AN INTRODUCTION TO INDIAN ART IN VERSE  
By Raj Nandy : Part One

INTRODUCTION
Background :
The India subcontinent and her diverse physical features,
influenced her dynamic history, religion, and culture!
The fertile basin of the Sapta-Sindu Rivers* cradled one of
world’s most ancient civilization, (seven rivers)
Contemporary to the Sumerians and the Egyptians, popularly
known as the Indus Valley Civilization!
The Sindu (Indus), Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, Bias, along
with the sacred river Saraswati, shaped India’s early History;
Where once flourished the urban settlements of Harappa and
Mohenjodaro, which lay buried for several centuries;
For our archaeologists and scholars to unravel their many
secrets and hidden mysteries!
Modern scholars refer to it as ‘Indus-Saraswati Civilization’;
By interpreting the text of the Rig Veda which mentions
eclipses, equinoxes, and other astronomical conjunctions,
They date the origin of the Vedas as earlier as 3000 BC;
Thereby lifting the fog which shrouds Ancient History! +
(+ Two broad schools of thoughts prevail; Max Mullar refers
to 1500 BC as the date for origin of the Vedas, but modern scientific findings point to a much earlier date for their Oral composition and
their long oral tradition!)

On the banks of the sacred Saraswati River the holy sages
did once meditate, *
When their third eye opened, as all earthly bonds they did
transcend !
From their lips flowed the sacred chants of the Vedas, as
they sang the creator Brahma’s unending praise!
These Vedic chants and incantations survived many
centuries of an oral tradition,
When Indian Art began to blossom into exotic flowers like
Brahma’s divine manifestations;
With all subsequent art forms following the model of
Brahma’s manifold creations!
The Vedas got written down during the later Vedic Age
with commentaries and interpolations,
And remain as India’s indigenous composition, forming a
part of her sacred religious tradition! *
(Rig Veda the oldest, had hymns in praise of the creator;
Yajur Veda spelled the ritual procedures; Sama Veda sets
the hymns for melodious chanting, & is the source of seven
notes of music; Artha Veda had hymns for warding off evil
& hardship, giving us a glimpse of early Vedic life.)

IMPACT OF FOREIGN INVASIONS:
Through the winding Khyber Pass cutting through the rugged
Hindu Kush Range,
Came the Persians, Greeks, Muslims, the Moguls, and many
bounty hunters storming through north-western frontier gate;
Consisting of varied racial groups and cultures, they entered
India’s fertile alluvial plains!
Therefore, while tracing 5000 years of Art Story, one cannot
divorce Art from India’s exotic cultural history.
From the Cave Art of Bhimbetka, to the dancing girl of Harappa,
To the frescoes and the evocative figures of Ajanta and Ellora;
Many marvelous and exquisitely carved temples of the South,
And Muslim and Mogul architecture and frescoes along with
India’s rich Folk Art, enriched her artistic heritage no doubt!
Yet for a long time Indian Art had been the least known of
the Oriental Arts,
Perhaps because from Western point of view it was difficult
to understand the spirit behind Indian Art!
For Indian Art is at once aesthetic and sensual, also passionate,
symbolic, and spiritual !
It both celebrates and denies the individual’s love of life,
where free instinct with rigid reason combine !
These contradictory elements are found side by side due to
her culturally mixed conditions, as I had earlier mentioned!
Now, if we add to this the constant religious exaltation,
With the extensive use of symbolic presentation, from the
early days of Indian civilization;
We have the basic elements of an Art, which has gradually
aroused the interest of Western Civilization!

The further we get back in time, we only begin to find,
That religion, philosophy, art and architecture,
Had all merged into an unified whole to form India’s
composite culture!
But while moving forward in time, we once again find,
That art, architecture, music, poetry and dance, all begin to
gradually emerge, with their separate identities,
Where Indian Art is seen as a rich mosaic of cultural diversity!

(NOTES:-In the ancient days, the Saraswati River flowed from the Siwalik Range of Hills (foothills of the Himalayas) between Sutlej & the Yamuna rivers, through the present day Rann of Kutch into the Arabian Sea, when Rajasthan was a fertile place! Indus settlements like Kalibangan, Banawalli, Ganwaiwala, were situated on the banks of Sarsawati River, which was longer than the Indus & ran parallel, and is mentioned around50 times in the Rig Veda! Scientists say that due to tectonic plate movements, and climatic changes, Saraswati dried up around 1700BC ! The people settled there shifted east and the south, during the course of history! Some of those Indo-Aryan speaking people were already settled there, & others joined later. Max Muller’s theory of an Aryan Invasion which destroyed the Indus Valley Civilization during 1500BC, supported by Colonial Rulers, was subsequently proved wrong ! Indo-Aryans were a Language group of the Indo- European
Language Family, & not a racial group as mistaken by Max Mullar! Therefore Dr.Romila Thapar calls it a gradual migration, & not an invasion! The Vedas were indigenous composition of India. However, they got compiled & written down for the first time with commentaries, at a much later date! I have maintained this position since it has been proved by modern scholars scientifically!)

SYMBOLISM IN INDIAN ART
From the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic to the Cretan Bull
of Greece,
Symbols have conveyed ideas and messages, fulfilling
artistic needs.
The ‘Da Vinci Code’ speaks of Leonardo’s art works as
symbolic subterfuge with encrypted messages for a secret
society!
While Indian art is replete with many sacred symbols to
attract good fortune, for the benefit of the community!
The symbols of the Dot or ‘Bindu’, the Lotus, the Trident,
the Conch shell, the sign and chant of ‘OM’, are all sacred
and divine;
For at the root of Indian artistic symbolism lies the Indian
concept of Time!
The West tends to think of time as a dynamic process which
is forward moving and linear;
Commencing with the ‘Big Bang’, moving towards a ‘Big
Crunch’, when ‘there shall be no more time’, or a state of
total inertia !
Indian art and sculpture is influenced by the cyclic concept
of time unfolding a series of ages or ‘yugas’;
Where creation, destruction and recreation, becomes a
dynamic and an unending phenomena!
This has been artistically and symbolically expressed in the
figure of Shiva-Nataraja’s cosmic dance,
Which portrays the entire kinetic universe in a state of
eternal flux!
The hour-glass drum in Nataraja’s right hand symbolizes
all creation;
Fire in his left hand the cyclic time frame of destruction!
The raised third hand is in a gesture of infinite benediction;
And the fourth hand pointing to his upraised foot shows the
path of liberation!

It was easier to teach the vast untutored population through
symbols, images, and paintings in the form of Art;
For a picture is more effective than a thousand words!
The Dot or ‘bindu’ becomes the focus for meditation,
Where the mental energies are focused on a single point of
creation,
As seen in the cotemporary art works of SH Raza’s
artistic representations!
Yet the same dot when expanded as a circle becomes
wholeness and infinity;
The shape of celestial bodies of the cyclic universe in its
creativity!
The Lotus seen in many sculptures, on temple walls, and
majestic columns, denotes purity;
A symbol of non-attachment rising above the muddy waters,
retaining its pristine color and beauty!
The Lotus is a powerful and transformational symbol in
Buddhist Art,
Where pink lotus is for height of enlightenment, blue for
wisdom, white for spiritual perfection, and the red lotus
symbolizing the heart!
This Lotus symbol also finds a place in Mughal sculptural
carvings and miniatures;
The inverted lotus dome resting on its petals, forms the
crown of Taj Mahal’s white marble architecture!
The trident or ‘trishul’ symbolizes the three god-heads
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva;
As the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer, in that cyclic
chain which goes on forever!
The ***** stone of Shiva-lingam surrounded by the oval
female yoni symbolizes fertility and creation,
Usually found in the inner sanctuary of Hindu temples!
Finally, the symbol of ‘OM’ and its vibrating sound,
Echoes the primordial vibrations with which space and
time abounds!
All matter comes from energy vibrations manifesting
cosmic creation;
Also symbolized in Einstein’s famous matter-energy equation!
The Conch Shell a gift of the sea when blown, sounds the
ancient primordial vibration of ‘OM’!
It’s hallowed auspicious sound accompanies marriage
ceremonies and rituals whenever occasion demands;
And pacifies mother earth during Shiva-Nataraja’s sudden
seismic dance! (earthquakes)
Dear readers the symbols mentioned here are very few,
Mainly to curb the length, while I pay Indian Art my
artistic due!

