Prayer of the Ugly Frog

Do not stifle that chuckle

Do not hide your mouth in your palms

Do not brush that strand of hair behind your ear.

Do not do it so often.

I've seen too much of that coquettish fanfare.

Let it rest. Let the calm of the sea prevail.

We have crossed mountains and seas

And overcame that stony silence

Before the storm.

We let the storm destroy us before, and before that.

We made love in caves beneath the wild oceans

Where the sun does not shine and mermaids groan.

The ancient forebodings rang

Through the stalactites and the stalagmites

Before melting in the carnal fire.

Pour yourself onto me once again,

Like the tempest does to the earth

And the tides to the grains of sand.

Plant that venomous kiss again

And put me to sleep forever.

End it now and here, and release me

From this mess of a body that responds not to me,

But to a strange world where I do not belong.

Love Making

There is a rhythm in your fingers stroking my neck when we kiss.
Last night they touched me gently as you nibbled on my ear.
Brushing my chest playfully, they danced to the blues;
Your nimble fingers, they stirred upward
Sending shivers down my spine.
We were taking it slow.
Slowly the grip tightened, it made me wince
And left a dull patch on my neck,
As I, cold, drooped in profound slumber.
The music changed.

Departure

Another goodbye
Another train waiting to depart
Again faces to smile back at
And promises to stand the test of memory
And yes...
Those incomplete inaudibly uttered emotions.
The restless nights of desperate conversations
Perspiration, indecision
Cigarettes and sweaty palms
And the aching need to talk,
When You pretended not to hear
And I was too restrained to repeat.
The tension of a split second
The second it takes to undo myself
Or to put on the cloak of diplomacy.
The subtle shield of sarcasm it always was,
That kept You and Me together
Or apart. It never let Us be.

Tonight, I promise you
I shall find you, where I left you,
Perplexed,
In the crowd of a million known faces.
I shall be home.


PS: elated to have written something, that is not sad/depressing/disturbing, finally!
       dedicated to Ananya Chatterjee.

Happily Ever After

You lift yourself up from the bed
Drag yourself to the kitchen
And make yourself a cup of tea.
The morning sun invades the room through porous curtains.
The dishevelled bedsheet, unable to move
Gapes at you, pathetically,
It's virginal bloom, trampled,
At the feet of a carnivore.
Yesterday it had blushed pink
Yesterday it was fragrant with rose petals strewn all over it.
Pink, your favourite.
Today, it remains,
Stained with your crushed dreams,
Your little desires killed in the womb.
You dispose it in the washing machine
And gulp your tea; your tongue scalded.
The machine crushes the remaining folds
As you pick a smile and rehearse it before the mirror.
The carnivore shall return; he must return
To claim his fealty
And it must blush pink again.

Pity

He meticulously lifts each strand of hair from my face
Looks deeply into my eyes and tells me
Why and how we cannot be.
I listen to him; I always have
And take the next bus home.
He held my face under the street light,
The last acknowledgment of love,
The pain and the betrayal-
My tears vouched for it.


I see him now- him with his daughter and his paunch.
He has grayed at thirty-four
His spring lost in sensex and beer
His charm devoured by corporate slavery
He is just a lumpish sack of rotten desires.
No I bear him no malice.
You must know, I'm not vengeful.
I often pass by the street lamp
Where he had kissed me with pure sympathy
And whispered that he'd always love me
When I felt like the miserable old cat
Nearing expulsion.
He demanded the last avowal of love
And had revealed my face to the light
My kohl smudged eyes slurred by betrayal
Tears rolling down my cheeks
I was ashamed, afraid, vulnerable.
He had looked satisfied
And perhaps concealed an impish smile.
No I bear him no malice, I repeat.
I laugh out loud.

To Love

Are you still there, somewhere,
In the memory stained loops of my mind?

You existed like those lines of poetry

That never reached the tip of my pen.

The ones that I indulgently let lose their way in a muddled conscience.

But the awareness was there

Of you, being. 

You were there with the familiarity

Of that corner in the canteen

Or of scribbled names on a tree trunk.

You were.

You my only fairytale,

You did not know how to retort when awfully ignored.

At night I fondled you, hugged you, and you hugged me back to sleep.

You did not happen to me like the flash of a lightning.

You did not abandon me like the human did.

You hung in there.

Now, I cannot tell.

Shame

I felt his first glances on me when I turned

To get my ticket from the conductor.

His intrigued eyes were drawing patterns on my chest.

Quietly I tried to concentrate on the view outside.

Naked children cried relentlessly for absentee mothers

And fat men bathed on filthy footpaths.

His arm, stealthily moved next to mine

And I did not look. He searched for his wallet

And I did not move. I could not move.

The second time, I cringed slightly and was ashamed

At my own thoughts. He drew me half a smile

And his eyes saw mine droop, in mute indignation.

I fixed my eyes outside the window. His arm, now bolder,

Continued its tour in various directions

While I held my bag tightly on my breasts.

Clutching onto it like a shield, I waited patiently

For the bus to break down, for his phone to ring

Or for the world to come to an end,

And I did not move. I checked my watch.

Fifteen more minutes; adjusting my dupatta

I waited for me to find my drowned voice.

Two of his fingers now relaxed on my thigh.

I shifted, and his fingers shifted with me

As he spoke on the phone in flawless English

And I did not move. I sat there, comatose

With several eyes hovering over me.

The ladies seats glared with apparent hostility

And amused smirks lurked from every corner

Waiting to pounce and dig their teeth into me.

His palm was rubbing against my thigh now,

Wiping the sweat off my head I browsed my texts.

My cheek felt his breath, warm and hungry,

As he, very softly, poured obscenities into my ears.

And I did not move. I think I heard a chuckle too.

A primitive curse chained me to the third seat

Of bus number 237/1 and I could not move.

Amherst Street!- Gritting my teeth and grappling my bag

I prepared myself for one last humiliation.

My friend hugged me at the bus stop

And a pair of eyes chased me from the yellow bus.

I know that they were laughing at me; they always do.

I clenched my fist and started walking.