I came along to your garden, to see your chillies growing
Unaware of what laid in wait, or what was really showing
There stood a glass a lidded drink, familiarity of knowing
If that's what I think it is, I don't want it overflowing

Do my eyes forsake me, is that a fluid from the body
Is that froth of a good beer, or from a head that's shoddy
Does it look like what it is, a very dodgy toddy!
Ghoulish drinks will turn you green, like Goblins are in Noddy

What the hell you thinking off, with water that's distilled
It smells like the local gents, so it should not be spilled
I don't mind a special brew, but this time I'm not thrilled
Unusual cocktails are okay, but not ones you have filled

Aren't beverages supposed to be, refreshing and thirst quenching ?
You say that it's good to drink, but really it's gut wrenching
An endless supply you may have, but it should be toilet drenching
Don't ever make a wankers drink, by using a fist clenching

You wouldn't want this drink on tap, it defies imagination
It's just the same as a lady, drinking her own *******
It maybe the water of life, but it's just urination
Aqua vitae is not my idea, of a real drink designation

Even just the thought of it, makes me feel sick and hazy
To drink a glass of this stuff, you must be ******* crazy
Well talk about recycling, or are you just bog lazy
Is Harvey Denton related, or do you live in Royston Vasey

People like to drink sometimes, is there something I have missed
You seem to have your own ideas, but with a certain twist
A brand new meaning you have brought, to getting yourself ******
Golden showers are one thing, but that's when your sexually kissed

There's one thing I'd like to know, so what do you say
Why do you think that drinking ****, will keep the germs away
It cant be very good for you, it's an inside body spray
Your just drinking toilet water, hay Jay are you ****** today ?

Mrs Sharma is looking busy
Walking back from her yoga class
In Her right hand a bag full of potatoes
In her left hand, 2 kilos of onions
Its a freaking hot day in Delhi,
She stopped a taxi and hurried home
Aloo paratha her family's menu for today.

At home she went straight to her kitchen
Peeled and boiled the Potatoes
finely chopped Onion, coriander, ginger and chillies
Now where is the garam masala?
Here you are Mrs Sharma,
Salt Red Chili powder, Garam masala and some butter
Aloo Paratha with lots of butter,YUM YUM
Lunching at Sharma's home is Splendid
better than Mahesh Lunch Home in Juhu, Andheri.

Let's get started says Mrs Sharma
Let's make the dough
Make two chapati
add the filling to one chapati
and cover it with the second one.
Now Mrs Sharma rolls it slightly and heats it in the oven...

Let's ask Mrs Sharma,
Is food the elixir of life?
Yes very much she said
She feels like she is living for it.
As she spreads butter over the paratha
She says her mantra twice,
Eat healthy but don’t over eat.

She serves aloo paratha hot to her smiling kids
adds yoghurt to Mr Sharma's plate
she is so proud when she says to her family
Eat in moderation and eat healthy..
Smile and let's eat Aloo paratha Mrs Sharma's way...

hereunder is served some poetry pouches full of love,
dear reader, stir them as you like,
if you wish you may crack them to pour into mouth,
you may smear them on your body
or you may sprinkle them on the ground
and then chant the name of god
with love and enjoyment

1.
the simplicity that rolls down
from the body of the sweet-meat
made by my mother

let it brings light
to our radish-red love-story

to hear or to notice
love
does not need
putting an ear on the wall
of the wall-street journal

the bottle could be filled
from the voice

when you go to fill the bottle
you would see that everywhere
the arrangement of picnic is ready

when i want to take part in that feast
my neighbours would drive me towards
the home  

although i’ve spent all my life
running behind the love

2.
who’s won the muddy-battle
was yesterday’s politics

my addiction is actually to cater
the pouch of love
to develop all vitamins
and all bathrooms

people say you don’t love
the claps of the rats

yet i’ll come down
from the branch of a guava-tree
as a wave-of-shopping-mall
to the lake of your love

