Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
In teethy darkness,
the shuffling bodies on scraping floor.
The begging sink,
Moaning tongue outstretched.
In disfigured cats' screeching throes,
shrivel pubescent mangoes.
Sneaky stale rain,
licking its moony lips,
taunt the white basin tongue.
Tired walls,
leaning on each other,
wheeze green twining haemorrhage.
Whirling afternoon flutes,
Sentinel cow yawning piety.
Infant shroud floating.
The errant canine teeth
lie wood splattered,
on avenged tar.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Imagining Loss.
He woke from his uncomfortable dream of her and walked to the window.
The velvet-curtained aorta suffered a burn where a matchstick flicked off his hand.
Some fell on the curly durrie perch near the twin windows and died untimely.
She haunted the other broken glass window, stuck halfway on gum from a hazy night. He imagined her there, looking out.
He carefully picked a thick strong match and attacked the sandpaper toxistrip. It raged alive suddenly and flew away with a surprised, awkward flutter. A few matches then fluttered away , snapped alight and he imagined they flew forever fireflies, enchanted the blind and he would one day watch over them as they died in his palms,
When the last skinny one was out, the nearest whistling tree suddenly caught fire and went hoarse. He lost his voice after an hour, his ash screams settling tired on the wet, dry-leaf soil.
The spokes turned, the strings squealed and the crows welcomed the darkness. They were not afraid of being invisible, their caw wielded with pride, between their beaks, ready to stab anyone who forgot they were a shade lighter than dark. He had a scar where one had driven a caw between his talons.
Secrets are invisible too, he thought, but like old tattoos they stung, about a time when they were freshly sheened black.
A few wisps of feather slipped out from under his collarbone, which he disguised as willowy hair. A dented mole on the bridge of his nose, that remained defiantly. Flitting eyes. The ornithological fixtures.
He shrugged off the time he leaned off that window and flew, to circle the nearest whistling tree, find a perilously thin branch, perch it perfectly and watch her.
He looked down and leaned, his weak, trembling hands gripping the cold sill, all that was left now of the tree was crisp, crinkled barkskin, eight arms outspread like a final plead, the silence of a dead whistle ringing.
A burnt cloud, he imagined, would have crisp, black skin too. He imagined he could crack it with his fore nail screeching across its curves. He wondered what they could carry, these burnt clouds, wispy feathers and raging fireflies.
He looked up to the nearest one, the sixteenth enamel shined black cloud and imagined.
She sat perched, on one of its twin windows, in defiant splendour, flitting eyes shining, the sun catching her beak. She leaned elegantly and swung out irreverently,stretching and spreading a smooth unravelling.
Her downy feathers slowly began whistling carefully.
They whistled slowly an elegy for the ashen leaves,
the crinkled clouds
and the once raging fireflies
that burned slow his palms in their death.
The velvet-curtained aorta suffered a burn where a matchstick flicked off his hand.
Some fell on the curly durrie perch near the twin windows and died untimely.
She haunted the other broken glass window, stuck halfway on gum from a hazy night. He imagined her there, looking out.
He carefully picked a thick strong match and attacked the sandpaper toxistrip. It raged alive suddenly and flew away with a surprised, awkward flutter. A few matches then fluttered away , snapped alight and he imagined they flew forever fireflies, enchanted the blind and he would one day watch over them as they died in his palms,
When the last skinny one was out, the nearest whistling tree suddenly caught fire and went hoarse. He lost his voice after an hour, his ash screams settling tired on the wet, dry-leaf soil.
The spokes turned, the strings squealed and the crows welcomed the darkness. They were not afraid of being invisible, their caw wielded with pride, between their beaks, ready to stab anyone who forgot they were a shade lighter than dark. He had a scar where one had driven a caw between his talons.
Secrets are invisible too, he thought, but like old tattoos they stung, about a time when they were freshly sheened black.
A few wisps of feather slipped out from under his collarbone, which he disguised as willowy hair. A dented mole on the bridge of his nose, that remained defiantly. Flitting eyes. The ornithological fixtures.
He shrugged off the time he leaned off that window and flew, to circle the nearest whistling tree, find a perilously thin branch, perch it perfectly and watch her.
He looked down and leaned, his weak, trembling hands gripping the cold sill, all that was left now of the tree was crisp, crinkled barkskin, eight arms outspread like a final plead, the silence of a dead whistle ringing.
A burnt cloud, he imagined, would have crisp, black skin too. He imagined he could crack it with his fore nail screeching across its curves. He wondered what they could carry, these burnt clouds, wispy feathers and raging fireflies.
He looked up to the nearest one, the sixteenth enamel shined black cloud and imagined.
She sat perched, on one of its twin windows, in defiant splendour, flitting eyes shining, the sun catching her beak. She leaned elegantly and swung out irreverently,stretching and spreading a smooth unravelling.
Her downy feathers slowly began whistling carefully.
They whistled slowly an elegy for the ashen leaves,
the crinkled clouds
and the once raging fireflies
that burned slow his palms in their death.
Monday, April 13, 2009
unheard of
She looked at me, her eyes straining from the flare, squinting up at me ," If sarcasm is denser than blood, would it not get stuck in my throat? "
She turned smoothly and escaped.
The bile in my teacup every morning did indeeed exist.
The ash of subtraction, has tiny white flakes in it, that grow wings and lay eggs.
We are all scared of it. For those emboldened by it actually being an addition, an addiction is imminent. It being imminent is suffered by a lack of, or the absence of matter.
She turned smoothly and escaped.
The bile in my teacup every morning did indeeed exist.
The ash of subtraction, has tiny white flakes in it, that grow wings and lay eggs.
We are all scared of it. For those emboldened by it actually being an addition, an addiction is imminent. It being imminent is suffered by a lack of, or the absence of matter.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Selling shapes.
