In-Betweens
Do I have
nothing
To say/
Do I have
too much
To say
To you
That I say nothing
as you wait?
When you say nothing
as I wait,
For you
I see
A glass wall
In between/
I see
You, (but realise there’s) nothing left
In between.
Touch
pen-nibs kiss (ink onto) a white cloth,
spreading the blue of their love
all through the weaves’ veins,
just like how the
sea wished to wake up,
spring up and curve sun-ward:
one lick of a wave and all the orange-yellow
would turn to blue and salty rays.
Comfortable Collisions
When the day’s efforts seem
A waste, and
Before the night swallows even the dim flicker
Of doubt
With great certainty:
On days like this,
Come by, for a moment or two-
I’ll close my eyes
And fall into you.
One by one.
She
Swallows a firefly
(for each time
You reply by stamping
craters of suspended silence;
Throw
An ink-stained cloth
on her jar filled with
these flying bulbs
that light up prototypes of all she’s seen with
You.)
Hot Leftovers
Bed
Like a stove on
Hot
Summer nights.
Head
Resting on blue flame-
Restless
sleep, amidst
desert-road-
mirages in slumber,
Perceiving
broken realities of the night.
Burning,
in the vessel of my head,
Leftovers
that are stuck in memory.
She
Images like lost Polaroids
come crashing back in memory.
—Dreaming eyes,
filled with coloured crayons and charcoal clicks.
—The ringing of a thousand wind chimes
that swung in her laughter.
Images like lost Polaroids
come crashing back in memory,
like
the sea had came gurgling and crashing
into the shore-
onto our wiggling toes
on
the first and last day
that we had met.
I’m here:
If you could
(and really, you should)
consider… would you?
Reporting Confessions
She doesn’t care to ask if she’d come on too strong-
(She hadn’t.)
She just liked it
When her words
Collided with
His world.
(It rang like a silver, polished tuning fork.)
She didn’t want to take his hand away from holding something he wanted to-
(It’s true- he still holds whatever it is.)
She just liked
His free hand
Gesturing,
Animatedly talking.
(They spilt orange-juice life into the air they breathed out.)
Bad poetry never helped land-mines blast Underneath muddy sea-floors
Of her mind.
Or was it
Her heart?
Not like he understood, anyway.
Ode to the Meddler
Much like
a woody, trespassing toothpick on
fragments of leafy oregano, leaving
a slow, small stream of flavour
in my mouth,
You
keep wanting
to pick, pick, pick
at what’s giving me a little
(undisclosed) happiness:
my very own little secret.
The Bet
Winning her over was easy,
He was the
King of Hearts.
But
Burying away the moments was easy,
She was the
Queen of Spades.
Revisiting
Two days of searing possibilities:
Like scratching an almost-healed wound
Only to tickle and reopen red, red woes
Red, an apple red
Red, a lipstick-nail paint red
Red, like anger and
Red, like love.
Two more days of electric-spark-probabilities:
Flutter and anxiety; an anticipation for
A secret rendezvous in the garden of a red, red rose
Red, an apple red
Red, a lipstick-nail paint red
Red, like anger and
Red, like—
Ninnati aalochanlani
kanti-reppala venakala daachukoni
nidra poyina nenu,
aa aalochanalani kalaluga
kana-galana?
Neti aalochanalani
deshanike telipe nuvvu,
nee prapanchamuni, kalalanu
ekkada daachinaavu?
“Smarter Primate”
Excuse me,
Your words are now an
Obsession.
