Saturday, August 14, 2010

Because he was Irish

My heart sobbed out a poem
’bout the place that in dream stole my wits away,
as Arabia stole de la Mare’s.
It emptied itself, shaking out some of the dearest,
tenderest corners glowing secretly within.
And I dared show it to a fellow poet—
for he was Irish.

He dismissed it
as one does a cobweb,
blind to the silken glints;
as if it wasn’t allowed a stranger
to feel for his motherland. As if
all that really counted
was not soul, but stark reality. Novelty at the cost of spirit.
He was coolly harsh, and it felt all the harsher
because he was Irish.

Bleeding within, I stared out the window,
stared at that stabbing, aching yellow of the new-sprung hotel across the street
looking as if all the mangoes on the dark-awake tree before it
had splashed out their inmost selves over those new
brightly indifferent walls.

A friend sighs: It’s just an opinion, silly girl.
—Cold, you say? . . .Another point of view.
But smile! An Irishman took the time to judge your work.
True enough.
It took a while, but I finally saw
he was just trying to help; he wasn’t a bit cruel. Only
it seemed so at first, because he was Irish.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Musty Light

28.07.10

Dream-grey afternoon in the ballroom of a French colonial mansion
turned library. I sit in dim cloud-light, draped in musty silence,
feet on marble-cool floor, hemmed in by knowledge—termite-riddled,
reposing in the hall’s glooming arms; snatches of wisdom tucked into its long-frayed sleeves—

drowsing over a book, fingers slow-slipping through my hair, ‘til suddenly
a moth—and my heart—flutter up in sleepy surprise.
It had been napping in my hair, the moth. Having flickered
out of dark corners of history, of adventure perhaps, and settled,
still sleepy, in the fragrant-flowing dampness of my washed hair.

A moth in my hair? —I panic. Perpetually afraid of growing into a mouldy derelict, scarfed
with a sleepy whiff of history, perfumed with shadows of oblivion
for a ghost moth to haunt. . .
No. Perhaps it mistook the gloom for nightfall, venturing out to the sole tender light in the hall?
Glimmering insight of a youthful mind?

Light of wisdom comes to age, they say; as do moths.
Couldn’t the glow of infant wisdom draw moths and age, I wonder?
But it’s sombre here, and musty; stray thoughts too dreamy to mean.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Home

22.07.2010

Don’t you cry, love. Tomorrow
you shall rise naked and wild and strong
and fiercely brilliant
and make the world your home!
O’erspill wall-boxes, brim over into the storm.
Mould yourself to awkward spaces, flow into the unknown,
become the new, let strangeness become you,
teach your spine to fit all trees,
forget yourself to yourSelf.

What? Still clinging to an old pile of bricks? Why, ’tis but
sandy clay slapped round the Spirit and baked, hugging you,
a little too tight perhaps, leaving you frantic, gasping.
No need to lug it about as do those slumber-shelled garden gypsies.
Fly instead with the intense world-winds, led by that fine silken thread
Unravelling from within.

Pat Life on the back, prop your legs across its lap, pillow yourself upon
its breath, breathe.
Learn it consciously, casually,
like secret places of your body and cosy family smells,
the intimate taste of a lover’s drowsy breath
and your own bizarre thoughts (that see a kinship between the number nine
and your mother’s lips);
stray notions bobbling about your mind, holding water (just for you)
yet not quite sinking.

Uncork your Soul, let it foam out in a sparkling whisper
of Truth, immutably unbound, even
while all sleeps in the dreaming, teeming earth.
Turn your roots within.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Erin

10.06.10

There’s a magic isle inside o’ me,
A magic isle that’s home.
Deep, deep, deep within, yet
Not quite within reach.
’Tis an isle where rain and sunshine play
Rainbow games, as on the shell of a Nautilus—
Feel like one turned outside in;
One of those little personal treasures so well-hid,
Can’t quite remember where I put it. Or like
A pearl oyster with lockjaw.
There’s a not-quite feel to it,
Like the not-quite feel of magic yarns;
Something like the eluding earthy taste of rain-soaked earth,
The scintillatingly frustrating rhythms of unwritten poetry
Pattering a path through the twisting, snaking maze
Of the helpless brain,
The romantic scent of unopened letters, and memories…
Memories of having been there, but not quite.
And all my senses, they stretch out,
Outwards, seeking the isle within.

