here and there

calcutta on air on g.
a dream lived
and now delayed
for that seems
like a time to come
the time already spent

we would walk
straight from dp
to maddox square
after the rides
only to go back
for more and then
to ballygunge cultural

what is to say
all this has happened
and i havent closed my eyes
unforgettable the number
of people on the roads then
and like ice in a glass
mixed in the drink
cowboys and gypsies youd think
on streets the soul craves
in sunshine in rain


II
travelling with men of
straw, of steel
of the wild
along an open brick road
i stumble, i fall
far away in the distance
i can see
walls of an emerald sheen
and remembered what
i have set out for
only while
the sun is in the sky
and i
a cutthroat dorothy
camel in the desert

trip the ghostlight fantastic

so much i wont speak about
because i cant, a criminal past
stays hidden away inside
faint to myself but shining
a dead blurry light
deep in the fog
of an winter sea
on a skiff
a little out waiting
as it always has
i was born with memories
and in my life have relived
the cycle of darkness
followed by light
but that has all gone awry
what shall i tell
how i came to this shore
have i lost my boat
was i flushed from land
convict or master
i do not know
i shall not speak therefore
i will wait till im found


everytime, everytime i set out to put down things i remember from my earliest childhood i can never bring myself to it. i do not remember the whole of it, and here the question also arises where is the cut off point for the notional juvescence that is now left behind. that departure doesnt bear reflection, as do no other departures. for i think it is in acts of leaving, itself seen as a trope for leaving behind, that i have put on age. this argument can be developed only there would be so many details that i would never be able to present for second-party scrutiny. not that it needs examination. but a little digging never yielded anything but either treasure or trash. now if i was superman or a startrekker then kryptons, vulcans and altogether suchlike cosmic noodles would be my entanglement with my past. here my past is not fully it. im living with it. i protect it. sometimes i also feel revisionist. the now is one threshold ive always jumped off but am always never prepared for it. maybe if my present could be devoted to ordering my past, then, somewhere down the diary i would have closure. till that time peter pan remains a ghost lurking inside my head, hook, his freudian (or is it jungian) reading a phantom menace i have to live it. the only comfort in all this is that it makes sense only to me. not my past, not entirely, but that i was a child once.

so hyd/quickly and happy birthday/it all ends

and he said
do not give me
information
instead give me
anticipation
give me experience
share with me
that many times
you fall in love
and are always
heartbroken

what if your ong never barked

party and its discontents
the truth in the innards of things
needs laxative
and then a calmative
and sometimes you are
so sapped of strength
in the middle of it
when at day's end
youd promised to live it up
and it isnt over yet
you promise yourself
the strains of the guitar
enter your head
your evil grin
so truly flashed
has promised you heaven
youre honest
an honest thief


they came to speak
they came to praise me
under the village tree
it's a small world
a small circle
soon they will
know the culprit
because a thief
knows hiding
not charity


today is a tiger's birthday. jisko kahte hain roomie. abhi roomie ki socho. zindagi jungle hain to my sher is my roomie. share khan is stockbroking portal. or is it brokerage. now with a choice there is a price to pay because it's worth something. corn and cheese. no more, no more will i say

murder weapon has changed my eyes

have i shown you the fist
have you heard me screaming
songs on the street
have you thought what is this
ask me i will tell you
you can see my broken teeth

lines

but you want
a smaller space
a box an oyster a cage
not immortality but an age
no great lenghts but rest
no direction but ways
neither was
the beginning yours
nor the end
you wanted time
but not the wait
all things are endless
answers and questions

soberness and desperation
poles of my existence
helen and cleopatra
beckon from either end
and me in doldrums
there is no halfway
and attraction is
always dangerous
i seep in the drunkenness
that pervades creation
close my eyes
wish it was over soon


the idea as received and accepted was that there will be a lot of scribbling, but id never thought that it could also mean painting estella nude. estella who, you might ask. estella the heartbreaker id say. but thats too vague. because even if you knew who exactly it would be automatic to pretend you didnt. frankly although id thought of her much it was only in thoughts secret even to myself. and then i saw how she could just come in, doff her clothes and demand to be painted naked. of course what im saying seems to follow a script. it does. but who is acting it out. and, does the ocean know when it's raining on it. youd say to rein in estella cast don juan opposite her. look at the irony of the situation, two supremely suffering human beings brought together to make each other suffer. that is emabarrassing. no wonder we claim never to have met her estella.

eclipses of capricious fate/lottery ticket sunrise

yes! the terraces of cal
ive taken the name
ive shouted love from there
who dare tell me
it's all the same
this that these and them
so much ive loved
in so many forms
girl one city one home
and im not wearing no clothes
these arent my thoughts
my bare bones


alone is one
unity too
im conjoined
conned and joined
to what i dunno
that i feel so snatched
so severed so headless
so without torso
feather or fur
i love her
and here i am
now you see me
now you dont
a ghost
whod die for a furlough
wasnt it that
the nose held
its head high
and suffered
stinks untold
im living
mouth wide open
breathing eating and cold
rushing through
and pushing midway
i have red light
a green an yellow
where are the rest
of the colours
butterflies in the meadow



week no #yyyy, hyd 81

it is time i always feel. like a time bomb i tick. see timer has its periods its pauses its hyphens. descriptions that i deny because i refuse to look around the bend. walking from a bus stop short of my office i wonder why i didnt protest that i had to walk so much for a full ticket paid. or that i had to keep standing when the seat was mine, or that i was better off begging what if i am working. it is not my life, i know. my demands are simpler, my dreams, a swim naked and drowning. so easily afforded.

here's johnny

is it for love
that i wear these
so many disguises
and set out on
my expedition of faces
is it out of love
im driven to that
distant oasis
and pained to savagery
by the abandonment
of the emptiness
where im lost without light
not in trusting darkness
and my eyes
oh my eyes
they rob, suffer
so many graces
always at a few paces
in front of me races love
i behind in time
and always stumbling
like a blind man
my arms in front
with only feeling
for an answer


a love song from far

breathing has a parallel
when the moon is one
in the sky
it is one thing to be in love
quite another to be
lonely and high
one alien body
another body alien
friend of the soul
sleeps eyes open
so do the flowers
and the friend of ghost
first the saints gave up
their lives for love
then so many
sinners were lost
across the desert is mecca
across the desert
where the night has lowered
her bejewelled hair
is the mist of morning
for the thirsty skin
my thirst is quenched at daybreak


cranky gy[sy

this weather
this air
its birds their nests
couldn't keep me here a year
starting a leary
i will go to lear
dosed or desolate
kneeling by the bed in prayer
baby bayb take me away from here

this is the disneyland
castle and whatever
pirates, ghosts and alice
hang here
maybe are tiffin but
not my toast
the stepson came
and knew his father
his mother's breast
too he could tell
but slipping into
another region
he did not know her navel
though none knew better
how he felt the blade


hyderabad was won through police action. that was our first home office being charitable in its description of a fief snatched from a nabob. the rajah of hyd was all about leaving the union when he was as joined with it as joined can be. so hyd remained in india. although arriving here i have certainly hoped that i do not remain in hyd. why though don't ask. not me not to the city. we both don't know. so like children at their first meeting who were forced into that company by adults hyd and i do not know where to begin. we would become friends eventually but one never knows when its time to go home. so then the question is do i want to be friends. that is a question id rather the other person answered. in thomas hardy and the natives story id read how the egdon heath was actually a character. in a manner of speaking, the desperation with hyd is that it is characters. round, squat, squiggly letters that i do not read, steamboat tongue i do not understand. the fault is all mine that im more in love with the idea of being in love than in love itself.