A BRIEF COMPARISON OF ART:
Despite the many foreign influences which entered India
through the Khyber and Bholan pass,
India displayed marvelous adaptability and resilience, in
the development of her indigenous Art!
The aesthetic objectivity of Western Art was replaced by
the Indian vision of spiritual subjectivity,
For the transitory world around was only a ‘Maya’ or an
Illusion,- lacking material reality!
Therefore life-like representation was not always the aim
of Indian art,
But to lift that veil and reveal the life of the spirit, - was
the objective from the very start!
Egyptian funerary art was more occupied with after-life
and death;
While the Greeks portrayed youthful vigor and idealized
beauty, celebrating the joys of life instead!
The proud Roman Emperors to outshine their predecessors
erected even bigger statues, monuments, and columns
draped in glory;
Only in the long run to drain the Roman treasury, - a sad
downfall story!
Indian art gradually evolved over centuries with elements
both religious and secular,
As seen from the period of King Chandragupta Maurya,
Who defeated the Greek Seleucus, to carve out the first
united Indian Empire ! (app. 322 BC)

SECULAR AND SPIRITUAL FUSION IN ART:
Ancient Indian ‘stupas’ and temples were not like churches
or synagogues purely spiritual and religious,
But were cultural centers depicting secular images which
were also non-religious!
The Buddhist ‘stupa’ at Amravati (1stcentury BC), and the
gateways at Sanchi (1stcentury AD), display wealth of carvings
from the life of Buddha;
Also warriors on horseback, royal procession, trader’s caravans,
farmers with produce, - all secular by far!
Indian temples from the 8th Century AD onwards depicted
images of musicians, dancers, acrobats and romantic couples,
along with a variety of Deities;
But after 10th Century ****** themes began to make their mark
with depiction of sensuality!
Sensuality and ****** interaction in temples of Khajuraho and
Konarak has been displayed without inhibition;
As Tantric ideas on compatibility of human sexuality with
human spirituality, fused into artistic depictions!
Religion got based on a healthy and egalitarian acceptance
of all activities without ****** starvation;
For the emotional health and well-being of society, without
hypocritical denial or inhibition!
(’Stupas’= originated from ancient burial mounds, later became devotional Buddhist sites with holy relics, & external decorative gateways and carvings!)

KHJURAHO TEMPLE COMPLEX (950 - 1040 AD) :
Was built by the Chandela Rajputs in Central India,
When Khajuraho, the land of the moon gods, was the first
capital city of the Chandelas!
****** art covers ten percent of the temple sculptures,
Where both Hindu and Jain temples were built in the north-Indian
Nagara style of Architecture.
Out of the 85 temples only 22 have stood the vagaries of time,
Where a perfect fusion of aesthetic elegance and evocative
Kama-Sutra like ****** sculptural brilliance, - dazzle the eyes!

KONARAK SUN TEMPLE OF ORISSA - EAST COAST:
From the Khajuraho temple of love, we now move to the
Konark temple of *** in stones - as art!
Built around 1250 AD in the form of a temple mounted on
a huge cosmic chariot for the Sun God;
With twelve pairs of stone-carved wheels pulled by seven
galloping horses, symbolizing the passage of time under
the Solar God !
Seven horses for each day of the week, pulls the chariot
east wards towards dawn;
With twelve pairs of wheels representing the twelve calendar
months, as each cyclic day ushers in a new morn !
The friezes above and below the chariot wheels show military
processions, with elephants and hunting scenes;
Celebrating the victory of King Narasimhadeva-I over the
invading Muslims!
The ****** art and voluptuous carvings symbolizes aesthetic
bliss when uniting with the divine;
Following yogic postures and breathing techniques, which
Tantric Art alone defines!
(Both Khjuraho & Konark temples were re-discovered by the
British, & are now World Heritage Sites!)

Artistic invention followed the model of cosmic creation;
Ancient Vedic tradition visualized the spirit of a joyous
self-offering with chants and incantations!
The world was understood to be a structured arrangement
of five elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ethereal space;
Where each element brought forth a distinct art-expression
with artistic grace!
Element of Sculpture was earth, Painting the fluidity of water,
Dance was transformative fire, Music flowed through the air,
and Poetry vibrated in ethereal space!

CONCLUDING INTRODUCTION TO INDIAN ART:

Indian Art is like a prism with many dazzling facets,
I have only introduced the subject with its symbolism,
- without covering its complete assets!
After my Part Three on ‘Etruscan and Roman Art’,
Christian and Byzantine Art was to follow;
But following request from my few poet friends I have
postponed it for the morrow!
Traditional Indian Art survives through its sculptures,
architecture, paintings and folk art, ever evolving with
the passing of time and age;
Influenced by Buddhist, Jain, Muslim, Mogul, and many
indigenous art forms, enriching India’s cultural heritage!
While the art of our modern times constitutes a separate
Contemporary phase !
The juxtaposition of certain concepts and forms might
have appeared a bit intriguing,
But the spiritual content and symbolism in art answers
our basic artistic seeking!
The other aspects of Indian Art I plan to cover at a later
date,
Hope you liked my Introduction, being posted after
almost forty days!
ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE WITH RAJ NANDY
E-Mail: rajnandy21@yahoo.
    FEW COMMENTS BY POETS ON 'POETFREAK.COM' :-
I have a vicarious pleasure going through your historical journey of Indian art! Thanks for sharing this here! 2 Mar 2013 by Ramesh T A | Reply
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The prism of Indian Art is indeed has myriads of facets and is an awesome mixture of many influences some of which you list here so clearly - a very understandable presentation of symbolism too - -thank you for your fine effort Raj. 2 Mar 2013 by Fay Slimm | Reply
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Oh what an interesting read with immense information capturing every single detail. You painted this piece of art with utmost care. Truly, it's works Raj…tfs 2 Mar 2013 by John Thomas Tharayil | Reply
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First, I have to say, the part about the lotus symbolism reminds me – My name ‘NILOTPAL’ can be split into ‘NIL’ meaning BLUE and ‘UTPAL’ meaning LOTUS. So my name represents wisdom (although it contradicts ME.. LOL). A lot of things were mentioned in the veda and other ancient Indian texts that were way ahead of the time Like the idea of ‘velocity of light’ got considerable mention in the rig veda-Sahan bhasya, ‘Elliptical order of planets, ‘Black holes’ , although these are the scientific aspects. The emphasis on contradictory elements or even the idea of opposites in Indian art is interesting because India developed the mathematical concept of ‘Zero’ and ‘infinity’. Hard to believe Rajasthan was a fertile place but now it possesses its own beauty. It was great to read about the Natraja, ‘OM’ and the trident(Trishul). Among symbolisms, Lord Ganseha is my favorite because a lot is portrayed in that one image like the MOOSHIK representing

There was a moment when he knew he had to make a decision.

He had left London that February evening on the ****** Velo Train to the South West. As the two hour journey got underway darkness had descended quickly; it was soon only his reflected face he could see in the window. He’d been rehearsing most of the afternoon so it was only now he could take out the manuscript book, its pages full of working notes on the piece he was to play the following afternoon. His I-Mind implant could have stored these but he chose to circumvent this thought-transcribing technology; there was still the physical trace on the cream-coloured paper with his mother’s propelling pencil that forever conjured up his journey from the teenage composer to the jazz musician he now was. This thought surrounded him with a certain warmth on this Friday evening train full of those returning to their country homes and distant families.