Sitting on the rocks before the Bay of Bengal
On a rainy day, that dreamy greyness is
Almost it. I inhale the wild sea-spray, and listen,
As I wander off, listen
For the laughing lilt of voices as I pass foreign tourists by the beach…
Catching but echoes; inebriated echoes staggering out
From within. My feet perhaps will take me there some day,
There, to the echo of the isle within.

Don’t know why, but I call it homesickness. And now,
Now, I must leave, leave all and dwell with that heavy dream
’Til we’ve drunk each other into oneness.
Something deep within, deep, deep within, sighs:
‘Here.’ But don’t want to listen. Must go, must look, must breathe,
And listen, and feel, taste, and love.
A fever, a frenzy, a burning will to soar, to seek.
Must brave the earthly seas before endeavouring
The seas within.
Something, some sort of hope says it’s out there
Somewhere—that Em’rald Isle. Perhaps not, but once there,
And if still unslaked, I might at least consider
Looking within.

Friday, April 30, 2010

From my Window: to the Nocturnal Sweepers

14.01.2010

Sweep, sweep, sweep, ye maids
’Neath streetlights glowing warm,
Sweep out the eventide which fades
Before the looming storm.

The owl is silent in the tree
That prays with knotted arm,
Keep, keep thy spirit free!
Keep the world from harm.
Feel our lives’ nocturnal plight
The cricket’s trilling—hark!
Leap, leap into the light,
Lone minstrel of the dark!

Sweep, sweep, sweep, ye maids,
Away with monstrous might;
Sweep out Desire’s dripping blades
And her hissing sister—Spite!

All human hearts have shut their doors
And Truth and Courage hide
Deep, deep on darkling floors
Where blind sea serpents glide.

Hope is now an ebbing art
But few for it do pine;
Weep, weep, weep oh heart!
On Love’s forsaken shrine.

Sweep, sweep, sweep, ye maids,
Sweep me into sleep
Sweep away these weary shades
My dreams but let me keep.

The souls that seek the light are few,
Lord, wash away their fears!
Steep, steep the night in dew –
In Sorrow’s saving tears.
’Tis time for thee to sleep, oh mind,
To sleep, and thou my heart –
Sleep, sleep, for soon thou’lt find
The soul shall play its part.

Sweep, sweep, sweep ye maids,
Sweep me off my feet,
Sweep, sweep—the midnight fades…
The dawn we soon shall meet.

Tryst in Eire (a ballad)

07.01.2010


In one year or ten, in time uncertain
She’ll follow her heart’s desire,
An Aryan maiden will leave her brethren
To find her dream-love in Eire.

As in ancient tales, she’ll set her sails,
Breasting the dangers dire
Of squalls and gales and banshees’ wails,
For the Isle of Emerald Eire.

She’ll seek him o’er hill, by brook and by rill,
At every hearth enquire,
She’ll follow with skill, with passionate will,
The dream-scented music of Eire.

At last on a rock by laughing loch
She’ll glimpse a lone lad with a lyre;
No need for talk, heart in heart they shall walk
‘Cross mysterious meadows of Eire.

In dell and in dingle, two beings made single
Will tune into Nature’s choir,
Their feelings will mingle, their hearts be a-tingle
In the song-filled swales of Eire.

In sun and in shade, in glen and in glade
They’ll burn in a breathing fire;
And in each other fade, like the rose and the jade
In the dreamlit dusk of Eire.

In one year or ten, in time uncertain
She’ll follow her heart’s desire;
But often ere then, she’ll meet in dream-ken
Her dream-love in faraway Eire.

Mermaid

19.05.09

She was drowning, they thought, with no beacon or guide
While she struggled to set herself free,
Thrashing ’mid waves of a lunatic tide
In a sea of insanity.

