Another four legs and a tail fall prey.
The pink tablets are too believable.

The family does not contemplate.
They only eat and eat and eat: disemboweling.

They run along the white
Tubes, filled with grey straws

That spawns red, yellow and black.
But do not drink from them.

Their ears rise up like antennas
Picking up signals they worry to decipher.

They only run and run and run.
Hear those patters. Hear them chasing death down the stairs.

Their buckteeth carves through the pills,
Lulling them into dehydration. Death craves for thirst.

And when their stench bleeds itself across the room,
It ferments electronics and shuts noses.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

All that glitters never meant much to me,
Petals fall & fade, withering along with time like its temporary immortality,
Money joining suit in its temporary fervour, but never buying love as the Beatles crooned.

So let me tell you what does:

The look on your face when I've made you happy with a surprise or two;
The sound of your laughter reverberating through the air as I cowl in my witty silly remarks;
The mental connection that pleasantly astounds me with every thought-stealing line and mirrored gestures-humour-reaction-action;
How your words has awaken the inner dormant writer/poet and inspired to put my venomous quill to paper again;
How you make me feel beautiful, appreciated and respected, just the way I am;
Your empathy and understanding that chase the dark clouds away and silence my demons;
The way we make love with the glances we exchange in public like there's no one around;
The way we make love with our bodies, explorative archaeologists tracing each other's landscapes gently-sweetly-devilishly;
How you claim my arm across, intertwining with yours, caressing it as if it's a part of you;
When your palm holds my face lovingly while we exchange sweet kisses, nibbles and all;
Blowing soft breaths onto our goosebumpy skins, whispering how much we love each other;
Cheekily stealing smooches at traffic light stops which never seem to be long enough;
Resting your head on my sturdy shoulder as I cushion mine into yours, christening it with my lips,
As we serenade that BSB song transporting me back to 14 again.

And the realization pierces me through like truth always does:

That I would not trade any moment, any era, any wish, any desire
Than the one right now with you that has headily grasped me so:
A dizzying cocktail of drugs that is you.

Shalini Nayar
31.10.14
(c) 2014

A perfect man for me was never moulded by a box,
A box that screamed multitude of labels
To satiate the chaotic minds of society,
A belonging judged by feudality, no rhyme or reason required or questioned.

A perfect man for me was never measured by material things,
He gives abundantly by just being around,
An illuminating source of comfort on the other end listening,
Empathising and leaving a trail of laughter that makes me fall even deeper.

A perfect man for me was never masked crusader (okay, maybe Batman sometimes),
He is maskless for the world to bask in his genuity,
No bounds or limitations set on his acts of kindness and love,
Selfless and generous with his time, blind to any creed or pedigree.

A perfect man for me was never one to run away from problems,
Valiantly facing the raging bulls head on,
Inner strength personified by his poise and determination,
"I will get through this unscathed and no one will stop me".

A perfect man for me was never an owner of a cold crackled heart,
Headstrong, gallantly keeps the family together in a bind of unconditional love,
Lovingly adores his sunshine, making sure she knows she is loved with the same fervour,
Day in and day out, void of complains and pettiness, as the world turns.

A perfect man for me was never perfect,
Owning up to his flaws and shortcomings and being aware of mine,
A cycle that is never vicious but one that is laced with acceptance and non-judgments,
He inspires the best version of myself as he aspires to better himself.

A perfect man for me spells Y-O-U,
And the way that you are is exactly how I love Y-O-U.

Shalini Nayar
24.11.14
(C) 2014

These poems are always born colourful.
Pointy and symmetrical, they are life, crafted
Specially for schools that have no bell-rings
Or even recesses. How dull it must be.

They come in different morals: steaming ships
And inexperienced rafts, all trying to taste the
Same water at once. The ships do have an advantage
With big chimneys but it’s the rafts that are more careful.

And how kaleidoscopically they flaunt themselves!
Angels are always with their kin (how saintly), and tigers proudly
Race with their predation pride. The normal ones
Adapt normally, till the gold one comes oval-gaping for air.

It is almost operatic, the bullion fatly singing
A joyful soprano that spirals its corpulent body,
Indelibly marking its forte and making
Everyone else envious. The rest soon join in the orchestra.

Colloid-free, their airy world so thin and wet, the
Little air bubbles drop, drop, drop as clock-like as possible
To balloon and reign the surface. The water’s
Fully bloomed now. They are ready to breathe.

