Write and Wrong: A Place for Poetry

 In pursuit of his favourite business, poetry, the ever-hopeful and gentle Aswin has produced the first issue of a promising online magazine, Write and Wrong. 

I am super-proud that my poem gets to be in such exalted company – many of the other poems blew my mind. Born of a short academic excursion into the area of fairytale studies, it is titled 'Wuns'.

A toast to this newborn.

<clink>

Witching Hour

A god, they call him

that sets ablaze the morning.

He can keep his bland light

and his lumbering chariot.

For me the blackness of the night.

The chilly breeze beckons,

charged

with a thousand possibilities.

I soar,

the wood slim and firm

between my thighs.

My laughter fills the sky like moonlight.

The witching hour, they call it.

Stories

You’ve never told me stories.

There aren’t even distant memories;

that unmoving bundle on the bed

is all I’ve ever known.

A young me would cower at the door,

every year,

afraid of the

stillness around you;

the shadows around where you lay.

I’d have to be coaxed:

Go closer. Let her see your face.

“Hello ammoomma.”

A ritual chant

that lost its meaning

over innumerable vacations.

You’d smile sometimes.

Call me by a name

that never was mine.

The older me,

--the one with a book in her hand always

--sought solace in the quietness.

I remember the first time I

tried to touch you.

No coaxing voices.

That shimmer of the old fear

that melted after the shock

at the warmth

of your unmoving hands.

Why did I expect coldness?

Why did the tears well?

Years later, the ritual remained,

but when I come back this year

(I stayed away,

and now

the baby is due)

the bundle is missing.

I sit on the edge of the empty bed

-- gingerly, still--

and I wish you were around

for the New One.

She

--it’s She in my head now

-- won’t even know

what it’s like

to seek stories

in the seeming silence

of the room.

In the rain dropping off the eaves.

In the creaky fan.

In quiet rhythmic breathing.

<go closer>

In bed sheet wrinkles.

In a warmth that was supposed to be cold.

I couldn’t find it in me

to believe in spirits.

(Did they fail, all those books?)

In that empty room

nothing remains for me.

There is now only the faint remembrance

of grandma’s farts and echoes.

<go closer let her see your face>

Warholian Love

‘Neath the Oreo moon

and the 7up sparkle of the stars

you gave me your PlayDoh heart

and I shared with you

my Photoshopped dreams.

We knew then

that it would only last

until the next iPhone;

that it was only as unique

as the million other

Chinese replacements.

And yet

we revelled

revelled in the madness

the mass-produced madness

of our Mtv love.

            ;)

Ananthashayan

There are infinite loves,
and there are ones
that will fit into
the sliver of sunlight
from a crack in the drapes
falling across the nape
of his neck
as he sleeps.

To Change

New Year Resolutions, Pep Talks,

Motivational Speakers,

Oprah Winfrey.

All, in unison: change.

But just between the two of us:

what about those weird, out-of-sorts moments

when we wonder

just who we were?

Where that girl you saw in the photo

the other day

went?

Where you got the mad courage

to sail through that rough patch

(disturbing, how that once looming Apocalypse

now seems like something you read about)

sometime in the recent past?

You face

A New Person

in the mirror

each day.

Where do the

Old You’s

go?

You look for Them

in the mirrors,
the photographs

the memories

the old diary entries.

That there are so many of them,

that they seem like Strangers,

scares you.

Doesn’t it?

Change.

(look at the word for a while it seems strange all of a sudden devoid of meaning it isn’t what it was before you read it)

Today my fingers

Today my fingers 
smelled like Omani halwa 
after I ate halwa from Grand Sweets.
And I wanted that beautiful scent to stay on 
-forever-
because it made me remember.

But then I decided;
sweet grease on my laptop’s keyboard 
phone’s keypad 
shiny oily patches on my pen the paper 
-everywhere-
wasn’t a good idea. 

So I took the soap 
went to the bathroom 
and washed it all off,
until
there wasn’t any scent.
 
And the awful finality 
of adulthood and times past 
settled over me 
like a stifling shroud.

Quiet

 

Sometimes,

those who grieve should be left to it.

There are times

when the embraces and soothing words

are sacrilegious;

they violate. They impinge.

Let the quiet

become the crucible

to hold those tears

to still their flow

to quell their sheen

to cool their warmth

to know their need.