Wednesday, December 29, 2010

inside my broken heart is a pocket for you

about honesty:

for convenience's sake, the truth is malleable.

Sunday, December 26, 2010


determined to bloom, these buds.


dialogging | take 2

The maker of saintly questions:
Ayushma, tell me, truly and honestly, what your greatest tragedy is.

Me:
Men seem to fall in love with me all the time. Only I seem to be unable to love them back. Not even one.

The maker of saintly questions:
Yes, I thought as much.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

today I feel sadness in my body

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

dialogging

The maker of saintly questions:
Ayushma, what do you think is your greatest tragedy?

Me:
I always seem to fall in love with men who don't know how to love me back.

The maker of saintly questions:
And what do you think has been your greatest success?

Me:
I also seem to fall in love with everything else that seems to know exactly how.

L Cohen does me a personal favour

Thousands

Out of the thousands
who are known,
or who want to be known
as poets,
maybe one or two
are genuine
and the rest are fakes,
hanging around the sacred precincts
trying to look like the real thing.
Needless to say
I am one of the fakes,
and this is my story.

by L Cohen


Thanks to you, I don't have to write that poem full of fake musings on how I want to be a real poet.


getting ready to sleep

cold newspapers lie on my bed.

news is crashing and burning and killing and looting
negotiating, compromising,
commercializing, politicizing,
hypocritizing, and occasionally superficially celebrating
me.

stealing warmth from under the covers,
cold newspapers are unfit for this december day.

somebody tell them to stop manufacturing news!

untitled

we, too, took a bite out of the forbidden fruit...













...this came of it.

oh kid me not!

when i say a day is
dull,
wet,
gloomy,
blue,
cold,
cruel,
infuriatingly unfair,

am i simply looking away from the sun?


traveling in circles

everyday on this beaten path
life is losing innocence that cannot be regained

life is coming to multiple awarenesses of truth after truth
that define and redefine the ugly, the horrid
often within you

life is living out the daily fear
of knowing that the person you love most
will never understand you entirely

life is growing old in your soul
before it begins to show on your skin and in your bones

life is learning of all that you'd hate in yourself
and not knowing how to hate yourself
it is ultimately learning how to embrace

life is, above all, living through your days
thinking innocence lost can never be regained
and finding it at the doorsteps of death

life is a hurt; a pinch, a pain
we fuss, we crib, we curse, we pine

but innocence lost is always regained
in a way that feels just right.

Monday, December 20, 2010

We are stupid.
And although we see it,
We like to forget.
And in our neglect
it grows.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

komawa

yummmm!
the friendship of flowerpots and sunlight and wooden tables and naughty muffins.

yummmm!
the friendship of you and I somewhere amidst theirs, talking, talking, talking.

Friday, December 10, 2010

envy at 4 52 a.m.

I open the book
Not expecting a sword.

Centered around the body
Your poetry intact, whole
I engulf every word.

I close the book
Not before I'm sliced in two.

Stranger, is it not strange
how eventually you spill out of me?

only you

special is that otherworldly category
that everyone is entitled to.

in my head, i'm always making exceptions though.


one for you two

"We walked through the night in couplets."

story of fish

for 35 days
i have been spooning air to a fish

gagging, fish says to me, thank you very much, my dear
but i'm a fish
and it is not my wish
to be fed air
it would be fair
if it were water you put in my dish

agonizing, i think to myself, i'm crashing against my fear
i'm a bird
and it's my thirst
to burst
this fishy bubble
to turn her gills
into something loveable

for 35 days
i have been teaching myself to swim

flapping, soaked wings
please no one

no, air saves no life
no, water lubricates no soul

all builds up to strife
all disintegrates into foul

Yusuf the cat

Yusuf the cat dashed into my brain
This odd nighttime meow meow of a cat
shaves the edges of my brain
to show to me an aberration of the norm
of things having a beginning and an end

Round and round it goes in circles
without beginning nor end
without meaning nor purpose
existing, still

Brown eyes churn out an emotional mill
This delightful daytime mia mia of a girl
Sends my hair into quiet giggles

A little window opens
In flows a girl
Out flows a cat

Yusuf the cat
Sends me into shots of enlightenment
The high lows
and the low tides

Makes me say things I couldn't have dreamt of thinking
Takes me into worlds that disappear under the eyelids
Wakes me up to life
Wakes me up to life

I dreamt up thinking
Of a mia mia girl
With giggles for hair

Blue eyes stare out the ocean
Baby blue eyes
Brown ones cry
Bold brown ones

Cry looking for love
looking in
and finding out

Leave the window open
Watch it grow
As what flows out
Brings in more.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

love is not the fulfillment of your expectations.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

the body pickle

i pick a fruit and bite into it while it is still alive

i think therein lies my philosophy of life.

