Baby dreams of milk

Baby smiles
Baby croons
Baby says eyayeeyaeyooyey
In sleep.

In baby’s dream
A pair
Of boobs
Swell.
Twin springs
Of milk
Gush.

gums wet tongue wet mouth wet
thick thick milk wet.
gurgles baby.
glob of cream slab of butter
glands furiously turn
blood to food in the factory of love
desalting distilling reforming refining
in centrifugal pumps pipes chutes taps.

In baby’s dream flow rivers of milk
where swim milk fish
sprout milk trees
bathe milk mammas
bloom hundred boobs like milk bubbles.

Milk baby dreams a booby trapped dream
Where a milk bomb explodes
Into white white stars.

Milk baby wakes up to
the Three Dukhaas. *

• Buddha’s concept of the three Dukhaas (sufferings) in life– dukha of ordinary suffering, dukha of change and dukha of conditioned states.

Vdaystuti

A prayer on V-day/ By Ra Sh (This poem is obnoxious and not cleared by the Censor)

Namo pendulous boobs, O mother,
Devi of jack fruits, ripe as elephant heads!
Namo mountainous butts, O mother,
Devi of pumped up pumpkins, bursting clouds!
Namo thundering thighs, O mother,
Devi of marble minarets, quivering pillars!
Namo bush fire fire mouths, O mother,
Devi of magma quakes, lava saliva spills!
Namo Namo Namo Namo
Namo rosebud, brownbud, copperbud!
Namo Namo Namo Namo
Namo scarlet lips, sugar lips, pickle lips!
Namo Namo Namo Namo
Namo gold clipt, silver clipt, bronze clipt!
Namo Namo Namo Namo
Namo my noose, my leap, my serpent venom!
Namo Namo Namo Namo
Namo my jack knife, my net, my elixir vial!
Namo fat fat Namo blood blood Namo flesh flesh!

Of Dogs and Men 3

Walking past a
Pack of mongrels
Sleeping by the road
Eyes closed content
With the dog life they lead,
I saw buses whizzing past cars
honking along drunkards
weaving in and out of
the bar workers discussing the
wages women buying brinjals
surveyor measuring the road
width sweeper cleaning the
drain school girl on a cycle
office goer hailing the auto the
two local mad men strolling silently
in opposite directions.

(Had a busy day…phew…bank…office…market…
retailers…buyers….reports…courier…phew…
bills….cheques….tea…meals…parcels…phew!)

Returning in
The evening I saw
Them still sleeping
The mongrels in a pack
Of contentment clutched
In a dead end community
Grip of solidarity camaraderie
Bound like the pages
Of a history book a still life.

A white van stood by.

Next morning,
They were gone.
A lone pup
Sniffed around.

December Wood

In December,
Beside the manger,
Beside the grass,
While a baby was being born,
There sprouted a tree
On whose wood
He would be crucified
Thirty three years later.

Ka Kha Ga Gha

River, effervescent,
Froth, rocks, rough cut sun,
Crematorium, half burnt body,
Me, cool sand.
A girl crosses the river.
Moon spotlights her.
The curtain of stars rises.
Her feet, ankles, shin, knee,
Resurrect inch by inch,
Sink into the current once again.
Tangerine thighs, pubis, the vermillion gash,
Reverberating belly, two globules of mercury,
Resurrect and sink.
She emerges, a walking rain.
The rainbow cloud erect above me, seeping.
An old question, I ask her.

Ka Tvam Bale? / Who are you, girl?   (1)
Kanchanamala / Kanchanamala.

Kasya putri? / Whose daughter?
Kanakalatayah/ Kanakalata’s.

Kim te haste? / What’s in your hand?
Thalipatram / A palm leaf.

Ka va rekha? / What’s written there?
Ka Kha Ga Gha / Ka Kha Ga Gha.

Crematorium/ body/ me
She floats next to me
Like a rippling soul.
I begin to scrawl Ka Kha Ga Gha
On the knots of her silver spine
With a fiery finger.

