The Mystique

A still red pool of water is a pond
I can see in the sunset,
And the dark feathers of trees
Shroud it like a roosting bird.

Closer and closer it draws me,
Tighter and stronger the bonds
That tug me by the arm
As the sleeve of a boy’s shirt.

Fear and exhilaration drumming
In my ears and chest
I take clumsy steps forward
To the heart of the lake.

And suddenly a woman screams
Like a Shakespearean witch,
The strands of hoarse voices
Breaking out like ripples
Over a quiet lake; and echo
Once, twice, thrice and again
Until it’s in my head and in the forest
And it reverberates everywhere.

But the lake is still as a child
That knows more than she says.
That’s when I break into a run.

Who knows if I lived or died.

There’s Music along the Way

You’re in a white shadowless cellar

And you talk to the ghost

Reflections you see of yourself

On the four walls of your cellar.

Oh, but now you’re in a pinstriped suit
And a slated boardroom with
Pale faced grims to your right and left
With painted lips soundlessly speaking.
And now it’s evening and the lights
Are bright and cold in the tube
And you stand melancholy as you
Watch it pass you by; you got late.
A dim crowded rented block is now
Your home, but when did this happen?
All you have are doughnuts and choc-bars;
Then you throw up on white ceramic.
Oh, and you spend your days
In the quiet of cigarette smoke
And maybe a statutory sniff of pot;
But you don’t drink, that makes you whorish.
Now, again, it’s the clean white cell
And you hear stray strums off a browning
Guitar and an accompanying cello
And your lips crackle as you finally smile.

Something of an Inspiration

There’s the old man who tends to
His garden day in and day out;
As the wisps of white float about his head,
As he hums and smiles to himself.
There’s that soft-voiced singer who
Sings through the speakers in her
Thin high runny way that makes me
Want to curl up and sleep forever.
There he walks, and walks and walks;
I always see him walking,
And the blood rushed to my head.
There she stands, careless and boho;
We’re worlds apart and we know it;
But no one minds it, or she doesn’t notice.

Like a Basin

Water gushes out crystalline
And fills the trough full;
Splashes around the corners
Spraying grey-stone briefly.
Finger dips in veritaserum
Then dips in windy mouth,
And snuffs the fire of water.
Finger twirls and dances
In the tenacious still lake,
Swirling whirling, a whirlpool;
Before swiftly the water drains away.

Knotty threads

Green red blue fluorescent
Multi-coloured yellow pink.
I can see colours, only colours
And it's such fun because
For once I don't have to think.

Deja vu

After Susan Stewart’s “Apple”

If I could come back

from the dead, I would.

A tinge of sin on

my cheeks, unclean

unchaste, you’d say.

That juicy redness

that you find in me.

There is so little difference

between an apple and a kiss.

I’d come back for

nothing but you

and me, standing

and staring

at opposite ends of that

icy street, as I breathe in

your eyes of angled

cold, your veins

already rising from

the paling blood in mine –

or across

an empty park

in the blue light of

twilight, when your still

figure looks navy blue

and hooded, like

a dream that I killed.

A body has a season, though

it may not know it, and damage

will bloom in beauty’s seed.

I’d come back, just a hollow pipe

again, like you made me,

to try to whistle

across that empty park

and suddenly feel the distances

shrinking rapidly again

until the whistle is silenced.

COATLICUE

Seething in serpent’s skirt and necklace of hearts
She walks unseen in the shadow of Tenochtitlan;
Queen of the red earth, her presence is everywhere.
She stands watch over the horde of humans
Ascending the temple born to feed her hunger,
Born out of trembling arms and steady mouths.
“Oh Divine Goddess of Birth and Death,
We unleash the blood from our tongues
For you have let your own blood run
Till your body ran dry and you were reborn.”
“We offer you a kin of flesh and blood,
Tear her with your claws and be contented.
Our farmer hands have threshed the corn;
Day and night we have worked to eat
But only you can hold the blow of disaster.”
“We are the servants of you the Gods,
Bowing to the children of Ometecuhtli,
For you are the predeterminers of Destiny.”
She watches silently their gloried ritual,
She toasts to her fellows from the Pantheon.
These that clung to her heavy breasts at first,
Nourished and replenished by her flowing milk,
Now kneel in deference to her duality,
Now prostrate in full surrender to the deity
Who consumes their bodies and wears their skin.

