1
Backwater nymph,
queen of serpentine black tresses
flaunting its coconut oil gleam;
envy of  leggy girls from the Western ghat mountains,
and lissome  maidens from the plains,
who can never eat as much fish, even if they wish.
Wearing hibiscus flowers,
on coiffure like hood of a king cobra,
your coral lips  silently speak
of hot peppery kisses,
waiting for me at shaded corners.
Your sultry body in me arouses desires,
that could only be whispered in your ears.
2
On a coconut lagoon when we met,
for the first time and spoke,
non stop, as if we knew each other life long,
I heard music in your words.
Oh! in the tongue you spoke,
I heard the cadence of a nightingale
ecstatic, on its wings above the clouds,
love had prompted us to fly above the storms.
Your  gleaming coal black eyes,
like silver hooks, tug at my heart strings,
that makes music, only I can hear,
you are a free flying lark,
above Kerala's lush coconut coast,
that extends from sea shore to the mountains.
3
*When we relished steaming brown rice,
mixed with clarified butter,
with spicy tuna curry, tasting so dainty,
cooked in bubbling sweet coconut milk,
my eyes like two crazy butterflies
circled your face, a blossomed Champak.

Mashed cassava and roasted squid,
melted on our tongues,
in a perfect culinary language
any one would understand without effort.
4
Your lips had cinnamon scent,
spice land's boons,
when we kissed we touched heaven
of scents and spicy tastes.
When our eyes fell on each other,
near the ancient synagogue,
the hay days of which is over,
a long jasmine garland coiling your hair,
    marked you different,
from the  the ladies of your neighborhood,
                                          surroundi­ng you.
How well you did pretend
that you have never seen my face before!

You have mastered love's cunning,
and all the wily tricks to cheat
the enemies of our fiery love
my Freudian mind perfectly understood.
Just imagine the brouhaha we would invite,
when we elope, in the last boat,
to *Alappuzha, stealthily at midnight.

It is good to get lost at Edapally junction
in that sea of people in the bus bay in front of emmanaul silks
to be exact, I could get lost in any part of kerala
it is the same to me ,kozhikode, thrissur or cochin
I am a foreigner
And i have adapted.
why ?
Why ,you may ask
why this indifference to one's own mother
simply because you cannot abandon your mother though you grew up in an orphanage
So goes for these places
I did not choose my mother
nor did I choose my native land
and I cannot orphan them
can I ?
I am familiar with some places now
As new memories are made
I remember places now
I remember fort kochi for the lanes sloshed in whisky and dreams
i remember vypin for small truths
I remember vytilla for heartbreak and pain
I remember wellington for incessant talk and friends
I remember calicut for numerous crossroads and junctions and restrooms
I remember thrissur for art and molestation
i do remember places now for each memory made
it was not like this for the place I grew
I know the temple and the paddy field
and the people in each house
like the woman on Google maps announcing each turn and curve
I would say this where I smashed the neatly piled red bricks with my lady bird bicycle
or take a turn in that alley and say this where I buy coloured glass bangles
Or take a left here ,this is where I light lamps filled with ghee fasting and in obeisance to devi
It is all vivid ,perfect with no doubts
and everything is doubtful in my own land
And then ,I decided to get lost at Edapally
sorry if I am geographically wrong

I stopped my car at the highway
Amongst the water logged fields
Overgrown with white lilies
my driver looked displeased
how could one waste travel and money
until then I had counted minutes and seconds
Of anticipated moments of security boarding and baggage
and now I stopped here at angamali  a nowhere
and watched my flight overhead
What now he looked anxiously
let's take a detour
I said
and yelled at the plane
"I don't care "
I want to get lost
And switched off all accountability

He dropped me at Edapally junction
And i stood still in that movement
a flood of people
fear engulfed me
the airconditioned air filled my mind
a fake cherry tree with cotton and red  glitter paper stood staring
People moved in with money and came out with loads
sweat, dreams, monotony, laughter expectations ,new hopes and hopes  dangling in the bus bay
some comfort now ,I stood hugging my Adidas coat
I did not know where to look and was whirling around in small circles
when I felt being pulled
Your lanky arm
I was here trying to get lost
And here you were pulling me back
I walked with big steps trying to dodge you and hoping to disapper
And then it started to pour
I did not know which was louder
the rain or your anger
your knuckles white
is this why they call white with fury
even the rain seemed white
the cotton hung wet and the cherry Tree seemed drained
but language seemed fine
you drove
I walked
and it rained
it was perfect to get lost

Did I tell you
About the poothaankiris
Who never abandoned me
Even when all others did?