It was a difficulty he had sensed from the moment he perceived a distant gap in the flow of information streaming onto the mind page

At the outset the Mind Notation project had seemed harmless, playful in fact. He allowed himself to enter into the early experiments because he knew and trusted the research team. He got paid handsomely for his time, and later for his performance work.  It was a valuable complement to his ill-paid day-to-day work as a jazz pianist constantly touring the clubs, making occasional festival appearances with is quintet, hawking his recordings around small labels, and always ‘being available’. Mind Notation was something quite outside that traditional scene. In short periods it would have a relentless intensity about it, but it was hard to dismiss because he soon realised he had been hard-wired to different persona. Over a period of several years he was now dealing with four separate I-Mind folders, four distinct musical identities.

Tomorrow he would pull out the latest manifestation of a composer whose creative mind he had known for 10 years, playing the experimental edge of his music whilst still at college. There had been others since, but J was different, and so consistent. J never interfered; there were never decisive interventions, only an explicit confidence in his ability to interpret J’s music. There had been occasional discussion, but always loose; over coffee, a walk to a restaurant; never in the lab or at rehearsals.

In performance (and particularly when J was present) J’s own mind-thought was so rich, so wide-ranging it could have been drug-induced. Every musical inference was surrounded by such intensity and power he had had to learn to ride on it as he imagined a surfer would ride on a powerful wave. She was always there - embedded in everything J seemed to think about, everything J projected. He wondered how J could live with what seemed to him to be an obsession. Perhaps this was love, and so what he played was love like a wilderness river flowing endlessly across the mind-page.

J seemed careful when he was with her. J tried hard not to let his attentiveness, this gaze of love, allow others to enter the public folders of his I-Mind space (so full of images of her and the sounds of her light, entrancing voice). But he knew, he knew when he glanced at them together in darkened concert halls, her hand on J’s left arm stroking, gently stroking, that J’s most brilliant and affecting music flowed from this source.

He could feel the pattern of his breathing change, he shifted himself in his chair, the keyboard swam under his gaze, he was playing fast and light, playing arpeggios like falling water, a waterfall of notes, cascades of extended tonalities falling into the darkness beyond his left hand, but there it was, in twenty seconds he would have to*

It had begun quite accidentally with a lab experiment. J had for some years been researching the telematics of composing and performing by encapsulating the physical musical score onto a computer screen. The ‘moist media’ of telematics offered the performer different views of a composition, and not just the end result but the journey taken to obtain that result. From there to an interest in neuroscience had been a small step. J persuaded him to visit the lab to experience playing a duet with his own brain waves.

Wearing a sensor cap he had allowed his brainwaves to be transmitted through a BCMI to a synthesiser – as he played the piano. After a few hours he realised he could control the resultant sounds. In fact, he could control them very well. He had played with computer interaction before, but there was always a preparatory stage, hours of designing and programming, then the inevitable critical feedback of the recording or glitch in performance. He soon realised he had no patience for it and so relied on a programmer, a sonic artist as assistant, as collaborator when circumstances required it.

When J’s colleagues developed an ‘app’ for the I-Mind it meant he could receive J’s instant thoughts, but thoughts translated into virtual ‘active’ music notation, a notation that flowed across the screen of his inner eye. It was astonishing; more astonishing because J didn’t have to be physically there for it to happen: he could record I-Mind files of his thought compositions.

The reference pre-score at the top of the mind page was gradually enlarging to a point where pitches were just visible and this gap, a gap with no stave, a gap of silence, a gap with no action, a gap with repeat signs was probably 30 seconds away

In the early days (was it really just 10 years ago?) the music was delivered to him embedded in a network of experiences, locations, spiritual and philosophical ideas. J had found ways to extend the idea of the notated score to allow the performer to explore the very thoughts and techniques that made each piece – usually complete hidden from the performer. He would assemble groups of miniatures lasting no more than a couple of minutes each, each miniature carrying, as J had once told him, ‘one thought and one thought only’.  But this description only referred to the musical material because each piece was loaded with a web of associations. From the outset the music employed scales and tonalities so far away from the conventions of jazz that when he played and then extended the pieces it seemed like he was visiting a different universe; though surprisingly he had little trouble working these new and different patterns of pitches into his fingers. It was uncanny the ‘fit’.

Along with the music there was always rich, often startling images she conjured up for J’s compositions. At the beginning of their association J initiated these. He had been long been seeking ways to integrate the visual image with musical discourse. After toying with the idea of devising his own images for music he conceived the notion of computer animation of textile layers. J had discovered and then encouraged the work and vision of a young woman on the brink of what was to become recognised as a major talent. When he could he supported her artistically, revelling in the keenness of her observation of the natural world and her ability to complement what J conceived. He became her lover and she his muse; he remodelled his life and his work around her, her life and her work.

When performing the most complex of music it always seemed to him that the relative time of music and the clock time of reality met in strange conjunctions of stasis. Quite suddenly clock time became suspended and musical time enveloped reality. He found he could be thinking something quite differently from what he was playing.

Further projects followed, and as they did he realised a change had begun to occur in J’s creative rationale. He seemed to adopt different personae. Outwardly he was J. Inside his musical thought he began to invent other composers, musical avatars, complete minds with different musical and personal histories that he imagined making new work.

J had manipulated him into working on a new project that had appeared to be by a composer completely unknown to him. L was Canadian, a composer who had conceived a score that adhered to the DOGME movie production manifesto, but translated into music. The composition, the visuals, the text, the technological environment and the performance had to be conceived in realtime and in one location. A live performance meant a live ‘making’, and this meant he became involved in all aspects of the production. It became a popular and celebrated festival event with each production captured in its entirety and presented in multi-dimensional strands on the web. The viewer / listener became an editor able to move between the simultaneous creative activity, weaving his or her own ‘cut’ like some art house computer game. L never appeared in person at these ‘remakings’, but via a computer link. It was only after half a dozen performances that the thought entered his mind that L was possibly not a 24-year-old woman from Toronto complete with a lively Facebook persona.

Then, with the I-Mind, he woke up to the fact that J had already prepared musical scenarios that could take immediate advantage of this technology. A BBC Promenade Concert commission for a work for piano and orchestra provided an opportunity. J somehow persuaded Tom Service the Proms supremo to programme this new work as a collaborative composition by a team created specially for the premiere. J hid inside this team and devised a fresh persona. He also hid his new I-Mind technology from public view. The orchestra was to be self-directed but featured section leaders who, as established colleagues of J’s had already experienced his work and, sworn to secrecy, agreed to the I-Mind implant.

After the premiere there were rumours about how the extraordinary synchronicities in the play of musical sections had been achieved and there was much critical debate. J immediately withdrew the score to the BBC’s consternation. A minion in the contracts department had a most uncomfortable meeting with Mr Service and the Controller of Radio 3.

With the end of this phrase he would hit the gap  . . . what was he to do? Simply lift his hands from the keyboard? Wait for some sign from the I-Mind system to intervene? His audience might applaud thinking the piece finished? Would the immersive visuals with its  18.1 Surround Sound continue on the five screens or simply disappear?

His hands left the keyboard. The screens went white except for the two repeats signs in red facing one another. Then in the blank bar letter-by-letter this short text appeared . . .


Here Silence gathers
thoughts of you

Letters shall never
spell your grace

No melody could
describe your face

No rhythm dance
the way you move

Only Silence can
express my love

ever yours ever
yours ever yours


He then realised what the date was . . . and slowly let his hands fall to his lap.