Doctor’s miracles, they are born with unblinking eyes.
Their skin flat and overlapped like thin slices of birdfeathers
And wide bloodless cuts run at each cheek. They defy
Physics with their aerodynamic bodies and a thousand striped hands.

Every nook and cranny of their house is carpentered accurately:
Mirror-rimmed and exact. Windows glued for viewing, flawless.
The tenants move about freely, occasionally pausing to wave
At the guests through the translucent eye pieces.

Untiringly they follow the irises that gawk at their gill-full skins.
The cameras icily smile flashes and these water-gods snap away
Like graceful thunders. Their scissor-tails dance from side to side, panicky,
With only three precious seconds added to their memory.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

Next time a man says
He prefers a homely girl,
I'd spit in his face.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

I know you’re not here.
In some lush faraway land
There, you await me.

Shalini Nayar
© 2004

I have gone through the
Holy Grail of total pain.
Nothing can hurt me.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

This is me, pouring.
I know what/where it is now.
I must be patient.

Shalini Nayar
© 2004

Would you believe it
I am finally at peace
With my insane thoughts.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

the marbled kitchen floor
now inherited shapeless
broken pieces
of plates

she sees him walking away
after his cantankerous
plate throwing spree
showing no hints
of an apology
or remorse

she ponders about what kind of
metamorphosis has belied
her once
considerate
hopelessly romantic
debonair
non-alcoholic husband
she once thought she knew
she once thought she loved

she continues to do the dishes
now washing slightly chipped glasses
and looks at the empty plate rack
and thinks
I shall buy new ones tomorrow

Shalini Nayar
© 2001

It’s funny.
I never knew the kind of power I had until
Other people recognized it first.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

The apple’s shot through,
Wormy and brown but it is her lunch.

Through her hood, she sees the buzzing market.
She is condoned as always, the ***** brown

That harbours near the fruit man, like an unwanted
Sofa, lumpy and ******. Only her grandma-fingers palm through.

Her mane of rags render translucent pebbles of benevolence:
A rare cinematic view of the world, her weary eyes absorbs every colour.

It is gentle and kind these holes: a myopic happiness
That triggers this lady to jump about, and holler and

Holler until the random clanks in her stainless steel
Plate drum up impressive beats. It is encouraging to her,

This sympathetic validation. Though she knows
false hopes don’t hold up too long. It is her sunrise,

The kind of thing we often take for granted.
She cradles the apple (the raggedy couple symbiotic in nature),

Smoothing out its ciders. It is her afternoon’s asset,
Tasting as foreign as mother’s milk.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

It is time for me to shed tears now,
Those fragile dews that hate to mirror anything;
So afraid it'll come out misjudged.

There is beauty somewhere in this:
My tears and sighs that fall hard, protected by your
Own brand of freebie umbrellas.

Unguarded, you tried to flee from this misery that diluted us.
But haven't you learned, love, that there's no use in running away?
It'll catch up with you like a manic breeze.

I knew long before, that this crossing was laid out
For you and me. Those white flecks don't mean anything;
It is how we cross that matters.

It has become morose now, this road. Too wet and unhealthy
For both of us to roll on. But I see the possibility
That lay ahead, that mild flicker of hope under those shared umbrellas.

That frailty that subdues our world,
It's only a vicious mind-game the weather plays.
Look how the clouds blacken and groan, the acid drops coming to reign.

Shalini Nayar
(c) 2002

The wild current flows, stopping for no one,
As I reach out to grasp what was left:
A hint, a memory waving by like deja vu,
Random access memories;
Perhaps I've imagined it all.

Here I am grappling again,
With that titanium door bolted shut,
Safeguarding anything that tries to trespass it;
One word, a grunt, a slight nod, casual shrug
       Indifferent smiles
As you flow over rough and rocky terrains,
Boulders sharpening your edges,
A gaze here and a whimper there,
Your mind jostled, warranting rhymes,
As my heart gets trampled by the one you love.

Lucid dreams morphs into lucid visions,
I try to see what you see through the eyes you possess in the islands of your heartbeats and the crimson nerves coursing through your veins,
Alas the curtains come billowing down shut, "Nothing to see here, go on back home folks" and the circus ends for the night---
           Not till a stubborn tug in the depth of my soul says it deserves
           A slight hope that one day you would weave me unconditionally in your reflections,
           To navigate the mountains together---
But for now, the ringmaster declares the show's over.