Shapes emitting awkwardly,
from his mouth.
A beaten-up blue,
a chunky bile.
Constipated stories,
Flesh wrung out.
He stands at the door now,
Spilling those shapes,
Into a gunny sack,
To sell naively,
at the Friday market.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Is anal art sexy, or is sex in art anal?
Well, it really goes "Is anal sex legal, or is legal sex anal?"
Thats the neon punchline to the exhibition 'Seduced: sex in art from antiquity to now'.
With an impressive line-up of artists covering art to commercial work, it seemed like a talk to queue up in line for even if the tickets were booked out 'ages ago'. And that's what I did.
Waiting in line in the cold winter night with a bunch of art antennaed students, including an amicable 'James' who seemed to think we would get in without a whisker of doubt. Again we did.
And then it started .
They played k buxey's... i dont remember the name of this apparently provocative piece but it had to do with her daringly whispering her proclivity to big black cocks,cocks,cocks and her big black boy saying that he had never seen a more beautiful white ass like hers ever before,before,before.
Before I was beginning to think that 'cock' really had a more metaphoric suggestion, and that this whole declaration of racial, sexual independence was more than the fact that black nipples and cocks were pepperoni on her pizza, it sadly ended.
She later mentioned how people misconstrued her piece for reinforcing racial prejudice which is a very 'no wonder' situation than anything else. Frankly she seemed completely out of her depth, almost with an extras bravado at getting into the final eleven.
So well what is this basically? Two very cool guys shaping popular culture crash landed into a congregation of academic intellectual serious minded folk and ended up making them look like Neanderthals inspecting their stones over and over again without really shaping them to make their tools.
Chris Cunningham and Joseph from Agent Provocateur, both opposites really, Chris working for himself and the higher creative pursuit, and Joseph really working to make his bucks,but both with a nonchalance that made this intellectual prancing seem shallow.
An indignant audience member stood up and asked Joseph defiantly 'wasn't it just a supermodel 'Kate Moss' stripping in that video?', that Martin Kemp and Martina Wallace included as art?
So Joseph turns nonchalantly at her, puts his foot up, rests it on the other, nods casually and says 'yeah'! And the crowd was in splits!
So that typically was the vein of the talk with two smart guys among a bunch of intellectual pseudo-liberals trying to make art interesting by getting sex into it and sex boring by getting it into art.
Martin Kemp,the curator, seemed to be an academic intellectual conservative claiming to be a self professed professor of pornography, though failing miserably.
And Chris Cunningham, for whom to hear I actually came to the talk, wearing a dull blue sweater and jeans sat with one leg over the other head hung to one side, occasionally changing direction, and as the talk went on would quietly retreat into his long hair.
An except from the debate:
An English woman from behind yells with as much bravado as she could muster ' It was an exhibition of cocks!'
Aghast Kemp exclaimed 'That's bollocks! Thee are many more female genitalia although they are usually V shaped hairless mounds disappearing between their thighs!
Kr Buxey says 'I think actually that there were more penises.'
Kemp with incredible gusto pronounces ' FINE! LETS HAVE A COUNT!'
At this point the hermit in his forest of hair, Mr. Cunningham, peeks out of his jungle and smiles a whisper of a smile.
So we all know sex sells.
But sex under the guise of art?
Maybe not.
Thats the neon punchline to the exhibition 'Seduced: sex in art from antiquity to now'.
With an impressive line-up of artists covering art to commercial work, it seemed like a talk to queue up in line for even if the tickets were booked out 'ages ago'. And that's what I did.
Waiting in line in the cold winter night with a bunch of art antennaed students, including an amicable 'James' who seemed to think we would get in without a whisker of doubt. Again we did.
And then it started .
They played k buxey's... i dont remember the name of this apparently provocative piece but it had to do with her daringly whispering her proclivity to big black cocks,cocks,cocks and her big black boy saying that he had never seen a more beautiful white ass like hers ever before,before,before.
Before I was beginning to think that 'cock' really had a more metaphoric suggestion, and that this whole declaration of racial, sexual independence was more than the fact that black nipples and cocks were pepperoni on her pizza, it sadly ended.
She later mentioned how people misconstrued her piece for reinforcing racial prejudice which is a very 'no wonder' situation than anything else. Frankly she seemed completely out of her depth, almost with an extras bravado at getting into the final eleven.
So well what is this basically? Two very cool guys shaping popular culture crash landed into a congregation of academic intellectual serious minded folk and ended up making them look like Neanderthals inspecting their stones over and over again without really shaping them to make their tools.
Chris Cunningham and Joseph from Agent Provocateur, both opposites really, Chris working for himself and the higher creative pursuit, and Joseph really working to make his bucks,but both with a nonchalance that made this intellectual prancing seem shallow.
An indignant audience member stood up and asked Joseph defiantly 'wasn't it just a supermodel 'Kate Moss' stripping in that video?', that Martin Kemp and Martina Wallace included as art?
So Joseph turns nonchalantly at her, puts his foot up, rests it on the other, nods casually and says 'yeah'! And the crowd was in splits!
So that typically was the vein of the talk with two smart guys among a bunch of intellectual pseudo-liberals trying to make art interesting by getting sex into it and sex boring by getting it into art.
Martin Kemp,the curator, seemed to be an academic intellectual conservative claiming to be a self professed professor of pornography, though failing miserably.
And Chris Cunningham, for whom to hear I actually came to the talk, wearing a dull blue sweater and jeans sat with one leg over the other head hung to one side, occasionally changing direction, and as the talk went on would quietly retreat into his long hair.
An except from the debate:
An English woman from behind yells with as much bravado as she could muster ' It was an exhibition of cocks!'
Aghast Kemp exclaimed 'That's bollocks! Thee are many more female genitalia although they are usually V shaped hairless mounds disappearing between their thighs!