Assembly line broke down as the mirrors crashed and cracked.
"Angelina!!!" the crooked boss man yelled.
"Get in herre" the crook socks rang like bells.
Angelina poured sweat of the yellow blouse she had bought two days before for another interview in another office and another profession altogether. The room spun for her even though she would rather have it stay still.
"How much longer till this mechanism shifts and all of this stops altogether. Have their been madder women then me? Has there been madder men then me? Have their been madder times or are the times the same just with different tools and gears and nuts and bolts to tirelessly continue, heaving the corpses through the concrete cracked and littered streets?"
"Angelina!!!"
Another nail gun dropped to the floor, firing twenty rounds into fifty blue collared men's tie clips, deflecting them all to the near by wall which held the coats, the hats, the work shoes which the men were not allowed to wear due to "safety intrusions" and "labor union by lateral horizontal negative dairy laws". Another unfortunate fortune from the cracked mirror case but that, of course, is not the story, our story is...
"Angelina!!!"
Angy hurried up the hungry, empty metal n' holy stairs. She lost her high heels in a crack in the stairs but left them there due to the fear. 2011 had been a good year until she had been forced by her landlord, also her boyfriend, to get a real job rather then stuffing her knitted socks with her poetry and trying to haggle them to new age modern morons of the hip near sighters whom glasses were unintelligible but necessary. The mirrors of the conveyor belts reached the top of the platform but the door was shut. The mirrors bent and shattered leaving the splintered pattern of the world outside of them multiplied by the millions.
Noon was her lunch break and it was noon oh two. Angelina would be late with her lunch and the landlord, Nick, was planning to stop in with some home made sandwiches and home made potato chips.
"Nick will have to wait." Angelina thought to herself. "Nick hates to wait."
Angelina entered to stand in the wake of a shaking, sweating purse wearing, purse lipped boss boss. His hair was tossed to one side, struggling to hide his baldness. The subtelty of their relationship was difficult considering Angelina had slept with boss boss to get tossed this job. The act was actually enjoyable, Angelina thought him a good lay, but boss boss was not a fun person to be around, and he was a much worser boss.
"Angelina!!!"
"Hi."
"Your FIRED!"
"Bye then sir..."
"ANGELINA!!!"
"Yes sir?"
"AREN'T YOU GOING TO ASK WHY YOU WERE JUST SO HASTILY AND VIOLENTLY FIRED?"
"It is not my place to inquire why I was fired sir. If I was not doing my specific duty well enough I trust you, as my superior, to have thought what this subtraction would do to your company. If I had questioned you I would be questioning yourself as a boss and I would never want to do that...sir."
"VERY GOOD. DISMISSED!!!"

---

"So he just fired you, no explanation, nothing?"
"There was nothing really to say after the fact."
"You could have demanded an explanation."
"I was in a hurry to meet you. I know you hate to be late for our dates."
"That's sweet."
"And boss boss shouldn't have to explain himself, he IS a professional."
"He works in mirrors which doesn't make at all make him a ropes course supervisor."
"He's very handsome when He means what He says."
The home made potato chips had been burnt because Nick had fallen asleep while watching old re-runs of run marathons from the 80's. Nick had trained for the Olympics in 83' but while home after training and drinking an OK shake, Nick had stubbed his toe while drinking the OK shake and trying to get to a ringing telephone. Nick had collided so perfectly, so quickly and with such for that his right big toe had bent all the way back, his big toe fingernail touching the hairy patch on the top of his foot. The doctors said amputate the toe and save the foot or chop the entire thing off altogether. Nick, not being a dumb ****, opted for the entire foot. He never raced again.
"Are you going to try and get your job back?
"I don't know"
"Well. It's the 28th tomorrow and I need the rent either way. The insurance agency I'm with has been bugging me about percentages and utilities and...well, you don't want to hear about my worries."
"I don't mind sweety."
"Thanks doll. What're you gonna do?"
"Find more work I guess. I haven't written anything in a while, maybe it's a good time to get back on that train, see what comes up."
"I saw a help wanted sign at the mall nail salon."

---

Baby stroller wheels lined with pink and grey gum were lined up against the overwhelming glass wall enclosing the shops from the streets. Trees reflected green with the sun light lined across the clear wall. Birds flew at the top of the block near the ceiling crop, they wanted to come in but were confused how to do so. Children came through the valley with lollipops and balloon powder and strings lined with meats, they were headed to the capitalistic circus, a wonder land that only brought guilt from lovers and their future children's shame.
Angelina stood outside the electronic moment to moment receivers. She was afraid of not being allowed entry. Everyone entering entered easily, but what of she? Would she be accepted? Clicking her unpainted fingernail atop her leopard print clip purse and what was worse she had no cash to get her orange Julius or perhaps see a film if she couldn't conjure of the courage to stop off at the salon. That was why she had come here, right?
"Where had the salon been?" Angelina said aloud.
The mass of the mall was vibrating with a ferocious congruity. Through the fog of meaty torso's lay blank and content faces. Gripping their wares, their steaming quick food, some of it dropping to their foot only to be kicked around on the dirtied floor. At times a rat would scurry from underneath a traveling underwear salesmen to grab a piece of fried bread, half cooked meat, or small pieces of children's hair which floated softly down to the wet and mud streaked floor. Mall cops waved their sticks to each other, some kind of HAIL or CHEER that they were the one's in charge round' these parts and there wasn't nothing no one was going to do about it.
"Do I really want to work here?"
There was no choice though. Angelina needed to pay the rent or her landlord/boyfriend would kick her out on the street and from there, she had no clue where the blue sky would take her. Her parents, both dead thirteen years ago, would be a terrible place to set up camp, especially in a graveyard. Angelina's brother lived over seas working at a ***** clinic trying and failing to heal the weak and unwanted. He had tried to heal her through voodoo practices he gathered up drunk through his 6 month stay in New Orleans but it had only given her a bright blue and red rash for three to four weeks. She never longer trusted her brother with any kind of healing or "feel better" techniques and was no prepared to make the trek to Europe anytime soon, she was in a relationship at the moment anyway and she had a feeling she might be in love.
Angelina stepped through the glass exchanging doors in unison with a family that was entering at the same time. The door seemed to open for any body but was tentative if it would accept hers, this time, it seemed to.
Inside she made her way up "the miracle marbled stairs" which shined bright and blinded Angelina in certain parts of her eyes. They flashed bright red and greens and whites so visciously and fast Angelina thought she might have some kind of seizure. She planted her feet directly on each step as she walked up the 20 to 30 stairs, going very slow and gripping the handrail. People started to gather around behind her shouting "HURRY UP LADY" and "WE DON"T GOT ALL DAY" and giggling to themselves.
"Were they not seeing these lights?" Angelina thought to herself.
"Do you kind people know where the nail salon is?"
Angelina then realized that what she had just said made no sense. Her eyes were gripped shut, her hand tight around the shiny gold handrail, her feet pointed strictly out like some kind of paralyzed summer penguin. The people which had gathered behind her stood bare, jaw slacked, wondering who would step forth to help this poor helpless creature.
A little girl with red sparkled shoes and a orange bow atop her head stepped forth. She smiled even though she knew Angelina had her eyes tightly shut, maybe she would feel the warmth? The girl's mother reached for her so not to get to close to that "crazy lady" but the little girl pulled away, her father saying "If it's her time to go, it's her time to go".
"Miss lady with the tiger purse, I think the hardware nail pull on is on the 8th floor next to the people that sell bread with meat sticks inside."
The little girl stepped gingerly back as Angelina loosened her grip on the now stained golden handrail. She shook her hair out and ran her fingers through it, straightening herself up as if she were about to perform a song or late night poetry reading. Angelina opened her eyes and peered down at the girl.
"Thank you little girl. What's the best way to get there?"
The girl child said nothing. She pointed to a large metal box shooting up and down the length that looked like a rocket straight to heaven. People were gathered all around its foundation, oooing and ahhhing at the sight of the one's which entered. There was a sign over the line of tubes reading "A Shot at the Void".
"A shot at the Void..." Angelina tentaively breathed to herself.
Angelina stepped up the last couple glittering stairs and made her way through the thick crowd of stale clothes, cheap tricks, obsessed teeny boppers, hardware for wear, shoes with no laces, strips of bacon hanging from mouths, lettuce all shredded, soda cans with their lids torn clean off with small splatters of blood lined on the rim, and a perfectly painted fingernail was drawn on the number eight where the long lines and rows of numbers were there to guide the one's to the shot.
"Number eight. Easy enough"
Angelina pushed the button.

