"backwaters" poems
"You're ******* your life away Bobby," screamed Auntie Abhaya in her native tongue. Malayalam has many nuances and maybe a better translation is, "lightning currents from your privates and blast River Ganga, streaming your soul away." Dravidian poetics go as such and Auntie Abhaya seemed to have quite dramatic flare. In any case, cousin Bobby was once again, drunk. Auntie Ay, as we lovingly referred to her, in her fearless way, was having nothing of it. Worse yet, seems Bobby had funded his ****** with rupees stolen from Auntie Chhaya's purse. A storm of tears she was, in the corner of the humble hut they all resided in, in Kerala.
Kerala's backwaters wash in from the Arabian Sea. Tropical delicacies abound; markets filled with fish, pineapple and coconut groves, and an array of spice that keep the main agricultural commerce of India most enticing to the rest of the world. Yet, life earnings are hard and for some hard habits easy to pick up. This was truest in Bobby's case, though he did try and try to make his family proud.
As I was only a guest in this loving but burdened home, and recognizing a family crisis at hand, I and my traveling partner put forth finances lost to ensure our safe return to Mumbai north in Maharashtra and not embarrass our host family any longer. Though we had touched a Garden of Eden, the lesson of banishment was still at hand.
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 9:13 AM UTC
Backwaters.
Violins and pipes
played together
abreast
of different rippling
waters;
Uileann throttling
forward
over hills and downs -
the hunt, chase, ****
or loss;
thrill of being,
spontaneous
in hilly jump,
stream, rock,
hedge, mountain,
mud and pebbled with soup,
partridge, pheasant,
trout and salmon
horizon.
Jul 21, 2010
Jul 21, 2010 at 10:41 PM UTC
Restless are the words inside my world
You put your hand in and swirled cloudy
my emotional backwaters of love
My hand must hold you by your shoulders
My body could not be any bolder
as I wrap my longing lust around your shoulders
I fearfully look into your eyes as you are fearfully looking back
We are fast approaching the point of no turning back
My hands flow over your body
Your hands are holding mine back
As all of our lips go on the attack
Your chest pressed up to mine
My hand on your behind
The seconds are flashing by
as you let out a loving sigh
I want you and you want me
Neither one will deny
But we separate holding hands and
Like two ships passing at sea
We wave to each other
Then we must be on our way
Feb 20, 2015
Feb 20, 2015 at 8:52 PM UTC
I'm standing at the seashore, the coastline calling. I've got rocks in my pockets and two lines left in the letter. I'm standing at the seashore, bench facing the Squat & Gobble, the tin weir and we're near the roadside. The sky opened wide, this skin drawn with threat, Rhinoceroses, bruise bending the sweet ships of victory backwards into the backwaters of mislead moonlight. Guitars playing, beeps disappearing, pianos sweeping, the hum of percolated coffee on smoke stained night club walls. I'm standing at the seashore, my mouth is a ghost, I've seen nothing but death, I'm name-dropping God and there's nobody there.
I'm sitting in my room with my hands on my keyboard, listening to Danish throb-rock. Riding horseback into candlelight on a wicked wedding of teary-eyed geysers and gazers. Bent by the rocking and the torment, the wild and the weird, the horror and everything horrifying. There is this shadow looking over my shoulder, I'm all alone but it feels like you're here.
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 3:42 AM UTC
Maybe water runs uphill
From the ocean's bursting treasures
Of salts, silts, sands
Marshalling at the estuaries
Spawning rivers, as pioneers
Oozing into coastal plains
A brackish caravan rolling
Inland to new-found-land
Beyond the rule and will
Of the tide's spill where
Drought and dry spells
Sweep like wraiths
******** on thieving winds
Throwing heartless dusty curses
Picking off stragglers
In slacks and backwaters
Or caravanned through known channels
Paying taxes to the thick-rooted soil
For passage upstream
Past thirsting leaf and bough
Every mile hard-won
Til the watershed haven
Of bog and lochan
Corralled safely among peaks
There to farm the cloud and mist
And to see blossom, in good years
A deep harvest
Of cold, clean snow
Mar 28, 2011
Mar 28, 2011 at 11:29 AM UTC
Rhetorically I wish the warm
Stoke rain
would wash away the grey gloom,
allotments included.