My weary heart has seen it all, heard it all, always sleeping with one eye pry open,
The other eye shut in prayer this wouldn't be the norm,
As I hold on tightly to the current, wildly rushing through the fabric of time,
Leaving no traces of faces behind but a faint tapestry of a memory
By the lake, held tight,
Supported by wiry artistry,
Calm on the surface but paddling nervously underneath like those waddling ducks,
Your lips and eyes melting into mine,
Asking me to be yours.

19.2.15
Shalini Nayar
(C) 2015

They fall inconspicuously, these fleeting memories,
Racing against one another piercing the electric air,
Reaching the earth only to marry each other like a perfect jigsaw,
As they meander through the burgeoning of their beating hearts.

Where do beating hearts reside but in our guarded rib cages?
Vibrations tremble through them as our minds recall past ages,
A twinkle in their eyes, indicators of a point in time,
Where their memories converge and haughty hearts beat furiously.

It never came easy this journey, the path once strewn with things they wish they can take back,
Now strewn with things they never want to let go,
Found in one another as though they've always been there to be discovered
By the one that braves a thousand thunders as they clap through the cardiac waves, beating as one;

Fluidly shifting through dreams of despair and profoundly yearning for hope,
Embracing many potential endings ravenously, onto resilience,
Having eternally reached memories, infesting them
Planting new seeds of faith, erasing all that is dark and cold, but maintaining an authority of importance.

~Shalini Nayar & Vijaya Balan
5.11.14
(c) 2014

"Not too long to go now," your bones squeak,
Your feet has seen things, your eyes have travelled far and wide
The promise of a new land
That peeks through the stony shreds
The quiet murmur of freedom the masses dream of,
For justice to finally matter.

And oh, how the heavens creaked open
Illuminating its light on all that is holy
'This land is rightfully ours and it shall be with the rightful owner' you demanded ever so gently,
People of the land marching in solidarity on the barren sand cheering,
"We're with you bapaji, never give up!",
And the foot trails you leave behind unshackle history and make new ones
That will be whispered in centuries from now.

The road forks ahead, ever more complicated and rusty,
But you trudge on to not break those hearts
That have taken upon themselves to beat against yours,
Your walking stick stabs the earth as you inch towards the promise behind those walls.

Not too long to go now.

31.3.15
(C) 2015 Shalini Nayar

It is a Russian dish, they say.
A plate of two diecious moons
Rising on different waters.
They reflected a common bond:
The mushroom sauce that
Goes with anything unmushroomy.

One side was a pile of rice,
Yellow fleshy seedlings, brown
Chunky gravy for headtops.
They mountained over like uneven Alps.
They kissed the air, like good army boys
And rose their spice to dance firely

Within me. They spoke a foreign tongue,
That deciphered itself in my mouth.
The credibility lies somewhere my love, but try
Finding a speck of truth in a death full of lies.
It was painful to hear its story,
The way it winces and rolls over to convince you.

Being genuine is something special, sacred.
It can’t be too hard. Just when my fork
Scooped up a bite, the lambs started hooing.
They were in juicy threes, each with
A bone and a bit of marinated flesh.
They smelled like grazed greenlands.

It is something else with mint sauce
But I hate it. Truthness lies somewhere
In the nervous system of its body,
That is bloodless and tender. They too, attempted
To lull me with an anecdote, fallibly in its juices.
The grain and meat are proud godfood
      with histories tailing like dreams.

Whom should I consume and believe? They
Withered and tempted me like a candystore does
To bored children. It is too agonizing, I’ve become
The middle woman. Two moons, jaundiced and stony
Stared back boney, and sick. The overcrowded trash
Had acquainted two odd friends that night.

Shalini Nayar
(c) 2002

From all tiled corners they eye me.
They are still, very still with ceramic poses
And values. I round them and gaze

At the jaundiced and sea-coloured beings.
Their silky clothes and gold ornaments
Shawl them rich, like an afterbath of milk.

These godfolk are a myriad: elephant-headed,
Lotus-chaired and the crescent-haired one that
Stands bluely with a coiled cobra necking him.

They annihilate me with their icy stares.
They almost know the refusal
Of my belief system.

A ring of fire-dews burns in front of me,
I bless myself. a little vermillion eye finds itself
Deathly in between my brows.

The bell is being whipped in fatal threes.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

I'm forced to reckon
With the very things I hate.
I climb out my shell.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

The snake is hissing.
Its diamond eyes cast a sin.
Suffering begins.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

All world’s a stage, men
And women are mere players.
Shakespeare told me so.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

The night is full.
It is simply in its element.
The clouds invade the dark universe,
Curtaining the stars and their moony mother.

