Swimming Pool Blues

Shirshaasana

Place your head on a mat
cushioned by blankets
supported by the cupped hands
that contain your life,
your love
and everything you have to hold and let go of

breathe in and
bring your feet in towards yourself

exhale and
lift

lift your feet
your ankles
your body
up towards the sky
towards a ceiling
that you can almost stand on

stretch your body
firm your arms
and find the strength
of mind
of heart,
of soul
to open your chest
close your eyes
and inhale from deep within
as if standing on your head is the most natural feeling in the world
and upside-down-ness is less than a state of mind

Dream Repeat

In my dreams I find fulfillment
for all the things I wish for others:
consensus for some,
catharsis for others,
hope and healing grief,
sugar-free food for my granmum,
or a vacation for a tired friend.

My own dream vacations however,
never take me anywhere
because I always seem to miss the boat,
the bus or the car.
I can't ever manage get onto the train
that will take me there
because the ticket booth can't print my ticket for me,
or won't accept my fare.

Sitting at the edge of my bed,
watching the train hoot away below,
I say resolutely to my heart
that I cannot live my life for others
If I don't live it first for myself,
but then in a disbelieving flight of fancy,
I break my promises instead.

kaafir

Fog

In this city by the sea
where people once jostled with familiarity
a preponderant fog has descended on
the inhabitants of this bruised, battered town.

In the wake of such terrific days that were -
moments of hope, shattered by rumouring fear -
a common conscience that was wont to lumber,
wont to deny, to drown the thunder
with its obdurate, stubborn - even insipid resilience,
stands chatised for its blinded negligence;
now exposed, stripped and naked,
as it cries afoul of murder in the name of hatred.

Like a veil of widowed, grey despair,
this keening fog hangs in the air,
the southern sun can't pierce its hold
until these mourners have let their grief unfold.

Grief

The City In The Sea
by Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters he.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Halogen Quartet

Mired

Walk away now -
I said -
before time and tide have their way with you
and the compulsions of strangers become your own;
before you sense your feet twitching to rhythms
that your mind is unfamiliar with,
but which your heart
refuses to forsake.

lift

stretch

Heave yourself out of these labels,
fantastic plans,
presumptions
that swirl, swill around
your indecisive thighs,
and all your self proclaiming lies

अगर मैं तुम्हे अपनी सारी ताकत दे दूँ,
तो मैं अपनी ताकत कहाँ से लाऊंगी?

रूह देखी है कभी?

"जिस्म सौ बार जले तब भी वही मिट्टी का ढोला
रूह इक बार जलेगी तो वो कुंदन होगी "

- गुलज़ार

Silver Shoes!

a happy Diwali of love and hope to everyone

Gateway

Dream 25sep08

e e cummings

Peeping Through Windows

Full Moon Night Revelry

Dancing Diyas

The Walled City

Quoting Don Pablo

My Little Incense Stick

It is a ritual that I enact everyday -
every working day -
in which I take off my market slippers outside the door to my pink room
and arrange them neatly to one side.

As I step onto the wooden floor threshold,
my feet take up the blue rubber chappals that have been waiting patiently for me
since the last time I said goodbye.

I turn on the electricity to all my machines and devices,
pressing a little button
that buzzes into blue life as my computer powers on.
I then open the windows, and,
even before I sit down,
pull out a stick of incense
to light on the violet flame of grandma's gas stove.

With one quick flick,
the stick comes to rest in its wooden stand
and begins to tell its story for the day:

Sometimes
in its spicy smoke I smell amber
and myrrh and frankinscence.
Although I can't say with certainty
what amber or myrrh or frankinscence smell like,
I imagine that when I find them
and sniff them
one summer's day in Constantinople,
that they will remind me
of my little incense stick in my pink little room in Bombay.

On other days
it diffuses cinnamon and cardamom
and honey around our empty house -
almost like the ittar my mother bought in Dubai,
which I wear on lonely days,
and whose bottle - to my dismay -
rests in a scandalously shaped box
that imitates the Ka'aba in Mecca.

Today I am reminded -
in the midst of a ylang ylang, patchouli, Flame of the Forest haze -
of the Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain:
the thought of spiced cookies and mulled wine
and the little girl who's face can never be painted
because the artist isn't quite sure what she feels like
or where she ought to be looking
while everyone around her is picknicking.