The greenfly and other impertinents unexempted.
Minor disruptions apart will bring out our stoicisn,
gushing from the backwaters
we feared we had become,
raking in a new terrain.
Jun 22, 2013
Jun 22, 2013 at 8:36 AM UTC
Along the palm fringed backwaters,
my lonely canoe, in frenzy moves,
I roam with a pain deep down in heart,
not knowing which flower I seek,
lo! and behold, there she is,
throwing me a water-lily smile,
the dark dainty one, diving for clams,
who has never spoken to me a word.
Gleaming with the sun beads, adorning her,
when she glides up through water, from the mud bed,
I sit here , my oar gone still, mind a calm pool,
drinking her smile with both my eyes.
I will go back to my dark nights
where wild dances are my only refuge,
**this smile you spilled, a panacea for my ills
never would I give up, take my word.**
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 30, 2012 at 11:04 PM UTC
In the backwaters, as waves lapped on a canoe violently rocking
we kissed; two eager lovers quickly turning in to winged creatures,
eyes shut, she crushed her malleable ******* against my chest,
we took this journey through the labyrinth of love leading to
the gallery of ****** artifacts, arranged in progression, in our minds.
Her lips swelled up and took mine so deftly in to their control,
and in some moment when our languid eyes opened unawares,
the kiss , a golden fish swished in to the water, gleefully swarm around,
the gathered backwater fish , viewed astonishingly this rare species.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 12:08 PM UTC
playing outside
in the frozen air
we didn't know
what we were
doing
didn't know
where we were
going
You grew so
beautiful
I beheld you
there
saw your face from a
far
You had forgotten
I was alive
just a wild poet
you had written off
a playmate, from your childhood days
as you
moved on your way
through your rich and seedy
days
your mind
your look
your talents
moved you through
to what you thought
you knew
you wanted.
We were both still
so free
I had fallen deep
into the blues
I spent far too much
time far too confused
while you walked
on water according
to the news.
You were playing Reno
on a cold winter's
night,
much later
at a backwaters bar
called "Night Times
Delight"
I walked in
you walked in
childhood grins
over Hendricks
gin
hands touched once
lips touched twice
we danced out there
on that
night
we were just
children there
playing outside
in the frozen
air,
Body heat
creating steam.
Maybe it was
just the gin
fingers touched
you went
your way
fingers touched
we went our ways
childhood answers
on a winter's day
It's hard every once
in a while not to
see your name
the only place I
come your way
is in your deepest
dreams of childhoods
refrain
laughing outside
in the frozen winds
two melting snow
angels are all
that remains.
For you I'll always
be there
For me I'll be
someone who cared
we'll be an aging memory
in this bond
across our time
in the ether
we'll play our lines
and in our dreams
it'll always be
and in our dreams
we will always see
a childhoods
winter sky
alive.
Jan 31, 2015
Jan 31, 2015 at 9:59 AM UTC
electric night,
an unreal moon-
shining like
pouring white wine,
making the air intoxicating;
in the canoe the girl and i
rowing along the calm backwaters.
water birds with snake like necks
mating noisly in water beds
make us curious,
we stopped the canoe,
near a moon lit creeper thatched grove.
the girl was wide eyed
and wild,
caught me by my waist
and said:
'you should have done this first'
( i was a silly idot,
moon struck, with only poetry in my bonnet)
we fell in to that rosy pit,
without an end,
and i got grounded, delighted
hearing her wild ecstatic outburst.
Jan 11, 2012
Jan 11, 2012 at 9:10 AM UTC
I am a cube in a dark chocolate bar
seasoned with a milky white
continent of courses
collision of cultures
chili and chill wind season
in overcoats of global ambitions.
