Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!

I maintain silence
I prefer better questions
I sleep I eat
I drink
I *** I ****
you do that too anyways
We could talk better
Some art curating
Or an evolving idea
I wish no wastage of words
no more energy waste
all that is done
All that has been done
Talk is for birth
for new borns
and for infestations

A child draws the outline of a body.
She draws what she can, but it is white all through,
she cannot fill in what she knows is there.
Within the unsupported line, she knows
that life is missing; she has cut
one background from another. Like a child,
she turns to her mother.

And you draw the heart
against the emptiness she has created.

I like being egoistic
I like extremes
I think in extremes
I also answer in extremes
I like people who are extremes too.

1

Doctor warned, “Your liver will strangle –
If you do not stop this habit”.
“That flower fell off long ago”
I responded.

“I might lose you if you hang on with this habit”
Gracy says.
“I already lost myself” I declared.

Next turn was my friend who is a story writer.
“I can’t see you as a character who smokes”
“You better do not have this protagonist in your tale”
I affirmed.

She whispered, “Your lips have become black”
I announced, “Not even a kiss with *** smell is available”

“Why are you deteriorating yourself” inquiry from Jinu.
“Just because, I don’t know how to spoil others”. My answer.

“K S R T C buses which arrived late taught me smoking”
A stranger said.
“I lighted a cigarette for the initial time, just for some light”.
My response with realization.

“They shout that you are a chain smoker”
My sister’s version.
“There will be no smoke without fire”
My variation.

A board in the hospital was engraved.
“No smoking here”.
“Everything else is allowed?
I asked.

“God will not pardon suicidal behavior”.
That was from Parish Priest.
I could say this much.
“Clouds are created from God’s cigar”

2

In this night filled with solitude,
God, let me have a *** which has soul and
Let me reach out to clouds.

while drawing the map of India
I know of a kid who was
worried as to where was Kuzhoor

a sketch job that took just five minutes
to score three marks
misled him many a time

between the question paper and the answer sheet
he
searched for his canal, bunds and fields

here’s Varkey chettan’s tea stall
there’s the butcher shop
here cricket is played
Subramonnian temple there
Kundoor river bank here
the friends wait here
Preethi turns into the alley here
like that he marked

even after the warning bell
India wouldn't be drawn in full

Kashmir not marked at all





Translation : Rajasree

We met
In a deserted street
In Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, In the next incarnation.

Thereon,
A tee shirt , with the legend
“The lovers in this incarnation
Belonged to two populations
That were at war in the last one”
Walked by.

I realized that day
That your gaze
Was a bullet
Of hatred and vengeance
Left over from unabated fury
Even after firing six times that day

And you told me
That my words
Were like
The satisfaction of chopping repeatedly,
A body long dead

Still,
When you saw popcorn on the wayside,
Why did you offer to get it?
Why did you coo, ‘what’s wrong, dear’ when I sighed?
I am clueless!

you asked
How we separated
The first time it was because the flame flared up
When lighting a taper
Once it was because the phone rang while kissing.
There was some stain on my shirt when we met in a dream
.....
.......
For asking
For not asking
For calling, not calling,
For sighing,
For laughing, for whimpering,
For crying, for eating, for not eating,
For sending, for not wishing to send,
For going to the toilet
Without asking permission
For saying a prayer for mother and children

Must have died together on that day.
The anxiety was not
About who would look after you
If I died first,
But who all will look at you!

Must have killed
If not that, God would have interfered
Whatever the rock on which it is built,
God would upset it with an earthquake if nothing else.

God and His strange ways!


In the Afghan capital city of Kabul,
It is the same us who killed with love in this fashion


When you exclaimed
“How lovely this city is”,
I lighted another cigarette

This time, another tee shirt
With the legend “I am not even born”
Passes by


I remembered
The two lines you told me
in the last incarnation,
Four days before Christmas,
A Thursday evening,
At 5:41.
I laughed without telling you that.
You gave me a kiss.
Author Notes

I become
a sparrow
And hang upside down
On an imaginary branch
Pecking up on your words.

I become
A spider
weaving dreams
across the horizon,
Right then and there
you starts to tease me with
the words,
flies and butterflies.

When you talk,
The warmth of
Your words on me
make me fog
like a cold piece of glass,
now you can write on me!