...your forbidden land

Sediments of uncertain feelings

of you

incubated  inside me sterile

and broke out in violent rashes

of impractical unreasoned love.

Then I,

cartographer of unwieldy  terrains of passion,

lost her way in your winding labyrinths of desire,

An eternal wandering exile,

I became a settler

 on the fringes of

your forbidden land.

Exit

Something of you still remains,

refusing to exit,

like a fading stain of accidental encounters,

in echoes lurching forward in voiceless nightmares,

in uncertain ellipsis of unfinished conversations,

in shed skins  lying across my path

warning fangs of intolerance

snaked by,

in the first fallen leaf of autumn,

dancing death shrouding

your decaying promises

of my eternal spring,

in those hanging pebbles weighing down

frail wings of my escaping flight,

in the pieces of my rotting heart

lying like dead remains

of suicidal moths,

incinerated trust of

yesterday’s blinding love.

Waiting Return

When you came in,
my heart slammed its doors shut,
curled up in your lap
                 and left the world outside
life revolving unaware,
days submerging into nights
and nights dissolving in your arms.

When you came in,

seasons inconsequential,

                 in a kiss a thousand ignored past springs,

in the blinding light of your radiance,

the pursuing shadows

of anxious history abandoned .

When you left,

Time announced himself,

I dragged centuries along in conversation,

He moved in ennui his hands a second.

When you left , my love,

you left my heart ajar

in perpetual waiting

of that impossible return.

Lunch Break

The summer air,
flames leaping,
kissing, burning,

           ceremonious walk to the canteen,

           exhaling thoughts, mind meandering,

imagining watching it rain
unearthed obscure worlds away.

Meeting you,

unscheduled, 

serendipitous,

Untangling glances,

adamant in a transient knot,

seeing nothing of the watching eyes on me,

hearing nothing of the chattering cacophony

of hungry orderings or clattering spoons,

only you existed and

your eyes that looked back.

Between eating and walking back,
And chasing deadlines uninspiring,

For those few unsettling handful of seconds,

I wished my eyes wrapped on to yours would speak

words curled up in a difficult lump,

refusing to go down my parched throat .

As I walk back into my escapable turmoil
I see you waiting under the tree,
I smiled,
walked past and forced the instance
-sun bald, scalding,
you waiting,
your back turned to me-
into a dark panelled room
of escaping memories.

Malavarathamma, the goddess of the hills

Eyes wide,
mouth opened in a touch of awe,
coaxing rice balls, fish and ghee,
I was told of the Tusker god at three,
of his paunch adorable,
appetite insatiable, intellect untrammeled
traveling on a mouse.

When I danced
Time swirled or stood still,
I was reminded
my anklets rang to
the cosmic chants of Shiva's destruction
and I danced to provoke,
the anklets digging into my flesh
to be released from your endless cycle of illusions,
yearning to be consumed
by His unforgiving third eye.

When I moved in a whirlpool uninhibited,
to my navel's erotic impulses
my torso swaying to your gentle breath,
swaying palm fronds, ocean kissing,receding,
complex sexuality
man-woman
lasya mohini.

When I faltered in love,
swooning to soft blows of air,
husky,
orgasmic touches of your dusky arms,
lips parted
enchanting flute,
you made me the tireless lover unsatiated
waiting eternally
unsatisfied with my worldly lovers.

But of you the Goddess of the Hills,

I never knew,

The one-breasted goddess of rebellion,

who lived in mountains undisturbed

one with the streams, the defiant wind,

and the dirty slush of paddy fields,

to you, I remained unacquainted.

Was it because you were dark like desire
your body smelling of
intoxicating earth wet
impelling snakes to mate,
that they refused to sing of you?


Weren't tales not told of magical proportions
because your nipple hard stared back,
unhesitant
with unbridled lust,
accusing fixed unwavering gaze,
and their hypocrisy, your prey?
Or was it because you were a woman?
unborn from a man's limbs,
his uncontrollable pelvic desires
or wasted incestuous sperms?

Why did it take me twenty years and four
to find you obscure,
unsought,
in convoluted hierarchies of the divine world,
Because you were alone,unafraid?
concubine to none?
drinking elixirs meant only for male lips,
uncircumscribed by any sanctum-sanctorums
of the holy circles
of erring trinity?
Was it because your touch burned
my ancestral mother,
that they call me an untouchable today?

Spider Hickeys

Last night,
while I slept
curved in a womb
cradling web of Slumber,
inhabited by affable monsters,
horrifying humans and amorphous in-betweens,
all speaking together,
lashing their tongues at me
in a language no stranger
of dreams weird incomprehensible,

You scaled and conquered my nape unbidden,
with tiny sticky octo-feet,
and left with no introduction
a trail of patterned
arachnid love bites.

Love Long-distance

Time traveling back and forth,
tensions crackling
across long distance calls,
arriving conversations over Skype,
delayed a little while smiles ,
its unsettling echoes.

Summer mornings lethargic,
changes arriving on a cartwheel,
vibrations karmic,
and confessions cathartic.
Coffee at an odd hour,
learning love in vernacular,
memorizing patterns,fonts eclectic
decoding cultures,silence detonating

In tiny cardboard boxes existences sensate,
unpacking monsoons in perfume bottles ornate,
sighs riding on ocean waves
crashing silently on my shore,
paradoxes so-real and kisses surreal
planning and questioning
un-planning and accepting,
undoubted, loved,
in spite of me
because of you.