountains of deep grey ice,
Calling to me, beyond all pretence
And belief unheld
As with the trees,
Come home to us.
Come home.

2009-04-02T01:08:00.000-07:00

People need actors and pretenses
so their self-faith remains unshaken
The first school boy entered the quadrangle
on a cold, damp Wednesday morning
Hawks took flight as the thought sent
shock waves of danger through the trees
scarred crucifixes carved on their trunks
Eyes flashing, he smiled at the power of instinct

Dark highways thronged with Fakirs
bundled in their saffron skin, drifting
Stoned and tripping, from a world known
to a world untold
Dragon scales weave a maze in the sand
The sun seeps in through the glass
Memories of forest fires and burst cylinders
and hash dinners structure new dreams

Today, I awoke with a start on the forest floor
recalling the scent of her departure from my mind

In Memoriam

2009-03-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

Burnt and blasted in the morning sun
Today morning you spoke of her
You said she slit her wrists
And hung herself to finish the job
But, stop, let me confirm the breakfast timings first
I’ll just be a moment
They gathered on the street late one night
And spoke of unknown rituals and bass lines and highway trips
And, of course, the woman
“Time is my enemy”
Stop the hand, I want to touch it
Break it, reverse fate for a day
Swat that ant before it crawls away, quickly now
Do you know what it means
To not have spoken when I could,
when you were climbing up the stairs?
We haven’t met, but the darkness tonight
I will solely to you.
The ecstatic flashing of the night-light
I will solely to your demise.
The throbbing beat that threatens to rip
I will solely to your absence.

Ah the bleeding trip
We dropped and the finger jabbed at the beat
till I could hear
the wailing no more.

2009-03-15T00:18:00.002-07:00

The cool January night wind blows away the hum of the crickets
and I once more lean out to witness the shimmering travesty of the Stars.

Random quote

2009-03-15T00:15:00.000-07:00

There exist infinite combinations of possibilities
The most obvious ones occurring as rarely as the only one we believe we see.

2009-03-15T00:08:00.000-07:00

I wish to enter the deep forest
envelope me in green fire that rises with the mist
The last knight stands amidst the birthday
of an old whore
An old flame stands by watching
as his favorite opera is played out
Deny the cold air
for tonight I will be visited by a memory
An apparition, a dream in the parody

Will you recall my name
on a quiet golden afternoon in the glade?

2009-03-15T00:04:00.000-07:00

Here comes the night watchman,
Racing against the beats
Smoking a beedi on his nightly vigil
At night, his past keeps him company
Bleeding to the ocean floor
In shacks of psychedelic illuminations
You never did really care
Any of you,
Blundering along the thoughtless road
A trip in the dark
Mauve halls
Relief from the noise
Lapse into a reverie
Who do I see standing there at this hour
Oh the night watchman
‘Excuse me, Sir
Do you feel well?’
She yells obscenely at the misery of the future
But here I stand, smiling at the music
Deliver
Smear
HEAR
“Sonic Boom!!”

2009-03-15T00:03:00.000-07:00

I’ll drop a line
He says
Brilliance of illumination
And a pretty face
And a candid smile in the light

Pretty girls fly by
Spreading wings on unknown waterways
But I recall the farce of
A light in the smiling dark
That beckoned to me
Screaming, ‘Light it up
For it is the last night.’

For it is the last call
And I remember them saying,

‘Do you wish to give in and
And cease?’

04.01.09

2009-01-04T08:21:00.000-08:00

You look so fantastical, you little jazz band whore
Strut on home in 5 inch concrete towers
Pink and blazing in the dark
‘The sky was blue, down the alley the ice wagon flew’
Hum, hum in your daily delirium
Tattoed legends paving the bloodiest future
Bring it on!!!!! Screamed the highway jazz band whore
Get me the smartest two piece man,
Who jives in the holy land
Hahaha, screams the little shredded fan
Burn burn burn, daily toads are on fire in the streets
And the sleek silver Mercedes
Escorts her back to the trees
Swim to the red and golden pot
Distract, the mighty pipe from infecting
Until this consumes
Until you resume, love.

24.12.08

2008-12-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

Tracing a crease down the long road
To look again, at the Tower of Silence
looming ahead in great misery
Type your name to remember me.

Breeding in the frost,
In old December, I can see
trying cuts and battlefronts
frozen lakes and glossy cunts
A mirror image of the light,
An acoustic dreamer in the night

Believe, the madding crowd will yell
Shriek and catch the morning train
Swim to the farthest shore and wait
Time does follow, throttle and break

I have seen distances in this one sitting
Cut up open scars that bled
out to the sea, and no one saw
out to the fields, and no one heard
cries in the night
that dreams encapsulated
wile parenthesis that Mistresses bred
Trying journeys in the cover of the night
Gentle realms of blissful ice

Enslave the thought
and stamp it across the heart
of the mighty, beaten adulterer
For your face that always brought me sorrow,
will, tonight, bring me sweet delight.

19.12.08

2008-12-20T10:54:00.000-08:00

"What do you see,
what is it that gifts you eternity at this hour"?
Chinars on the banks of the Dal Lake in autumn
Ultraviolet heaven
chanting rhythms to summon an abyss

I thought you'd transfer me to the beyond and
guide me through waves of wilderness..

A constant pounding in the deep recesses
of a dark room : revealed
The rush of wind through the pines, dark one stormy evening

"Do you hear it at the awakening of the night"

Naught, I heard the sky through endless waves of coma
But it happened just tonight.