Monday, September 13, 2010

woodpecking, still

the only way to make love stay is by letting it go

Sunday, September 5, 2010

trigger

the blood boils again.
yells rage, rage, rage!

anger is a sharp knife
stabbing endlessly,
like it's never enough.

it's never enough.

blood boils. like rain,
rage swells seas
that bathe stainless steel
in red.

Monday, August 23, 2010

genius

They knew what they were doing.
Of course, they knew,
Because they weren't the ones doing it
And as long as this they knew,
They did well.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Resentment is a blunt knife.
An ugly weapon.
A useless defense.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

pouring lives into buckets

so our buckets match, but nobody told me yours was filled with magic.

Monday, June 14, 2010

kiss the flowers that bend

for once, stooping is fun
for both.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

always in the danger of living, ultimately, in my own head.

duet - inspired by mango-like breasts

"now. now, i can see you fly"
"fly. float. glide. the sea swims in me"
"oh, i see the sea too, skulking in your radiant pink stomach"
"breasts bare after so long. watch them breathe."
"like mangoes slumbering with delight. see a slow falling leaf"
"a slow dying leaf. slowly fills life in me."
"i can see you breathe now, your breasts waking with a lazy glee
look at me now, floating into your dreaming eyes"
"my fingers dream up your touch. memory coats a layer over me."
"i will peel it through your skin and brush over"
"you will when you can. for now, distances hover."
"i will slice them with my violence, the distances of lovers"
"i stand firm between the moon and the water.
i, without my lover, they, without each other."
"you have let me die on slow hover, a flash of a quiver. never forgetting"
"in memory, i ache. in absences, you linger."

aayush
ayushma

Saturday, June 5, 2010

with love, we're both that way

quick to fall in
quick to fall out

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

friend

when you smile
i can feel the warmth spread across my face.

keep your soul curling;
you're the flexibility in my diamond.

multitasker

in this life
i juggle the moon and the mobile phone

as i try to negotiate
a space for silence
in a world that runs on commands that ring

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

new moon

a new moon is looking for new things in the same old womb

Monday, May 3, 2010

ugly

if I'd known you were going to grace my wall
I would have scrawled
something better, you know.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

asking for forgiveness when you know not what you're doing

the end is near
the end is clear
we part
like broken ends of a single strand of hair we didn't care for in time. you know. when it would have mattered.
it is the end, my dear,
we are talking about the end here.

we grieve
we mope
we sulk
we weep
we skulk
we leave

the end i fear,
that end is here
my dear.

ill prepared, incapacitated, in denial,
we think of new beginnings.

comfort

when she says blubber
i know to snub her.

if she mentions beauty
i think incongruity.

as she talks of comfort
i imagine a familiar form -
snailing, snuggling, scuffling you.

she waits at the cusp,
between dawn and dusk,
between tomorrow and tomorrow,
as i vanish into dusty death.

she lays photograph after photograph
like petals for me to walk on.

i watch, straddling mind's webbed feet;
each photograph the ghost of a single past
ready to haunt future memories.

Monday, April 19, 2010

lullaby; raspy and amatuerish

it's a song i haven't heard before,
it's a voice new to my door.

the door creaks,
my heart whistles,
this melody runs like butter,

a girl dances through the windpipe of night

sends me into raspy, amatuerish sleep.
i dream with glee, i dream of she.

she - who?
can you really miss the elephant in the room?