Down here the cars don’t **** by much.
The roads are perfected,
Down to bits of fresh-hot tar rocks
And Chinese-lanternesque streetlights.

Houses yawn and drag logs of dreams
Into them. The patrons need it (it’s its excuse)
After a long hard day.
Everything else creaks and blooms. It is dreamy.

This dark hour asks nothing more than creation
Of something. Something eternal that rings us
In this golden circle of mathematics,
Complex and unintelligible.

It is child-like, this algebraic world.
It is simply in its element.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

The meat stinks of sticky blood.
Ants fear the red flood, they flee;
Abandoning their mountainous
Playground-cones.

The gazelle stares, shooting blanks after blanks
Blindly and stupidly.
Its stained teeth grins and screams
But it is voiceless like the desert itself.

Lazily, a lion paws the earth.
His mane bloom a hairy sun,
Illuminates the scarce ground to bits of gold.
He sniffs, and turns away yawning.

He is used to this plate death serves him.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

I would flutter around the wind,
Twisting my soul in all its directions,
Falling in and out like I do with love,
Hating, swallowing every single spit.

Shalini Nayar
© 2004

Sepia thoughts fade to black in my mind.
The hope I held on to lies withering,
Rendering staccatos of asthmatic breathing
Like the dying lion of Lucern,
Shedding one dew of tear that takes
A million years to wet the universe.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

“How do you want it?” the hairdresser asked.
“Bald.” I quipped.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

I remember the red flag symbolizing the sun,
With white and black horses running through
The meadow, their hooves destroying everything in sight.

The mist seeping into our blood,
Tingling us both.
It was the duet of our blossoming romance.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

The vein bleeds into routes on the flower,
Spreading rivers of nodules and colours,
Fastidiously opening up its body
To receive the ravenous bumblebee.

It is the beginning of a friend ship, a love
Consummated wholly with carnal desire
And mutually symbiotic congress.
The bee drinks up the nectar like its last supper.

This connection doesn’t demand anything.
They give and receive, void of expectations and desire.
The animal and the flower exist in their au naturale state
Long after the romance of spring **** them by.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

Duryodhana throws a fit in the back,
Making war tactics that Karnan already knows.
Arjun and his charioteers await at the battlefield
While Krishna looks at the horizon, laughing.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

He sits in angle that is just perfect for me.
When I first see him, he rises his head to hear his friend speak.
I think he’s bored. Or engrossed.
It’s hard to tell when his specs don’t reflect back any clues.

It was the way he was in control of the situation.
Calm, disciplined and confident.
It was in the way he ate, it was the way he drank his coffee
And his eyes met mine.

What do you do next
What can you make out of this situation that’s beginning to bloom
How do you contain a beating heart that says
JUST KEEP LOOOOOOOKING…

He bows his head as if searching for the right moment to prey
When I wait and wait and wait and wait
And he looks up
And this time, there’s a slight smile dimpled on his lips.

I’ve got a feeling we both already know what each of us don’t really know for sure yet.

Shalini Nayar
© 2006

The man of my dreams
Regally feasts, then coffee.
Come here, marry me.

Shalini Nayar
© 2006

The moon cracks and blooms.
Its grey nowhere to be seen,
It shawls itself with a bleak cloud.

The floating pearl biscuit
Busily dictates orions and dippers.
One travels, and people start wishing.

They are hopeless: the people and their pretentious wishes.

The jackfruit tree bears only death: dead leaves, thorned fruits.

Under the nocturnal skies,
It is the great witch.
Silent and black. It is voiceless.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

Hear them rush through, the magic splinter of it
Cutting through the stars, clouds,
The roars of the leaves rustling.
It has been too long.
I don’t wait for you anymore.

Round, my love, the ring, the globe,
This whirlwind of things we remember of each other.
Round and perfect, it never ends.

What more do you want –
The bones, or the memories,
Piled up together in that hut,
Husk brown and wild,
Smelling like some wild beast bleeding to death.

The promises, the promises.
How I believed the words.
Exiting off your mouth like gold watches
Gleaming with fake glamour.
Lies, lies, who would thought I had it coming.

Mud-thick, they plop to make a scene.
This one, that one.
They’re all the same.

Your legacy is torn, just as you decided
To do away with me.
Taking her, the sister-*****,
Who held your heart before I began to.
Overshadowing the very being that drew
You away from me.

No remorse, love, no,
That’s not the right way to live.
This cycle, this viciousness,
Proud and naked like the night sky.
All round and fat.
They never end.