---

Inside the tube there was a slow light hum of jazz transfusion and children breathing. There were three little daughters gripping their mother's hands as they bit into their soda pop straws, ******* up the soda inside the plastic and cardboard cups. All three children stared up at her, maybe wondering what she was wondering, which was exactly what Angelina was wondering, a combination of mistaken telepathy, an accident of consciousness that would be never be talked about between the four of them but most surely existed between them.

Smooth as clay they drifted up the translucent clear glass tube, shooting skyward like a man made rocket shot from a man made gun. They passed shops hocking wears of angelic colors: clear pearl pastels shone through the clear blue glass shining into Angelina's eyes forcing Her to squint, dog barks could be heard through the whistling air begging for treats of black and brown, teriyaki chicken strips and duck heads spun absurdly fast with a rhythm that resembled the wave of a crowd at a baseball game waving wildly like children flying from swings never wanting to land in the sand; all this as the three and one flew higher and higher and higher.

---

Ding.

---

Angelina stepped forward, leaving the three children behind Her to fend for themselves. From the looks of the button they had pushed they were headed East. She gripped her bag and peeled Her eyes, twisted her hair in a tight knot to show her aggression, her vigor, her confidence and stepped into the rabid salmon like crowd.

She saw no signs of the nail salon. She saw only posters of rabbits holding artichoke legs and nail guns firing rockets of ice cream and corn bread. These were the mirrors of the supposed revolution but had nothing to do with her nail salon, she needed the cash and she needed it NOW! How hard were the numbers to acquire? How long must she wait before the envelope is sent and the letter read and thrown out? How long Lord, how long?

Questions for a time when the pay checks were easy coming and Her man was by her side. She passed by a little boy playing William Tell with her sister. An apple on the little tots head and in the boys a small, tight and silver ray gun. The boy pulled the trigger but only a small plume of smoke came from the top making the boy ball over crying and wailing and kicking and screaming, nearly catching Angelina in the shin, what a mess...The little girl stayed still in Her spot though because her brother told her "Now don't move a cinch." Wise move my girl, wise move...

At last! Angelina, reaching Her destination saw the brightly neon colored corner of her beloved Nail Salon. The windows shone with pure red glitter, miniatures of poodles lapping up puddles of ice water, women laying out on the sun to catch rays from the Earth, and husbands shaving their backs all in a circle and row.

"How beautiful..." Angelina breathed out.

She entered the store front. Greeted from every corner were beautiful young cupid like angels faces shining divine but with no torsos, floating heads of angels ***** but crying and smiling. Asking Angelina "What would you like today miss?" or "What are you after?", beckoning for her requests, begging for her touch of vulnerability and lack of knowledge of where she was or what she needed.

"Just an application...I heard you all were hiring?"

"Hiring!!!?" the cupid heads screamed in unison.

"You want to become one of us?"

"Yes, part-time...?" Angelina said hesitantly.

As soon as the words "part" had been uttered from Angelina's wise and brave mouth the many heads of cupid began spinning and spinning around Angelina's body. Faster and faster they spun until Angelina herself was spinning with them, unified in a quadruple hurricane stripping her of her former self and slowly manipulating her body, her hair, her other self into her new self.

As Angelina's torso lay in the corner of the store un-bloodied, clothes tattered as well as some scratches  on her elbows from the toss, Angelina's head was floating in the perfect center of the other three hovering cupid heads.

"How beautiful...how beautiful...how beautiful."

"Isn't it?" the three cupid heads answered.

"Yes, everything here is so beautiful," the four of them whispered.

And as soon as Angelina had entered, she just as soon had left.

END

Miniatures
micro-pictures
win me over
the macro distracts
as too large a canvas it does cover
anything that's in excess
dulls the senses
in the menu of life
there's just too much to choose
why would I prefer ten dishes
when the best I have tasted?

There are many instances,
those I have not been proud of,
when I have scoured the colonies collecting tiny, ornate cigar boxes
to house the bodies of dead, miniature emperors of the
Imperial realm beneath my floorboards.

Cheap pine does tend to hide many things,
for it is god-like, this Empire.
its beauty: arresting and unearthly.

I discovered it as all great historical finds come to us,
on an unremarkable, and unplanned afternoon.

I felt not unlike an ancestral WASP,
stumbling upon the new world, or at the very least, new to me.
how presumptuous, to think that this great majestic thing beneath my feet is my junior.

Surely, then, I am the discovery,
bringing my primitive ways,
attire, tribe and desires
to the Imperial Court.

From them, I learned secrets,
a pantheon of miniature gods,
and thousands of years worth of minute literature and culture.
all of it in lovely,
resplendant whispers only the miniature can voice.

From me,
they simply learned of our endless,
tireless wars in futility.
From me,
they took ill and died in a quiet,
unassuming plague,
the sickness of our humanity.

We **** beauty,
at all times, and at all places.
We **** what we touch, and hold closest to us,
our bodies made solely of trillions of happy daggers,
primed and sharpened
for the great, sweeping massacre that resides in us all.

Mr. Golden sun casting long shadows
Salty breeze hitting across
Acres of sand lying beneath our feet
Ups and downs like craters on the moon
Crows cawing, horses galloping and dogs basking in the sun
A straight line of ocean doodled below the empty sky
Gigantic ships appear like miniatures farther away
Hushing sound of waves
Four feet amidst frothy tides creating footprints
Carrying back some rustic soil on the toes
A little dirt never hurt
A bag of sea shells
Small, big, coloured and white, all with a coat of sand
A bag full of sea shells
The sun sets down
The radiant moon creates a guiding path in the dark shore
Following us back home
After a long evening at the beach
With my dear son

She collected lolly sticks,
        The ones with jokes on them:
        Why did the chicken cross the road?-type stuff,
Which she stained brown and used as floorboards
in her magnum opus.

The Tudor house was the best one.
It had servants’ quarters
And a kitchen with little hessian potato sacks made
of something or other she salvaged from
somewhere or other;
And the floorboards looked so real:
        painted lolly sticks
        but almost evoking the smell of varnish,
        layers of polish on a floor trodden by centuries
        in perfect miniature;
                                                Almost­.

This was the last of the three
                                                or four
                                                        doll­s’ houses she built;
The devil’s work for her idle widow’s hands.
She built this one while you were entering your final
        stalemate
that doomed dance that sits so permanently
on your conscience
like a sack of compost
full of water.
        (I choose this simile only because
        I found this in my garden yesterday,
        and it was ******* heavy.)
On paper it was simple:
        You gave her your house,
        She gave you hers.

And so her house shrunk around her and
became a dolls’ house of your own making,
Irrationally
                        she saw your god-hands reaching in
to manipulate and
extort her.

She was wrong, of course.

You were making good on your promise.
You would come through for her in her frailty.
You did – but

it was a promise you made more to yourself than her,
And she let her illogical mind
        never analytical to begin with
        now razed and blinded by grief and loneliness
                        (there was nothing to work with)
poison your good deed,
you were both dolls now.

Eight years later she died lovelessly.

