Death descends like the statement of a credit card;
life goes on in eight columns, sometimes six,
dropping out should have been an option, instead my
world is turning pages while I am just sitting here
listening to atrophy whisper through a megaphone:
“It’s better to fade away than to burn out, let
champagne supper turn to bile by breakfast, bark up a
fake plastic lemon tree till she hurls pomo grenades at you.”
The streetlife serenade is recklessly tempting,
in the club the girls in ***** shirts come and go,
talking of Felu, Neru, Derri… da, what inertia!
Sitting in a club with so many fools(,) playing to rules,
Hell is a blank generation with no vacancy,
I’m doubting Thom: meeting people isn’t easy,
Them clones in rubber souls from fab India
try to impale me right next to the paintbox,
In she walks, head going nowhere close to the oven,
eyes me like a Pisces riding shotgun on a WAG,
says growing older in the rain ought not be done all alone.
Bring on the moonshine, dancing days are here again!
Happiness was Scotch Mist, now it’s suddenly a goal,
It’s past AM on a holiday, do I wanna know if this
isn’t, like always, just un-certain platonish bromance?
Or will she journey with me till the end of the night?
Optimism is fleeting, afraid to commit, tends to elope,
Pray that she lingers long enough: I need a feel-good poem.
There’s a restaurant at the end of the universe,
I’ve heard the well-done steak they serve is actually rare
but their awesomesauce can make us live forever,
we can make it there in time if we slide away right now,
and if in the morning we don’t know what to do,
I’ll toast the bread, I’ll make the bed, she can make my day.

We sit there
in our corners of a bar
our eyes never meet,
you there with your
mild mouth and your
signature breath so rare
and your infinite stare
chills to the bone.

We sip scalding tea
etched in time like a
stitch that saved none,
you by yourself
me by myself
not by ourselves
and slowly we burn
out before Saturn
returns to take its rightful
place under the sun.

Think you can write?
Wake up, smell the tea,
You’re just a mardy
*** from Palookaville
so am I
who are we kidding?
Delhi has no lights
or black sparrows
but then again
neither does Goa.

The day will come,
or maybe not,
one day is just
another day, let’s
sleep in and
smoke tea.

Fluff and puff,
water plugs,
power plants,
paper over eyesores,
paint it matte,
pink as salmon,
pack the homeless
into the Bird's Nest,
ghettoise Moses,
bleed the Amazon
down to size,
moor the battleships
to Yamuna Bank,
let white elephants
run riot on warm Black ice
over those who won't
play ball in our
electric garden
free your head
from the rails
for what?
roti kapda makaan
or BSP ki maya?
be buried or a sport
let laal battis through
ab bus, stop
blaming it on Rio
don't you know
how India shone
in October 2010,
or that Russians love
their children too?
So what if they don't
believe in modern love?
Potemkin villages are
built brick by brick
by BRICS,
Red, Yellow, Orange
kilned to Black.

Deconstructing a Kafkaesque
amphitheatre of the absurd,
Easy wallows she in their hypocrisy,
Son of a gun grabbed on
to the gold that fed his infant
self, doesn't dare let go, won't ever,
Dev breaks the bottle he hits,
scrounges, discards the last scrap,
the rat scurries in, devours, heads
back into the smoked corridor,
the auction goes on, so does he
showering petals and pity upon the
middle road more travelled, bumpy,
potholes full of acid and bile,
the stupidity of the tyrannical majority
and an underwater civilisation consumed
by mind-numbing, mildly shocking TV,
undercurrents of power drowned under.
Uppercase Him, uppercase He,
they hoist a red flag, set it afire,
stomp out the flames, wave a black
rag till the ashes turn to naught,
the Dionysian petit bourgeoisie proceed,
spew, *****, spew, repeat.
The voyeuristic rat has front row seats
gaze fixed, piercing centrestage
auction-house by day, amphitheatre by night,
the bids shall resume when
the morning bells toll, till then,
Dev's hungry for more,
the rat enjoys the show.

Something stinking this way comes
not just the nausea of cobblestone
on Sundays and all public holidays
'neath the stairwell of insidious intent
hooked onto the static line for ages
the suicidal fish sinks deeper in the
pool of bile but cannot drown, so he
toes the line of the drama queen via
the lament-laden path trodden by
god's servant, past the corner where
foreignicating correspondents collide,
turn right or left – doesn’t matter
which way he chooses, it’s wrong.

The misfortune of being missed by
a Fortuner, he proceeds to jump off
Tilak Bridge and is hit by Range Rovers
endeavouring to hit and run after
the mundane Meru that lost its wind
shielding itself from the tyranny of
daddy's little boys with flaccid toys and
***** mouths and itchy trigger fingers,
misadventure interrupted they pause to
douse the flames of the dying but
urea isn't carbon dioxide; it's piscicide.

Something Kafkaesque calls him but it's
masked with the aroma of ******* served
in the nick of time from 22 through 71,
past Lahore Chowk down Baker St.
Pedestrian rat on the wrong side of
a one-way expressway to your skull
about turn into pitch black cul-de-sac,
scurries in through the out grille gushing
acerbic symphonies from the basement,
storm-water drain up against the tide,
never learnt to swim yet he tries.

After a while, she'll be home and dry.

The low ceiling makes him slouch
in and out through endless maze,
daily grind never takes a break
no room to turn around walk out,
yet again he forgets not to stretch
yet another fresh bump on his skull
now there are four score maybe more
benign, perhaps, who knows?
rats can't scan, only cats can.

