2009 october 9,
Sharja, ajman, dubai**

Very early,
The day
Browses through the book
On suicide

“this wooden cross of poesy
Will control
The road mishaps
Of dream travel”
I told the day
That those are my lines

He laughed
Sunlight spread

Gave the book
On suicide
To the day

Let it get dark,
He said

A father for the first time
is making
His daughter
Listen
to the sea
Named after her

Ammini,
Why don’t you
Say something?

This is the sea,
Mother ocean
Mother ocean
Gave you your name

You laugh
Listening to the roar
What do you know
About its depths
Even your father doesn’t know
Whirlpools,
Deep abysses
Waves
Oysters

Huge sharks
With protruding teeth

Keep it a bit closer, girl,
The low voice
Of a goddess

After your father
Dipped you
In the ocean,
He  wrote on the bank,

That the ocean mother is a thief

It was probably
Because she was scared of you,
Ammini,
This time,
She didn’t wipe it out

…

Who is this Ranni?
To which godforsaken place does this Ranni belong ?
Whether it is Ranni
Or Konni,
I have to drink a drop of liquor
After that, everything will be all right

In the perfect Ranni room
Of the one from Ranni
Ranni
Ranni
Ranni
Ranni, etc

There are pictures of father and mother

You are blessed
The pictures of
Father
And mother
In the words of Nazimuddin
Fair wife
Obedient children

Liquor
Gave a kiss
On the forehead
Of the one from Ranni

Would Shobha
Have ever seen me
Except through the camera?
Anilan,
Mary, Mary again,
Shihab,
Must have seen me
Changing lens after lens

As  for everyone else,
I am a picture
For Shobha

No shobha
Has seen
Me

Is it because of madness
Or in order to not become mad
O forest,
In-between
In-between
In-between
These missed calls

Those that were missed were missed all right .

In- between,
Trying to imitate
You
In your language,
I failed...

There is,
In Aluva
A Sebastian
Who vends vegetables

Sells anything
Except poems

And you?

All who smoke
Pine cigarettes
In the world
Are brothers

After I die
You should give
A packet of Pine
Along with the award given

I
Was the seller
In that grocery
One day
For one hour
In some moment

My pay
My pay

This kiss
Is this worker’s
Struggle with you

A struggle with kisses

Wow!
I feel like living

Great

See, I didn’t write this
Why do words
Come and look
In places where
They are not wanted,
at times when they are not wanted?

I will stab you
It will be over with a stab,
It should be over

As soon as a poem was over
Another one!
A lady says

Is it possible to feign deafness
when females talk to us?

But this time I fooled you!
I am not reciting a poem
It is reciting me!

Now let it think!


In the look of wonder and respect,
Girl,

I become another person,

You are with your father
Even then you whisper
That you want to hear my poem

I have seen you somewhere

My children,
Poem?
It is all gone

It smells like a cadaver
If I open my mouth


Do you know
How many people ran away?

First you gave me
A huge bunch of basil

My soul turned green,
But as I stand there
Stunned,
Thinking that you are so small - a girl,
You give again

An uncooked forest of leaves again

Hey look,
You are a girl

This kiss is on your forehead
I am not one who do not fancy
The private parts of females

My kiss is firmly on your forehead.
Because
My son is a daughter..

No, it didn’t happen in classrooms                                                       ­       
Of syllabus and assignments. But
Somewhere amid the iron rusty
Windows Of 28-rupee bus tickets
From yellowed Platform signs. All  
from          
                                            ­                      (Kayankulam to Cantonment)
No, not the gust, but visits a florid                                                           ­   
Breeze after 6 over my garnered age.
Sliding beneath her gold embroidered
curtains, under the ashen newspaper
Speaking of potholes and crows.
How you commute in colored notes                                                            ­  
                                                                ­                        (Adoor to Adoor)
from district to the next is unfamiliar.
Surely, spicy how it rolls from me
Tongue to hers/his/theirs. Carried on
To the red slits on their skin. Fleshed.
Pages, the her-story of breasted warriors,
with ease. You slip off the sky’s night
gown. On the same earth hurried kings,
Queens, and ivory throned British malice.  
                                                                ­                                            
                    ­                                         (Adoor to Thiruvananthapuram)
Exiting from a throbbing earthen stilt
kindness, a dry sandy footstep. From your
children’s 44 rivers, where song and dance,
clamored from the shore. Must be that glued
pride, divine of your esteemed royalty
                                                                ­                  (Periyar, Achenkovil)
Perhaps a brown rattlesnake, you slither
into all riding on health magazines, pamphlets
and late news debates. In hymns of praise and
folded envelopes of austerity from the rain dren-
ched postbox.
Like drizzle at night from a cup.
And if you were a spirit, you swim about
in the death of fishes in cat mouths begging
around with crows in busy smelly harbors, stray dogs
with their tongues out flicking ripened mango                                    
                                                          ( Aluva Central Stn. To Thiruvalla)
pickles on railroad tracks packed with rice and Coconut milk.
Children of mammal and mamma fighting out for
A leaf foiled bundle or rise and rotten fish.
You and I
We share a familiar vision of spring
Bedding an acid sting like memory
                                                          ­                      (Kottayam toThrissur)
Of raw plantains in mouth. Coconut oil                                                      
On head. Crying with my tooth on a
String from my greasy door handle.
There’s a way she rolls of my mouth
To his/hers/theirs.
After all it’s the better language
To kiss with. And after bury with.
                                                                ­           (Adoor to Ranni,Kollam)