They were the ones
Who woke me up today

Don’t know why
They woke me up
Calling me
The names
Of all my
Previous lives

Even I had
Forgotten
All of them

In my ninth
Life
My name
Was Shanmughan
Your name then
Was Lara

You were the daughter
Of the captain
A foreigner
From Portuguese
Who had come
To Fort Kochi
Paravoor
And Paliyath

My job then was
Counting the number
Of ships
In  
The harbor

You had come
With your father
Then
To see Cochin.

Even before
The ship with you
Anchored at the harbor
Sea crows began their pageantry of joy
Whole hearted wings fluttered
Across the skies
A pandal was built
Above the waters

One
Of them
Astonished
The kids
By flying upside down

The paral  fishes
Splashed around in ecstasy

Then
A ponmaan
Aroused by
The dance of the paral fishes
Dived in and out
Again
And again
In the sky of joy

As I turned back
After picking  
A stalk of paddy
That had fallen from a ship
I saw the ship with you
Floating from faraway
Your face
Gazing the world
From the fifth window
Of the second deck

Lara.
The glitter of the thoda
You wore on your ear
That day
Still
Blinds my eyes

Lara,
Feel like seeing
That you and me
Of the
Ninth life

I am
Desperate.




Translator - Shyma P

Remember when you were a kid
And you would spend the summers at Mama and Papa's?
When ---- was pushing you onto the bed
And you farted in her face?

Remember even further back to Christmas at Uncle ----'s old house
When you headbutted *----
Remember when what was *----'s was yours
And what was yours was *----'s, sometimes?
And *---- always had the cooler toys,
So you'd come out on top anyway

Remember when you visited the Philippines
And all you wanted was to spend time with Lolo
So you did?
You had the farmhands catch a chicken and **** it so that you could cook it.
Then you'd hang out with them and play pool to look cool.
You took a cigarette from a pack of what you now know were Parliaments.
Remember walking down Cochin
And telling Lolo to stop smoking?
He's tell you that it was okay because he was old.
Well now he's still old
And with cancer.
And now you smoke and refuse to stop.

Remember when you promised to stop hurting ----?
But no matter what, you'd end up in her room at night.
You'd call yourself a monster
Make yourself sick
But nothing changed, not until you got caught.

Remember the first time you hit someone?
You got him in the stomach, like the ******* coward you are.
Look even further back , you pounced on that same kid, pinning him to the ground

Remember, in high school,  you got into your fist real fight?
Some ******* was throwing ***** in the locker room,
Hit a **** ******-bag,
And blamed you.
The **** took the ball and hit you.
Remember seeing red and losing control?

Do you remember? I do.
I remember because I am you.
I am the selfish, violent, ***-crazed machine of a man you have become.
I am the monster that glares back when you look into a mirror.
I am every vice embedded in ever fiber of your being.
I am you, remember?

I'll be threading my curvy needle & stringing my veined lizard cord
with living broads more handsome than the crapped-out Betty Ford

Brisket-deep wade oxen through crop 3 of Cochin China grass rice,
that like Brazilian corn can not drive down 9 cents today's gas price
or **** gophers, lower recidivism or jail-break ****** who pass lice
or rip from lardy Liz Taylor's dead neck her cubic zirconia glass ice
Keen intellects & homosexuality marry like diesel in a wheat tower
as carnivorous corn dogs mustn't **** away their fleshy-meat power
in alleys whereat trolls a ***** whose girl is a brandy-sweet flower
damp but not soaked by the greasy drizzle of a Bronx street shower
that melted by caustic soda Gettysburg's ferro-concrete Eisenhower
Stay back Missy as I ain't anxious to contract your parasitic Q fever
despite the tales in crack town of your exquisitely-luxurious ******
I say: Wiggle over Prissy! I cannot party down with diarrheal fever!
Despite many crack-town tales of your luxuriously-exquisite ******
I order you to: Get back Missy! I don't want your parasitic Q fever!
I command you: Back Nancy! I've no love for Dutch's Mike Dever!
Our hag queen lives in the tire-black shadow of Dennis Weaver, yet
Liz's been saved by the Grace of the Prophet who'll never leave her
just like the fans who cheered the girly pitches of Tom ***** Seaver
who enjoyed the gift that keeps on giving as a giver & as a receiver
minus the knowledge of a cerebrally-dull trophy wife true-believer
and the precise dog-tracking of a duck-retrieving Labrador retriever
akin to a Nordic-berating/race-pimpling Jesse Jackson-era deceiver
who's taken the il Duce-stance to be an F.D.R. New Deal conceiver
A Cebu Island honey in ****** is beautiful even from underneath &
'cause Kentuckians get the most fluoride they have the fewest teeth
from gumming on T.V. dinners like Family Affair with Brian Keith,
or The Big Valley with The Six Million Dollar Man known as Heath
who lived to desecrate Barbara Stanwyck's stone & funereal wreath
to nearly wreck the incorruptible beauty of the heady Virginia Leith
in the dawning twilight of a Republic sacrificing freedom for peace
& metal for paper till tangible property ownership goes up for lease
as a need for mid-gut-binding whale-bone corsets is on the increase
fragrant domestical mice outrank Edwin goose geese mouse Meese
in that tall mysteries are unsolvable while wonders will never cease
Grizzly attacks do much to ingest barren broads bearing our cancer
while the pink feet broken at joints are placed where now hands are
to confuse Komen's breastless feminazis with a bra-padding answer
as a Vaudeville hoofer could to trip up a Cuban cha-cha ***** dancer
better than a tired-of-waiting, endlessly-prating La Habana prancer
who obeys U.N.-garbage-man etiquette and calls a garbage man: sir
An Olympic runner's Vaseline was swiped, so in 3 races he ran sore
Cue-ball “actor” Burton Reynolds called Dinah Shore: Diane Shore
Pigs shooting folks from the ceiling will create a ******, dyin' floor
that is slippery to vinyl-siding shippers and punishing to litter bugs
who have been sucker-punched into pugnaciously-rabid, bitter lugs