I wonder what she's thinking of
in the Sunday sunshine warmth
surrounded by the French paysage,
and I wonder about her day.

Confucious says...

Watching

I Believe, therefore I am

and if I thought so much
as to keep you
these grains of the sands of time
might seep through
my fingers entwined
in silent mine
in wordless deed
and heedless mind
- epiphany-
in a moment
of subliminal rhyme

Contenedores 2

En un cajón de mi conciencia
escondo tu nombre
por oscuras fotografías, papeles, hojas de inscripción,
entre tarros de tinta negra
y lentejuelas poquitas
-trocitas de todo
lo que yo espero

Pero a veces,
cuando estoy segura
que nadie me da cuenta,
yo le quito
y le escrito
para recordar
como le siente
entre mis manos


(*)

Containers

Inside a drawer in my awareness
I hide your name
with dark photographs,
papers, application forms,
in between jars of balck ink
and tiny sequins -
fragments of everything I hope for

But occasionally,
when I'm sure that no one's watching,
I take it out
and write it down
just to remember -
to remind myself
what it feels like in my hands

Contenedores 1 o Vaganbunda

En una caja de mi conciencia
guardo a una vagabunda -
una planeta,
cometa sin órbita
que vague entre deseo y odio,
furia y tanquilidad,
entre determinación y destino
en su espacio de infinidad

A veces yo puedo domarla,
e a veces ella me frustra;
pero cuando no puedo soportarla
yo la abandono
hasta ella se portará

Pero ella es mi estrellita:
en verdad, mi voluntad-
y a cambio de mi paciencia
ella guarda mi alma,
mi razón
y mi generosidad



(*)
Inside a box in my conscience
I keep a little vagabond -
a planet
like a comet without an orbit
that wanders between desire and hate,
fury and tranquility,
between determination and destiny
in her infinite, infinite space

Sometimes I'm able to tame her
and though, at other times she frustrates me,
when I can't deal with her anymore,
I leave her alone until she behaves herself

But the truth is,
that she is my little star:
my own willpower
and in return for my patience
she gaurds my generosity,
my reason
and my soul

Venus

Twilight tortures the twinkling star
Venus - goddess of goodness-what-you-are
If, even you,
in all your might,
can't change this heart or share some light

Forgive me if I smother you
but I need you like my mother's jasmine shrubs need the earth to spread their love

The Curse of the Locksmith (or the Secretkeeper)

the locksmith knows the working of locks -
their mysterious levers,
clutches and chinks;

he knows how to pry forth
from their machinations
treasures, fortunes and dark desires

can unravel their enigmas,

lay bare their twists and tricks

in the blink
of a broken promise

.but he doesn't.

-this secret keeper
is no oath breaker
- is no one to steal pleasure
from the prepetrator

Semi-colons

twelve leagues under a sea of darkness
sinking with the weight of summer,
the ghost of last year's unforgiving slumber
filled up my drowsy thoughtfloat bubble
with a series of
silly lemondrops

"Semi-colons!" I cried
much to my dismay -
but they hadn't a care
for my fullstops

they only shoveled and pummeled
every one of my memories
that would've rather just stayed away
from this fray,
from being dragged out into the open
into this melancholic display

I live precipitously from moment to moment,

sifting sand and dirt from
grimy thoughts that stray into my mind,
folding in wonton déjà vus
and prophetic lines
that bear no resemblance to a place or space
or any state to which I'm inclined
except in a wistful haze
of wanting-ness

wanting and not knowing-ness
of things locked in entangled mazes

In fortune's blissful whiff I found you
sitting by me
by the sea
on a seat made of heathen rope
and soft reverie...

trying to remember what it was i wanted to be

Mar / Sea

a veces
yo olvido como nombrar algunas cosas –
camas, tazas, sillones -
como se llama una idea en esa lengua
o en esta –

anoche
dentro de unos de estos peleas,
me subí a la espuma-
a las olas que no olvidan nada
y no recuerdan todo
pero ya lo saben la lógica de vivir,
conocimientos de ser
y la verdad sobre el lugar
donde amor se va
cuando no puede soportar su peso propio

yo las pregunté muchísimas cosas
pero ellas no me contestaron nada

solo adelantaron, me tocaron y volvieron a su rutina

de pronto
me di cuenta
que en lugar de cada ola atrasada
una mar me haya envuelto

