A Morning Raga for the Dual Sim Summer Afternoons

Afternoons are black

Not like your eyes of course

But like the black candy-bar handset

Samsung Guru

I will toggle my dual-sim afternoons

As I toggle my two hearts.

From the wall

The wicked air-conditioner grins

chillingly 

Trees sulk in their own shadows

The blaze of the noon

Stands like a stranger

Across the street

Giving me missed calls.

I fall in love

with a fragile baby gecko

Noiselessly scampering 

Across the cool floor

Hence, when I leave my house

This afternoon

I will leave behind

My brown eyes in the bedroom

Sparklingly clean

Like the unused marbles

From my childhood.

(22-6-11)

Sexing My Turtles: Sachin Ketkar

True, I have to breed them
For I crave to watch their babies
Swarm all over my room
Under my mattresses
In my bag
Between pages of the unread books
Behind the murky rocks of my mind

Naturally, I have to find out
Who does what to who and how
Who does what to who and why
Who does what to who and where
Who does what to who and when
And the knowledge of my own species
Doesn’t help

The male has an organ or a penis, or phallus
Depending on what biologist you read
The organ might be dark-grey
Purple or blackish
With an expanded head
And a sharp spine at its tip
 And it is large when compared
With the turtle's size.
It might be seen on occasion
When sunbathing or drinking
When the front half
Of the turtle is submerged.
You will spy it if you are lucky
If you are not
Then you will have to try out
A combination of steps
To arrive at some conclusion.

I am not so lucky.
I put several of them together
Watch them crawl over one another
In slow and unsteady motions
I am curious about the secrets
Of their desire their chemistry
Their patience
Their primitive lust.
I see them disappear
Unhurriedly

Behind the prehistoric rocks on my mind
I draw out my pen
(Or organ or penis or phallus
Depending on which critic
You prefer)

And sit sunbathing
On an abandoned sheet of paper
My front half submerged
In strange reptile waters

And before I understand a thing
Unknown salmonella infects me
Laying me low with poetry

Jan 29 2013
9:59 pm

TWEETED HAIKUS

My dreams the migratory birds
flying across the full moon
absolute silence is their hearts

The full moon shines
in a silent little pond
Death is a mere ripple

Little white butterfly
visit some other flower today
mine wants to sleep in my leaves

They will catch me
if they decode my fingerprints
on your mind

Recession hit God
starts a BPO in Bihar
He is outsourcing work these days

Shakespeare on the Thames
sighs secretly with the fog
he misses the Avon

a homeless dark cloud
 begging near the temple
what shall I drop in his bowl?

The aged moon
totters on the stick
thinking of his pension

a sparrow
snug in her nest
dreaming of jack-the-ripper

 (from my twitter account)

INDEPENDENCE DAY 2012

Sleep is dinner for the dead

we serve severed heads
On the silver plates of dreams
soaked in the sauce

of our blackened blood
my fingerprints
on the gossamer wings of Time
have begun to fade

Waiter,
death is the last blank check
I will be signing
And it will be your tip

I am ready
For the next course.

FIVE RECENT HAIKUS

i)
termites swarm towards my face
bit torrents surging
towards their peers

ii)
bamboo-leaves turn blue
like the moth-eaten page of Facebook
i already hear the crickets singing

iii) a spider snoozes on his web
dreaming of his mate
-you have one unread message

iv) google chrome crashes
sparrow droppings on my screen
-oh! for the good old days...

v) internet dongle winks
porn soup is hot and ready
-anarkali disco chali.

One Monsoon, In a Forest

Foliage of your emerald feathers
Envelops your body
I run my fingers through
Your wet leaves
You preen

You close your eyes
And rest your beak
On my shoulders

We have become the evening forest now

An overcast sky
Descends upon us

Collects us in its arms

I see you have fallen asleep
Your red beak
Listens to my beating heart
You breathe monsoons
With your silences

We don’t have a nest
We are the nest

Don’t be afraid of opening your eyes
I won’t fly away from them

2 Sept 2012
12:27 am

Sri Krishna Finally Speaks Out on Love

Ladies and Gentlemen
Its my honour and pleasure to be here
As a keynote speaker
In the International Conference on `Erotic Love’
Though I think I am not the man for the job

It is precisely because
Millions of women and men
Have been madly in love with me
And billions of poems
Have been inflicted on me
That I have nothing interesting
To offer on the subject
Excuse me for using a Shaivaite metaphor
I am simply crushed
Under the Kailasa of clichés.

I am better off
As a Professor of Metaphysics
And pontificate on morality
Or as teaching the bunch of idiots here
Cheap underarm tricks
Of hitting effectively below the belt

However
Let me take up this opportunity
To make some things clear.

Love has nothing to do with the Gopis
Garbas, Flutes and the like
It has absolutely nothing to do
With the things like Bhakti blah blah
(I leave such things to people like Narada
You know what kind of guy he is)

And as any speaker
In the pre-lunch sessions of academic conferences
Is allowed to indulge
In an analogy or two

Love, all that I can say about it
Resembles what Yudhishtira mumbled
To his teacher
When the venerable Guru inquired about his son

Or that love resembles
That stray arrow
Of the non-descript hunter


Which clearly saw through me

3 July 2010