lines written for A...

the turbulence of my mind,
written on the scraps left-over
of an old happiness
when i used to harness the wind
on rickshaw rides of love stories and music
the turbulence of my mind, scribbled in loneliness
of a strange kind
growing like a child within
sprouting hands and feet
waiting unseen
for phones that do not ring
of my lover shifting his sand feet
to new postures of power and defeat
the turbulence of my mind,
encountering the days that went
when i played woman, to your penis,
inside my mind..
a turbulence of this kind.....

BACK IN-ACTION

a new beginning. in the whispering cold. summersaulting sleep.
i reach paradigm shifts hastily, in the surprise of your latest political
maneuvering tricks and the very same I the very same rhymes subsist

there is no political action without a spiritual reaction
is what i want to surmise

from mountain cave and forest of the insane
and those who cant rest

we talk of anarchy
we think of an alternate media scheme
we plan knowledge
social engineering

i am an ant still, in a fat woman's swollen blouse
all this can burst me up, the dreams can get so crowded
my days can fill up, with faces i have never seen

and today i can be a delhi middle class woman
visiting an up-town restaurant with her husband and kid

to dine at united coffee house on steak and potato chips

in memory of a great day in college and at home !!! the good phase begins !!!!!!!!!!!!

dream work

manic days end with strangest dreams. a moon boat.

shimmering in a sewage drain. and prithviraj, the film

actor, pretending to be a god-man. but no one takes

him seriously. i am a woman in a water-lily-blue-painting.

and always i stare outside the scene. as he cajoles, trying

to draw me in. row row row ur boat, mr movie star,

gently down the stream. there my daughter lies sleeping..

i don't want to wake her up and force her to watch your next

new film. and my nose starts bleeding. blood like thick honey

made-over with oil paint and water colors. i am not afraid.

i am not in pain. i know that everything is destined to be good.

from the very beginning. then suddenly i turn queen. in ten

acres of green land, with a compound wall that has pretty holes

in it, through which i see my brother on a cycle.  you bought 

us a new house?, he asks. and comes cycling to where i stand.  

yes yes yes. come in. B's mother gifted me this. she stands

behind in gloomy silence. but i trust B to help me, to

save me. and there is this doctor who says that my ulcer

is not a wound. its just a floating foreign object. and he can

heal it in three days. and i can drink again. i come home to a

huge hall to tell B this. i wake up this morning in the happiness

of these dreams. which gives me everything i need. i am kind to
my daughter and my husband. i make them eggs with orange
sunny sides. and for myself a capsicum omlet. what a wonderful life !

i wish i could make J understand how much i am an activist inside
and how little i have to do with academics

i wish i could make J understand how much i still want to change the world
with my tiny life.

my blood stinks of this sin
i grew up for this
i stayed alive for this

in kerala a generation of people live and die like this
with their sexuality and desire tied to the vigor of protest and change
i am one of them - this is the only thing that really turns me on

its the streak of the red left in me, maybe
seeing my father losing his job
building a trade union in the company
where he worked as a minor chemist in a huge laboratory

then watching the red, terricotton ezhavas in my house
the bearded ones,
the very thin, reedy, big-diary and huge-ideals souls
who would go hungry
who would give up anything
who would sell their girl friends and their family
to win a political argument

and my father who always abused us
even as he protested against everything that was wrong, un-fair and unjust

how can i not educate organize and agitate !!

how can J expect me to hold a cinema camp and not bring any activist spirit into it??!!

wasted days

sat, sun, mon - now theres just tue, wed and thursday left. i can do many things.
i can finish all my work. but not only can i bring myself to work, but i am also
looking for all sorts of ways to waste my time - like going online in chat -
and like trying to think that i am indispensable for those who have left me behind.
i dont understand this pattern - this need that i have to waste time
this passion to procrastinate - i really dont understand these wasted days..

yesterday

life was a ball 
i wanted to throw down the terrace 
of my five floor apartment 

yesterday
 

this room was an explosive, 
bursting out in expletives
with which i hated my daughter, my husband, my friends

yesterday

living with me was dangerous 
as dangerous 
as standing at the feet of an elephant