Cancer modalities: hack, hypothermia, x-rays & toxin can't crack it
for a lot lizard whose station is an unstructured, tax-starved bracket
while tennis games die grimly set with a barbed-wire-hanger racket
that ruined ******* for big-rig trucking's good buddy Joan Hackett
Hades & rental men: it's the stalling groans with ****-death packet!
Congress shan't by judicial means & measure legislatively abrogate
divinely-sacred powers claimed by Liz regina's counselled castrate
as Catholic America answers the hooligan question with nun patrol
to assassinate Teddy maggot-dinner Kennedy's fraternal gun control
while folding, into State eugenism, the animalic urges of primitives
to obliterate and to placate the devilishly-primitive urges of animals
The water authority's concern for babies compels them to fluoridate
so that the gooey-green tooth enamel of kiddies will not deteriorate
& to keep a rat's mouth of aligned teeth from becoming incomplete
while not degrading his scrumptious U.S.D.A. grade-A rodent meat
nor his anatomical delicacies: arterioles, splenic capsules and 4 feet
of intestines, a pancreas, thoracic arteries & superfluously-ratty ****
that produces the same amount of milk as an owl struck in concrete
or a popery-loving Sinn Féin milker sunk in an A.S.S.I. bog of peat
equalin' no mas eugenical Frenching for U.N.I.C.E.F.'s trick-or-treat
or stun-gunning razor-backs for a Codex Alimentarius-******* pleat
that is more bordel-exquisite than Haitian tea served on Easy Street
If randomized ****** is the homicide you like, it was reported that
on 5 April '69 Stepin Fetchit's son Donald shot 20 on Pa.'s turnpike
& 3 months later Teddy drove Bobby's girl off a bridge named ****
Christmas at the Hollywood Palace, 1969 featured old Perry Como
whom *******-rag Time described in 1970 as being: no merry ****
Any conspiracy is a cons' piracy when two or more are in collusion,
while folks mesmerized by teleprompter-readers are under delusion
of a cerebral/cortex laceration, extirpation, concussion or contusion
to relate a surrealistic/pseudo-reality that will propagate the illusion
that vampire-bus phlebotomists obey strictures of blood transfusion
& that gregarious hermits must forever renounce absolute seclusion
from search-warrant-affidavit-lacking pigs making illegal intrusion
in violation of our state castle law enacted by legislative institution
& adjudged by courts that, though investiture, wrote the conclusion
that is steering toward a rag-stuffin'-ape-lovin'-eugenical revolution
with a homophiliac tutelage as Christendom's Darwinian resolution
says mutational anomalies do not equate to genetical-drift pollution
nor bio-spherical deviances that breed X/Y chromosomal confusion
within the scope of a die-off rate inflating xenogeneic-pool infusion
to counter-balance vales in retardative factors apt to aerial diffusion
Prisoners do not get Lash LaRue whips to whop a cell-******'s sass
nor heaters for Harlem nights colder than an Adak well-digger's ***
To save Earth we must, like raccoons, root through garbage & trash
to obey tree-hugging Mike Farrell: the ***-wiper actor on MASH
to obey fur-hating Mike Farrell: the ***-wiping ***** on MASH
to obey ******* Mike Farrell: the ***-kissing ***-wipe on MAS*H
.The Waltons who wasted J.F.K.were sibs Jim Bob & Mary Ellen in
a bed with John Boy, Uncle Corn Pone & Scaifes' Dickie Mellon in
a conspiracy with Rockefellers' Mossad, Bush & Hunt in sixty-two
to supplant & cultivate corporatization of the U.S.A. for me & you;
to propagate a global-credit system beginning with this Dallas coup
Big-time movie dude Burt Lancaster was never known to have lied
about his 4 marriages dying with judgments of justifiable homicide
No Christian shall deny an unborn baby's supreme court right to die
'cause the German zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg was too light to fly