So they hoisted her out, all spluttering and dazed,
And thumped her and dried her and wrapped;
Did all they thought best but were sadly amazed
As her energy slowly was sapped.

“Have you swallowed a fancy too many?” they asked,
“Did we come to your rescue too late?
Or when on enchanted isles you basked
Too mildly your madness berate?”

No lungs she had to breathe as all men,
To walk amidst mortals no feet;
Her sad eyes half-smiled at her saviours and then
She whispered these words bitter-sweet:

“In a lake of mysterious stars I twirled
Where shimmering laughter teems,
Murmuring over the rim of the world
In a twinkling tumble of dreams.

The breath of life from my bosom you snatched,
My happiness could you not spare?
Breathless with bliss and passions unmatched,
I was gasping for joy – not air.”

The Muse

27.04.10

She breezes in,—a sudden gust of light,
A flash of truth in the poet’s mind—
Unsettles the drowsing dream-dust and fancy fragments
Left-over from the previous poem.
Surveys the confused state of affairs:
The waking mind, the yawning ideas;
Flirts awhile with the thirsty questions that throng about her
Groping for her bright presence, begging to be slaked;
Smiles coyly at the virgin phrases that beg their Priestess
To make them whole, to marry them at the altar of Truth;
Hears the poet’s sweet entreaties, his coaxing flattery
His vows of being forever hers;
Plays hard to get, blushes, and then
With a quick galvanic giggle that briefly shocks the teeming brain
Lets drop a magic word, as if by chance . . .
It flutters down like a bright leaf, autumn-blown
Or like the drunken flutter of butterflies;
She pretends not to see as he stretches out to receive it,
Waits ’till he thinks he has it, then whisks it away in a swift flurry
Of befuddling thoughts that cloud his vision,
Laughing in secret as she sees the frantic mind
Struggle to catch it with clumsy thought-fingers
Confused with dreams of moon-filled vales,
Of elfin tales and lilting faery warbles.
They wander awhile as nomad-snails in a sleeping glade,
Leaving myriad dream-entangled trails…
And then thrill in anticipation of a something—
Which isn’t the brilliant glimpse, the magic word.
She mocks his searching, greedy mental hands,
Shakes her smiling head at the great hunger
Of so small and crippled an intellect,
And when he shakes his fist at her in a rage
Of frustrated abandonment,
She soothes his burning brow with a balmy stillness;
Blows dream-clouds into his waiting brain,
Dream-clouds pregnant with poetic rain
That the thirsting heart draws down…
At last, in an impassioned burst, she hurls a blazing lightning-bolt
Unleashing intense volts of inspiration.
As the soul drinks in the first drops
the poet weeps mad tears
Through his pen.

The Ghost Galleon

15.08.07

Upon a fathomless thought-filled sea,
Removed from rational coasts,
In a mind run wild with fantasy
Arises the galleon of ghosts.

Unreal and pale on the wide world’s rim
By poets’ souls pursued;
She sails the seas that dreamers swim
And by haunted winds is wooed.

Sad but proud is her ancient mast,
Weathered with thwarted love,
And over the vessel a gloom is cast
Enchanted by the sorrows above.

Woven with moonbeams and twilights bygone
Shimmer her age-old sails,
Mended with mist of eyes lovelorn,
’Broidered with lost fairytales.

Time-swept, dream-drenched, fancy-sprayed,
Her deck in the starlight gleams,
While by the moon to sleep she is laid
On a sea of forgotten dreams.

Wandering in a world of ghost reveries,
Followed by phantom shoals;
Steeped in the music of sad memories,
On the silver swell she rolls.

And now my woes must fast embark
Ere she sails for vistas new ---
A shadow gliding in the dark,
Carrying her eerie crew.

Thus soon they slip to stranger spheres ---
That hull, those hoary sails;
No more the ghosts and the spectral fears,
No more their silent wails.

No more the deck that the starlight pales,
The whispering hopes no more,
Gone is the phantom ship that sails
From shore to dream-lapped shore.

No more her prow, no more her mast,
No more her sighing elves;
Forever drowned in the depths of the past
Where only the dreamer delves.