Born in the barracks of colonial masters
who took their women from tribal backwaters
of empire. These beauties succeeded
in conquering their Masters
in the art of warfare in bed and beyond.
say what you will
I carry the cost of all completion
and show the combination of colours
on my skin
burnt in the sun of these wars and conquests
all six of us soldiers.
we took his language and her complete
abandonment to beauty grew in the night
of knowing the white ruled the rainbow
and hard liquor while the dark bred the boldness
or so. (Mama said)
we, as children of different cultures
in a potpourri of pertinence
got licked, kicked, bruised and burped
cooked and laid as chocolates always do.
But we grew in mamas wonder of the world
at large, while Dad knew all the blends of single malt
maidens from the highlands of his birth.
as happy children, aware of hard work and toil
we rose faster than the fumes of spirits
and set about travelling the shores of net profits
and university empires instead.
Mama laughed when we told her
of the worlds and wonders we had conquered
and how the colour of our skin spoke for us.
Dad knew all about peg measures
and pork chops, fork, spoon and gunpowder conquests
as hollow as his casks of wine
and maturing as slow as his wisdom.
Mama only knew the meaning of knowledge
with no degrees.
God bless them both
as they sit around a table
in that great place in the beyond
and discuss chocolate bars
skin and colourful wrapping
of all six cubes!
I am Anglo-Indian.
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, a month ago
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 8:43 PM UTC
*december 10th 1982
1am*
sleepless in the the neurotic wastelands
she has fifty two cards
each has a face none of them are mine
but the jack of hearts is there and with her childbearing hips
they could pump out a couple of rug rats
start their own little civilization
here on the backwaters
she gives me a ride to the edge of the glades
and drops me off at a truckstop in the rain
december 10th 1982 4:22am
the salt of the earth diner on route 1
with the waitress chewing gum at the counter
staring off into the distant light of highrise miami
a sheen of sweat glistens on her deep tan
but its not as sticky or deep as her mind
thats wandering out in the Catskill mountains
looking for Johnny Appleseed
december 15th 1988 10:00am
doves take flight in the
soft white afterglow of day
with a stir of wings
and her tender lips let slip
of her longing for innermost peace
her eyes seeing nothing but
the golden glow of some distant day
some half remembered day
the time i wait for
summers sweet song
has been far too long
this is a winter world
december 15th 1993 1:00pm
leaning over the balcony rail
she shouts her smiles down
to the regular faces on the rows road
petticoats of fine linen
and her hair up
shes a sea of smiles
as they all shuffle in to see the show
Broken Bernie and his girl Christa
who snowbunnys down to the neon Florida sun
round this time of year
december 13th 1996 6:00pm
desperado's gather in the setting sun
hunger in their eyes
between the rock and hard place
and with a hard eyed thought they
move into the town
she pours him a cup of coffee
and lays a hand softly upon his shoulder
urging him to stay and leave such things
to lesser men
but he knows he must rise to the call
to do less would be treason to his nature
to do less would betray everything he has stood for
today, now
the words waiting on lips as i stumble out of sleep
make little sense at least to the waking mind
but the world makes little sense when fully awake
so this dream fragment hardy seems out of place
wearing a stove pipe hat chewing on a whales tail
and chatting with Abe Lincoln
my guess would be he wanted his hat back
Jan 31, 2014
Jan 31, 2014 at 3:20 PM UTC
There is a dam inside my head
I'm waiting on a crack for the water to leak
Onto the surface it will seep
Spilling out my mind for the people to see
My life is a vision rated 6/10
We don't dream in colors like kids, we just pretend
I dreamed of a pied piper with a lust for bronze
Even though she can get both silver and gold
No time - so no setting sun
I'll keep on shining while i'm still young
No time - so no setting sun
Down in the valley of my head
I am a fish inside my head
Laying on the ground gasping for breath
You came about and saw me approaching death
You picked me up and tucked me in the river bed
New found life then entered my being
From that moment I swam upstream
I swam to the dam with the cracks running down
From the muddy backwaters I leaped out
The liquid from my mind drenched my skin
Turned me from a creature to a normal man
My personality is a lifestyle rated 9/10
I still dream of her every now and again
No time - so no setting sun
I'll keep on shining while i'm still young
No time - so no setting sun
Down in the valley of my head
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 9:33 PM UTC
Halloween at Camp LeJuene
So those storage tanks
the ads of late-night-- all talkin' about
some thirty-five years a-leaking like...
