Transparency is Sin - Snippets from a Life

1

Biography should begin

from that coffee mug

you toss against the evening sky

and the ocean below,

As you fall

out of love.

2

The letter i wrote to my uncle

when I was just four

had a wrong address

I was happy when it came back

for, I knew it had come back

meeting my uncle 

and the doll would follow.

3

Men I loved didn't love me back 

or vice versa

but every now and then,

I tried to patch up with a chanced opportunity

May be, like the lizard rushing through

the sunset seascape on my bedroom wall

to catch the fly like comma

the flight of seagulls 

crossing the canvas.

4

My first love in school was a christian boy

whom I hated, while he loved.

But, I remember writing 

a rather long philosophical treatise

on the politics of social disharmony and personal threats in the condition of being in love with a catholic boy with regard to future prospects of food and shelter.

that was an eye opener

I never knew before

I was such a mature person!

5

Every time I kissed my boyfriend 

I noted it in my diary

I knew it wont last long and so titled it

"End of Days'

I must have hit a century, before the end, which

I forgot to mark.

for, by then

It had become a casual 

causality

6

I fell in love with the colour pink

when, while in school

I saw a girl cough and pull out

a baby pink worm.

7

The last blow came in the form of a car.

The car could have been excused, 

but not that self portrait he cropped out of it

glancing across 

the lethargic street, 

drained of oblivion.

8

She left poetry, in the beginning of her teens

for the man who loved it, also loved her breasts.

9

I  write what ever I feel like

filth, blood or voluptuousness.

For I no more have that man of a litmus paper

who sucks in my every word and paints his skin a dragon tattoo.

10

I married because my family thought so,

Had a child, as I thought that was normal

Forgot love, as i felt it was a pre-marital un avoidance

Traveled for work

Cooked for taste

Shopped, slept and sexed

for that was how I thought everybody was.

And when this man told, he loved me mad

I thought, shall have some change, 

if not love!

11

Today

as I kiss my son and he blush

and we laugh joyfully,

I think of my own eighth year

when nobody kissed me 

as a kid, yet

held me close,

drew me in to in-between spaces

and loved me 

as a woman.

12

My body is my language.

Read poetry in my early teens

from my erect nipples

and love

from neckline goosebumps.

Now, as I lay aroused

I sketch a skin 

to translate 

my red wine lust. 

13

Vagina

is so beautiful a word!.,

with the sound track moving 

from high pitch to low

and the lip movement like the flowering of a bud, smiling

Yet,  you see the vase, not the lotus

The bee, the honey 

and the Queen.

The curves, not the throb. 

Just the red

over the blue blush.

14

He spreads on to my skin

like a wall full of 

black butterflies.

15

I had great plans for pregnancy

To bathe

To laugh

To read fairy tales and write poems, to spur the infant imagination.

and even to read scripts, for a spiritual foetal beginning

But, 

all I could do was

watch serials, to scorn

Read rape reports, and later theorize flesh and blood.

Have broken sleep

Sour mouth and 

Dirty tongue, to discard lovers.

The only enlightenment, I had 

was to realize,

Hunger during pregnancy 

has much to do with boredom.

16

Nights without crickets 

and darkness without glow worms

is what you call meditation.

A color blind rain forest. 

17

You see night droplets on planet red

as ladybugs gather on the dance floor.

18

This is perfect time

to write a poem.

I ditched my love
for a lie.

and said on his face,
rhythmically, with a falling intonation
“I don’t love”.
and added extra syllables
as I murmured
“but I don’t want him to leave me”

19

The stars may be white
but I paint them shapes
strawberries and butterflies,
on your shoulders
while you sleep.

20

One for you
and one for me
For the day.

Thus u exchange
Packets of warmth,
Once in a while.
Amidst regular boredom
That creeps in to every fantasy.

21

Relations are cross stitches
diagonally reaching the other shore,
Where u meet the needle prick
of another layer interwoven.

22

That’s how they started writing poetry

Sitting huddled together.

Swept aside,
Like war bodies
In a common grave.

23

Secrets will betray me
The day you die.
They will walk out to you, in queue,
from my eyes, that night.
Letters,
Black and white
myths,
Of a language
Unspoken.

Call me a cheat, then
As you leave.
Now,
Let me lie,
Profoundly.

24

The man I married asks me,

“Do you know? 
how ugly you look when you hiss at your son”
And he reminds,
“He is a man and you a woman, 
so better arrest your anger.”

I am at once, jealous
of my son’s manhood at seven
And wonder, if 
a woman in labor
is equally ugly
with her facial muscles rigid
Choked throat and
Shivering patience.

25

When God is love
and man is man,

Every woman is a poem.

26

At least one lie should remain
as it is, when you die. 

Truths are unromantic, unlike lies
that you cross spin 
with rainbow colours
over your smile.

Lovers are not for loving
but for building castles
of fairy lands and ocean beads.
To know the wind,
as you fly
and to feel the cold
as you sink.

27

After knowing a poet for so long,
its essential, you need silence

to know poetry.

28

Her earliest memory
hangs over her wish
to stab her grandma
sleeping beside
So that,
her mom would come back
for the funeral.

29

Once upon a time in the kingdom of water lilies in a remote hamlet down the river across the bamboo bridge there lived a little cutie called love. She was born on a winsome night when stars had lured dandy moon to their jasmine bedspread. She grew a butterfly and flew a honey bee. Years afar I can see her fluttering her colours as a love menopause.

30

Some fears are like the seventh wave,

They hit hard, even while

you play card games of distant memories,

Narcissist moves of redemption,

on a silver moon shore.

31

Revolutions are nostalgic

like those early hours

when u smoke,

fuck

and smoke.

.

.

.

.

.

.

You cross the river

and come to me

I shall show you how

the forest menstruates at midnight.

32

That day, after we made love

I opened my body to the winds

Sweat, saliva and semen

were tattooed over my skin,

taking forms of animal shaped constellations 

and ushering in, the fate of the Medusa.

I roam over the skies, and

roll around my bedroom floor

unwashed, 
for an eternity.

33

Some people are like clouds
They wander
out of your senses
Only to stroll back, leisurely
Forming popcorn skies
And showering in
Yellow

34

 sunbeams and gulmohars
like love and longing

cruel April
'broken April'
silent and distant April 

35
 The day I became deaf

It's only when sounds,
retreat
U realise, you are naked.

Voids, blanketed
Under hilarious laughters
Arguments, nailed
Over other backbones

Lies and ecstasies

Monologues, asides
and the kingdom of fantasies
Withdraw, like a lost army

Now that, I needn't speak
And will only look
I fear,
My eyes will tell the truth.

36
 This time

I shall save it
In deep recess

and feel
The subtle waves, like
Flowers on a stream.

This time

Seagulls
Island
Corals

Silent paintings
On the night sky

This time

Naked November
'Winter's embrace'

Orchards
of blue berries

This time

a love,
Anonymous!