She retreated into her sitting room
        the only part of the house that stayed the same
        after you moved in –
                the walls closed in to contain it
                constrict it
a hospital bed and vinyl chair with commode,
and the brown laminate floor
        just like
        her lolly sticks.

You administered painkillers
Admitted the nurses
Negotiated with your estranged brother.

but her paranoia rotted everything
and your hands cared with compassion but not love.

Gone, now,
the dolls’ houses remain.
An inheritance of clutter
in a house you bought.

You answer the phone
                                        breathlessly
      ­                                  aggressively.
You have been heaving the big one up the stairs
        that sack of compost
        that heavy conscience of yours.

You will be heaving those ******* dolls’ houses around
until I have to buy your house and care for you.
But I am telling you now:
        I am putting them in a skip
        the moment I have the chance.

They are not imbued with the joy they gave her
any more than
                        by keeping them safe from landfill
                        you can imbue them with the love you withheld.

They are painted lolly sticks and sewn hessian.
They don’t contain any more of her
than the bits of paper she kept
        passwords and bank balances
        dates and instructions for the Sky box
There is nothing left of her to protect now.

Open up the hinged false front,
                tip out the miniatures
                let the little figures be free,
                                be landfill
                                (isn’t that what dying is anyway?)
all the tangible things she touched and loved
are not avatars for her touch and her love.

The past is not present through the preservation of objects.
The past is not erased by the advancement of time
                nor can it be undone by corrective action.

Now she is on the other side of the road,
        (why did the chicken–
        behave.)
She has no further use for the things she left behind.

On my fingers, on my tongue-
Your taste a sweet and pleasing one.
I unwrap you greedily
And nibble on you speedily.

Milk chocolate, I can't resist-
in miniatures or in a kiss.
Three musketeers are worth the fee-
all for one and one for me.

In a pudding or a bar
I enjoy you in my home or car.
In drink, you warm my winter day
once my shovels been put away.

Intoxicating like fine wine,
Your antioxidants are all mine.
I sneak away with you, my treasure,
an old fat man's one guilty pleasure.

TASMANIA, The Apple Isle,
rooted in conquest, convicts
and cannibalism.

Into this desolate paradise,
suffering, starving Englishmen,
dreaming of home, planted
row upon row of small neat
cottages, graciously adorned
by native English roses.

Convicted felons, shunned
from polite English society,
became her upstanding citizens,
and like her fuel-laden forests,
she smouldered, a daughter of
mother England, steeped in
her heritage like a lauded
*** of Earl Grey.

For two centuries, England
grew, a wild sunflower,
with London's sprawling
population sprouting from
1m seedlings, to over 8m
at the peak of her growth.

And somehow, somewhere,
something broke inside.

Today, proud Englishmen
mourn a loss of the spirit
and freedom of their forebears,
still proud, yet yearning
for the simple, honest
existence of a yesteryear
long lost, and not forgotten.

In Tasmania, time drifted
lazily, as outposts sprawled
into small towns, small towns
into small cities, like miniatures
mimicking the motherland
her pioneers had left behind.

But unlike her proud parent,
Tasmania remained true to
the spirit that raised her
from the ashes of convict
settlements, and a fledgling
society intent on defending
the spirit that put England
at the heart of an empire
flourished.

I am an Englishman, proud
to be born and raised in
her heartlands, and prouder
still, to have found that most
distant corner of our once
great empire that embodies still
the spirit of hard work,
fair play and decency that
is found within the beating heart
of every true Englishman.

Carl didn't finish school
Preferring to work on my father's farm
Breathing prairie dust and smoke
Seeing suns rise and fall
Living under the weather
Freezing or sweating to the season
Reading the wind
Cursing the heat that brought migraines
Smoking Salem cigarettes

Alone in his bunkhouse
With his regrets
Three meals a day with us
A car or truck demanding payments
Kept him coming back to work

The draft cards came;
Neighbors left, but Carl stayed.
One day I asked him,
"Why didn't you finish school?"
"Why weren't you drafted?"
"Are you going to marry?"

"I can't," was his reply.

I asked him why.

"Because I tested as a border-line *****."
At 10, I had no idea what "*****" meant,
Had never heard Stanford-Binet,
Didn't realize the damage of labels,
But now I do.

When authorities mis-measure
the capacities of a man,
And labels shackle,
They fail to see or know
The genius in a Carl.

They didn't stop to think
What gifts he had
Nor had they seen
The perfection
Of his creations
There on the bunkhouse table.
Perfect miniatures of our farm machinery:
Tractors, cultivators, harvesters,
Cut from plastic and metal stock,
Measured intricately to scale,
Fitted with loving care,
Glued and painted
Complete and ready
For some small-minded man
To drive into a miniature field.

10:39:47
She should be married by now
I watched
The black hand on the white basel
tick on, reflecting my poker face
with the Patek Phillipe logo

10:41:35
Numb. Pain. Pain or numb?
It should be me, she was the one
I had her, she was mine
She likes tomato juice, miniatures
Black Louboutins in size 4 and a half
Tatler, oreo cheese Dairy Queen blizzard
Mint tea, kebab and omakase

10:42:23
Dance. Pole or Burlesque?
body rock hard, eyes on me
It should be me, down the aisle
Her lips always red, her eyes
curl up when she smiles
cat eye, plushies, flowers on fields
Books, panels, her wit sharp as knife

10:44:45
She should be walking out of church
Eyes stared at the door
I had no blue in Tiffany, red in Cartier
Blood on my hands, pyramid top
No time for her, I made it all for her
So she left me in the middle
Of an Hermes store

10:45:13
I saw her, white dress smiling
She didn't look at him
the way she looked at me
10 years ago, today, 10:45
First time I saw her, in a red dress
I opened the car door.
I crumpled my Loro Piana in the rain

10:46:34
I grabbed her, her mother screamed
Her best friend laughed, her dad sighed
The man reached for me,
I am not letting go

miniatures kept
appearing on the floor

under
sole pressure
a soft warmth pools
between fickle toes.

There’s a constant anxiety on those tables
A perilous way to deflect the world and all its problems
A kind of insidious joy in collecting
All these miniatures, minuscule and exquisitely crafted figures
Bothered by life in their stillness
Like little swans and princesses
Lingering in a silence which is sacred.
These tiny clever ones
Shuffled on slightly scratched wood,
Wear their days like a cloak of doom
And push each other
Like Londoners out of the tube.
Fearless, little monsters
Repressing their hunger,
treading over the borders of life, they enter
forests from which no escape is granted
Where awakens a desire for mutiny,
From the abnormal perfection
Smothered under ceramic faces.

A bedside table full of whatnots
Doesn’t shield you from bad dreams
The little shepherd lies smashed on the floor
And no one’s going to cry for him.

Knowledge friction, war stories
told five generations deep,
to the future where Ursala made you
curious enough to swallow a thought.

Meta, after all ready, phor filling,
as with allegory and parables, bits
of wish and wonder ifery…
inner world building time to think.

Here to there is very far, by virtue
of our common measure, from…

seafoam unnoticed, save in stone…
quantum foam in all at once done, set

Sit with me,
tell me if you know
why some folks are free as me,
and others are bound in reasons
old as opposing force used for bubbling.

See us thinking, unspoken words, but
words, still, continuous thought held
as tiny bubbles
along swirlumphants hardwired
with science of the certain inner sort,
the ways of wise ones, learned thinkers
who recollect the processed thoughts, say

listen, if there were a way peace was made
once, were there these thoughts we think now?
Bubbling in my soul, they said, back when?
How is peace released inside the storm?
Chaos 70 facets deep, same idea, resist order.

The experience acknowledged, chaos of cream
in caffeine , f'eine, eh, so we'd've known, by now.
First peaceable thought spared ignorance today.

We be in our own bubbles of being, foaming now.

