Begin with a Kiss

Should you choose to tell me
what it is to know these eyes,
should you choose to quell me
by pouring a surprise,
should you choose to compel me
to embrace you likewise-
remember to begin it with a kiss.

A kiss like hot springs
sprouting from the earth,
a kiss like firelings
dancing in a hearth,
a kiss that brings
our spirits all their mirth-
remember to begin it with a kiss.

Should you want to still me
in your liquid arms,
should you want to fill me,
a prayer in your palms,
should you want to kill me
with your many charms-
remember to first begin with a kiss.

A kiss like the moonbeam
that caresses the earth,
a kiss like the dreamy steam
surging up the hearth,
a kiss that would stream
from explosions of mirth-
remember to begin it with a kiss.

She Chooses to Prefer

Unraveling wool from an old sweater, a little emerald-green doll-sized sweater,

she prattles about her long lost husband, never once spitting his name;

his name is a toad and her heart, a pond. She picks on her hair as her

dexterous middle finger finds her head. This undoing yarns is not a hobby

but the compulsion of securing consolation.

Thoughts have forever wormed in her head and she could never unperson

their harbinger. So she tells me to be a no-nonsense babe, hinting how I might

get pregnant but never really telling me how.

I so want to get pregnant. I look at my legs and then at hers. She talks of a woman

who'd been given a man to love. I hear 'wife' like the sound of ten full-stops thrown at me.

She's been schooling her words in a nunnery. I hear her anyway, for I have no words

in my womb.

I think of Vienna. And of Benares. I plunge into question-marks that like waves mislead me.

I'm almost her in my reverie. But there are no words in my womb.

She's still there, unsnarling the green thing and working it into mishmash, a cobweb

of words about her husband. Her hair on the floor is as dead as this husband.

I feel my nails and my teeth and a gut- all in place, I tell myself. The husband, when he's

back, knocks not at the door but at the table laden with air. His lips wreathe a curse.

I know she will choose not to unlace these snakes that are his words. He, in fact, is a fang.

And she's balding. Nevertheless, that middle finger will find her head. She prefers it to the curse.

Worldfuls

No one is doing it wrong.

The dog-eared Book is pretending to listen

while her pages inject into me wisdom

and make me howl.

The Television has gotten cattier

since I last turned him on.

The Washing-machine that cowers under

the stars is a little too afraid

I'll shock her.

The Switchboard will stick to me

until his last.

The Doormat is a pseudo prostitute,

but she isn't doing it wrong.

The Doors with treasure in their armpits,

the Windows stark naked

and the Ventilators contriving a silly scene;

the Paperweight eying a lizard

and the Ant beading herself into

a mute song-

They aren't doing it wrong.

Pointlessness

Tethered to a geometry,
that son-of-a-god figures angles,
co-ordinates points
that never belonged to the Universe.

And no, there ain't a parallel Universe either,
where Grammar and Geometry
could be trained to make love.

The locus of my love is his heart.

O, you son-of-a-god... 
                                   There are no orbits;
                                   only balls and fire.

Shall I draw you two concentric circles,
Sense and Sensibility
and shall I, when you square these shoulders
make a pretty point-
I am a collarbone, my love;
look at the pretty point, won't you?

Have you no balls or fire,
you who circumambulate these walls,
these absolute figurines of death?

The locus of my love is your heart, for god's sake!

I envy this moon that has been bitten blue.
What is a curve to you-
you who count the stars and size-up infinity?

Don't call it a triangle when you reply,
don't define it, please.
I am a womb, my love;
I'd outgrow this co-ordinate geometry.

Come to me when you're liquid
and I'll trace with your aid an orbit
on the plane of time.

Come to me,
when you're balls and fire.

Yonder

The hills will be austere
in their auburn barks,
the leafless trees will exist ascetics;
their yogic postures
like the beckoning red signs
on eyes, when they forget
to put up the shutters.

The sun will be fierce
in the emptiness of the blue yonder

Waters will recede
in the veins of the land,
the breeze, like our invisible breaths,
will be a tad drunk.

We'll settle where the wild flowers will be;
a diaphanous veil of love
over the wrinkled face of Earth.

The house will be a lone lump of clay;
Adam's apple, in that neck of the woods yonder.
And through it will be heard like smoke
the susurration of two flames,
tickling nonbeings without.

Longer Lines

Longer lines besieging his eyes,
longer lines
surging against the shores
of my page.
Longer lines, my hair;
longer still, his silhouette
in my mind.
Long is the fair, fair morning
but no longer than the shadow,
the night steals from me.

Longer lines, the raindrops;
longer lines
urging me out-of-doors,
out of the cage.
Longer lines, my tears;
longer still, the trail of blood
on the floor.
Long is the dear, dear flame
but no longer than the wait,
it deals me in.

Essence

I

I could be anything
and you would always be you-
that's how it was.
That's how it was when I'd met you.

You were 500 grams
of 'love'
in a glass jar that I'd sealed
and placed into my mind,
my mind, a cupboard I'd left ajar.

You were the spice of my life,
for a slice of time.

II

Then a hand inverted the hourglass
and I knew,
I knew I'd kept you there
long enough.

This is when,
baby, I first tasted you.

You were sweet and sour
and cold and hot;
grained, liquid
and what not.

Honey, you could be anything
but I would be me
for an eternity-
'twas how it would be,
I thought.

III

Then I felt you within me.
You'd turned me wet
and dried me;
you'd turned me red
and blue.
You'd tied me
and you'd set me free.
You'd made me you.

We could be anything, hon-
that was how it was
when we became one.

IV

Another rotation,
a turn of time,
and we came apart;
our oneness a past.

Another swirl,
a moment sublime,
and we turned a heart.

V

Being one at the beginning
to being one at last?
Ferried.
Married.
Carried.
This lyrical ebbing and entering,
through a spiral;

this through which we pass...

Sweetheart, can it be
that you and me
are the sand
contained in the hourglass?

A Table for Two

Pity the love that has to
go through 'a table for two'.

Crouching, in the dead end of
a maze, Love stays rough,
until the feet meet perchance
in a dance, kindled a bluff.
But then they manage to say,
"Ouch!" and "Okay"
or the two look away,
thinking who'd cough.

Coffee, wine or an oxymoron;
endearments, a stifled yawn;
they nibble, and quibble over
niceties. They're drawn
to their own game-
chandeliers, chivalry and shame.
They came,
they came to be gone.

Pity the love that has to
go through 'a table for two'.

He pulls her a chair
and she lets him stare
at her frock, her sock, her heel-
he's genteel; she's fair.
Witty? Pretty? What a pity that they are
so much at par,
they need to spar
and call it care.

He ousts her of her throne
and then plays chaperone;
she  gives him her hand-
together, they walk alone.
It goes as planned but aye!
Was it even worth the try?
The time has gone by
but love has not grown.

Pity the love that has to
go through 'a table for two'.