(*)

At times
I forget the names of things –
beds, cups and armchairs –
how to call things in this tongue
or in that


last night
in the midst of one of these fights,
I went down to the surf –
to the waves that don’t forget everything
and don’t remember everything either,
but already know
the logic of living,
the knowledge of being
and the truth about where love goes
when it can no longer bear its own weight

I asked them many things
but they didn’t reply

they just rose up, and, touching me,
returned to their routine

and all at once
i realised
that in place of every wave that had abandoned me
a sea had risen to envelope me

Cornered

(*) from what corner of my mind
do I gather the memories of your voice,
your touch
when we have never met;
when you don't even know
how I feel
without you

No tengo las palabras

(*) I don't have the words
to tell you who I am
and who I am not

I only have these pages
to show you a window, an image
of a girl reflected in these mirrors

Si yo te dije

si yo te dije que haya una tormenta dentro de mi -
una mar furiosa por la que yo no puedo navegar sola
me acompañarías hacía la luna -
hasta llegaremos en un campo iluminado,
pinchado por memorias estrellitas
a un cama donde podemos soñar en paz -
el paz de los angelitos,
en el silencio de unos millones deseos?


(*) if I told you that there is a storm inside me -
a livid ocean that I cannot navigate alone,
would you accompany me to the moon
until we arrive in a twinkling field
pierced by starry memories,
and lie in a bed where we can dream in peace,
in the angelic peace
and the silence of a million little desires?

Upon learning a new language

Upon learning a new language,
one discovers - among other things
that pictures can be squares,
that sense is not always sensible
and that mothers - like the Universe - give light to new borns.

Now ensconced in the ruffling of meanings,
I realise that,
as if identity wasn't already a tricky creature pinned to a picture and a piece of card,
it becomes a looming idea
fraught with the travails of being,
becoming
and, having been,
of something thought -
fidgeting somewhere between flighty fancy
and the permanence of stone.

One discovers then,
that there are many ways of being,
many ways of seeing
and in a moment - in a word -
the act of collecting eternity and all its allusions
into a single string of sounds
played out in a melody
of beautiful syllables throbbing, alive and unbound.

(*work in progress)

Monday morning's a nice shade of blue

was it Monday after all
roads afresh
sparkling gold
alert, engaged
green-lit sentry poles
to gaurd my way
on a calm new day
when my hapless heart
was already astray?

was it Monday -
- sprightly, gay -
or was it just you

- or maybe me-

after all?

Even...

Even mariposas must wait
for autumn to turn to spring
for flowers to bloom


(*) mariposa = butterfly

¿Quien eres?

¿Quien eres?

¿imagen del que esta anhelado
O testigo de los trocitos de mi imaginación?


y porque no me vuelves
para volar un poco,
flotar un poco
en la sombra del verano
feliz, de las estrellas?


(*)
Who are you?

an image of one who is awaited
or a witness to the fragments of my imagination?

why not return to me
to fly a little
to float a while
in the shade of a happy, starry summer?

El futuro es espacio - II

(*) I wish I could understand my future
but the future is space-
space the colour of my soul
soul of a dream
where nothing exists
not even time
only a moment complete

up & home & away

Volando en los cielos

(*) Flying with my thoughts
Verily, is it verity
that birds are the souls
of my curiosity?

Coaster Drawings

For you-know-you-are

Summer Days

Contemplating tomorrow

If tomorrow my eyes would close
and forever be laced with slumber
my only regret, just one at all -
would be that only I had seen this lonesome sun
set into burning orange and fiery amber

Back to the Big Tree

I'm an amateur of the sea...

Yo me conozco

Soñar con las estrellas

Ahmedabad Postcard

Diarios despues de cervezas

(*) After a couple of beers
I like playing around with my thoughts.
They're a lot more lively
and I'm in a good mood
when we can understand each other.

Epiphany II

I will make it my happy song again:
the one you so unfairly ursurped and interrupted
whilst I was being myself around you.
I will sing to it again,
rise up above the alpine air
and smell the fresh snowy day
when I knew it was my tune
and that my time and place had come:
when I had stood outside of myself
in perfect exstasis
and seen that destiny had come a-knocking,
that yesterday was only a tangle of memories
waiting to be undone.