If we were once thought God's big joke.

Melvin Redsocks, the fat, queer kid.
Boy Scout, Union 76 pump jockey suicide.
Trauma drama life experience, done.
Let me imagine being you, no,
you know, dead men don't reman the same,
reimagining a child's mind, remains
something, an art, a formula, per
haps…
co instants re co noticed, yes, that person,
that mind thought this were we in tune to time.

Bubble bound, poli-mere, essence-initial wall,
signal zero beat
line to cross, twister to pass through, on this level.
Timing tuning through the noise, seeing all things flow.
Mental muscle, musty mold, crusty granite green
wet November fungal bloom, foaming coincidents
electrical analysis laxloossschu iiclysis o'uses we's
discerning freedom's bubble form, cosmic wind
spinning…past the past poor Melvin was in,
we realize
a
hormonal braking idea, a geared pineal whisper,
slow
thinking things think thoughts are listening prayer.
Cause cream is lipid, resistance is related to hot and cold.
What you comprehend, bubble-wise, you hold true.
Grease slick on the puddles in the drive way salt.
-colors I knew a painter who painted miniatures of
Some old ideas, self evident to landed men, in consort
at the inspirited metatask-tization nationalized as this
version of the grand aspiration to be of one mind,
republican rectitude balanced on gravities ego.

What you learn you know, that's life, now…
in matters of value.
Love me some o'dem balyous. Bacavaca'saltmeat now.
More all you knows, to go on, win. Shibboletm'***

What's a thought worth. Unthought.
Clear con
science confidence, psy why come, go gnosis see\
'snot
life's tricks, time and chance,
there you are,
here I was, thinking we can make up minds.

Bubbles in seafoam. Seen from the basin
at the edge of the salt.
Sold we loose the salt sown on our soil.
Seeming we become the testing grounds, run on.
Salt was said to ionize any quest. As my sacrifice
I lost my salt, and left it to mark the way I went.

I put the photo
on Meta somewhenanowagonon 'won run on will to

Keep on, holding
a certainty too far to fathom from the top.

Fo' a long time, emnity and me, we run on,

way back long now, 200 jahreback'ld be 1723,
tough winter in this same world, then lit by fire.

No matches low men could be allowed to use, yet.
This long before then, in the east…
Fire works brought laughing dragons daun wu wei, then
in the land that tamed the Khan, in those days,
simultaneous cultural bubble, gurgle
gut level, listen, all neurons on, skin, prickle, **** clench
ankle to toes, tighten, listen, mirror then…
Cold. Peace is easyier, if you are sure of winter warmth.
And basics.
Fundamental satisfaction, wait, winter out state, inside.

Exhale, stretch and wiggle and half hiccup… and breathe
release, loose, let it go.
We have smelled musty ourselves, we know errors
as well as any messaging mind devised
in everwasery times.
- the heat depends
- on reality, we need friction, fitslips
Knots in sense since whenning was a way we do
grindwhinesohighwe all never listen any more, it is all noise.
Listen to the ten thousands whistling ever changing times.
If you resist the wind,
you lift off, as dust thou art, and so on…

We fly in a single reader's mind loosed to feel free as a word.

What a selfish child, she thought
Leeching the poor tree dry
Less than what she had been before.

She herself stripped of her jewels
Made into extreme miniatures for her children’s fingers and ears
The mossy fur ripped from her flesh
Her screams the crunch and creak as they felled her trees.

They give her no pause between the spasms of pain
An endless labor with no birth to show
No relief and her sweat has filled oceans.

The fires licking over her parched skin are a joyous pain
She writhes, reveling in the heat.
And now it is her children who scream and sob
Begging the man who cradles them in his palm to restrain her.

But he won’t
For they are hers while mortal
And he will not touch them
Until their ghosts have shrugged from their shells.

Once the sight of their broken bodies
would have caused her tears to pour forth
Drowning their tiny lungs and swelling the number held by him.
But now she is a mother who turns her face from her squalling infants
Cries falling onto calloused ears.

She learned from the many named man
How to be at peace with their deaths
And found from him comfort
With his mouth sewn shut, his eyes only for those he holds
His ears filled with the empty silence of their space.
And even though this last sanctuary has become contaminated
Still she stirs the soup of air rocketing her little ones around her.

Her ignorant children cause her agony
But what young do not?

Some even pray to her
Working to feed off her in other ways
And though they are only a drop in the bucket of her pain
She cannot deny she loves them.

So long has she watched them live and die
Broke down their empty  bodies and
seen them rejoin their creator to weep
when faced with what they have done to her their mother.

A pity the dead cannot speak to the living.
But she quiets them
Shows her disembodied children
The wonders she still holds
Smothered, smudged and distorted.

Again they sob thinking she means punishment
In showing them her diminished beauty but it is not so.
She beckons them to look and understand
No matter the cancer growth of their chemicals
that poison her body
There is no permanent death for she will consume any and all
Even her own brood to continue on.

Her children may strip her of everything
As willingly as Shel’s tree gave herself away
But it is she who will remain long after their bodies
Have grown frail and decayed
For she is Mother Earth.

_
I’m so pleased that you avoided me like the plague.
I probably just scared you by telling you I broke down.
Either way, still pleased.
_
You broke me so hard and I’ve never recovered.
You never looked back.
I would have done anything for you.
I still love you, I would still forgive you, but I know you’ll never come back.
_
You gave me a picture of New York.
What did you want me to do with it?
What you wrote, tore me up.
I don’t want you.
_
All of the things I’ve said.
Let me go, let me grow, let me be. Don’t come back. I can’t breathe. I’m too scared. I’m not good. I’m not enough. I’m not fighting for you, don’t fight for me.
It’s so painfully evident to me,
That you need this even more than I do.

Light years away..

I'm tracing

State lines

On an old roadmap

Time and distance

Shrunk down to scale

Miniatures make my dreams

More believable;

Spirit always fluttering

Like a hummingbird

Underneath my ribcage

Much like a bird

I'd like to one day learn

I'm not stuck in this rut for eternity

My great migration, still waiting

Compass in my dome piece

Magnets to map my pathway

Am I even able move away?

well... back in the day,
in the days of Louis XIV...
they had their own unique
pronoun oddities,
like... the royal one...
and the royal we...

so... given those oddities...
then the kings used
to speak to their subjects
accordingly:
   we are very much displeased,
or...
    one should think so...

so...
        we're dealing with pauper
miniatures of kings
and queens?!
  seriously?

so now the "serf" imposes
the same rigidity of language,
that was inherent for a king
or a queen?

   queen not queer or somethin'?

we've had this "debate" already...
but a king i can understand,
yet people of the same lesser
stock as i...
                     no...

                not going to happen...
at least, if you're going to play the royal
spin on using pronoun oddities,
please...
                 don't **** at it...

they...            they?
                 where are they?
                                      they are far away
or are they in a matryoshka doll?
define they...
                         you sound like
primitive Heidegger with his da-sein...
the elaborated Heidegger
         apprentice would add to that:
da-ist-sein: there's being...
      there... where?
i can't see them anywhere...
                 but the royal we makes
perfect sense...
   it's like...
  you quasi-schizophrenic or something?
like... there are multiples yous in youuuuuur
concept of a coherent expression?

this pronoun ******* has been
borrowed from the kings and queens
of a few centuries ago...

but am i going to entertain this
******* enforcement from someone who
doesn't don a crown?
don't think so.

poncey little ******* who think
they're kings,
   and possibly queer ****-pants queens...
no going to happen.

hiding did not work
for was caught up with
in the lane
asked to explain

talked randomly about slate fences
and temporary miniatures

I

In her eyes, he could see
the boisterous nature of life
the visions of future, and the scope of silence in between.

II

All I'm doing is, living off my resources: inside a storm, maybe.
Still death cannot be simplified and its contours lie within me, despite the scales before me.