now i’ll jump out
from this computer screen
to register a kiss
on your lips

don't miss to applaud
by clapping the hands


3.
the heart is half-sunk
in the window

to some extent
in the lipstick too

on the dinner-plate
there is the feelings of the lord

that means
i’ve to be burnt more
i do agree

i would become
the sculpture of khajuraho

this happenings may have been
the right search for love

on either-side of which  
a green is being worked out
by the nostalgic-cycle

whose colour-texture is very much harappa
which has too many geometric-memories

4.
an undertone is speaking
from within the solitude

now i’m in very much
distress

or i’m in love

i don’t know my love is what-for
may be that’s an arrangement only

so easily are those interactions
stitched with words

strenuous or effortless
in flight
initiated
with seclusion

but when in the sinking of the playfulness
i  write the games of the street-charmers


the birds again and again
pierce the archery

thus becoming ashes
through travelling

in time-gaps still
the audacity to compose poems
on you

5.
is it true love
or i do take it granted
that i’m in love

or i do love to think
that i’m loving

and there is
neither any welcome address
nor any opening song
in my love

my experience with heat of fire
and with burning pain
in the flames of water
is nothing less

6.
in course of burning
i look around

the chilly-plant  in the tob
planted in my won-hand
producing green-chillies

oh-** how sweet they are

it is no chilled-body
that has earned
my life or death

no remarkable mark
is endorsed
on the lotus-leaf

now easily some words
can be written
on you

i don’t know whether
those would be at all
some lines of a poem


7
someone falls in loves
someone makes love
love comes to some another

there is the far-off
whispering

at first she constructs me
then destroys rightly

i notice her
for the first time in six weeks  

the love
that writes
in the footnote of the tennis-ball
a desperate struggle for existence

within our skull
there is the love

or the midnight of the orion

the little squirrel asked now
are you in your seventies
or eighties

those houses with the coating of
the sky the air the light-and-shade
provide me with the presentation of
a wig and
a set of artificial teeth
8.
the love
that touches the hand
in drizzling

the love
that gets lost in the brandishing
grasses

would they want to inform
that the flowers don’t have any skyscraper

in the layers of the flesh and blood
of the detergents
as if  a whole human civilisation has been suffering
from suppressed pain

within it with the dry spell of
anger and cough
the time

had there been no feeding from the love
does the human civilisation stagger

9.
do you think those words
or it’s myself

whatever may you say now
i’ll travel within a great death
to die

rather after my demise i may tell
i’ve informed everyone …look

beneath the large evergreen flower tree
the game of light and shadow continues

beside those simple households
besides a high-head mobile-tower
what else would you like to be

is it a bath in the ganga-river is it a leaf
of the water-lily or it’s a king-cobra  
tell me

i would now make love
with that idea from you

10.
the  apparent golden *** that i thought
to be the underneath of a kadam-tree

in the dim light i can notice that
the stars in the sky are disappearing  

this session of poetry
is coming to an end

now where would i
go

to that little home

the home
a tiny word of 4 letters

within that home
the children are giggling
playing … and making funs

when i entered
with a tri-cycle in hand
for them

i have been perplexed
many old persons are waiting there
to shake hands with me

10.
almost most of my desires  
are very much hurt

to show it publicly
i wrap bandages
around all over my body

i keep on the stage-drama  

in our programme of reading poetry
tea is served twice
current has gone off for three times
for four times the mobiles ring

to pick up love  
some people think about returning back
from today’s dais to the ancient stage
of performing folk-drama

then they are also sympathetic
to my sufferings

12.
everyday
on my way to return home from the school
when my mom took hold of my hands

i could see in my body
the dancing of an unforgettable
aura

even now that mystical halo is walking
on the leaves of the trees
to fulfil my mornings

that wayfaring along the road
is ringing far and far-off

thus taking bath in every day’s  
dust smoke hue and cry

many such love
gradually gets aged

is it true
in the long run
i too
would be the ingredient
of a fairy-tale

just because i love
that paddy field

some time later
she will also become
human

13.
then she will make all of us  
join her walking

those inmost feeling
those memories meditations

the loneliness  and solitude…

sans the touch of the imagination of
a crater…
a creator…

this blunder…
this socially outcast white …

this type of uneven…
and irrelevance…

sume words
when peep in the mind
i surprise to see that
it’s ten to 2 at night

then in the balcony
my father is crying

he always notices some grave-yard men
in front of him

and sheds tears  

14.
after the dry leaves of the winter
fall in innumerable drops
the spring comes

the cover-face of spring means
a note-book of the rain-tree
letting float in the sun-water

and mr harry says that
this question of change
is a major pull

because all the unreal talks
you are delivering one by one

to keep pace with it
the ambulance comes at 10am
with a stale dead-body

in it’s shirt
is written the spelling of myself

i then sat on the grey volume
of the college-campus

in the front
a beggar from the war of waterloo
is passing by

over the dust of myself
with a faster pace
blowing is the thoughts of

ataraxia  
in the air… and air… and air…
    

15.