The Stallion Storm

29.03.06

….On the hushed page of sound, ignored by men,
A low shuddering rumble was sketched, and then-
From some world beyond where the sun doth set
Out leaped a handsome equine silhouette:
A sable stallion- and a thousand behind,
Up from the melting horizon’s sigh
Arose, foreboding, into frowning sky.

Tempestuous, snorting foggy flame,
Row after row, raging they came.
Then downward, through the darkness sped.
Hoofs resounding upon thunderhead
Sparked purple flares of jagged light:
Night- the world’s eyelid- unfurled,
Flaunting a fleeting and spectral world.

Down with the rushing winds they roared,
Down from the sombre clouds they poured
Into the sea with the thundering rains,
Tossing their streaming, foam-flecked manes.
Black like the funereal firmament,
Black in the night; with the heaving swell-
Black as the sea, they rose and fell.

Hour after stormy hour the stallions raved,
Until, aweary, they could rave no more.
Then slow and silent, into mist dissolved,
Leaving faint hoofprints upon the shore…
And ere the herald of the coming morn,
A shimmer of tails- and they were gone.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Pygmalion Punctured (a short story)

26.06.08

Luckily, my inheritance allows me to live comfortably, because what I earn as an aspiring young artist in the small former French colony of Puducherry is only just enough to pay for my art materials. Art is unfortunately appreciated for the most part by the relatively cultured upper classes. So I paint mostly for my pleasure, occasionally selling a painting to acquaintances of a French gentleman who is my admirer.
One hot April afternoon last year, I was visited by my neighbour, an old lady. She lives all alone in the flat opposite mine, and, yearning for company, often drops in for a chat and a cup of tea. Being a widow, she is always dressed in a white cotton sari. She has no children of her own, and has grown to love me as her own granddaughter. Her husband was a native of Puducherry, but she herself was from a village in Rajasthan, where she had been a school-teacher. She once told me the long romantic story of how she had met her husband who had been a government servant, how they had eloped against the will of her parents who had never forgiven her. Considering the rigid customs and conventions she was brought up with, I admire the old lady for her idealism and courage. After marriage, she had adopted a South-Indian lifestyle, and I call her Paati, which in Tamil means grandmother.
Everything about Paati is old. Her limbs are shriveled under her papery skin. Her face is wrinkled like a yellow raisin and she wears her scanty silver hair in a tight bun. Even her voice is wobbly with age. Paati loves to recount the stories of her childhood and adolescence, of her little village, and of her inexhaustible relatives. It doesn’t disturb me. In fact, I rather like listening to her stories.
That afternoon was one of those story-telling days. I was painting when Paati came. She began by praising the landscape I was working on: she said it reminded her of a postcard her younger sister had sent during a holiday in Nainital. Her sister had also sent a photograph of her son, Paati’s nephew. Paati often spoke of her numerous nephews and nieces. She droned on and her voice mingled with the whirring of the fan. I heard the rattling of the vegetable vendor’s approaching cart, then the sound of harsh voices as he bargained with a female customer. The earthy smell of fresh vegetables wafted in through the open window. My mind drifted.
‘Will you do it?’ Paati asked suddenly.
‘What?’ I asked, waking from my daydream.
‘Will you paint my nephew’s portrait?’
…Reluctantly I agreed, consoling myself with the idea that the old lady might after all not live to see the end of it. I also hoped she would forget about it when she left. But I was wrong.
Early the next morning, while my coffee was brewing, I was surprised by a knock at my door. It was Paati. In her withered hand, she held out a photo.
‘Here,’ she said, with her sweet toothless smile, ‘Don’t you think my Achal is attractive?’
I looked at the photo and had to agree that he was unexpectedly good-looking.
…………
It being a cloudy day, I was in my element and determined to begin the portrait that very day. I studied the photo and made myself familiar with the features that I would soon be learning by heart. His large prominent forehead was framed by a mane of black hair that fell to his sturdy shoulders. He had thick well-defined eyebrows with sharply slanting edges. The beautiful deep-set eyes were his most alluring feature. They were shimmering golden brown pools flecked with light. The slope of his proud nose was straight, sharp and long. Half hidden by a dark moustache and surrounded below by a handsome beard were a pair of tender lips slightly curved in a shy smile: two dreams folded one over the other. Their soft shadows would be rather complicated to paint, I mused.
