"Truth can appear as disaster in a land of things unspoken."

Joy Harjo, "The Naming"

Movember

Imagine a man's face
without facial hair,
the beard and the mustache
replaced, shaved, wiped off
like the smirk from off his face.
So that the tenderness emerges,
the softness of skin, hidden from
sunlight and the gaze of women,
comes out of the closet.
And flowers emerge from rifles,
too heavy and unnecessary to carry
like stereotypes we marry.

"What do you plan to do with all your freedom?"
The new Sheriff said, quite proud of his badge.
"You must admit the land is now in good hands."

Yes, time will tell that.
You just lift your lamp.

-
'Scarlet's Walk,' Tori Amos

The Middle Path

Feeling small and holy,
peacefulness taken away, banished
like women from attaining Enlightenment.

The shop selling jewellery
invites the three daughters,
the bones, the sins, that 
build up cities for men,
are unholy.

Like my heart shrivelled
of my desire for him,
and yet wanting

peace and holiness
in love's acceptance
and its embrace.

The sudden stillness
of the limbs, the sudden silencing 
of my sins, by paths
described by a god
who was husband and prince.

Girlfriend

Part One

Last night went back again

to look at your pictures from college,

then early morning I dreamt-

you asking me to wait, asking me to turn back

from my morning walk, in that dreamscape.

How ironic, given it was a walk I intended to take

to avoid you, and your avoiding gaze, your annoyance.

Even in dreams I imagine our next inevitable meeting,

my awkward inability to escape, your aloofness a stake,

through my middle-aged heart.

But there you were, invading my early morning landscape,

distracting me with your call to wait,

bringing back memories as you tied up your shoelace-

"Will you walk with me? I need to get away from the baby."

I don't know what happened next.

But I know I would have dropped everything

and everybody to know that.

Part Two

They called you 'smiling barracuda' in college,

while my angry overbite made me a shark.

My mouth too sharp, your teeth set

too apart. Imperfect women,

with imperfect mouths.

I wish now we'd heard Tori Amos back then,

"Can't stop what's coming, can't stop

what is on its way." As if that could change

the fact that we could not stop

the marriages, the children,

your last angry phone call, my stubbornness.

And now we seem to have completely stopped,

our footsteps too far away from each others' earshots, 

an invisible line separates us

much more than oceans, continents, and 

children's hungry mouths.

I take walks with my husband now,

(now that the children are in college)

and still wonder about you, 

keep wondering still how I remain - 

the girl who'd be a boy for you.

On some mornings, some days.

September 2016.

Sacrament of Confession

"You.../ carried the cross/ and my shame./ All my shame./ You know I believe it./ But I still haven't found what I'm looking for." - Paul David Hewson

Is this the birth of faith?
Words - crucial, come together -
and press upon my anger.
I pray,
or just say, what is on my mind,
to ceramic statues and wooden planks,

arranged, 
adorned with faces, traces of what evolution contests.
Or is it history,
that seeks to force on tinted glasses
through which to see, but not perceive,
not look hard enough, to break the illusion
that holds, that frames, and chains,
him to his cross, her to her veil, them to these pews?

knees bent, minds un-bending,
to what I want to believe, 
but cannot quite.
Quietness, voicelessness, that weaves a spell, without help
of words from books too holy to be touched 
by my pagan fingers, my chapped lips
too dry, to partake of
this wine, this blood.

And yet, I rushed, 
to those chapels,
and I offered bread, lit candles,
stared at stone faces, and the occasional gargoyle.
The confession box and its holes, as large as stab wounds,
did not allow for evasion of discovery, or anonymity.

But the faith inside - a secret, a suffusing -
almost and also, closeted, 
this lesbian feeling. Sitting inside private chapels,
still looking for, but not finding.

2016.

Cosmopolitan

The sense of family
is an escape,
a responsible escape
into routine,
bound by the refusal
to dwell in dreams,

by the prohibition
of trespassing
into forbidden places,
not of lust or knowledge,
or magic or power,
but 

places of adventure,
of life,
of leisure.

To break
to break
to break
the railings that hold you back.

To make
amends to your soul-
for having listened
to 'Wish you were here,'

traffic-stuck and numb,
and then paying for
a parking ticket,
for a cramped corner in a basement.

The wish to be away from here,
a terrible pinprick
up the elevator.


11/09/09 Bangalore

Navy Blues

My husband/ my son/ my brother
is in the navy

And I, a proud Indian woman,
am content with a spot on TV

They forgot to mention
my father/ father-in-law/ uncle/ nephew
son-in-law/ brother-in-law

They forgot how they should be
in the navy too

Even my neutered dog or tom-cat may wear
white uniforms, white caps

I wonder how navy blue even suits women
or how old navy makes lady clothes

The only white I get to wear
is when a man dies
martyred, for the sake of god and country

which are perhaps his only
to defend and love

All I can muster is passivity
and a stoic shade of nude make-up

On TV, endorsing
a man who used to be in the navy.


2016.

Singularity

Because it was suggested
by somebody else
my first instinct is
to not listen
to disobey and carve
singularity into
existence
realizing later 
that singularity is often enough
suicide.

June 2015

Housewarming

Feel the loneliness.
Feel the heat, my lover.

It is butter you crave
with your breakfast bread,
I give you-
unwashed curtains.

It is not revenge
my heart is filled with 
today, rather I miss
not kissing you
whenever I will.

No points to prove
at your or anybody's expense.
Just a demand for empathy,
a drill, compulsory,
for us to remain still-
This Girl who met That Boy
and found un-marital joy.

Man and Wife
put on shoes and leave
out the door, they walk
where they are wanted
at beck and call of domesticated plots.

We, within, are barefoot.
Tackily listening to 
Nothing Else Matters,
we dance Cajun.

All this and more, my lover.
First the stain, then the butter.

Q(uee)R

A DIALOGUE.

"Do you have something we can use?
Something that can be converted
into an 'app'?"

"What is a snappy way to chat, what's an app?
Do I need to get a background check?
Do you really need to know
how miserable I used to be
in maths and chemistry and the laws
of physics?
How many boyfriends I've had? How many
I have slept with? No, 
I don't have a technical degree,
and Foucault might have said an app
may not be enough to know
'Who Killed the World?' "

"The first Chevrolet ad in India
showed villagers colourfully dressed,
celebrating Holi. That was 
'Marketing to India 101'.
Fooled you, didn't we?!"

"Fooled me?! You didn't!
(You did?)
Canvass the streets, QR a riot
of car engines that fill with
so much expensive smoke,
the weird sibling of the barcode
where you can place your
touch-sensitive phone
and travel to something that doesn't truly exist."

"But you believe! Don't you! 
(You don't?!)
The scenery in advertisements, the suburban smile
on white suburban children's faces, made-up and
sweet, like Type-2 Diabetes, unhealthy and
seductive.
Aroint thee! Aren't you too abstract to be of use?"

"No! I make coffees all day, and at night
run my mocha brown fingers down the spines
of photocopied books of poems. 
I have read all night, sometimes,
just to erase the coffee stains from my mind.
Do you have an app for that?
Do you?"


December 2015