How we died

People die while writing poems,
shooting animals, arguing, and
in wars fought on the home ground.
People die of diseases, of derivatives
and implications, or simply accusations.
People die in hands of the state
and arms of the loved ones
under the burden of its debt.
People die in more ways than the ants.

Powerful Math

It is easy!

Blame it on your mother,

the necessity of all your invention,

and your ego making the powerful math

of survival and chaos with

elusive calculus

of human triumph

multiplied by suffering of X

in poems written about dead birds

and divided by profits shared by selling pages

printed in ornamental Helvetica.

The Scent of Iron ore

This is an imaginative first person account of a Goan miner from the 60s, who then becomes the master of the trade after 40 years.

Dig, buy, sell,

dig all the magnets

from my well
Steal the deal,

then seal to conceal

all the magnets
and their ores.

Arm all the men,

chop all their hands,
hands that till
could still fulfill

the dream
of living beside the seashore
of an ocean of iron ore.

Trees they are,
not stars,
they will grow again,
but you must go far,
dig the mountains

the ore is for the living
death is for fools.

Oh! the scent of blood.

rivers don't drink blood

Typically,

rivers drink no blood
but rivers drown
they submerge
bodies emerge
men dig
women hide
men pay
with spades
women pay with hearts
river still does not stop
now a billion hearts float
like billion sinking spades.

Scene from a bus stop

We wait
and then we start wailing.
We disturb
and then we create.
We must be tiny
because we are made of absolutes.
We are limitless
as long as there are limits.

Then the bus comes
I miss it.

four stories

Less than the stress

is the distress of being,

and what is more here is a void

of this un-being.

All the treasures and past knowledge

need to be buried

and lost to be found,

when your eternity is at stake.

My myth is your alibi,

my myth is believable,

my myth is just a parable

of my last dying act.

Your face is familiar,

and your eyes are tired

of seeing the undefined sky

under which you feel safe.

Apologies

I am sorry, there are no mermaids,

but there are fundamental inferred existences

of you and me,

the spaces between us.

I am sorry, you ended up as a collateral damage,

but inequities define equities

in this ruthless world,

Hope you can distinguish them in your next life.

I am sorry but I can't release you from my prison,

but your freedom is a threat to others

who are out there to imprison more people,

Get used to the walls for now.

I am sorry but there is no work for you,

your hands are best when they are idle,

but I do feel deeply about your hunger,

You may eat yourself.

I am sorry that you lived to read this,

but I could not conjure an apocalypse

with words and letters,

I write when I have to.

To Destroy and Create

I painted violent visuals today,

but my prayers were misunderstood.

They pointed fingers at me,

seperating me from the mass,

telling their children:

“Look! Her hands have been blessed

to destroy and create.”

I am a grostesque sight today.

My arms were freed from their blessings,

But they again pointed their fingers at me,

seperating me from the crowd,

telling their loved ones:

“Pity her, give her some coins,

her head has no hand to feed.”

Your growth story

why aren't we here?

You did invite us

but did you ever ask,

why aren't we here?

We are homeless, breatheless

feeding our monsters,

living inside us--

how will i be there?

Idle now

I am idle now,
infinite mind,
inactive body,
vision blurred,
silent,
scheming?
probably dreaming!
idleness brings dreams,
people walking through me,
all over me,
they scribble and express,
I end up listening to all of them.
I do nothing about it,
I do not react.

They keep saying I am idle.

memory of time

To this day that ends,

I am slowly turning back home,

all desires locked inside

a monosyllabic yawn,

as if i uttered charms,

of a distant time.

On the tip of a spear,

that separated my ribs,

into a forensic sample,

was marked with a sign

of wakefulness,

of forgetfulness,

of sleeplessness,

these were the marks of time

eternal, as they may seem.

Folklore

Interesting exchange between a writer and a publisher:

“Publish me no m@%@#@%r,”
“Publish you! You are no piece of ass. What can you lend me?”
“Publish me, no m@%@#@%r, I have got a mouth to feed,”
“Publish you! You ogre, you stink of c$m and grease.”
“Publish me, no m@%@#@%r, I will write incest porn for you.”
“That shit is not ethical, even if your son is j@#$%#g off reading you.”
“Publish me no m@%@#@%r, this world is coming to an end.”
“You have balls of steel, son but it’s my pen, which is on fire.”
“Publish me no m@%@#@%r, I will bring money from the mafia.”
“I think you missed the plot, I am the mafia boss here, investigating every drop of your c$m.”
“Publish me no m@%@#@%r, else I will get you bummed off.”
“IN-timid-DATING meh, I will call the cops.”
“Publish me no m@%@#@%r, I will find you the best prison lore.”
“You are no f%$%$^g MANDELA, and Sodomy is not this season's flavour”
“Publish me no m@%@#@%r, at least let my son j#$k off.”
“Publish you m@%@#@%r? Go do some drugs, you peddler.”

