I don't know the name of this....
This...empty thing inside me,
    Though its been a companion;
    Or a leech.
And in the tranquility of a curving sky,
Somehow it still finds me,
    That lone cloud hovers above me
    Drinking the light.
Eventually it will **** me
And end up in words, like here and now:
  
Tell me of the abyss inside you,
The daily grind like bees in
Your throat,
Tell me if you cry when you
Write your inner grey,
Humbly, when you look at stars
So far away,
Are your  lost hopes and dreams
With them?
I know of this truly,
Its an embodiment,
And only the Creator knows why,
And we have not penetrated the why.
   I confess to you the divine thirst
   For something to fill this hole,
   Yet were it not for this hole
   I would not know the blue
   Beside the grey,
   The light that stretches the dark,
   The smile of a moment
   Caught in forever's slim memory,
   The Him,
   The Her,
   The whitest petals from a lily
   Born out of the storm;
And we walk as the grey
And all that we do to fill-
Grey, yes somehow grey,
Between the light and the dark
We flow.

the hundred year old stairs
wakes up from its dreamless slumber
to find the world has spun
for an infinity too long

it once roamed
and ruled
the household of Chathanathodi
making way to the rooms
upstairs
that conspired a thousand
whispered secrets

simultaneously
sprawling its termite-infested legs
to make way
downstairs
that injected an aura of
omnipotence

its laddery body was now a little chipped
and its creaky joints, a little shaky
but it didn't matter
as it was still conspicuous
and strong
like Hercules
leading unsuspecting mortals
upstairs and downstairs
to its universe of Gods

Shalini Nayar
© 2001

Quickly he picked up
keenly examined
and seemed to admire
the handy penknife
with sharp blades,
quite functional,
she hurriedly pulled out
from the clutch she carries;
she was searching
frenetically for something
when it inadvertently
showed up, she deliberately
didn't pay attention
to his expressed curiosity,
yet her eyes adequately
answered his loud
unasked question.

In words he didn't ask WHY?
though it echoed in his eyes.

And I answered:
To see and touch all that I forgot,
To remember the delta where
Immense waters rushed to
My memory's melodic forms.
     To remember that ***** that
     Broke my heart,
     How I loved her,
     Look at all the poems
     I wrote for her!
To feel the livid wounds
Of everyone fester about
Like domesticated bipeds,
Watch them grow entangled
Beneath a shivering sun.
        To read the crazy beautiful
        Of other people's thoughts
        And get in their heads without
        Psychological babblings
        And manipulation.
To watch the shadowless sun
Create a phantom city
In the concrete swarms,
To stretch every sense
Into the living moment.
      To catch myself from splitting,
      Or perhaps to split from myself
      And call me crazy,
      Laugh it off and cry
      When I read it again.
To embody what I miss
With these fucken cell phones
And internet opinions
With elongated voices
Lonely, their kind of
Misery loves company after all.

      Why the poem?
      Ask yourself,
      What else is there??

She cooks her dishes with such panache and zest,
as if both are  two new  dishes for me to taste,
her dainty waist, arrested my eyes,
then the mind ******, thunder thighs,
all I want is to stick to her all over like curry paste.