Kr Buxey says 'I think actually that there were more penises.'
Kemp with incredible gusto pronounces ' FINE! LETS HAVE A COUNT!'
At this point the hermit in his forest of hair, Mr. Cunningham, peeks out of his jungle and smiles a whisper of a smile.
So we all know sex sells.
But sex under the guise of art?
Maybe not.
Monday, December 31, 2007
THE LITTLE RED VANISHING STOOL
The man in brown shorts
sitting on the red stool
of creative license
wielding a Bengali lens
and a digital tongue
to taste the lumens
on the kathi roll
torn to spill
its chunky innards
on spotless white.
A JOWL jawed
LOUD mouth squirrel
from the overvalued food chain
shoots claws from his podgy fingers
and as the man in brown shorts
lenses to shoot,
he saws a foot off
the little red stool.
The red PLumpy,
splitting at her seams,
nude pants riding
into her crevices,
asks for an
innocent handsaw.
The Queen Bee buzzing around
importantly,
stings, laughs
and jiggles
with the shuddering chainsaw
nearly flying out of her hand.
And the man in brown shorts
is left
balancing
on
one
toe
swollen and smarting.
on
a
piece
of
red
stick.
sitting on the red stool
of creative license
wielding a Bengali lens
and a digital tongue
to taste the lumens
on the kathi roll
torn to spill
its chunky innards
on spotless white.
A JOWL jawed
LOUD mouth squirrel
from the overvalued food chain
shoots claws from his podgy fingers
and as the man in brown shorts
lenses to shoot,
he saws a foot off
the little red stool.
The red PLumpy,
splitting at her seams,
nude pants riding
into her crevices,
asks for an
innocent handsaw.
The Queen Bee buzzing around
importantly,
stings, laughs
and jiggles
with the shuddering chainsaw
nearly flying out of her hand.
And the man in brown shorts
is left
balancing
on
one
toe
swollen and smarting.
on
a
piece
of
red
stick.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
A familiar stranger.
Through the rain
raging in a battered bus
rattling blue.
In my mind
I drove past wailing mosques
and squalid slums
empty streets
and flyovers
that curled like smoke.
Orange lights green.
The silence spills over ,
The city like a moody lion,
snarls and roars in neon incandescence.
The flyover rises
in my turn,
monolith-spinningspinningspinning
the corner
of my eye
meets the silence
of a figure standing
in the red dream mud.
My eyes opened reluctance.
raging in a battered bus
rattling blue.
In my mind
I drove past wailing mosques
and squalid slums
empty streets
and flyovers
that curled like smoke.
Orange lights green.
The silence spills over ,
The city like a moody lion,
snarls and roars in neon incandescence.
The flyover rises
in my turn,
monolith-spinningspinningspinning
the corner
of my eye
meets the silence
of a figure standing
in the red dream mud.
My eyes opened reluctance.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
AN INANE BENT STARKNESS
The inane, like sprung lamp posts chattering on an old road,
Tower among us.
Shedding yellow flaky light,
and repeating themselves all along.
The mule.
The stark, with thin white beards,
that juggle their pumice words,
across their sprinkled chins.
A white horse, a black horse.
The bent, archetypal like shylock,
are arrows on a dartboard,
a misplaced straightness.
Tower among us.
Shedding yellow flaky light,
and repeating themselves all along.
The mule.
The stark, with thin white beards,
that juggle their pumice words,
across their sprinkled chins.
A white horse, a black horse.
The bent, archetypal like shylock,
are arrows on a dartboard,
a misplaced straightness.
The crippled horse.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
RANDOM
The gun exhales and the camera inhales.
Men shoot men shooting at other men and themselves get shot while shooting these men shoot at other men who meanwhile throw stones back.
One can expose while the other can impose.
Men shoot men shooting at other men and themselves get shot while shooting these men shoot at other men who meanwhile throw stones back.
One can expose while the other can impose.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
SURWAN STREET
The Toron bulb lights up the Lif Eq factory on Surwan street. Its light is strange. White nor yellow, flickering with a monsoon buzz, green borders that crackle into fuzz. The music across the street is a slow playing romadone playing old songs. Then comes jazz, slower and more complicated than its predecessor.
The pins pricks of light in the gray darkness light up , little red-yellow-green beans of alternating paths across the street. In zigzag, tied up, lengths of cheap celebration. They walk out from their parched wooden doors with knives in their hands, that had mud on them from slaying their Street goddesses. The inside of houses ablaze with the flame of candles that flickered along with the mercury buzz, yellow-white faltering of the world.
Some have nose bands and lip liners. some with wrinkstreamers and marrowscoopers. Others with chins on their chests like the first discovery of their proximity by a curious kid. Some shedding tears on the shimmering tar.
The ritual of Suthila is over.
They have fed the illusion of the eyes with a more than a timid enlargement of the iris spreading their feathered wings of white across the staccato street. It seems to blaze higher for them than the commoners lined up at their windows for a glimpse of the Illames as they tip toe out . The Ilams had a ritual they once carried out maybe a 36 days ago, the same they had conducted 467 days back, a novelty that amused them and kept the commoners well entertained.
Somewhere in the Naag Ages came a immense company of newt and blades that discovered the last rule of mathematics. With this came their enormous wealth and entire success. It was like they ruled the whole, even the Dream. Here was the equation that ruled the world. Singular and specific for each being, it was a conquerors pantomime of his own achievements. This gave them the power to spread tentacles across the Surwan street. There was nothing else, but this street. Nothing. A street called World. The life of the Surwan street was ruled. Then came the revolution.
That is where I come in. I of the Ilams.