The ache's spread to the limbs
the head and the hypertensive heart
then anterior now posterior
the costive claustrophe bleeds again,
it's a duct with a view downstairs,
he's a ****** not entirely by choice,
tom cat jerry kitten eating in and out
the pie is beyond grasp, at the exit
lies a mousetrap sans the bait,
nothing else for him to do but
work his fingers to the bone.

Hope,
she waited on my table,
but I,
I took my own sweet time
to make up my mind.

"A round of shots,
and better make it snappy"
"No can do sir,
for it's a dry day"

So I
stole a glance at my wrist,
midnight
- the hour was nigh.

I had time,
all the time in the world,
"Swing by
when the time is right"

As
I saw her go,
***
I saw and I thought:

She's a real keeper,
I just have to have her,
amuse her,
make full use of her,
but tread cautious
lest I abuse her.

Pie,
one wild night
oughta do the trick.
So I,
dashed to the restroom
made sure I looked slick.

The hour
struck ten times
and twice,
the hour,
it came and went,
but by then
she was long gone.

Faith,
she took over
served me shot after shot.
Knocked
them down
did I them all.

Besotted,
I struggled to my feet,
dragged myself
out of the watering hole.

As I stumbled
out on the porch,
dainty hands,
they broke my fall.

"You're in no shape
to be out on your own.
It's past closing time,
I'll drive you home."

Besotted,
I gazed upon
her, her tempting gist.
Beckoned
did Faith, was
in no state to resist.

Endings,
ever after,
or till this date,
Faith
by my side,
sad twist of fate.

Hope,
witchy, Wiccan,
mirage,
black magician?
Me,
muppet,
voodoo doll,
puppet.

Hope
still springs,
eternally in my heart,
Hope,
I wait,
though it's too late.

Psst, Ms. Anthem! I'm talkin' to you,
You don't know what he's gonna do.
He's selling you down at Planet M,
He's ******* you and he's to blame.

Didn't I tell you not to talk to strangers?
Haven't I warned you of the dangers?
Why're you hearing what he's telling you?
I created you; what did he do?

You think he cares about any part of you?
Or what you'll cause the **** blessed to do?
You're his showpiece; he's the front-page story,
You're the sunshine; he basks in your glory.

I mean what I make, every word that I sing,
it's awareness not revolution that I try to bring,
How'll they hear you if it ain't through me?
How'll they know me if I don't cut me a deal?

He's just in it for the name and the fame,
his material thirst puts the causes to shame,
he could've walked around, guitar in hand,
a song on his lips, nights of head in the sand.

How would we then be known in the public domain?
All my efforts would've gone right down the drain.
So I chewed on that cigar; sipped some champagne,
stepped aboard and took a ride on the gravy train.

Now he'll talk of Dylan and other icons of the past,
well Lennon maybe a hero but never working class,
**** Jagger no one buys was a street fighting man,
and the Gallaghers scripted their masterplan,
He could've stayed true,
if he really wanted to...

Well, me and you,
we wouldn't have got our rightful dues,
if I did what he wanted me to,
and stayed pure like a mule...

I rest my case, Ms. Anthem.

The world's not a stage
It's an auction house
We're all up for grabs
Wake up, kid
Smell the coffee
There is no early bird
The gavel crushed its wings
Just the feline
Hunting for the mouse
The rodent scampers
Dark alleyways
The fog clouds its vision
But the cat's got eyes
Gleam in the moonlight
Smouldering crystals
Long road cut short
Dead end
What do we have here?
Auction-house.

Early morning flight, you're
in for the long haul but you
toss and you turn and you
just can't get any sleep so you
board the night train and it
keeps you up as it pulls
out way too soon and through
pitch dark you're speedballing you
rock and you roll but you
gather no moss as you
slip and you slide as you
try to find your way across
a barren landscape of black ice

The nomad follows the northern light
hopes against hope for Holland in the night
miles away from home, address unknown
waiting for a sound or sight of heaven

Next thing you know, you're a
quarter down with no will to go on
ordinarily there'll be three more
but you really don't want to carry on
just hold your horses for a little while
reign them in, don't let them
jump the gun and out the coach 'coz
the midnight express is moving fast
now it's the middle of a moonless night
but Saturn casts its ugly shadow
ringing in yet another re-rerun
fashioning the grand return
a shadow on the morning sun

The geek's got prospects in Acapulco,
dabs her pinprick eye and rides her white horse
down the rabbit hole, milestone 24
but still no sound or sight of heaven

So you pull the chain and bring
the runaway train to a grinding halt
and you step outside but it's
not yet dawn as you shiver at the sight
no there's no one in sight except
that widow draped in a white cloth
red lantern in hand at the door of
a room at the far end of platform number one
a light that shines like a beacon it beckons
urging you to embrace the dark side
but it still ain't what you asked for
where are the bright arclights
and the glares of the videocams?

You thought you'd be a lamb but
no one played the guide so you
led yourself to the slaughter, sadly
it ain't no pay-per-view, no
broadcast live world over, HD
you wished to be the voice of
a vociferous generation but you're not
no medallion, no trophy, no Grammy
now you're in permanent rehab
with nothing but a double whammy, you've
neither life nor legacy as you
show up for your great gig in the sky
long before your time has come

Led astray by the northern light
all hope's lost on a brown Persian night
no direction home from milestone 27
guess there never really was a heaven