Sweet Sundays

He makes me breakfast in bed:
Toast with scrambled eggs
Cooled by a glass of orange juice
Every Sunday.
We drawl through the hours;
Sprawling deliberately, they’re ours
To spend in any which way;
It is Sunday.
And he talks with his arms;
Unbuttoning boyish charms;
Tousles my hair and laughs,
“It’s Sunday.”
I shake him off and flee;
Now I’m caught, now I’m free;
It’s our game of cat and mouse
Of Sundays.
We break off rose from stem
We dawdle in green mayhem
Amidst ferns, bushes gone wild
On this lazy Sunday.
I breathe in his sweaty scent;
Gasping as I lay still: spent.
The darkness dips warm and content
In the wine of our Sunday.

Marmalade

I took down a jar of orange marmalade
From the inbuilt shelf.
I strained to touch the glass
That held semi-liquid bliss.
I smeared the sugary rind and pulp
On a browned slice.
Baking the plump bread
Crisping from soft white.
I tasted the bitter-sweet natural flavour
On my tongue and skin.
I sipped a cup of tea that
The marmalade weakened.
And I waited.
And I waited.
The next day
I cleared the crumbs and wiped the spilled tea.

This was a very random poem that I scribble-typed yesterday in a flurry. Not so great really, very simply written, but I feel ashamed that I'm not contributing to this blog as much as I'd like to so:

The Distasteful Alibi

Gordon says he had rehearsals,
I think I ought to believe him.
He’s the dearest little boy, my own,
Sensitive, caring and a trifle shy.

But he is quiet all the evening;
He eats ravenously, speaks little.
I worry for him, my spot of joy,
He’s barely touching sixteen.

He retreats early, he needs his sleep.
He is gone before sunlight blushes.
I cannot bring myself to brush
His perfect, cold, odourless room.

Today Gordon is late again-
The doorbell chimes nine-fifteen,
I do not ask him where he went.
I lock myself up and cry into the linen.

On the morrow he starts to say
Something I’m not ready to hear:
“I’m in love,” he says “she’s a girl
I saw at the carnival fair.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier
I was scared, I was not sure
If you would come to like her.
But she’s the one, I won’t retract.”

I try out a smile, I’m pleading.
“She’s my daughter hence.”
Of course I do not tell him
That things will never be the same.

A Little Song about Tweaking

All around, everywhere there are Tweakers
Tweaking busily little bits of information,
Humming a vague melody, tying their laces,
Busily sifting, knotting names with faces.

Groping in the crevices of their cerebrums,
Swilling black coffee with cubes of sweet,
The Tweakers soundlessly mouth phrases
Filling in the grayish-white hollow spaces.

No they are not evaders, nor do they lie;
The Tweakers smile a little with self-pride:
Nosing their way, boring deeper and deeper
They split hairs better than rough winter.

Ferreting out furtive facts from underneath
Desks, novels, clothing and waste paper bins;
Analyzing, pondering, linking, Tweaking,
Fixing, retrieving, weighing, and cleaning.

Busy-bodies most efficiently bridging time
From the stroke of the hand from six to nine,
Poor Tweakers, they need to rest their feet-
They are tired of shuttling from soul to street.

Alloyed

He would journal
Only about the honorable,
Only about the philosophical.
He would stem the flow
Of his desire, and control
It, blinking back thoughts,
Like the boatman who fights
To steer in seductive waters.
When his uncle died,
He would bite back
His two cents about
The pointless amusement
He derived from death,
And a couple of laughs too –
Laughs that would come out
Uncouth, uncontrolled
Like the goblin’s uncertain wheeze.
Watching hazy sunlit streets,
He would try to summon
Some form of
Wholesomeness
In himself – try to ward off
The blind, nebulous irritation,
The sweet, tasteless
Wound of a ghost
In his head.


By Noodle

Evolution Story

..

Enclosed herewith is my second EVER comic (so please be lenient, my lovely blog-readers cum critics). Just to clarify before you even start reading the comic (just so you can actually find it funny...or not), this is about my personal experience during the year 2000. I was young and raw, and took it upon myself to change in a certain direction that I thought was "right", in the "absolute" sense. And the end result of course, is that I ended up nowhere. So. I now offer this illustrative rendition of that story up to your (inevitably harsh) judgement. Thank you, all.

Achilles

Finally, a poem about Achilles. I was dying to write a poem about Achilles ever since my poetry class started, and had this minor debate going on within myself as to which form to choose to write about him. Was this form effective? I feel like a ballad would also be good. Anyway, here it is. I'm actually mighty pleased with it, if I do say so myself.


Achilles


I see him not in penciled thin eyebrows,
I see him not in trip-hop, rave and house,
I see him not in operetta trills,
Or in fine, stately houses on the hills.
I see him not in daylight’s salty streets,
I see him not in alleys, fields of weeds,
I see him not remembered in the songs
Of caravans, that travel far and long.
I see him fight in battlefields of old.
I see him wash his glowing mane of gold.
I see his figure, brown in Trojan sun,
The arms of sword that lead the battle run.
I see his eyes in melting glints of power,
I see his story vanish within the hour.
I see his beacon in the murky past,
I see, but what I see will never last.

