The quick two-step

It is usually
with the
accompaniment
of a narrow
doorway
through which
I pass parallelly.
My quick two-
step. My arms
swimming across
my body, rising,
flailing, flying.
My feet
perpendicular,
gliding, joyous
and on air.

Hunger Pangs

Black holes are usually
misunderstood; rebels
or non-conformists
breaking down all rules
of decency and gravity.
Their lineage really goes
back to carving up lands
the good ol ways.

I should know.

Someone stuffed many of
them down my throat.
They tumbled like snow
flakes against my
oesophagus, slowing,
pulling down time, as
they painstakingly
fell to the pit of my
stomach. A vacuum
cleaner; they ganged
together like a vacuum
cleaner; selfish buggers
eating me from the
inside. My stomach
rumbled uncomfortably.

They weren't rebels
though. They were savvy;
versed in all that good
businesses are.
They knew the value
of a good selling out on man.

So I consulted a doctor.
The physician made me
go 'aaaaa' and while he
hmm-ed close to my dark
mouth, he began
disappearing until he was
gone and I was alone.
I gagged, stuck a finger
down my throat. But
all I vomited was myself.
The black holes stayed.
Became me as I shrunk,
and shrunk until all that
remained of me was an
unsatiated appetite.

And the receding dark
line of the world.

Flutter

For a reason, I still can't fathom,
nor remember perfectly, an elder
once admonished me on throwing
whatever I could find, at the idle
urban river. The nala ran along
the high stony wall, reeds reaching
up desperately to catch a hold on
the warm baked surface of gray.
The water did not rush; it ebbed
and flowed, halted and ran gagging
on the excrement, plastic or the little
fish my best friend trapped in clear,
transparent ziplocks. Sometimes the
water would change colors, a
kaleidoscope of green or red or
whatever the suited man down the
river decided. His were not the only
decisions though; "Decide where you
are going to throw your pebble or don't,"
the clichéd elder of wisdom warned
"Those ripples might end up in America."

And they did. In America and Burma
and Bangladesh and all those other places,
my ripples crashed against their shores;
resounding with a tribute of my existence.

(A little pat for myself if any, that
terrorists haven't becomes naturalists
yet (the opposite might have happened
(the reason why WMD finding should revolve
around investigating playgrounds, schools,
homes and soporific, murky, urban rivers))).

Now that blue is no longer fashionable
for the sky, I am busy now. I catch
butterflies in sealed transparent jars;
hide them under my bed, almost silence
and all. You see, I have always had
a soft spot for Kansas and Dorothy.

Recalling Names

My memory realizes, it is
missing something; a
name; her name. A
primordial siren call
whose sound, halts at
the tip of my tongue:
ta-aaaaaaaaa it shudders
to a stop. Or is it
ma-aaaaaaaaa? How
should I know? I am
just that silence harboring
names; a cluttered desk
with no real way of knowing
which name is which face or
sound? My memory is
missing something. It knows
it does. And as I look upon
strangers, my mind tugging
at the seams of my forehead,
I can only wonder if I am not
being deceived by memory.

My Rice-Knitted Green Sweater

I do not really have the patience
for time. It trickles down my chest
like small white capsules of rice
on green woolly paddies of green;
collectively, reminding me of my
ineptitude in the commoner
things of life. It spills green on
the marble counter of my kitchen,
seeping under my half drunk
transparent glass of milk.


I am intolerant of time and let
it run out, like a balloon letting
out heaves of undesirable sighs.
"maybe time knows more about your
destiny than you do, " I eavesdropped
on a faceless man in my dream once.
He was telling someone with black
hair and a dye job, which looked to
me from where I was, a night with
strands of moon beams appearing
and disappearing behind flitting
shadows and a striped emerald shed.


My digital clock is dark. With no
moon beams or green dyes or red
carcinogenous reflections to bounce
off my eyes. Maybe it is mad.
My stomach growls inconsolably.
There is a stranger on my lawn.
He has been lying there
for a while now. I tried to rouse
him but only succeeded in
exhausting me to a near-still stop.


People call me mad too, for wearing my
green sweater in summer. But I do.
I must, for I am naked without it.
Invisible. Transparent to all those
other people walking through me.


I wish I could turn back time some
days but I only make it run faster.
A runny nose spilling on dry
flaky skin. I think I will have to
wear my sweater forever. Not
because I detest anonymity; far
from it, because, in a land of
elder statesmen, the masses, deposed,
are running low on sweaters, hope
and themselves. So in my act of
defiance, I , with my rice, crusted green
sweater upon me, endure time,
like many more unseen doing the same.

Existential Envelope

My pay-cheque comes in a white
envelope; the flap licked over but
abandoned. The adhesive
glue just a stain; a yellow
patina, at and over the edges
of a vertical paper vest. The
rectangular vehicle of all that
runs the world, is crumpled,
but unforgotten in the back-
pocket of my work jeans.

The envelope stoops over,
when I take it out ;
an anthropomorphic relic
of modernity, grimacing along
the length of its body, harboring
the misconception of necessity.

Existential angst is the result
of being steeped in cliches
of prosperity.

With the resigned body of paper
drooping in my hand, I surgically
pull out the cheque.

I ask for a deposit slip.

As I fill in the particulars, I mull
over how much more I need to
earn to buy myself happiness
and a bride. As my transaction
winds down, the banker thanks
me and I thank her back redundantly

Satisfied with my manners, I walk out
with an empty pair of jeans.