Me , a sallow man with slack jaws and pockmarked skin. A refugee among the hallowed dreamers of the community of the Ilams. They were semi religious. I know you dont know what that means. I couldn’t understand at first too. A bunch of creatures that lived with the fear of Surima and the belief that he did not exist. They would worship him and deny his existence simultaneously, like a man I remember who denied saying his last uttered sentence; like it never existed. His memory was fine, a normal guy who however had an innate contradiction built into his cranium. A compulsive liar you would say, but hell no, this was odd , strange, a man who believed in this irony.
One stared at him with disbelief as it spewed out of him, the sick terms and covered up phrases. Maybe he would deny it, maybe he would just continue from where he left off. It was hard to imagine and ,I must confess, I questioned whether I just imagined the whole thing too.
It didn’t help that I was on Kurn most of the time. A perfect hallucogenic, no.. more. More of a Expander. I suppose you’re not familiar with that term too. Well, cant waste my time explaining the complicated stuff, but for starters it looked like Toy Slime, that Masina brought back from the Surwan market and smelled like bee wax. They found it on the Surwan corner, burning up and rejuvenating at the same time, static until we tapped into it. Then it started growing. The more we took away, the less burnt up, but it could never stop burning. It was not a degree of flame, or the amount it burnt but a more organic process that had no measure of volume or density or weight. More or less that is all we could see.
And being on Kurn was like that too.
More or less bright, more or less moving, more or less transforming.
Never one thing or the other. One couldn’t be sure.
Was it?.. or? Yes. Something like that . Maybe.
So one day I was on Kurn and the company passed by.. Or? ..Maybe . Well this is the story I saw. Never really know what happened, or if it happened at all. Is this a figment of my imagination?. Ok. No. lets not get into that. Let the clarity in, ease the shuddering diaphragm like pressure of uncertainty and speak.
The Company walked in with Spurds, their weapons that only worked in the East of Surwan street, each region had a weapon that worked on their people. But what if an Eastie went West. Well, one has got to take a risk haven’t they.? So the company walked in, or was it the Herders?. Maybe the Herders, but the Company is fine as an example. Ok then. The Company it is. Was it the Durbas?. Lets not get confused. I’m not on Kurn now dammit.
The tents that kill space are sucking it in. Rich magenta and rust, soft and elastic, putrid murderers of the most precious thing on Surwan street.
Space.
They rise and fall, like heavy breathing dragons, a vacuum pump of another dimension. I stand next to them, watch space vanish. I watch space vanish by the nanometer. Would I vanish too? Never tried it. These are the things one feels here, not sees or senses. The feeling that space is vanishing. How does one describe that?
All this cranium crunching is distracting me from my story. So here goes.
The company, they walked in. I could see their Spurds tensing as they detected fear. They never usually came to us, for we were the most obedient of functions. But something was wrong they figured and had come to wipe the virus out. He was hiding here and even I was sure of that . Some kind of higher bug that could not be grasped. This was the one creature who would change the fate of Surwan Street. This one would dilate it into a place where each being controlled itself, where the rule of the Company dissipated and died and Surwan Street lived another life.
The Prophetic burroots said that this being would be the only one who could send the Company into the 15th cycle without ever being able to come back out. The Ilam with the revolutionary bug, something that was never heard of, for the Ilams had the reputation of being the calmest, most obedient bunch of them all.
I never understood that, since I myself tortured the little burroots, the revered animals(the only ones with developed brains, close to being prophets for the Ilams), with the wrinkstreamers and marrowscoopers(the one weapon that could hurt the Company, hence was eradicated from the face of Surwan street.
I think I had the last and only one) that Surwan street shivered at the sight of. I just thought the burroots were sick creatures, like many a man that hates slime or geckos. All this I did in utter secrecy though. No one knew of my work (It is quite a hard feat to torture the little rascals, more like work than play). I did it in the 15th cycle. The very last of open day before it closed into a vacuum, this was a time where all the Ilams surrendered to the effects of the descending night and fell into the Dream, the one arena , the grand coliseum of the Ilams collective imagination. None was aware of the others real person.
Well, anyway it was during this period that I, though an Ilam by birth, fell into nothing. They never found out since they could never stay in the real world by the 15th cycle. They just assumed I had got back into Surwan street with them, maybe a little before time. I never had the heart to mention my abnormality. But there I was, a being who was strikingly different from any of the Ilams and they never realised. It was like a young dream of walking naked into the Collective but no one noticing you naked. They just walk on and talk to you like any one else. And after a while you stop wondering if you actually are naked. Soon the inhibition vanishes and you start running around and being, all of it hanging out there, yet you not caring.
So slowly I forgot my sense of separate identity and just never thought of it. The thought of being different after a while vanished, I felt one with the Ilam. Were they on Kurn all the time I think now, a permanent biological state of uncertainty or changed belief , were they just unsure if I was a part of them. Did I unknowingly forcedly accept myself into this clan? I will never know.
But that cycle when the Company rushed into our home burned like the Kurn on its strongest cycle. I looked around ,feverish. They were searching all our faces, slowly with their Spurds at hands, wriggling in hasty aggression. A daze started hitting me, my brain coiled at itself, almost trying to wrap around itself, a suicidal animal. As they searched, it grew and everything around me shuddered. I wanted to scream at them, tell them to stop doing that. But no voice was heard from me. I looked around to see if others felt the same way. Everyone was quiet, a perfect Ilam gathering. I still couldn’t find the virus, in that lot of Ilams, they seemed so timid and weak. I guess the Company couldn’t too, since they just stood there observing, straining.
The haze increased, a shivering mass of space( was I being space-vanished?) inside my head, but as I reached for the rest-slab it just shot up my spine into the back of my brain. A scourging fire it felt and then what happened was so fast yet so slow, it was over in a few instants. The Company seeing me dazed and rest back against the slab aimed their Spurds at me. One fired hastily and as it hit me I thought I would leave for ... where would I go? vacuum? or see the Dream finally? But nothing happened. They all started firing their excited Spurds and in a shuddering rage I reached into my berth, pulled out my marrowscooper, my only defense, aimed it at them and fired.