Sunday, April 18, 2010

hide and seek

i could chase after love for the rest of my life
chasing rabbit's paws with rabbit's hooves.

i could chase after love for ever i could
chasing fireflies on empty roofs.

i could chase after love with enough luck
chasing phone calls that ring like empty tea cups.

i could chase after love, i could chase it all right
while you chase your day, and i run through my night.

could i chase after love this one more time
as i chance into you, do i chase you out of sight?

where's your tree?

are you the beauty of my naked bough
squishing the earth beneath your naked toes
arching around my naked bark
embracing, engulfing me naked, stark?

sometimes, I hear voices that do ring
in between the living and dying,
are these voices of silence that sing?

someone drew a line between this earth and this sky
somewhere along this line, let's entwine, you and I.

sometimes, in the dark, when earth and sky combine,
a worm wriggles without words
another wriggles back to life.

cover her face, mine eyes dazzle

is poison the necessary antidote to interminable love?

Sunday, April 11, 2010

with spleen, they shine

impossible to leave, she departs,
tragedy chuckles in knotted hearts.
tied together, odd adjunct,
linked forever
forever apart.

night uncloaks alarm,
she wakes up every day
hands touching mound of birth,
unable to dispatch.

sometimes, in the dark,
she curls up,
encases hopeless misery;
a weeping, tear filled sort of hourglass.
time traps tragedy;
preserves loss

after loss after loss
scrapes the womb clean.

you, unmothered, motherless, motherer,
cannot, will not protect the unbirthed.

love lover's frailty.
lover's loveless grief.
gold to ash to gold,
from lover to the unloved.

why can't strangers remain
unknown in the least, unknown at most?

sits on a stone, this mute child of death.
says not a word, watching love groan.
savage child does not kill, waiting
for love to take love's life.

i watch from this hole -
binary depositions, fetile arrangements.
beyond this hole, out of mirth,
juvenile spat inherit the earth.

i watch from this hole, incapable of birth.

fragile pearls, they slip, they smile
unafraid, with spleen, they shine.
and i, i grow rusty from the core.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

a plunge, perhaps?

at the margins of mediocrity
lie the margins of the spectacular

Saturday, April 3, 2010

the worm wriggles without words

sinking, sodding, beneath the skin
beneath this laughter, this faithful, sturdy, reliable, overworked sinfaced smile stretching skin affirmative. lie.

beneath the smiles, the grievances, the justifications
the incantations and saddened voices of motherhood that do yell.

beneath the belly, hard and full
beneath, bloated. unrecognizable fragments unshored.

beneath water fading, fading, forever
in the shush, slush, sounds cementing, eyes unwanted.

beneath the hair
turn, grow, merge, twist, tangled dance along broken screams, schizophrenic mania
abruptly pours out of soul.

beneath the chin
uptight, upright, up about, almost sprouts, given to whim.

beneath the wisdom
only shadows that mistrust, no way, i can, i say, you show, i know. lies.

beneath your sin
we all sleep, stolid ghosts. discord corners day into night.

beneath this earth
i sprawl, you crawl, you pluck, my back swallows dampening darkness.

beneath the dream
this awkward dream,
you grow your age, you cut this cage,
wake me up to my nightmare.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

the better half

this is so good
so so so good

no?
you don't get it?

not this one?
not any?

that's cause the better half of it is still in my head.

Friday, January 1, 2010

the next big poem

feels like the time for a new poem is here
what with the new year
and new friends
and a newer melody of loneliness
that now triggers these brain cells.

oh, talking about brain cells,
i don't know what's happened to them lately
i cannot read
i cannot write
i cannot -
see i got distracted while writing this poem
and that has never happened to me before.

for some reason, i am not into what i am in.
and for the first time in my life,
i am unable to understand the phrase -
"there are two kinds of people in this world,
those who believe that there are two kinds of people
and those who know better."
something whose significance used to strike me,
whose humor has stung me repeatedly,
but now, intelligence is seated in nostalgia.
and now an intelligent phrase
makes me intelligent
only in memory.

yes, friends, to put it simply,
i have dumbed down,
if you too have noticed, you will stop reading further.

if not, then let's dumb down together.

the next big poem
is composed of sloppy notes
of a degenerating state of mind.

the next big poem
is here
without further procrastination.

the next big poem
is a mistake
that we are all eager to make.