if your wishes colour silver
then do return back to the x-mass dancing
of the autumn

sound of whose far-off hoof-steps
digging so much soil of
story-weeds

i went into the nail-polish
with the proof of tea-cup
in my hand

there in the midst of lot of snow-flakes
and in the bed soft with the light of the candle
is now that honey-name more tarnished

now the atomic-howling
does not follow the rules of nature

so the rain-tree that seeks a-field-more-sky
with the hope to become king after the sun-rise

so that king is now waiting
in the grocer’s shop
at a stretch  for an hour

16.
does her well-wisher esse then thinks
to escape from the love-making whirl-wind

on the dry branches of the axis power
the new generation of the birds

rather stop a while there silently and listen
which song is hidden in the bronze-buddha

or in the school of the terracotta-horse

i’m now opening the coating
of the night-enamel to read this home

and behind the coo of dove
is smiling

the god of the penalty-kick

17.
sitting on an orange-coloured balcony
in an outsider lane
the green is writing poems
  
better than the face-powder

from this side all long the famine
i’m the priest of the
agro-based civilisation

still-then i think
why so much light of partiality
is on the body of the chrysanthemum

within the monsoon
in collusion with the  hair-band
now thousands of birds are born  

they can hear my
dry straws and twigs

whose hearing is the police
in so depth of the forest

don’t move the
dreadful resorts

one such photograph of the girls
who wakes up in the midnight

speechless…
unmindful …
destruction…

that is you now

i’m then in the spore
of the perfume-bounded body
of match-making

18.

who has lied in the box
made up of the temperature
of god

all on a sudden
there is a hue and cry
in the abdomen of the time
wearing a ***** pajama

actually that has been filtered up
from the voices of rock-songs

the roaming
of a fatigued traveller …

the lies
within their wishes
write my existence

and then run
to buy vegetables
from the station-market

so many lay-offs
come to the body of paper-weight

to listen to all those
is not improper

walking through the traffic-jam
gradually
this home becomes solely my home

one day the golden of
human

then it is i
who is you

and walking through the
monsoon

on either side of the field
it is all autumn

19.
when borrowing the religion of
the night-queen  
i fall in love

then is it real
that our mangos and jack-fruits  
can make the perfumed-soap
vigorously from the light of the
blood-line

i count the bells of the churches
ringing repeatedly

and piercing the image
of your prominent face

rounding through lots of old
the love becomes exhausted

and the love comes back
in the form of college-classes

there are you myself
and so many notes
of the body

Not eating chocolate covered cherries and strawberries and lychees and onions and chillies and grapes and marshmallows and turtle meat and cake and shark bones and oysters and camel and beef and beef with dog food and rabbit fur and smarties and skittles and twine and rope and yak and buses and buffalo and authors and novels and chipping containers and bicylces and emus and penguins and polar bear slippers and darned socks and stewed lobster and Darwin Deez and get well cards and ibuprofen tablets is fine with me.

Step into to her world, a world where she lives -
Of colors a plenty and flavors many,
A flick of a hand, in measures she gives,
Spices that tantalize, worth every penny.
Red chillies an ounce, turmeric a pound,
Spices scarlet, earthy, exotic,
Peppercorns, cardamoms, whole or ground
Brown bay leaves, cinnamon, aromatic.
Wonders for the body that soothe and heal,
Nurturing from nature, a stoic promise,
From the choicest gardens, as senses reel,
Fragrance of flavors in sensual bliss.

Within her world, another world entices...
Her voice in sweet whispers has tales to tell,
Magic in dark eyes, the mistress of spices,
With a flick of her hand she'll cast her spell.