Shalini Nayar
© 2004

Do you think it affects me? It doesn’t.
Its spindle tail hisses me a warning,
Stay away before you poison her.

If the cave we dwell in forms quietness,
Despondency, ego…who do we have to turn to?
Who would save the last remnants of abiding love?

These are not trivial things or questionable matters.
And yet the ties are inexplicably shred torn apart
By asking Who are you? and What do you want?.

If it goes on this way, I don’t want any part of this.
You can’t touch our souls and destinies. They are forever
Bounded by our fathers’ blood.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

The ground stinks where you have slithered.
The saliva gum ooze suffocate the sand pores

Till they bubble up boiling like grand stew.
The shiny scales reflect back its annihilation,

Its menace to the things that it once used to own,
Once used to love.

Once bitten twice shy, they say.

Shalini Nayar
© 2005

Today I’m happy.
No fretting nor despondent
Just plain positive.

Shalini Nayar
© 2004

This aloneness has no morals in mind:
Only white emptiness and the black of it
Fall like hexagonal snowflakes with deer-horn edges,
Piling, tumbling till they fuse water. They purify me.

Love never made much sense to me anyway.
The mystic it is made of: the stellar parallax of it
Tempts me, a loveless woman, to its orbits of unknown.
Queuing kisses exit and de-exit from it like civilized people.

The moon is pregnant and partner-rich tonight:

Its stars of many flashes sing and dance
Thundering sky-melody comets,
As the world slowly turns.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

These words may not do justice,
But it's all I've always had,
Now they bear meanings only you and I know.
And I knew that when we ventured far and wide
Through the Roman fields and back,
Exchanging banter and doses of sarcasm,
That you were a special one.
I knew that wasn't the last time I was going to bask
In your radiant smile and that mischievious twinkle in your eye,
As the Universe conspired this connection
To unravel at the perfect time.

Shalini Nayar
(C) 2014 (13.10.14)

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

Where was I in this equation before?
Where were you?
What is it about that fear that sometimes paralyzes our thoughts,
Wanting everything but fearing losing everything,
Like the python's venom racing against time to end time?

Shalini Nayar
1.10.14
(C) 2014

while waiting,
a brown ***** stares.
unshawled, it barks.

the seat next to me remains seatless.

the tinted glasses slide without a sound,
painting a portrait of a lonely girl.
heart sunk, eyes preying on sleep.

Sylvia comes tip-toeing, and sits next to me,
spewing verses like a venom-spouting python,
encrusting and refusing to let go.

i see the tinted glasses reflecting back amnesias.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

This is a special typhoon of sorts.
It revolves and turns;
A windy conch-shell blowing in a
Random, disorderly manner.

The patrons that travel in them
Are enviable. Unclothed and unashamed,
They are useless to be reminded.
They remain oblivious throughout this

Journey, that demands so little out of them.
They get a whole world of ***** love in return.
Yes, it is love, the sick purity of it
Makes them feverish. It’s like being

In the middle of a tornado of
Hot-coal, with no control of the temperature.
It is quite a traffic in there, with hordes of
Turned-on traffic looming together

With the cheekiness of rotations.
Clockwise, counter-clockwise,
Either way, they look comfortable being
In their own skin.

This twister are more like telephone cords.
Not so black, but with the same
Terrible, manic curls, each concocting
Its own love story. The lovers are wind-bathed

And pampered. The flawlessness that resides
In their hair, faces, bodies! They are so white,
They’re almost perfect. It is so pure, so magical
In there, it is heaven!

If only the wind lasts forever
In this eternal sea of people,
The world would start
To utter more sense.

Shalini Nayar
© 2002

These layers are inconspicuously
woven together with regret and some great loss
that has arched a cave in the sinew of your heart
beating anxiously, to not let the stalagmites stab
as they drip with every memory.

What was it about the electrical storm that mattered the most....
Was it the arrow through the heart?
Was it the bubbling of innate care?
Was it the act of sharing?
Was it the brewing of love?
Was it the sudden slip of all of those things through the cracks of your fingers,
like sand grains returning to where they belonged?

Do you think it's achievable again
This great cardiac wave that runs through your soul
enveloping the other person with nothing but unconditional love
or do they long to belong to the earth
where they never break and love flows like a wild current, stopping for no one?

Shalini Nayar
© 2014

I think all of the
Stuff I write are just plain ****.
I hate what I write.

Shalini Nayar
© 2004

Death cringes at the doorstep, saying,
“We’ve come to the wrong house.”

Shalini Nayar
© 2005