---------------------------------------------
---
The Lif Eq factory was shut as I looked at it from across the road. No more code, no equation that set your brain functioning. No more achievement pantomime. No more lights shined across Surwan street. There was utter silence.
A burroot scuried across. No one ran behind it with a worshipping candle.
The Ilams finished with their silly Ritual of Suthila.
This is all a pity , I thought.
To see Surwan Street like this, each being separate unto itself. And to think I was the virus.
I who never saw the Dream.
I who never fell into the cycles.
I felt like a new species, a different one.
I , who finally gave this world their pathetic independence.
ANd I who shall live to see them tear it apart.
The pins pricks of light in the gray darkness light up , little red-yellow-green beans of alternating paths across the street. In zigzag, tied up, lengths of cheap celebration. They walk out from their parched wooden doors with knives in their hands, that had mud on them from slaying their Street goddesses. The inside of houses ablaze with the flame of candles that flickered along with the mercury buzz, yellow-white faltering of the world.
Some have nose bands and lip liners. some with wrinkstreamers and marrowscoopers. Others with chins on their chests like the first discovery of their proximity by a curious kid. Some shedding tears on the shimmering tar.
The ritual of Suthila is over.
They have fed the illusion of the eyes with a more than a timid enlargement of the iris spreading their feathered wings of white across the staccato street. It seems to blaze higher for them than the commoners lined up at their windows for a glimpse of the Illames as they tip toe out . The Ilams had a ritual they once carried out maybe a 36 days ago, the same they had conducted 467 days back, a novelty that amused them and kept the commoners well entertained.
Somewhere in the Naag Ages came a immense company of newt and blades that discovered the last rule of mathematics. With this came their enormous wealth and entire success. It was like they ruled the whole, even the Dream. Here was the equation that ruled the world. Singular and specific for each being, it was a conquerors pantomime of his own achievements. This gave them the power to spread tentacles across the Surwan street. There was nothing else, but this street. Nothing. A street called World. The life of the Surwan street was ruled. Then came the revolution.
That is where I come in. I of the Ilams.
Me , a sallow man with slack jaws and pockmarked skin. A refugee among the hallowed dreamers of the community of the Ilams. They were semi religious. I know you dont know what that means. I couldn’t understand at first too. A bunch of creatures that lived with the fear of Surima and the belief that he did not exist. They would worship him and deny his existence simultaneously, like a man I remember who denied saying his last uttered sentence; like it never existed. His memory was fine, a normal guy who however had an innate contradiction built into his cranium. A compulsive liar you would say, but hell no, this was odd , strange, a man who believed in this irony.
One stared at him with disbelief as it spewed out of him, the sick terms and covered up phrases. Maybe he would deny it, maybe he would just continue from where he left off. It was hard to imagine and ,I must confess, I questioned whether I just imagined the whole thing too.
It didn’t help that I was on Kurn most of the time. A perfect hallucogenic, no.. more. More of a Expander. I suppose you’re not familiar with that term too. Well, cant waste my time explaining the complicated stuff, but for starters it looked like Toy Slime, that Masina brought back from the Surwan market and smelled like bee wax. They found it on the Surwan corner, burning up and rejuvenating at the same time, static until we tapped into it. Then it started growing. The more we took away, the less burnt up, but it could never stop burning. It was not a degree of flame, or the amount it burnt but a more organic process that had no measure of volume or density or weight. More or less that is all we could see.
And being on Kurn was like that too.
More or less bright, more or less moving, more or less transforming.
Never one thing or the other. One couldn’t be sure.
Was it?.. or? Yes. Something like that . Maybe.
So one day I was on Kurn and the company passed by.. Or? ..Maybe . Well this is the story I saw. Never really know what happened, or if it happened at all. Is this a figment of my imagination?. Ok. No. lets not get into that. Let the clarity in, ease the shuddering diaphragm like pressure of uncertainty and speak.
The Company walked in with Spurds, their weapons that only worked in the East of Surwan street, each region had a weapon that worked on their people. But what if an Eastie went West. Well, one has got to take a risk haven’t they.? So the company walked in, or was it the Herders?. Maybe the Herders, but the Company is fine as an example. Ok then. The Company it is. Was it the Durbas?. Lets not get confused. I’m not on Kurn now dammit.
The tents that kill space are sucking it in. Rich magenta and rust, soft and elastic, putrid murderers of the most precious thing on Surwan street.
Space.
They rise and fall, like heavy breathing dragons, a vacuum pump of another dimension. I stand next to them, watch space vanish. I watch space vanish by the nanometer. Would I vanish too? Never tried it. These are the things one feels here, not sees or senses. The feeling that space is vanishing. How does one describe that?
All this cranium crunching is distracting me from my story. So here goes.
The company, they walked in. I could see their Spurds tensing as they detected fear. They never usually came to us, for we were the most obedient of functions. But something was wrong they figured and had come to wipe the virus out. He was hiding here and even I was sure of that . Some kind of higher bug that could not be grasped. This was the one creature who would change the fate of Surwan Street. This one would dilate it into a place where each being controlled itself, where the rule of the Company dissipated and died and Surwan Street lived another life.
The Prophetic burroots said that this being would be the only one who could send the Company into the 15th cycle without ever being able to come back out. The Ilam with the revolutionary bug, something that was never heard of, for the Ilams had the reputation of being the calmest, most obedient bunch of them all.
I never understood that, since I myself tortured the little burroots, the revered animals(the only ones with developed brains, close to being prophets for the Ilams), with the wrinkstreamers and marrowscoopers(the one weapon that could hurt the Company, hence was eradicated from the face of Surwan street.