some aplastic benzene-apocryphal river
Horror!
tastes like chemo Kool Aide
forever in the mouth
washing over parade route
seeping into boots and wombs
of cadets who can't hear the music
over a child's laughter-- ever
over failing livers
lined up like lawyers marching
onto glyphosate green
to Parkinsonian cheers
to Taps-solos echoeimg off the stone-
of mind and memory
Flags!
Flapping-angry!
“No (wo)man left behind
on the multiple ways to myeloma
Miscarriages
of justice!
A silence waiting
an eternity
of tiny infant cries
emptying....
into Love Canal
There will be...
NO JUSTICE!
Only billions set aside
for funeral-ic devastation
“Significant compensation”
--being read in a woman's face
in a woman's voice
“...suffering from any of these....
after drinking the water at Camp Le Juene”
at the hands-down
heads-turned
greased palms of
silence
being owned
by military-corpporate
“channels”
of secrecy
...of Pharma-to-government
medical-backwaters
laundered to-governments
of banana republics
Mercenery chemicals
Medicine with missile launchers
strewn
among military over-runs of...
…of high power rifles,
night goggles, and F-15s
What am I missing here?
...about the rubbery clots and myocarditis?
Has it finally come round to us?
How could I not see!
not recall?
How many years ago--
since I could hear?
the rapid fire!
“The toxic Leaks!”
“...suffered from any of these...”
...feeding tube terrors
Time's tumors
downgrade to errors
deferred...
Now beside the grief as amputees
--take the field of parade
While Misplaced Rage
pages through abortions of blame
in the chemical caldron
where they **** shower, and shave
...then towel-dry their babies
or not....
Where are the rapid-fire rats and bats
when we need 'em?
Semper Fi!
Nov 29, 2022
Nov 29, 2022 at 10:12 PM UTC
As lazy days turn to night
wasted days steal your life
oddly it seems,we just can't see
the bountiful harvest
that waits for thee
We stumble and bumble
as weeks turn to years staring so blindly
as smiles turn to tears
tending the gardens intentions have made
while riding along in life's parade
The time passes faster
the older you grow
while perspective runs deeper
as experience's flow
the river of life
is long and winding
with rapids and backwaters
so keep your sight keen
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 7:08 PM UTC
what I want to know
what I’d really like to know
before I drop down dead
or crawl into amnesia or alzheimer’s
or whatever;
what I really want to know
(if I can remember it;
let me see if I can recall it,
refresh please….
try and retrieve it from the backwaters of my mind)
yes, what I really want to know
about all this talk about
bad people and all the bad things all the bad guys do
and all this talk about all these selfishness and greed
and all these Look at them! Look at these!
And all this: I don’t know what the world’s coming to!
and all this talk about the vices and bad habits
all the bad things other people do;
what I really want to know is
if everybody’s so good
(O you angels on earth;
O you goody-good brothers and sisters)
pointing to everyone else –
hey, you earthlings,
if everyone of you is so good
as you all appear in each conversation and post –
where are the evil guys
and all the bad guys
and all the bad things you point out,
where are they all coming from
if each one of you is so good?
that’s what I want to know
before I kick the bucket
that is
if I can remember or hear
what I’d wanted to know when the answer comes
Oct 8, 2010
Oct 8, 2010 at 2:12 AM UTC
I forget sometimes what people tell me to do or not do
Like right from wrong without a moral compass
One means no more then the other
What they tell me slips away into the backwaters of my memory
Where it drowns in all other memories forgotten
Until my mind overflows with all these forgotten things
And I too am lost in them
Without so much as a ripple
Vanishing below the surface of my own mind
Mar 5, 2012
Mar 5, 2012 at 9:41 PM UTC
She walks in the cool mountain air.
