Positive thinking
or negative thinking?
Or think real?
Then clear thinking and
straight thinking
divergent thinking
and radiant thinking
convergent thinking and
dynamic thinking
rational thinking
scientific thinking
or no-thought thinking
God-mind thinking
or free-thinking
Oh for goodness’ sake! –
*just think!

O Bani Thani
I grow thin, wanting you;
O you of the drooping eyes and long neck
O Bani Thani, O sublime poetess and singer
who walks gracefully through the halls of  Kishangarh
I hear
you are in my stepmother’s service;
and the songs you sing
though they are most sublime
they lure me into unholy thoughts, O Bani Thani
as do your drooping eyes, your lips curved into a smile
You walk head high always, they say
and you look directly ahead even when I am nigh
and yet that too invites me to wander over the landscape of your face
your drooping eyes, your drooping eyes
the eyebrow like a bow, the bow of Rajput warriors
whose arrows  pierce with vigour
the elongated face, O Bani Thani
your elongated face and nose and curls of hair
that flow to your waist
and that visage and seduction all graced in muslin odhni
O Bani Thani
I hear your voice, I hear your songs
and your poems are recited here by the men even in the streets –
O but do you hear mine, do you hear my poems of
love, lust and thoughts unholy?
O do you hear my poems of pain and longing? –
all arising, all arising, O Bani Thani
everything in my manhood aroused
as I see you walk by, as I hear you sing
as I hear you play on your instruments
O Bani Thani, Bani Thani –
sing to me, sing to me:
*What is my end, what is my fate
in this my love and longing for you?

over the fence
my neighbor asks me:
Where are you from?

My passport says
I’m Citizen,
I reply
It also records where I was born
but really, I’m from deep inside

Neighbor does not chat to me anymore
and seeing me on our walks
Neighbor nods warily
and crosses over to the other side

Could you be polite to people?
my wife admonishes me daily

But I’m puzzled
*Why don’t people want to know the truth?
I am, after all, from deep within
Aren't we all?

those of the nobility
of such refinement and susceptibility
they revel in sublime love
expressed in sonnets and exquisite epics
But we, the comics,
the mundane, the ordinary, the clown and the fool
we love like coffee desires teeth to stain
like birds love to poo on cars*


1
I love you like the snail
loves its shell
I’d like to creep into you
and always stay inside

2
And I love you back
like the pig loves its sty
and the mud and the filth it rolls in
I love you like the pig in the wild
loves its leaves, roots and fruits in its diet  

3
O I love you always
like itch loves skin
like dust loves the table
like tongue loves to lick the lips

4
And I love you back
like barnacles love bottoms of ships
like underwear clings to the organs
like the dog loves a bite


*And now that this serenade
of such elemental love is done -
do you fancy we could lie down
on the hay in the barn
and have a vigorous and quick one?

1
Tap, tap, tap
Pinch and expand
Pinch and expand
Tap, tap, tap

I love this dance you do
my dearies, each one of you
on your mobiles and devices
We too play with our fingers
and keep our eyes fixed
on your pockets and purses
and wallets

Tap, tap, tap
Pinch and expand
Pinch and expand
Tap, tap, tap
Stay diverted -
we love this what you do,
me Fagin
and all me children
and Jack Dawkins too,
that Artful Dodger

2
Come on, dear children of Fagin mine
this here is Paradise
All these people with eyes
and fingers on their devices
and brains in idle mode
in these crowded malls -
it’s our Paradise, dear babies mine
Whilst they are so preoccupied
let’s to our devices
And we can pick, pick, pick
whilst they tap, tap, tap

3
Ah ha, keep tapping on your mobiles
each one of you, my dearies
with your eyes on the mobile
when at the shops and in crowds
and at new year celebrations
Keep your eyes there, indeed
each one of you, my dearies
Tap, tap, tap
pinch and expand with 2 fingers on the screen
eyes mostly there on your devices
Tap, tap, tap
pinch, pinch, pinch  
and  let your *******
burst like shooting stars
All like a dance, as in a dance
each one of you in public spaces,
my dearies
so do the merry dance of your fingers
and eyes on the devices
And we?
We love this, me Fagin
and all me children
and Jack Dawkins too
(that Artful Dodger)
while You
tap, tap, tap
and we
pick, pick, pick
at this our harvest at shopping malls

in the villages
in days of yore
young men proved
their vigor
by lifting gigantic rocks

but in 2012 -
the remarkable year of
the French Village of Bugarach
(where many sagacious youths gathered) -
away in Tunisia,
the young man
downs eggs
egg-citedly
in a dare
and he’s up to his esophagus in 28 eggs raw
when something in him cracks
(O poor wasted youth of 20)
and just 2 before winning his bet
he dies;
it’s Armageddon for him in 2012,
though he also gains an epiphany:
28 raw eggs can *****


caveat
of course
O Ye Olde Sensitive Souls
this is not a yoke -
I mean, this is not a joke
For verily, 28 eggs can ****

Prologue
see, do you see?
Judy and Punch
are shopping
Like the loving couple they are
they are at it together

Action!
Punch puts in a carton of beer
into the trolley
And Judy hauls it out immediately
and puts it back on the shelf –
It’s too expensive, honey
says Judy.  $50 a carton, that’s too much money


Now Judy is in the “Beauty” section
and picks a Beauty Pack for $100
and Punch protests immediately:
That’s what’s too much money!

Oh, but you do want
me to look beautiful, darling –
don’t you? says Judy, with a smile

Yeah, sweetheart,
but half the price
would have done the trick!
says Punch, with a counter-smile


Epilogue**
Now, what do you think
happens after Punch’s punch line?
Do you think Judy makes
the literal and the metaphorical merge?
Are the stars Punch sees literal
or figurative, you think?