(1)  Beginning Ka Twam Bale and ending with Ka Kha Ga Gha, it is a rendition of a famous Sanskrit poem by Kalidasa(5th cent AD).  Legend has it that King Bhoja wanted the court poets to write a poem that ended in Ka Kha Ga and Gha, the first four consonants of the Sanskrit language. Seems Kalidasa,the most gifted among them, met a girl on the street and asked her these same questions and received the same answers which he made into a poem and presented it to the King next day. To me, the poem brings out the girl’s openness, friendliness,innocence, her readiness to learn and her level of freedom in the society. Her name is Kanchanamala (a golden necklace) and her mother is Kanakalatha ( a golden vine). Note that she gives her mother’s name and not her father’s.

Using this poem was not a deliberate act. It came to me as soon as she emerged from the water.

Buddha goes fishing

In the beginning or at the end
Buddha was making or unmaking
An only universe
With an only sun
And an only planet
With an only lake
In which swam
An only fish.

One day/night/dawn/dusk,
The fish swallowed Buddha who
Saw in its belly another Buddha
Who was striving to make
An only universe
With an only sun, planet, lake, fish
And so on and so forth.

Now that it is again the end or the beginning,
I, the final disciple,
Squat on the shore of a blue lake,
Hurl in a line with the hook and the worm
And draw in the catch of my life –
A string of fish, lake, planet, sun, Buddha
Linked in an unending cosmic thread.

Pussylove

Each night I discern
in her fanged pelvic isle,
a blood yawning cat
juicy moused.

Cat under, puss upon, cat in, puss around,
Cat when, puss who, cat where, puss what?
What’s a cat?
A tale of nine lives / A life of nine tails /
A tail of nine lies / A lie of nine tales?

The lie that’s her isle is a vanishing
pooooooooooooooooooooooocha,*
Silver by moony night / Quicksilver by sun.

We play cat & mouse year in month out
In disneylandpussylandmousyland
In 4D 5D 9D
Strata spectra spatia
Flipping dimensions,
Entering  P / Exiting Q.

You, my eternal pussy, I squeal.
You, my eternal rodent, she meows.
Her soft footfalls echo silent in the death chambers.
My shrill squeaks thin out in the love burrows.

Death / Love / Chamber / Burrow
Moans a night cat blackishly.
I huddle with her in the attic arm chair,
We barter delicious tongues,
Cat tongues.

*Poocha –  Malayalam for Cat.

Warm spring

Pleasure is when
you hug each other
liplocked armlocked
under a cold shower
and then like a welcome warm rain
her hot pee hits your thighs.

from a male cannibal

From a male cannibal’s journal of love

to you!
from the  underground, this kiss,
tongue-kneading your soles,
spit-wetting your toes,
slurp-blossoming like creamy roses.
your baked feet.
entangled in my
clawing roots.
climbing vines.
carnivorous leaps.
sucking your marrow into my throes
of rib-crushing spasms.
your squashed jelly breasts.
sugar syrup resins.
toasted ear lobes.
lobotomy carves.

sweet brain, sweet intellect, sweet senses!
from your open-canned cranium bubbles unsprouted dreams
which through knotted umbilical straws
i drink and belch
relishing you alive
sharing a smoked morsel with Death.

We chew on you.
You digest us.

Homing

Love, you are lost.
You catch a train in the morning and leave.
You never come back.
Next morning, you catch the same train and leave.
Never to return.

Everyday,
We catch the same train.
I am I and U are U.
We never change nor does the train.
You catch the train and go away.
I catch the same train and go away.
We never return.

One day, a little girl comes selling playing cards.
Next day, she comes selling key chains.
Third day, she comes selling incense sticks.

when she gets off the train, we also do.
she looks back at us and smiles.
we also smile at her.
she walks and we walk.
she leads the way.
we follow.
she leads us to a street, to a door, to a room, to a bed.

We realize it is our home.