Her imagination cannot be concealed or reined in.
She hikes in dawns first light
And dusks last breath
But, even beauty has its limits
Life stabs her in places
Only hope really knows .
In the soft light of an
Early moon
From her swirling Smokey dream
an undertone
You can barely hear .
Into the backwaters of
spiritual rigor and solitude .
Vaguely off balance
Kissed with regret .
Slaying words
Like petals flayed
From the softest rose
Inert and harmless
She rolls over.
A Psalm of praise
To beauty .
But like fire made
of ice
It masks the arc
Of illusion and
Shields the proclamation
Of amnesty.
Of an equally enthralling
And dangerous Woman .
Mar 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018 at 1:49 PM UTC
I let myself be
Who I was meant to be.
Going round and round in the confusion
I meant to reach a conclusion.
I crossed the valleys and the rivers
I crossed the forests.
I found you in the backwaters
Of my mind.
Somewhere hidden, my happy place.
I needed my space.
I knew you would be somewhere nearby,
Between the crust and the sky.
Very much in my vicinity
But still very far from this city.
O Love, O Peace, be mine.
Let me be the person- I define.
Far from the battle of charades,
Away from the stagnant mirage
Come to me, I take a step to you.
Come find me, I beseech you.
Come to me O Love, O Peace of mind
I am waiting in the backwaters.
Feb 13, 2020
Feb 13, 2020 at 12:14 PM UTC
they say there's plenty of fish out there
but what they fail to mention
is how many fishermen
roam these waters
so oftentimes i'll go
to places that i seldom
seem to even get a single bite
but at least there's no competition around
Apr 22, 2017
Apr 22, 2017 at 2:19 AM UTC
The backwaters of the world flow upstream,
They try to find their worth and all of what it means.
You can only go so far on what's real or fantasy,
I've lived and seen the ire of ones ways.
Dropped on point confused and dazed,
This the time of triumph for ones returning place.
Can you no longer see without rage?
Is all blinding fury your only attribute?
At this point lossless and sadness continue.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 3:35 PM UTC
We drank for kicks and collected cocktail sticks for fun,
give me one good reason to stop and I'll give you five to four against.
We believed we were mainstream, but were just backwaters in a daydream and now I wonder why it began.
It wasn't my fault, but he slammed shut the door and pushed home the bolt and time goes so slow when there's nowhere to go because you've already been there before.
On the rock bottom when you find out how rotten the rich folk can be and you see life as an opera where the words are in Latin I begin to wonder who's batting for me.
In the future when this is past tense and makes some kind of sense, I might cry once again when I open my eyes once again to try one more time to feel something alive in me and not what has died in me.
It's never all or nothing, the area inbetween can also be as green as the other side, I think that's why I've tried so many times.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 7:48 PM UTC
I am dancing
in the night
my face turned upwards
arms reaching to sky
drawn like a magnet
to the stars
as they burn
into my skin
my eyes
are shining into yours
as I sway
across the floor….
These eyes are open
and seem to
penetrate the very dust
as my heart beats
desire
my solar plex,
lust
I sway to the rhythm
and can do so on my own
but tonight
when you join me
a strange magic unfolds
Primal beats
slowly take over
transform our
surroundings
turn our hearts over
as we feel echoes pounding
Your gaze speaks volumes
your lips…they
barely graze mine
It is just for us,
this hot private universe
and I must say,
for the record:
It is blowing my mind
So here,
in the intimate starry
backwaters of the soul
get lost with me
in our own tunnel vision
Hold me hard
and
release
inhibition
Mar 24, 2016
Mar 24, 2016 at 3:26 AM UTC