The Toss

How deep he dived for a coin,
was really the depth of your faith,
tossed from your fingers
of your hands hanging from a window,
in your struggle
to pray against the speed of the bus
crossing the rickety bridge
on the Holy river.

Bunked

OR "How to imagine an apocalypse in two distinctly alien worlds by lighting two cigarettes and involving very few words."

Two writers bunked the local literary festival. The truth is they were considered a little more radical than everyone else. But they kept insisting that they bunked the festival, so they could go about doing what they like the best. Somehow, both of them agreed to imagine shorter plots this year. One was called the Bird and the more radical of the two was liked to be called the Camel. And this is how justify the ‘bunk’:

The Bird: Absolutely horrible! -- This whole idea of calling writers from everywhere and then..these discussions. I don’t want such patronages. Thank you very much.

The Camel: Readers, not patrons. Groupies, not fans. This fest is absolutely disgusting. I replied saying that that the dust from the busy feet of all the writers would be a bit too much for me. Writers walking together. Writers writing together, thinking together..

The Bird (interrupting): Sleeping together? ... I mean I don’t have a problem with people sleeping together. I am also open to orgies but it’s a bit funny. Come to think of it. All the filth in your body, that feeds your imagination, suddenly has to be washed. You are reduced to nothing but a complacent pink blob trading your favourite spot on the bed with people keen on raping you intellectually, molesting you verbally and then fucking you. They hardly match your exotic fantasies. They are filled with the insecurity of their anatomical crevices burning with desire to be loved, pursued, chased and then praised for their written word.

The Camel: Yeah..I mean, you could fuck or you can just read. You can’t fuck and read at the same time. I don’t think fornication entails reading a book.

The Bird: That would just appear like someone’s reading an instruction manual to fornicate. I am so glad I bunked.

The Camel: You know it now Bird. That was an easy deconstruction of a literary fest like that.

The Bird: I am thinking, we should stop writing complicated stories. The readers like it but I think they move to other complicated authors. And there are just complicated stories these days. Even simplest of the simpletons imagine a complex plot and then bring in elements which are not neccessary. I think we should not waste peoples’ time. So what have you got here for our little literary rendezvous?

The Camel: I like the last point. Your argument was very complex, though. People do not have time. We have all the time. So we could think of small and small plots. That would give us many, less complicated, even profound plots. I have one ready for you:

‘A shiny extraterrestrial mammoth walked past the helium balloon parked in the viscious landscape of Koban, the planet of swamps. The volatile atmosphere of this methane compressed terrain couldn't stop the smoker from lighting up another one, and that's it. Koban just blew up man!’

This is like the shortest plot that I could ever imagine in the alien worlds theme.

The Bird: Wow! When did this happen?

The Camel: Umm ... Almost instantly as we were speaking.

The Bird: But, I am not capable thinking so quickly and so minutely. Ok, minutely is not the right word here. I mean that was minimal and still was so...

The Camel: For those who don’t have time. But I am really afraid, what if they fail to grasp this connect between swamps and methane gas?

The Bird: You could replace with a race that survives on its own.. umm... gas.

The Camel: That’s brilliant. See you got it. So frame it up for me.

The Bird: Okay I will just stick to the same name for the planet. Its Koban, you said.

The Camel: Ya!

The Bird: ‘The lone stranger riding on the helium balloon across the dappled realm of Koban landed softly on its soil. But before the stranger even realised while lighting his last cigarette, Koban’s high and mighty, the only intelligent life form of its moist planet survived just by inhaling the gaseous content emanating from their posteriors. And then Koban was history, almost in an instant.’

The Camel: Classic! This ends our literary rendezvous. Thank you Bird.

Questioning the process

How they dramatised information gathering with music playing in the background?

How they mimetised universe to build these exhibits for consciousness?

How they categorised all the plants and animals for a selective kill?

How they organised the self and built machines out of souls?