yeah

shards
accompany
shards

uncooperating edges
pieced together to

make love.

darling

worlds collapse again
my heart bursting with an ache
i cannot claim



your pain



s             p          l              i           n      t        e               r              s



my words




not even a single poem comes out whole anymore.

regret

paying daily reparations

for not showing up
nor leaving

for not knowing
and refusing to know

for denying
and for hoping

for being unable
to stop loving

and refusing
to show

for relying on the pale thud
of this sane heart

that will not feel
for the sake of tomorrow
and tomorrow
and tomorrow

so all due reparations are paid

and regret
can forever fade into a grin

you win.

bodystrong

no amount of conversing

makes me literate
in the language of violence

the body is just a long pause of baffled silence
where this unending, coiling, strangling telephone line delivers

in
com
pre
hensible
messages
of
pain.

haha

real love
never ends

po raichha.

same intensity
that same lub-dub, lub-dub crazy beating of the heart.

the same stars looking down
on you
and
me

smiling at us
on behalf of
me and you.

silly stars, sillier their permanence too.

silly us, sillier our silences too.

lujjaa i will smile through it all. je parla parla.



luh luh chiya biskut pani khaam yei upalakchhya ma.

lessons to be learnt

this is what my new job will have taught me when i'm ready to quit:


trees bleeding
into
millions
of
tender
sheets
of  paper

and

innocent
words
scattered
in bulk

will help mount
corrupt
stories
derived from corrupt
sources

news
altogether
unworthy of being told
will be finger-exercise
for sedentary bodies
as human hands
brush against
wilting pages.

there will be momentary contact

there will not be much reading

who is going to emancipate wood pulp from this existential crisis?

news will continue to be made
just to keep the cycle of waste
in motion.

it says shit about me to me

sometimes i miss you with an
intensity
that wants to disregard

all the walls
we've erected

with our silences.

nobody knows
or
understands me better than

you

yet you cannot stand me.

porcelain princess

bukowski was an odd fuck
as ordinary as fuck he was

i bet
bukowski would have liked a fuck
with me

ordinarily i don't like to fuck

every now and then i meet a man
who'd like to fuck me very much
and my vagina finds that odd as fuck
my vagina can't stand his cock
my vagina'd rather stay shut

i think what he wants
is to make some true, meaningful love

but bukowski was sacred as dirt
bellowing out words sending
brittle girls into erotic rage
he'd know to do me right
he'd fuck some sense into that frigid vagina
i'm sure he'd set it alight

and ordinary fucking would crack through the clay
maybe even save the day

but bukowski's been dead since i was eight
and fucks these days don't come the right degree of odd.





but god - cohen, at 77, is very much alive
and still looks handsome as hell.

take three

ours is a frail civilization
where
breaking hearts
are comforted by the broken hearted

ours is a failed civilization
that never tires
of its failures.

take two

this morning when i
stumbled upon my mother
crying as if someone had died

- when in fact no one had died
no, dead people don't drive
you to tears of those kind -

i let her spill into me
naive empty container
of longing
that i am

now an awkward
uncomfortable sorrow

is trailing into my
tomorrow.

things yingyang

december is the month for pining for things that cannot be 

pinpointed

days of endless wanting, wanting. 

december is also a month 

when contradictions 

hold hands and play lovers. 

everything is 

bittersweet 

in december.

some days just come like this

shrouded in sadness
i cannot escape.

naive

all day i walked
with an earnest smile

bleeding a trail
of sorrow

like a vagina
without whisper wings.

withinout

life is
a strange
kind of drowning
where her
tears
form my world.

stranger

i miss you with
an ache

that goes back
beyond the time
when i was
born

all my longings
are like empty containers

with labels
that have your
name
written on them.

epiphany my-chance-to-get-it-before-the-world-comes-to-an-end

oh my god

beauty is a feeling?

when i see you, what do i feel?    

the interaction between my heart
and your being?

that's all beauty is?

energy suffusing
into spaces between bodies?

contained in matter, mass
things that levitate -

that is beauty?

so beauty isn't alone
doesn't seem to happen in isolation.

just another kind of
lovemaking

should have known.

notes on the head and the heart

1. they came into my world
in awkward, blaring briefs.

awkward bodies carrying
a familiar grief.