This is already my song today
I have nothing more to win now
and nothing left to lose.

La poesía

"Y yo, mínimo ser,
ebrio del gran vacío
constelado,
a semejanza, a imagen
del misterio,
me sentí parte pura
del abismo,
rodé con las estrellas,
mi corazón se desató en el viento"

- de La poesía, Memorial de Isla Negra
por Pablo Neruda


(*) The following translation is by Alastair Reid

"And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
and my heart broke loose on the wind."

Celebrity Crush

In coming face to face with a childhood god
I suddenly remember
that first tingling of skin
as goosebumps parched the throat
and I became aware of
a heart-skip-beat-thump
at the sight of a long haired t.v. man
who played music to my ears
in between glimpses of delight to my eyes.

Dance shimmy shake away I say!

Meses Pasados

En serio,
estos días han sido tan tercos conmigo
¿Qué te puedo decir?
Sus horas me odian
Y yo no tengo paciencia con pierdas

(*) I doubt if the translation works, but here goes anyway

seriously,
these days have been so stubborn with me!
and after all, what can I say?
their hours loathe me
and I don't have any patience with stones

Home, Rajpur Road

What I love most about your home
is not the half a dozen or so dogs
scrambling for a hug or a pet at the sniff of my coat,
it is not the walk down from the road
past the quaintly composed garden
with its archways and cobble-stone-sounding paths,
it is not the sunny chaises basking in your balcony overlooking a bubbling ravine,
not even the wooden steps up to meet you both
or the gravel in the driveway with its octave cowbells,

it is the simple silence that surrounds us,
our glasses tinkling, punctuate our stories
as I imagine a faint hum rising from the Tibetan home beyond.

Time Lost

How easily wrapped around the metal straps of my favourite watch
were the memories I'd divined of my grandfather
in the years since his passing
which from every corner of my mind,
I had gleaned and dusted
and then attached
onto its bright orange dial.
How resolute they all looked there, side by side
the green digits neatly arranged around the circle of their hands!
Shining back at me through every one of my trials and tribulations,
they had joined together to bring me luck
and to soothe my pain
everytime the seconds hand
glided over effortlessly collecting moments like faery dust
for the sprinkling of a little girl not ten years old.

How easily lost that watch is
taking with it,
for all the time in the world,
the time I'll never have again.

Me, myself and i

I'm a selfish sort of person
I love what I like
and I like what I know best.

Which is not to say that I'm hard to please
I'm just not that easily distracted, that's all.

see
a thoughtfeel painted
in verse
squiggled in and around
mindlines
windmimes
sandrhymes

Immersive Experience

blink
think
sink

And how many languages would you need after all

...if you haven't said everything that you wanted to say
for fear of being misunderstood?

With

I passed by the same places we drove past together,
The same song rising and welling up inside me,
The same tune that greeted me on the doorstep
of a lonely hart island hotel,
The same words that lifted me up
above the alpine air,
Now overwritten by memories gone sour -

an echo of something
that used to be divine:
a song that is ruined
for no reason or rhyme.

I like purple nailpolish on my toes

No Ser

No soy poeta.
Soy solo una viajera paseando
por sus pensamientos
en los barcos de estas paginas.



* for the "linguistically challenged" :)

Not To Be
"I am not a poet.
I'm only a traveller
passing by her thoughts
in boats made of these pages"

Moonflowers

Se Souvenir des Belles Choses

Feliz Año a Ti

Espero el fin de un año
como un cesto de doce uvas amargos
que no puedo tragar.

Quizas el proxímo
va a darme un poco del zumo
con todo su sabor.

Smoke

Thirteen times the dreams came to me like ghosts
Riding the waves of each episode,
Leaving ghoulish trails inside my head
until only sleep could relieve me of their stench,
of their ugly melancholic clouds:
clouds like bracken smoke,
like the heathen, putrid, gnawing smoke
That refuses to be shaken out of your coat
the day after you've returned from your night of drink
a night on some or the other cataclysmic brink.

