Twelfth Man

I do not remember it anymore
I do not remember the date anymore
but still April is the cruelest month
and on someday in April
my friend Subhash died of a heart attack
without treatment suffering at a free hospital
for eight long hours
the twelfth man who has no rights or claims
who comes and vanishes
falls on the way to be replaced immediately
by another.

Some-fucking-day I will drop dead here and nobody
will know, Subhash paused, his right hand up in mid air
and his fingers playing on an invisible piano.

Subhash was a writer who danced with
other little men in this
stark naked local hooch shop and melted
in thin air asking for a glass of drink
for he was all dry.

I do not remember the date
but still April is the cruelest month.


Ma

Ma did not have a dressing table. Maybe she liked her defective hand mirror’s self that emanated from the tired dusk like light like a drop of love. Running behind a dragon fly, crossing over again and again a dilapidated brick wall, an experience of a wet and sordid world like an age old breathing marked self imprints on my breast pocket. It resembled a crumpled winter afternoon’s tidbit made of tamarind, salt and chilly that left forever its tangy taste on my tongue. The dragon fly wasn’t named in those days. Then it never occurred to me that it’s a statutory to give a name to everything, it’s a must; as I did not know then the meaning of a dressing table or anything about its dazzle and cries.

It is said, my hair resembles my mother. Standing before the dressing table mirror I look at my ruffled hair and search for my mother in the long flowing locks. I don’t go to the hairdresser anymore. I have preserved the pale ribbon, a tip of which she held in her teeth to tie her hair and the memories of those evenings in a box, so that ants do not eat it up.

Be careful, son
Take care, my son
Stay at peace, my son

I take care and I stay wrong. In outmost care whom would I give those fountain-cherished days, to take care of? Who will try and understand the smell of the colorless withered ribbon.

Forget about me; just ponder over the closeness of the two bodies. Consider those poses and reflexes – the falsity too.
Feel the touch of the soft feet. Just feel the touch of the fingertips on the burning forehead. Without applied color you and empty and a zero.

But I saw the color that oozed out of her face.
I knew she was the doe, who wanted to go beyond the violence of the air,
leaving a single earthen lamp burning in the deserted hall.


Third Eye Kick Ups – 1

The Serpent inside you will now wake up
from its long sleep and you
will know who is your friend and who is your enemy
he said.
Fuck, who needs now another rising serpent,
as it is I do not have a woman for last
two months.


Third Eye Kick Ups – 2

Nobody wants to hear truth
because it never is stranger than fiction
and your third eye never helps you
to see any better either.


Rainy Day – 1

Love is like a bullet
whistling down the wind
on a rainy day
nothing left to prove.


Rainy Day – 2

The rain is washing everything away
the cigarette buts from the night
the dust on the leaves
the ink from the words
of the crumpled pages in the bin
only the memories and mistakes
remain unwashed.


Game

you are playing a double game
she said
promising both of us the same moon.

i know I am soft
and crave for all these
lunar moments of eternity
as forever does not mean anything anymore.

I would love to play a triple game
instead,
one for my heart

It’s time I think.


Jump

Why does it hurt
when I know I have to leave you
Why does it hurt
when I know it is the end
Why does it hurt

The frog jumps and jumps and jumps
as if the school days are not yet over
as if the story has something
a twist at the end
Waiting for this
Waiting in that jump
and the space closes in
the walls the rivers the endless life


The Muffled Sounds

and rain save us
wash away all the good news and pain
dabbed all over this paper
and the muffled sound of the man
who jumped out of the balcony.

the well dressed guy
actually wanted to fly to the roof top
of the house in front
where this girl caressed the rain.

is the force of repulsion
stronger than a wish.


Pacifier

I am not in mood,
I have a bad headache this morning—
and she pushed a pacifier in my mouth
to suck on.

Baby safe silicone soother nipple
Extra soft more elastic more durable
than the real.

Spitting it out
I walked out to the veranda and lit a
cigarette and sucked in the smoke instead


Shooting Poops

Shooting stars are so rare these days just as our wishes.
I saw a man shoot past my window
With one end of his red towel tucked to
his shoulder. But Superman is long dead, this
must be a replacement.
But he has forgotten to wear his undie
over his trousers today. Maybe it is still wet
from last night’s rain.

Talking of undies I remember all those holes
I have in my nickel friendly one that
my balls always poops out from one or the other.

I should make a wish now but this guy is
so busy fixing up the world will he have time
even to think about those few hole poop oops.


Black Coffee

Yesterday while having a cup of Americano in a coffee shop I suddenly felt I am new in this city where I was born and lived all these time. I have never seen these leaves laden with so much dust. Even the sunlight playing with those ugly leaves is so golden yellow. I was just taking in the air which slashed through the simmering coffee smell. Unknown roads moving here and there remain unknown in this carnival of life. I open my shoes and light a cigarette just below the no smoking sign. They are so bored they don’t say anything anymore.