2. unenchanting,
unwilling to look into the eye

like monkeys but human.

unintending
to make music

then why unending?

3. were the birds singing outside of view
and the river flowing,
foams whispering to each other
like restless little schoolgirls?

did they just chirp along?

4. you can hear the knocking of knuckles on a wooden log
if you listen carefully

5. the voices merge and blaze like hot gasoline
jolts of magic

5.5 they look away.

6. like pajama players
they're never-ready
music always makes itself available though

7. every song so sweetly delivered
brings success
and even if you didn't ask for it
being loved by many
and becoming big -

just wait
we will corrupt you

that's inevitable
or you can also
fail endlessly.

fail
endlessly

and make sweet inconsequential music
that explodes in my heart

i will promise to hate you.

8. which one is my favourite?

i can't make head or tail.

my taste is diffused. like your gaze.

9. children play in the park. noise bombs
making some music of their own.

10. like they've answered the question i'd been directing at the universe all this while?

blahblahblah.

11. solid like bricks falling on my head
real too. more real than real.

like a flower
absentmindedly
blooming.

accidental encounters with poetry

ladddy!

let's meet up soon again

i'm just putting it out there

i don't want to make plans 

because planning is

ugly and futile 

and never materializes

and even when it does 

it's boring

but when i can't keep it to myself anymore, 

i will burst with longing at your door.

and then we will do

whatever we have to do.


hai?

what's mine and what's yours

there's a hole in my bucket

from it drip things

straight into yours.

also known as 'why fail maths in school?'

- 10 + 9 =  - 1

but

- 1 =  + 1

and then, here especially,

zero plus zero plus zero plus zero makes us feel like we've got a whole lot more than before

pile on.

so much of
genuine
happiness in
mere miscalculations.

:)

promise us ten hours of loadshedding
and deliver only nine



unfulfilled expectations

that's all it takes to make us Nepali people happy.

So...

i know 

there were/are/will be many more

but you should know

that you're the one

i've been waiting for.

fucking victory

one country enters another

penetrates air, earth, building, glass, garden, city, village, child, water supply, ladle, flower pot
penetrates the heart, the psyche, the soul
penetrates the body, the body, the body
penetrates innocence of the flesh
penetrates collective memories
penetrates third party bystanders even

leaving stains
leaving scabs
leaving an utter, uncomprehending silence
leaving a theater of the absurd for none to see
leaving -

leaving
ultimately.

where does the equation for justice
lie
in the rape of a nation?

ceremonies

one day we get married

another day we divorce


one day the US enters Iraq

another day it leaves


no amount of ceremony
can dignify all the crap
that falls in between.

Aatma Bal

Ke ko aatma bal

This ego knows
only
how to
curl up like a ball

No strength in this
gutumutu pareko dallo.

so cold

december is a terrible month

it makes me feel so cold and lonely

esso december ko laagi matrai hire garna paye hunthyo ni euta lover.

new faces

you know

love doesn't ask for
the one

it's an empty cup
eager to fill up

and keep warm
whatever goes in it.

---

new faces arise
but the same old cup

there's no new way to love.

the thing about gloves

is that

my fingers feel so lonely
in individual pockets

all they want to do is
huddle together

and be family again.

the thing about gloves

is that they do nothing
about the cold.

waiyyat.

6:33 am

living in the gray areas

when the sky does not know what to do
with concepts of
day and night

there is more music
brewing
this time between pigeons
soft sounds warbling

from their empty little bellies.

nowhere near the throat

the formula of life
tucked safely between vibrations
that roar out from
deep within your belly.

who does sing?

the sound of these wailers
like sandpaper
grazing against the insides of this heart

cracking, breaking, splintering
compounding
to fill up ears

we all die a thousand deaths
and are born again
inside voices like these

wailing
because just singing
is no longer enough

keep wailing, sweethearts.

music

every now and then

mini earthquakes rattle
things hidden
underneath my skin.

the foreseeable future (in euphemisms)

if i take one more step in this direction

i will stumble into music making

and get tangled up in strings
i know not how to strum

and things may get ugly for a long while.