That sinking feeling

As if it weren't already so damn tough
to keep these things together
in one place behind a straight face,
this space is losing trace
of any semblance of who I used to be
or the thoughts I used to see.

Poet-ing and Picture-ing

I use words to describe thoughts and things
instead of thoughts and things to describe the words I feel

If I could play with pictures to produce picturesque prose
I suppose I would make a little more sense

Silver Leaf Curtains 2

These silver leaf curtains
they hold a candle to my thoughts
fluttering in the rainy breeze
incandescent through the grainy trees...

Silver leaf curtains

Rendering...

That Fresh Feeling

" Birds singing a song
Old paint is peeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling

Words can't be that strong
My heart is reeling
This is that fresh
That fresh feeling" *

I been soooo distracted the last few days, but I woke up this morning and everything was clean and fresh and new and happy :)

Here's right back atcha Mr. E!!
















* Check out the full lyrics to this song by the Eels here

The Deam of the Rain Swept

The stupor of the wind swept
rain swept
eyes laced with lethargic gold
and silver drops in shining lights
suspended
in verdant window frames
bursting at the seams
with dreams
and a day's worth of cinematic haze:
the dregs of an imagination
put out to graze.

The day the sun stands still

The solstice orbs are hidden in the clouds somewhere.

This summer day looks still and rainy -
insubordinately grey -
as if to protest our forgetfulness:
trivial memories
that seem to have let slip past
the magnanimity of Osiris' magnificent sun
as it rises above the pyramids at dawn
flooding the Nile's banks,
drawing shadow snakes on antipodal stepping stones
and bringing fire to Midsummer lawns.


At Uttarayan we flew kites and ate jaggery above the streets of the city;

Today the sun is netherworld bound,
the nights will - instead - move on.


(*) to know more about the summer solstice follow this orbit

24 at 22

Four and twenty times today
I've counted seconds in the day
Four and twenty times these things, the thoughts
(the damned juggernauts)
stood up and then just dribbled off.

Two and twenty times I said
I'd wait for the tide to change,
but sixteen hours and twelve minutes later
everything that had come in through that window pane
had sighed and swung and left.

Dreaming of Dehra Dun

Back to simpler things

The Kiss

I wrote this on the steps of the Schloss Belvedere in Vienna after seeing The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. It's one of my favourite paintings.

...I think I just sat in front of the painting for about 30 mins in complete awe of it

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt
1907-08
Oil and gold on canvas 180 x 180 cm
Österreichische Galerie, Vienna

Conflict

A drawing of someone I saw on the Paris metro...this Arab looking man, carrying notebooks titled "Identity" wearing a map of the world on his red shirt and another file stickered "I Love Palestine"...the sight struck me

It shouldn't be odd, but it was. When you're assaulted by all the irony at one go, its difficult what to make of it right away

.

.

re-connaître: to know again

Sometimes it's important to go back to places to see either how much they've changed or how much you've changed since you were there last.


Panjim is one of those places that seems to stay the same no matter what happens to the rest of the world. Here's two pictures of one of my favourite spots in the world. I love the purple and chrome yellow of this building. It just looks so warm and sunny and well...nice


The first one is from Feb 2006 and the second just last week

Parting and all that...

I've heard it said that you never know how much you're loved until you're with the people who gather to say goodbye at your farewell...

Caught

If I could code these verses in my head
they'd speak of love
sing of hate
and regret the things I wish I hadn't done.
but the words have broken, crumbled
under the weight of a million thoughts ;
Tomorrow will be another day
in between these moments caught.

4 Fridays Ago

Cinnamon smells, my girls!

Cinnamon smells and catwalk twirls,
talk of dreams and dusty, foolish spells
We sit in earnest
conversing with our silly, honest selves
As if time hasn't passed us by,
As if these pitchers daren't leave us dry

I wandered lonely...

Floating people
living temporary lives,
in an imaginary sandcastle
the highest in the sky;
you wonder aloud
at the fate of the clouds
that wander in over the dunes
(the vales and the hills)
vapourise and vanish
in the dust of the crowds
gathering at shopping mall cash tills.

If this is a life
and these are the days
then I'm lost like rain in the sandtraps;
Tomorrow's arrived
and I aint gonna be here
so let's all wear our sun shades
and smile for it.


*I'm goin home for good!