III

A boisterous seeker, peripheral and pragmatic in conclusions, beginnings without answers: the stone that sought fire and wore it off in air.

IV

Maybe you know this,
Our *** is not intuitive not impulsive neither terse, not the least deniable: a cadenza to the violent soul of nature, our language and its mistakes impromptu every second.

V

Look! the landscape- its frozen miniatures configured within: dwellers on its ***** and creases, cheering the new sun, its sheer magnitude -the sum of their lives now, this moment.

As I was walking in a hall, wide and bright, I stumbled upon a mounted spyglass.

Right on the mount, it said that it could let me look at the past. I thought that something that allowed me to look through to the opposite would be much more convenient.

Nevertheless, I looked in.

There I saw 2009 when I worried about when I will get laid.

The songs I listened to were old and good, but never mine.

These memories are blurry, small, and insignificant. But one could never forget what that felt like.

On the other side was 2013, when my mind was somewhere else as I sat near the university pathway when I should be in a class.

The songs I listened to took me as one of their own, at least for the time being.

These memories looked like miniature figurines. Problematic, yet quite small.

Tilting the spyglass, I saw the end of 2016. I was near a superhighway waiting for a bus that might never come. Things were still quite problematic, but clearer. None of those miniatures blurs on the side that just focused on me.

These memories looked bigger, much more vivid. It felt closer. So I looked away.

There I stood inches away from the spyglass. I walked to the other side and it allowed me to see the future.

Everything looked small and unclear. It was as if everything you can see didn't even know where to go.

But they all felt like mine.  Like things I never had but always have known that belonged to me forever.

They are Sunday afternoon naps, cups of coffee that are either good or bad (who can tell?), and a lot of hugging.

Again I stepped back. This time because I felt afraid.

There's always uncertainty ahead.

But I was certain about uncertainty then.

The future can come in any way, shape, or form but one thing will never change.

It will always be mine.

Carl didn't finish school,
Preferring to work on my father's farm
Breathing prairie dust and smoke,
Seeing suns rise and fall,
Living in the weather,
Freezing or sweating to the season,
Reading the wind,
Cursing the heat and migraines.

Smoking Salem cigarettes
Alone in his bunkhouse,
He never mentioned his regrets;
Three meals a day with us,
A car or truck demanding payments
Kept him coming back to work

The draft cards came;
Vietnam called;
Neighbors left,
But Carl stayed.

One day I barraged him,
"Why didn't you finish school?"
"Why weren't you drafted?"
"Are you going to marry?"

"I can't," his reply.

I asked why.

"Because I tested border-line *****."

Just 10, I had no idea what "*****" meant,
Had never heard Stanford-Binet,
Didn't realize the power of labels.

Now I do.

When authorities mis-measure
The capacities of a man,
When labels shackle,
We fail to see or know
Imago Dei before us.

We didn't stop to think
What gifts he had,
Nor did we see the perfection
Of his creations on his bunkhouse table:
Perfect miniatures of our farm machinery:
Tractors, cultivators, harvesters,
Cut from plastic and metal stock,
Measured intricately to scale,
Fitted with loving care,
Glued and painted,
Complete and ready
For some small-minded man
To drive into a miniature field.

I. son
i am my mother's boy
who knows which teflon pans
can take the abrasive green of
a scotch brite sponge
whose face was spared the
potent accutane but not
the persistent whiteheads

mamma, sage and skeptic
who tells me things like
"to bury a parent is an honor,
but to bury a child is a curse"
if such things are to believed,
mamma holds the esteem and
privilege of a queen because
she buried both parents before
she could finish her roaring 20s
but also because she planted her
roots firm and coaxed a flourishing
garden kingdom from the scorched
plains of her own fragile fig-heart

i am my father's son
who is enamored with knowing
my brain ever-hungry for knowledge
my father who phones colleagues on drives
when there is nothing to say
or listens to npr and old malayalam songs,
fuzzy and wailing, when the gap
between us feels too far to bridge

dada, whose hair-trigger temper
i am said to have inherited
only he seethes in stoic solemnity
and i decompose, curdle and sour into
bitter words i'm not sure i don't mean
dada who, if **** hit the fan and the
plane was going down, would strap
the elastics of oxygen masks behind
the ears of others before his own;
reckless selflessness in everything

dada says that in his eyes,
i am still the wrinkled, delicate
bundle of flesh he took home
on march 10th, 2005
mamma says i am the first child
she has ever held and the first child
she has ever loved

the tectonics of arguments:
convergence with dada
brings only the buckling of earth
the creation of new ridges until
we are separate continents
subsidence with mamma
where deceit leads to a sinking
and my rebellion is made into
magma once more, simmering
dormant beneath the surface

i say i love you to my parents
especially during these arguments
because god forbid their lives
are cut short and all that was
and all that will ever be was
punctuated simply, indefinitely,
with two terrible semicolons;
i want to live without regret
and celebrate them in my
remembrance

i say i love you
but it’s difficult to say
“i’m sorry”

ii. material love
i tell you that love is as material
as it is immaterial:

i tell you that love
is the sore corners of our mouths
marred and slit open by the plastic
of dime a dozen fruit-flavored freeze pops
cold and sticky on sun-ironed skin
the heat-ironed fuse bead memorial plaque
buried with dexter the dead pet fish
in the sloped backyard of my old house

foil wrapped over-toasted peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches clutched in the cold hands
of my family, seated in a dusty gold nissan minivan
at 6:30 in the morning, dressed in our sunday best
on the way to church in the bleak midwinter

i'm from
crumpled bounce dryer sheets
redolent with soapy softener
heady pine-sol wet on bathroom tiles

i'm from
knees skinned on bus stop pavement
kiss it better, dust it off
keloid trinkets of my childhood

i'm from the spice and burn of liquor
miniatures on my grandfather's breath
the scent of ഏത്തക്ക അപ്പം frying on the deck
turmeric-tinted oil clinging to paper towels

i'm from fiddling with shoelaces for an eternity
because my clumsy fingers didn't have the dexterity
to coax the bunny around the tree and into its den

i'm from mamma having us stuff loose change into
cardboard coin rolls weeks before christmas,
so that santa would have a down payment for
our presents, even when we lived paycheck to paycheck

i'm from smuggling aunt jemima syrup under the dining table
with the matte finish that raised the hairs on my arms when scratched
to sip in clandestine corn syrup paradise

i'm from mac n' cheese and hot dogs
marauchen chicken-flavored instant ramen
with ice cubes so as to not scald my
young and unseasoned tongue

i'm from learning to ride a bike in the
parking lot of the local middle school
while my parents camped out in the
trunk of our old toyota highlander
racing birds, squirrels, anything that
dared so much as to breathe with
a childish eagerness, ever-chasing
the boundless oblivion of sunset
the violent shaking of training wheels
setting the tempo to my mayhem

i'm from getting fitted for a bonded zirconium tooth
not long after flipping over the handlebars of a bike
long after taking the training wheels off
(maybe i forgot to keep my head out of the clouds
or perhaps the clouds out of my head)

i'm from sonic chili cheese anything
on thursday schoolnights,
and fistfuls of arby's curly fries clenched
between tiny fingers as we watched
planes take off from the trunk of our car,
flying,
     flying,
          flying,
yaw, pitch, roll like badminton birdies
eclipsing crayola-blue skies
like sly fireflies evading mason jar capture
zipping through sleepy nights

i am rooted with conviction
in pennsylvania piedmont
(rich, chalky with minerality)
and transient like lamplight fire
dancing on houston bayous
in a mid-spring's twilight

in the strokes of my father
tracing the കുരിശ് on my
forehead after a nightmare

i am from syllogism and shortcomings
a student of disappointment but
always a child of love