I think I had the last and only one) that Surwan street shivered at the sight of. I just thought the burroots were sick creatures, like many a man that hates slime or geckos. All this I did in utter secrecy though. No one knew of my work (It is quite a hard feat to torture the little rascals, more like work than play). I did it in the 15th cycle. The very last of open day before it closed into a vacuum, this was a time where all the Ilams surrendered to the effects of the descending night and fell into the Dream, the one arena , the grand coliseum of the Ilams collective imagination. None was aware of the others real person.
Well, anyway it was during this period that I, though an Ilam by birth, fell into nothing. They never found out since they could never stay in the real world by the 15th cycle. They just assumed I had got back into Surwan street with them, maybe a little before time. I never had the heart to mention my abnormality. But there I was, a being who was strikingly different from any of the Ilams and they never realised. It was like a young dream of walking naked into the Collective but no one noticing you naked. They just walk on and talk to you like any one else. And after a while you stop wondering if you actually are naked. Soon the inhibition vanishes and you start running around and being, all of it hanging out there, yet you not caring.
So slowly I forgot my sense of separate identity and just never thought of it. The thought of being different after a while vanished, I felt one with the Ilam. Were they on Kurn all the time I think now, a permanent biological state of uncertainty or changed belief , were they just unsure if I was a part of them. Did I unknowingly forcedly accept myself into this clan? I will never know.
But that cycle when the Company rushed into our home burned like the Kurn on its strongest cycle. I looked around ,feverish. They were searching all our faces, slowly with their Spurds at hands, wriggling in hasty aggression. A daze started hitting me, my brain coiled at itself, almost trying to wrap around itself, a suicidal animal. As they searched, it grew and everything around me shuddered. I wanted to scream at them, tell them to stop doing that. But no voice was heard from me. I looked around to see if others felt the same way. Everyone was quiet, a perfect Ilam gathering. I still couldn’t find the virus, in that lot of Ilams, they seemed so timid and weak. I guess the Company couldn’t too, since they just stood there observing, straining.
The haze increased, a shivering mass of space( was I being space-vanished?) inside my head, but as I reached for the rest-slab it just shot up my spine into the back of my brain. A scourging fire it felt and then what happened was so fast yet so slow, it was over in a few instants. The Company seeing me dazed and rest back against the slab aimed their Spurds at me. One fired hastily and as it hit me I thought I would leave for ... where would I go? vacuum? or see the Dream finally? But nothing happened. They all started firing their excited Spurds and in a shuddering rage I reached into my berth, pulled out my marrowscooper, my only defense, aimed it at them and fired.
---------------------------------------------
---
The Lif Eq factory was shut as I looked at it from across the road. No more code, no equation that set your brain functioning. No more achievement pantomime. No more lights shined across Surwan street. There was utter silence.
A burroot scuried across. No one ran behind it with a worshipping candle.
The Ilams finished with their silly Ritual of Suthila.
This is all a pity , I thought.
To see Surwan Street like this, each being separate unto itself. And to think I was the virus.
I who never saw the Dream.
I who never fell into the cycles.
I felt like a new species, a different one.
I , who finally gave this world their pathetic independence.
ANd I who shall live to see them tear it apart.
Friday, March 16, 2007
For the beggar in the train at dusk-
Visit in the morning and do your thing.
Sell your act and we may be obliged to part with
some stainless steel coins.
Do not wait for the whole schmigeroo to descend on us,
with their whips and dholaks, lyres and ektaras,
strings on their caps,
blind, crippled, impostors of gods,
painted blue or with tails and monkey faces,
with brooms,
Acting like they wish to clean that T-shaped space under your feet,
with running noses and matted hair,
disgruntled eyebrows or vacant stares.
They swarm in hordes.
And then the elegantly garish, make-up laden eunuchs,
clapping at you in authoritative sexual blackmail,
reaching out to shock your senses and other things.,
reaching out , so only fear exists.
As long as your money in your pocket does.
That’s not to say that you don’t get the job done,
you don’t get the dirt off the floor,
but when you ask,
we are tired,
filing empty cups and open hands, spent coins.
Wishing none like you shall ever come,
And hushing you away with the annoyed flick of a hand.
Sell your act and we may be obliged to part with
some stainless steel coins.
Do not wait for the whole schmigeroo to descend on us,
with their whips and dholaks, lyres and ektaras,
strings on their caps,
blind, crippled, impostors of gods,
painted blue or with tails and monkey faces,
with brooms,
Acting like they wish to clean that T-shaped space under your feet,
with running noses and matted hair,
disgruntled eyebrows or vacant stares.
They swarm in hordes.
And then the elegantly garish, make-up laden eunuchs,
clapping at you in authoritative sexual blackmail,
reaching out to shock your senses and other things.,
reaching out , so only fear exists.
As long as your money in your pocket does.
That’s not to say that you don’t get the job done,
you don’t get the dirt off the floor,
but when you ask,
we are tired,
filing empty cups and open hands, spent coins.
Wishing none like you shall ever come,
And hushing you away with the annoyed flick of a hand.
Friday, February 16, 2007
On a forest walk
Cobweb paint.
Thick rug skin from the slender shadows,
between chunks of sun.
chipping away at bits of skull,
of dark foreign tongued intruders,
stumbling upon his quiet abode.
Yellow upon white,
trails of notches,
tiny serrations carved into
their meshed heads.
Curved teeth making
meticulous portraits,
dripping from the eaves.
He looks up at me,
tusk glinting in the sun,
and gloats.
Thick rug skin from the slender shadows,
between chunks of sun.
chipping away at bits of skull,
of dark foreign tongued intruders,
stumbling upon his quiet abode.
Yellow upon white,
trails of notches,
tiny serrations carved into
their meshed heads.