Memory

This is a comic I made some time ago that I decided to submit to the Carleton Comics Journal. Hopefully there will be more submissions in the future! One submission to Unashamed is certainly in the cards =)

Faery Home

..


The other day I found a leaf in a book
Stirring slightly at my touch
Its yawn in the feathery mountain wind
As it awoke in the eveningtime

Stirring slightly at my touch
Its flutter at my fingertips
Grey in the light of eveningtime
A lovely sleepy leaf of yore

It fluttered at my fingertips
A faery, a muse of alpine song
Its leafy form a tale of yore
In birdcall echoes of the eveningtime

Faery music and alpine song
Listen – all the voices tethered here
In the birdcall echoes of the eveningtime
Have come home to mountain land

All the voices tethered here
Sing their gladness to be as one
Home here on their mountain land
Their homeward song at last they sing

Their gladness to be as one
In voices of the eveningtime
Homeward voices, muses, songs
Tethered in a little leaf

Voices in hushed eveningtime
Reside in their faery home
Tethered in a little leaf
The leaf I found once in a book.

Healer

“This is for Aline, who taught her lover to caress the scar.”


Frightened animal
an army of tiny, violent
inflammations had invaded
the skin of her back
her limbs lolled, her eyes lackluster
a twitch at my approach

her feathery frame rested meekly
against the pillow, as if
she wished it no harm
her chin drooped, tired
thin as her sparse rug
as she watched the children outside
playing in the dusty village
she no longer recognized.

I spoke to the little angel.
I said, everything
will be alight
the next morning, when the sun
will rise and give
your ravaged heart
the release
of loving the world
and smiling wild again.
I put the little angel to sleep
for now.



I am no healer.
I have sinned
by saying what I said
with so much certainty
and hope

Walking

..


walking into a store, a tree,
a trap. walking in the way of
a car. the nerd’s rapid scuttling movement,
to the next class. shadowy tiptoes – to peek
at that delicious love letter. walk, just walk
don’t look back, we’re being followed.
that purposeful corporate-walk in the city square,
and many broken shoe heels.
stride, strut, swagger. sneakers meant
for lounging into rooms like you own them. sneakers
for your nonchalance on the sidewalk.
nonchalant, and suave. and sexy.
walk the walk like you mean it.
attitude. in the acid clicks of your
venom-tipped heels on the ramp.
pliant. slow. each soft quasi-step
like a smothered rose, or
a drop of blood. each step
a searing, hissing desert sandbite
in the walk of death, to him who walked
alone to midian. gaunt Atlas takes
each Goliath-step, aeons apart.
civilization crawling
to the cruel laughter of stars.
prostrate. and yet
alive in the first steps of new blood,
the first steps that kiss a free land.
look the Empire in the eye
and do not budge – we walk defiance.
take those steps into Her clawed winds
and Her shrieking cyclonic rage. you will not
sink into the snow. you will not
be silenced by the rust,
or tossed the remains of an identity
for rent. you will not die, if you

walk strident.
walk silent.

At this point in Life, I feel...

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the West

long highways made of sky i hear no cars
no wind just that hollow industrious hum.
roads linked in circuit, tight enough to strum
stretch out my hand they’re much too far apart
or i’m too small. i observe this fearless race
their life of singleness and contrived smells
smooth sinless skin on each fair sylph-like face.
it’s everywhere. just what, i cannot tell
a sense of not-home, alien? i don’t know…
of simply looking nature in the eye
instead of kneeling? humans may comply
but Nature she has her own way to go.

i wonder as i think about these things
would i give up this highway, or these wings?


By Noodle
31st January, 2010

Stories of Rose Garden Road

Here in this village of verdant shade
I’m only fifteen, with knees pulled to my chin,
Watching this polaroid, hoping it won’t fade.

Smiles everywhere. Rose Garden Road is made
For teenagers in love who have all been
Happy in this village of verdant shade.

Senior-citizen benches have been laid
For folks to sit while their little grandchildren
Run around beneath the verdant shade.

Tasting this atmosphere of lemonade,
I lean back into the candor of a grin
Imprinted on this polaroid; I fade

Into hazy youth, not tired or afraid,
Into days of supple limbs and gentle skin
That polaroid of long ago won’t fade.

Simple loves and sunny pleasures made
Just for me. I see this village in
My dreams of waking in that verdant shade
A polaroid that cannot ever fade.


Charu Kulkarni
10th January, 2010