new gmail

new gmail
you SUCK!

and you'll suck
until you're old
and they replace you with something new
which'll suck
even more.

it's like i'm on facebook again.
yuck. yuck. yuck!!

from earth (ii)

the earth is my body; my head is in the stars.

climb down, my teacher says.

she is so beautiful, my teacher, in that body of hers.

from earth

somebody said to me obsessing with the earth
is akin to obsessing with death

but being a hindu, with hindu blood and hindu ancestry
with a history of denying the hindu in me

who will listen
(except the voices in my head)

they are probably going to burn me as my skull pops and i disappear into smoke.

in this country
it is air that carries the waft of death

not earth.

earth brings to life
feeds the soul

keeps me calm
keeps me whole

pay attention to the earth
i hear those voices say

pay attention to the earth
live in it
live out of it

dig in.

remembering (iii)

you and me
are the best example of
how idiotic a combination of
one plus one
can be

dear musicians

keep singing
keep making music

never stop sharing

love
ayushma

who is better off than dead

this is nothing sane
this is a wild melting of the heart
disappearing into fizz

lemon powder
joy.
joy
be kidding.
you kidding me

who you

wonderlust whore

share. share. be there.

and be gone.

you are cruel
and unkind

and i am ruthless
just in time
to make you
you
and
i am happy
to be this miserable

or is this just my shadow

or does this make any sense

but there is this thing
riding inside me
that wants to shoot out
and kill the world dead
in one breath

so what do i do with that?

what do i do with
this thing
bursting
bursting inside me

a strange colored banana clogs my brain

and the shadow of death
again and again

and moments
that are ripe
with snow
and ice
and picket fences
and lines
and arches
and beaten eggs
and beaten memories

and no more waiting
and no more wishing
no more waiting for you here
on my roof
up against the sky
pressed
and suppressed
and repressed
and repressed
and suffocated
this sky
that does not levitate
don't go
don't go

but you have gone
and there are magic wands
waving around recklessly
and i cry
and i sound
like i am
moving
inside the ground
and i see
but it's me
and there's nothing holy
inside the body

and there is a dream
and in the dream
i am silent
and i am broken
and i wake up

where i am silent
and i am broken

and all the cello tape in the world
does not help
to put together
and heal
and there is a joy
in the memory
of having lived before this lifetime

and all the accumulation of all the suffering from the beginning of age
cannot be discarded
so there it is
here it is

where will it possibly go

and lou reed
shooting heroin inside his skin

while i am mean
and ripe
with vengeance

i am clean
and i am a compromise

i am the destiny
of the destroyer

i am your body's gloom
thick and misty

i am a kiss
on the bird's back
as i climb
onto the top

and i hurl at you
stones and sticks
and picket fences
and stars
and snow
and hearts in shards
and a hero's welcome

your stardust is dusty contaminated bruise scattered senseless.

now go.

kill screeching melody scream
kill heaven glory four times over.

kill. kill.
soft voices against shrill sounds.

fly

eat my heart out in a bowl, einaudi.

scoop it out of my chest
and drink it like soup
spill it like beans

your music speaks to me like truth.

like a wild race
a wild chase
into the ether

i disappear
into the grim
slipping, memory of a song
you wrote
on the keys

in a rush
with my blood
gushing out
outside my veins
outside
in a rush

wanting to reach out to you
to touch you
with my mind
with my hand
with my body
with these hands
i want to steal your music

listen to that. listen to that.

will it never stop
the rush
the beating of this heart
the crazy beating of this heart
the jamming of all things precious
inside a head so small
a heart so wrong
a deed so broken

look. look.

who are you, einaudi?

where does this music come,
where does it come from?

and where does it fly to
when it has flown
my heart flees along

the story is too long
too fast
stretches beyond my capacity to exist

i'm waiting to snap
but the song
does not end
it keeps on bending
from corner to corner
from moment to moment

a mad rush
you me and our stupid reality
and so many things
here
here
here
this is it.

this is it.

wow. that was an ugly end
to something that started with
a soar

you dropped me right into the dirt.

saboteur

do it.

do it again.