( inspired by the title of the book with the same name. )

I just tasted a memory. BANG . slapped me on the tongue like a freight train out of a rip in space and time,

of garlic and peppercorn chicken with jasmine rice , a clear broth and fresh cucumbers, a wedge of lime and chrysanthemum tea.

oh .. my mouth  , how could you spring this on me .. when i'm so far from the motherland...

then they come thick and fast -

thai iced tea , thai iced coco , thai iced coffee , thai lime soda ..

papaya salad with sticky rice , Mango and coconut sticky rice , Roti with condensed milk and banana , coconut ice cream in a white bread bun with coconut sticky rice and peanuts, fresh fruits of rambutan and mangosteen for 30 baht a kilo......oh.....oh...who could forget the fried flat noodles , or the fried pastry's called explosion *****..... oh... oh my

heart..... my heart...... my stomach... calls out to you , oh glorious green curry with roti , morning congee with little pork ***** and soy sauce..... come to me my dumpling and noodles let me lick the chillies and sugar off my lips , may i taste once more

the conception of such marvelous treats , unfathomable to the western palate , little sweet corn and flour discs cooked on a special cooker over a real fire...dried squid sold on the back of a bicycle , fried garlic with sticky rice , a pink soup !

I just had a taste memory
****.

some people
are like dried red chillies -
dangerous looking.
when in hot oil
they jump, splutter,
threaten and make a lot of noise
but then
you realize
that their heat is impotent
as the seeds inside
are quite dead

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
   30.01.2013
   Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

The faceless young woman
Who lives in my house
Is rare as a spirit to see.
She hides inside mirrors
And chillies the room,
But it hasn't been bothering me.

Although she's not social
And odd to the eye,
She often has some kind of glow.
And one time over tea
She spoke slowly of
The time that she spent down below.

She had lived through the plague
And the crusades and more
But died one black day of a noose.
For the people, she said,
Back then and e'er since
Found women with voices obtuse.

Sweet lips encrusted in sugar from the hot doughnuts at the steam fair.
Baked in the dusty sunshine of an August afternoon in North London.
I would roam these streets from childhood into adulthood,
Drinking £2,50 wine at bus stops only to get thrown out of the pub for illusionary bathroom shots
Our real crime? Being too young.

Since then, i have drunk Spanish manzanilla in an old tobacco store room
Transformed into a house where wafts of old book smell mingling with the scent of baked terra cotta and lemon trees sweeps down dark corridors revealing hidden gems of traveled souls.
Where there are streets that belong to Phoenician women , Arab traders , Christian crusaders and now the Spanish folk
All these names we go by , yet still human we stand

Up on roof tops, smoking sneaky roll ups to the elegance of storks
Building nests on church domes and castle walls
Monuments to remind the future
Graffiti on the natural landscape , the ruins read " we waz ere"

From shores of the Atlantic to shores of the Atlantic
Brooklyn rises
The night bus to eat pizza alarmed me
How were the buses so different ?
London's told you where you were
New York's Made you suss it out for yourself
In the company of a Father i hardly knew and the Mother of my new sibling
Child ,
Who will you become ?
Shaped by the contrast of your parents skin , your curled hair yet to emerge from fresh formed follicles
Rest easy ,
This world Ain't so harsh

I found God at the bottom of a bowl of noodles
Simply sitting there , lazing about as i licked my lips of the residual chillies and sugar
I deal in the order of paradoxes
Born by the sea only to grow up in the 'so called' luxury of the cities jungle
Although, resting now in the moon soaked mountain air ,
no city can compare, to the fragrance of flowers that bloom and scent only for those who brave the night

I used to be afraid of the dark ,
Now i make love with it.

Some one should get some chillies up these saps
they need some sense burned into these soggy brain
some steel in foamy bodies
some lead where it matters
it may blow some heat into these drips and wets
so maturity and reality could flare up
and perhaps they may know what adulthood means

Some one should get some chillies up these saps
all these floopsie woopsie materialization and silliness
no realness, no essence, no passion, no steam, no chutzpah
drop the chips and fries, get some chillies and not the milds
eat daily and watch fire light up in you, your brains come alive
all the slimy hogwash cobwebs singed and fired off
women won't have to beg for attention in beds and idle tools will up
take heed and go get some chillies and learn passion and sense

at my age, still like in my prime and a martini
anytime, anywhere, ready to go and not just once and over
brain as sharp as a golden button, have to down the fire that burns
a stallion  with fire, a scholar with wit, a sage in tune within and out
Years of fine chillies, no alcohol except rarely, skin aglow like youth
fire and passion simmer in calm grace, the inner strength of love
a men of all seasons cause of the seasoning of pure chillies..
not gangling buffoons, with no heat in hearts bodies and souls
and  wilting little sausages they compensate for, in bullying stupidity.