Curved teeth making
meticulous portraits,
dripping from the eaves.
He looks up at me,
tusk glinting in the sun,
and gloats.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
THE RIGHT TO TURN
See the winters breath,
That cried to sleep
With the sun that lent its decaying arms
To the stooping forked shoulders
Of the mangled trees.
We are married she said.
Married till I wash the dirt off my finger.
We are looking for a shiny piece of nothing
To save our lives,
As we walk to the arena
Of gaudy freaks of mouth
Dribbling drink.
Make love to some with sin
Some with love
Some with gin.
Carve out nothing u have ever seen.
Buy a new bust.
That will adorn some corner
Of a prestigious institution
In your pedagogical mind.
She tells me not to turn
But I do.
She freezes half clothed,
A cloud of perfume
Halo on her breasts.
Whisky on her rye.
Dream up a sage
Who never turns when
She says don’t.
So I turned the last time she said don’t.
Lost my eyes to the sage who
Never died.
The right to turn.
They used it in the wars,
Until they all got killed.
In the shower
They got billed .
For all the water they lost off their backs,
Yet ,they did in the tower,
Let some dreg disappear
From the cursed prison of fortune.
The right to turn was marred over years
Into being just an innocent act
Non-malicious intent
Yet what it was a singularly
Capable destroyer of the waist, of the handle that jiggled along
Around her belly.
That twist that broke his spine under the yellow lorry
The lorry that turned to escape,
Being turned into a killing machine.
Why did we die when we said we would,.
We could have always cheated.
Always lied.
Always denied the right to turn
Into dust.
Always cried.
Virgin mannequins of bland delight,
turned their right to turn into sagging masters
of another generation of sex goddesses,
into a race of embroidered jeans
in a third world country.
That cried to sleep
With the sun that lent its decaying arms
To the stooping forked shoulders
Of the mangled trees.
We are married she said.
Married till I wash the dirt off my finger.
We are looking for a shiny piece of nothing
To save our lives,
As we walk to the arena
Of gaudy freaks of mouth
Dribbling drink.
Make love to some with sin
Some with love
Some with gin.
Carve out nothing u have ever seen.
Buy a new bust.
That will adorn some corner
Of a prestigious institution
In your pedagogical mind.
She tells me not to turn
But I do.
She freezes half clothed,
A cloud of perfume
Halo on her breasts.
Whisky on her rye.
Dream up a sage
Who never turns when
She says don’t.
So I turned the last time she said don’t.
Lost my eyes to the sage who
Never died.
The right to turn.
They used it in the wars,
Until they all got killed.
In the shower
They got billed .
For all the water they lost off their backs,
Yet ,they did in the tower,
Let some dreg disappear
From the cursed prison of fortune.
The right to turn was marred over years
Into being just an innocent act
Non-malicious intent
Yet what it was a singularly
Capable destroyer of the waist, of the handle that jiggled along
Around her belly.
That twist that broke his spine under the yellow lorry
The lorry that turned to escape,
Being turned into a killing machine.
Why did we die when we said we would,.
We could have always cheated.
Always lied.
Always denied the right to turn
Into dust.
Always cried.
Virgin mannequins of bland delight,
turned their right to turn into sagging masters
of another generation of sex goddesses,
into a race of embroidered jeans
in a third world country.
slaves
Ink films over,
Blood enraged.
Clenching,
Biting down,
On what is not ours to deem.
We are all slaves.
To our own sacredness.
Blood enraged.
Clenching,
Biting down,
On what is not ours to deem.
We are all slaves.
To our own sacredness.
Monday, December 11, 2006
A shadow trampled his man as he walked up under the streetlamp.
He dug his cigarette into the black sole ,
not his ciggy really,
he poached it off his chimney friend.
He waited there, yellow earth for a companion.
And a empty carton of appy,
leaking its last bile onto the dark sky.
Eagerly waiting for a disappointment.
And a disappointment is like ..
prawns?
an allergy to expectation.
He dug his cigarette into the black sole ,
not his ciggy really,
he poached it off his chimney friend.
He waited there, yellow earth for a companion.
And a empty carton of appy,
leaking its last bile onto the dark sky.
Eagerly waiting for a disappointment.
And a disappointment is like ..
prawns?
an allergy to expectation.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
weapon
He walks with a permanent slouch.
Not the old man slouch,
not the hunchback slouch,
not the habit slouch.
His was the kind that people
force on to themselves naturally.
His hands aiming desperately for the ground,
swivelling from his rounded shoulders.
His jowls large, and droopy.
His greeting in the morning like a
tired mule with a mouth ulcer.
But somehow one saw a promise,
a ray of light in his hand,
a jolt of power,
a weapon of mass fuckin destruction.
with just a pen,
a pen in his hand.
Not the old man slouch,
not the hunchback slouch,
not the habit slouch.
His was the kind that people
force on to themselves naturally.
His hands aiming desperately for the ground,
swivelling from his rounded shoulders.
His jowls large, and droopy.
His greeting in the morning like a
tired mule with a mouth ulcer.
But somehow one saw a promise,
a ray of light in his hand,
a jolt of power,
a weapon of mass fuckin destruction.
with just a pen,
a pen in his hand.
Friday, December 01, 2006
An exhaustive description of a place
location : hospital
exact: room 16, north east corner.
time: 09:30
position: horizontal
2 tube lights
5 curtains
1 saline drip
2 stands
1 stool
2 waiting beds
2 beds
1 old man
2 young men
2 red chairs
2 cupboards
1 black phone
2 table with draws
5 pillows
1 fan, one blade slightly bent.
Morning ,the sun enters, hits the wall and falls on the floor.
Mid- afternoon the sun bounces of the floor to the ceiling,
makes soft triangular slashes on the ceiling.
Evening, the small squares of yellow move across the curtains, fast.