2008-12-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

Waves of Mayuri's presence sweep the dark corridors tonight.
The rain inflames the song :
'come with me Sir, I'll take you to the stars'
Today sanity took a deep breath,
spinning in the soft multitudes
That night I recall seeing her
reaching out to see if it still rained in her homeland.

2008-11-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

The pennant awaits in the shadows
"Bring me the little serpent you killed."
They talk in the language of the hill dwellers,
looking beyond the shortcomings of a simple man.
"Lights! Lights! Lights! Broken lights!"
A heart-failure in the shadows..
A farewell in the past.
Water, green, green water everywhere
"Such lucid chain of thought in the Manali haze?"
Someone called out in the custom colours..
"Yes, I'm here;
Freeze the Frame."

2008-11-08T07:52:00.000-08:00

In lonely summer nights,
passing alleyways of desolation
recurring decadence and breathlessness.
Don't take me away from home
I'll evidently reach the end
Wake me up in a quiet glass room that overlooks the mountains
bleeding out trees of doubt,
and cold mist.
Scarred by a joke for eternity
I mourn the incapacity that drives me forward.

We pass the lighthouse every night.

One sweet morning,
I awoke to the cry of a jackal in the dark.
Memory.

2008-10-08T13:02:00.001-07:00

We live in a cynical world
Take me back to the shore
Of that January morning
The crossroads
Of eternity
Of capitalized first words, mechanically executioned
And unregistered cornerstones
Leave me to sniff the earth
Of that rainy January morning
Of an eclipse that comes every second
An exaggerated exclamation of a void
A sniff of salvation

2008-10-08T12:57:00.000-07:00

A ripple off the surface
Striking each ‘Sorry’ off the barricade
I see a New York hooker on the streets of Delhi
strutting, her yellow heels blazing in the night
Chase the elusive big cat through the wilderness.
Hush, now, I don’t want to see anymore wastage.
No more rhymes, no embellishments, no adjectives
You have to work to get It out
Pay attention, there is a silent tiresome boar
standing outside my door
He grunts and awakens me
Shoot him and
then report back to me.
I want it done Tonight.

Neelkantha

2008-10-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

And they say, do you remember the trees that sang in the night
Do you remember the wind that met you in the night
Do you remember the sound of a far away dog
Howling and howling
till it's master came home?

2008-10-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

And tongiht it rains
with the might of a thousand men.

2008-10-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

Nico, oh Nico
Scarred facial ecstasy with a sleeping virgin
Belong, behold
It was a surprise intercourse
doomed to shrivel in her hair,
Notoriety added to smoke
thickening with every inch of elevation
Bleeding out in a new land of gold
Black and gold
And silver mist.

Use the function, she says
since you can't gauge the thrust

Lucy, oh Lucy
sitting at the riverside, weeping
Lucy, oh Lucy
Sitting at the riverside, crying.

At one with the sailors
At one with the boatmen
At one with the rain.

The Storm

2008-10-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

Shrouded, the darkness spreads
and gathers leaves for your funeral pyre
Morbid, the world shrinks to the last
quarter of the moon
Inebriated, I fall to the floor
laughing for all its worth.

Have you lost yourself yet?

Faust

2008-10-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

The blue-black wound stretches across the horizon

Obliterate

Locked up in an image
Plumes of smoke rise
The pale leaves, recklessly scattered
A momentary lapse of reason
Randomness

Caught in an act of defiance
Flee through the fire escape
The ecstasy of Ecstasy
Listen…

Precocious and defined
Limited to a word
We present to you, Echoes
What had been and what will be
I can’t recall
I can’t reformulate

Close your eyes
Listen
Something stirs and something tries
The unlikely spy

Esoteric ramblings of a man deranged
don’t prolong the infinite
the words ring true
The pale leaves, recklessly scattered

Every Word holds a story of its own
I stand and watch the night, waning away
Replaced by a grief stricken mourning

Obliterate

Choose your door
You have the freedom to
You’re curious?
Don’t be
curiosity kills the cat

The time to hesitate is through
Free yourself

2008-10-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

The mind without fear
tranquil and longing
for the long fingered touch of insanity and novelty
Pollute, she screamed into the night.
Destroy, she screamed in to the night.
The soft scent of burning leaves float into memories
of a deeper,
longer, past.

Blitzkrieg

2008-10-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

Opaque clouds form a shallow crescent
Over the glass cave
She walked into his hilt
To starve with the bleeding wretch
For negative stars dash into her bath
Tumbling around mindlessly, filtering
Scarred on the screen, the kiss
Brought to light in the mist of the day
Crying for tears
Mumbling support, she lamented her acceptance
Unsheathing her word
One was an old friend, the other a sailor
Crawling along his length
To meet the warmth thus shed
Remembering and awaking…and passive
She promises to tell him the reason for the delay
Why she couldn't save him that day

Die with me
Starve
Tumble and remember
Aryl nocturnes

The battery is half past dead
The reason is lost
The day he died filters in with the sun
Burning yellow stripes across her hair.

2008-10-03T06:47:00.000-07:00

Trickery, treachery
cleanse the peoples graves
Ashes reminding me of a Sunday morning
withheld in his myriad eyes
Fire escapes, breathing
with the burning oil
Flowers trespassing on your
hopeless restraints.
Behold her, single in the field
tainted and musing
Behold her, single in the field
drowned and abusing
Singing with the melody of the soft little fires
melancholy beauty escaping the eyes of the mire.

The River Stairs

2008-09-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

The Ganges grow to fullness
and the last river stair
disappears into the vast
unknown void
filled by the swish-swash
of holy water rushing by.

Krishna, Krishna
they chant, beside the bank
Krishna, Krishna...