Life is like a recipe
Each one lives it
With a different taste
Some might be too hot
Like green chillies
Some might be too sweet
Like gulab jamoons
Some might be too red
Like Kashmiri chilli
Some might be too sour
Like tamarind
Some might be hot n sweet
Like hot tomato ketchup
Some might be sweet n sour
Like mixed chat
Whatever flavours added
It is in our tongue
To enjoy the Recipe !!

Bullock carts moving forward
With the music of jingling bells
Women walking like a peahen
Balancing mud pots of water
On their head with a band
Women churning butter from
Milk with the churning rod
Men with their spades to fields
Ready for the ploughing
Boys,with their tool, catapult
Aiming at the juicy mangoes
Little girls running with laughter
To the call of a bangle-seller
Old men sitting in the verandah
Memorising their days of youth
Fruit selling woman calling out loud
Bananas,Apples,Mangoes
Smoke from the chimneys
Like an engine of a train
Red chillies, turmeric and coriander
Spread on sheets in the sunlight
Goats and calves crying out in
Search of their pet homes
Village full of greenery with
Gulmohars, Banyan and Neem
Busy with their daily duties
Happy with no disappointments
The villagers of olden days !

The Drummer Brothers of Ikku Ukku
Heard from the bathers that-
The Princess had been abducted
By the Dark Beast.
A bounty of thousand gold coins was announced
If you brought her back alive and the beast dead
And Death if you brought the beast alive and the Princess dead.

The Drummer Brothers of Ikku Ukku
Hung their drums around their necks
And drummed their way
Through the Forest Dark

When  the Elder Brother drummed the sleep-inducing roll,
The storks that roosted in the trees
Dropped as if they were one big bunch.
He picked them up one by one
While the younger one,
Elated,
Shouted 'Pelicans!' and drummed the defeathering roll
Upon which the plumage came off
The Elder Brother drummed the roasting roll
And the birdflesh caught fire.

On the second day a leopard that looked-
More like a boulder in leopard's clothing
Lurched at the brothers.
The Elder Brother drummed the age-reversing roll
And the poor old leopard grew younger and younger
Until it became a watery foetus which-
The Drummer Brothers ate,
Dabbing crushed chillies, and sprinkling salt.

On the third day a bear of grisly proportions
Ambled, roaring, into their sight
The Younger Brother drummed an *****-enlarging roll that-
Stretched the bear's mammaries far too long-
They dragged on the ground like two pythons.
The Elder Brother drummed the light-the- candle roll
And the oily **** caught fire like wicks.

Having vanquished the two deadly beasts
The Drummer Brothers of Ikku Ukku met,
On the fourth day of their journey,
The Dark Beast.
The Dark Beast, as it turned out,
Was no beast as such
But an Outcast once expelled
Into the heart of darkness
Who wrapped himself
In the dark of the Dawn
And became one with All the Beasts
And rumbled.

The Princess' pygmy horse was impaled
With the stake coming out of its mouth
Grossly gory, its hindlegs missing
And the blood, coagulated, hanging like icicles.
Near it was the Princess herself,
Naked, except for the gold waist chain
And the anklets.

The Drummer Brothers of Ikku Ukku
Drummed a very ordinary roll,
Steady and throbbing.
The Dark Beast who listened to it
Was transported into his past,
His memory of listening
To the old drummers of Ikku Ukku.
Excited,
He spun on his heels and stretched out his arms
He gyrated and pirouetted-
And on reaching the peak of his frenzy
Exploded, like a watermelon
The pieces flew in all directions.
The Drummer Brothers picked them up
And licked
While the Princess, shaken out of her languor,
Rose and sauntered towards them.
Holding out her honey hands
She said, "Now I belong to both of you."

The Younger Brother came up with a plan:
The elder one would have her from the waist up
While he would have her from the waist down.
The Elder Brother approved.
Vain and coquettish,
The Princess rammed her fists into either drum
And said: "I loathe their sound- too unrefined."

On the fifth day,
The Drummer Brother  drummed a jazzed up roll
On their new drumhead
Made of the Princess' hide.