Black leather bag on black rexine seat, contiguous.
Old man fingers his black nose,
with his white fingers.
White-jacketed woman nods
absently.
Old man chuckles like old men do.
One cupboard with a piece of gauze or fine white cloth tying the doors together.
Second cupboard closed with a piece of plastic tube.
Fan more to the right than left.
In
su
lin
dr
ips
s l o w l y.
One blue notice board
empty.
Doctors are young and pretty, looking like airhostesses.
Bright things:
2 red chairs, stacked.
bedcover with purple stains
old man’s sense of humor.
red chairs outside reflect on lavender walls to make pink reflections.
Bland things:
grey door to bathroom
old man ‘s relatives’ eyes.
2 types of curtains, both with flowery patterns.
one green leafy
one with pink and blue flowers
They are drawn as the nurses in blue uniform walk in.
Attitudes in the room:
haughty old man
hesitant young relative of old man.
nonchalant friend of relative of old man.
familiar surprise of doctor to old man’s haughtiness.
contained irritation of nurse to old man’s haughtiness
spectators detachment of the sweeper.
exact: room 16, north east corner.
time: 09:30
position: horizontal
2 tube lights
5 curtains
1 saline drip
2 stands
1 stool
2 waiting beds
2 beds
1 old man
2 young men
2 red chairs
2 cupboards
1 black phone
2 table with draws
5 pillows
1 fan, one blade slightly bent.
Morning ,the sun enters, hits the wall and falls on the floor.
Mid- afternoon the sun bounces of the floor to the ceiling,
makes soft triangular slashes on the ceiling.
Evening, the small squares of yellow move across the curtains, fast.
Black leather bag on black rexine seat, contiguous.
Old man fingers his black nose,
with his white fingers.
White-jacketed woman nods
absently.
Old man chuckles like old men do.
One cupboard with a piece of gauze or fine white cloth tying the doors together.
Second cupboard closed with a piece of plastic tube.
Fan more to the right than left.
In
su
lin
dr
ips
s l o w l y.
One blue notice board
empty.
Doctors are young and pretty, looking like airhostesses.
Bright things:
2 red chairs, stacked.
bedcover with purple stains
old man’s sense of humor.
red chairs outside reflect on lavender walls to make pink reflections.
Bland things:
grey door to bathroom
old man ‘s relatives’ eyes.
2 types of curtains, both with flowery patterns.
one green leafy
one with pink and blue flowers
They are drawn as the nurses in blue uniform walk in.
Attitudes in the room:
haughty old man
hesitant young relative of old man.
nonchalant friend of relative of old man.
familiar surprise of doctor to old man’s haughtiness.
contained irritation of nurse to old man’s haughtiness
spectators detachment of the sweeper.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
THE DIG
Bring her to the wooden table in the
centre of the room, without hurting her.
Now, tape her mouth for I don't want the swarms
of her angry blue on my virile charms.
I know what you may be thinking, young man,
He is a white-haired gargoyle-faced bitter man.
And there he is forcing this one with hopes
of bloodfill in his piece, see if he copes,
see if he rises to the occasion.
But you, you brash, ugly, arrogant one,
you have seen nothing yet, of love, of lust.
Blue as a rotting corpse, hand on her bust,
I shall conquer a drowned one, bloated lips,
her immense body, her heaving lead hips.
The seed shall be sown in an afterlife,
And I shall capture their souls, she my wife,
All my wives, my babies, shall be born then,
In that place between blood and life rotten,
So place her well, place her to let me in,
to take my seed and sprout repulsing sin,
On the other side, where none yet has birthed.
As her grave takes her back ,untouched, unearthed.
centre of the room, without hurting her.
Now, tape her mouth for I don't want the swarms
of her angry blue on my virile charms.
I know what you may be thinking, young man,
He is a white-haired gargoyle-faced bitter man.
And there he is forcing this one with hopes
of bloodfill in his piece, see if he copes,
see if he rises to the occasion.
But you, you brash, ugly, arrogant one,
you have seen nothing yet, of love, of lust.
Blue as a rotting corpse, hand on her bust,
I shall conquer a drowned one, bloated lips,
her immense body, her heaving lead hips.
The seed shall be sown in an afterlife,
And I shall capture their souls, she my wife,
All my wives, my babies, shall be born then,
In that place between blood and life rotten,
So place her well, place her to let me in,
to take my seed and sprout repulsing sin,
On the other side, where none yet has birthed.
As her grave takes her back ,untouched, unearthed.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Saturday, September 23, 2006
PETRARCHAN SONNET on DIWAKAR cruising
Diwakar’s Rosebuds
Gather ye rosebuds, my friend, while ye may,
Said a young man now in his entombed bed,
Diwakar got up with inspired head.
Never had he combed the hair that there lay.
Now, rosebuds in his eyes, chance on his side,
Clipping his nose hair, combing sprightly bush,
Stripping his moustache and scrubbing his tush,
Revving his engine, cruised for a one night bride.
Long tresses, slick face raced his stubby buff,
Eyelashes spread long and tight firm booty,
Preferably a down and out starling.
Women they stared, his extravagant puff,
Men they dared a mate to call him fruity,
His slinky night bride, a man called Darling.
Gather ye rosebuds, my friend, while ye may,
Said a young man now in his entombed bed,
Diwakar got up with inspired head.
Never had he combed the hair that there lay.
Now, rosebuds in his eyes, chance on his side,
Clipping his nose hair, combing sprightly bush,
Stripping his moustache and scrubbing his tush,
Revving his engine, cruised for a one night bride.
Long tresses, slick face raced his stubby buff,
Eyelashes spread long and tight firm booty,
Preferably a down and out starling.
Women they stared, his extravagant puff,
Men they dared a mate to call him fruity,
His slinky night bride, a man called Darling.
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