Sore are wintry Hawaiian gals struck by pink papier-mâchéd maids
whilst tyre tread types are trundled backways from wheelied tirades
Pink are spring Honolulu broads tinted by red papier-mâché shades
Do not nag me till I **** you dead ole crapped-out Larry F. Hagman,
as I am in no humor to wring the necks of persecuted hairy rag men
Gynecology might ***** you in solid with Camorra's Casalesi clan,
as their bearded women are tripping circuits of a master messy plan
while my *****-stamped Taylor Texicana trans-**** as a lezzy tran
On roads of electrical eye sores penicillin backs homosexualization
among a purgatory of jack ***** dealing promo Mex mule salvation
Pad my bra *****: I'm tar paper & my angry ******* ******* will bite
'cause unarmed Haitians will be shot on Hispaniola's border tonight
by Dominican Republic guards who cleanse the island in gun fight
Who better to welcome tea drinkers to Cup Land than Saucer Boy?
Who better to play Shatner's number 1 than Leonard ****** Nimoy?
Joe Green's mean because pea-green Coca-Cola made his *** green
as Coke's pond water is the greenest water Lord Jesus has ever seen
that, as an emetic, will keep you bruised, confused, infected & lean
Trifling things shall not diminish my reverence for Miss Kitty Ting
despite the fact that her '67 suicide made moot mere mortal atoning
from Diana's birthing moon where Earthen-Human souls are placed
in 0-72-hour newborns after old-corpse memories have been erased
concurrent with funereal brutality for cadavers to be casket-encased
There was a porker known in Las Vegas by the handle Elvis Presley
who forked Satan's deadly Negresses saying: “Hell shall bless me!”
U.S. civil rights entail the timely return of my fresh bag of cabbage
putrefyin' in a City of New York medallion-licensed cab of baggage

Smoothing Jagger's ***-face wrinkles like a *** must to ream 'cause
after 35 years Beatle John Lennon is lost like some forgotten dream
Because Mac went queer-bait kissin' sock-cuckin' Elton John's lips,
Yoko wants dwarf Ringo to wing him with tone-deaf Linda's whips
until Paul condemns homosexuality by canceling his Bangkok trips
to prove that Gladys Knight is a 2-buck *** ***** minus Jim's Pips
Krung Thep, D.C.'s '62 sister, is a ****** haven of white-lovin' nips
that offed Đặng Lệ Quân while Thai ****** bled like filleted strips
that snuffed Deng Lijun as Mongol tramps burned like scurvy ships
in seas far removed from sassy Oakland: turf of the Bloods & Crips
who know more urologically than urologists about vasectomy snips
A global ice age is imminent and we must impregnate young nurses
before eating their delicious groceries & stealing their Gucci purses
on Friday when nurse-impregnators aren't reciting Psalms & verses
My gray ****** are pressed & folded despite imprecations & curses

There's a secret videotape of C.F.R.'s monkey Tom Clancy beggin'
in vain to the Control Group that vaccinates a senile Nancy Reagan
for his life to be spared as before God would whine an antsy pagan
Scrawny **** use calf prosthetics to mill a Mexican mission 'cause
bad plastic surgery is sewing your ****** to shin to form a **** shin
that'll ruin the brainiest ***-brainiac's Nigerian brain-*** syndrome
via español audio-libro of a John Viet Cong McCain braggin' tome,
beloved by Mexi-greasers whose favorite wheel is a mag in chrome

Hey *******! Can't I celebrate Rage Against Anger Month in peace?
Jesus! and Take not the Lord's Name in Vain Month with my niece?
Is there no stopping the moronic maxim Will wonders never cease?
Holly rat milk Brett Ratner! Whatever Happened to Mason Reese?
Holy hit & run Rebecca Gayheart! Which is the fastest car to lease?
To queerly wed mustn't a *** breach the equity-in-marriage crease?
When will ewe-loving sheepmen give their shepherd love to geese?
When séance-hosting Nancy Reagan gets knocked up by Ed Meese

I was clinically dead when I quit breathing my fat Lizzy Taylor thin
with all my blood bled out from a koala bear attack that I didn't win
You double-blooded the Ivory Coast in hopes to ravage Voodoo sin
whilst I cut open a priestess, undergoing replacement of a *** shin
or Christened Christified Christians corporatized by Chinks Cochin

Rescue me from the clutches of Cochin-Chinese deviants. Kiss me in the night, Kiss me in the day. Kiss me like I'm a lesbian who's lesbian gay...