Over the next two months, I worked with feverish enthusiasm. I spent hours scrupulously striving to bring out the subtlest details of the face in the photo. I used transparent shades of earth green and yellow ochre to deepen the eyes, and various tones of violet to bring out the delicate play of shadows on the wise brow. Slowly, the portrait came alive. Led by my eyes, my brush caressed the features into being, and, guided by my heart, infused life into them. Underlying the fine features, I slowly started perceiving the elements of his nature. The noble brow, proud nose and wavy hair gave him a regal air. At the same time, his eyes murmured kindness and love, and the mystery behind the soft smile on his complicated lips kept me awake for many a late hour. He was born for the artist, I felt, as my gaze lovingly glided over his handsome countenance and ran along the graceful curve of his neck.
Paati dropped in more often to see the progress I made.
‘Why my dear!’ she exclaimed one day. ‘Your Achal looks perfectly like mine! What are you still working at?’
She wouldn’t understand. Nobody would. I was aiming high as an artist, and was still far from satisfied with my work.
…My Achal, she’d called him. It was true. I had made him mine by painting him. But he wasn’t just Achal to me. He was more than just a name. I knew this man intimately. I often spoke to him as I painted. Occasionally I joked and saw his gentle smile; and sometimes I unburdened my secrets, losing myself for some sweet moments in the warmth of his sympathetic eyes. Often, when I made a mistake or an accidental smudge on his face, I apologized and promised to make him even handsomer than he was. And once, while struggling to show the light on his nose, I asked him to co-operate. Every day, the portrait was becoming more real to me. Achal was a real person facing me, and as I leaned forward to paint, I could almost feel his breath… at times I could even smell him!
There came a day when I didn’t paint owing to the visit of a distant relative. That night I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of Achal. Not the portrait, but the man whose portrait it was. It was only then that I realized how deeply I was in love with him.
On the last day of July, Paati hobbled excitedly into my bedroom cum studio and announced that her dear nephew was coming to visit her in a week’s time.
‘Your nephew? … Achal?’ I asked, holding my breath. She nodded heartily.
…………
Achal was coming! My love was coming!! I couldn’t believe it, and yet subconsciously I’d expected him to come. He was coming! Next Thursday! I didn’t know how anyone could wait that long. I decided to concentrate on completing the portrait. Of course, if I wanted perfection, I could go on forever. Nevertheless, I’d try to put soul into the painting and make it as complete as possible.
I don’t clearly recollect how the week dragged by. I only remember confiding my feelings to the man on the canvas, and telling him (how much I was looking forward to meeting him) not to feel too neglected while I spent time with his mortal self…
Thursday dawned at last. Achal was expected a little before noon. I spent a couple of restless hours tidying my home. Every time I walked past the man in the painting, I entreated him to hurry up and come. At ten thirty, I sat down by the window and looked out impatiently. Having counted a hundred passing vehicles, I went out and peeped through Paati’s keyhole. I saw only a faint light. I pressed my ear to her door. All was quiet. I returned to my position by the window.
Finally, unable to contain myself, I strode out again and knocked at Paati’s door.
‘Aao beti!’ she exclaimed, ‘Come in!’
I entered her drawing room and was thrilled to see a strange pair of slippers by the door. So he had come! How was it that I hadn’t heard him? I heard the rustle of a curtain. And then my heart leaped up when I beheld …not a rainbow in the sky, but a shadow in the room behind Paati. Slowly he stepped into the light and I gasped.
Standing before me was a weathered, bespectacled, gray-haired stranger leaning on a cane. So Paati had more than one guest. Who was this man? Where was Achal?
‘My dear girl, meet my handsome young nephew!’ Paati cried in her trembling tone.
I stood stunned. My body forgot to breathe. Could this possibly be the person who had haunted my sleep? Had this old man been the soul of my reveries? I stared at him incredulously. I was shocked by the stark reality. Deeply disillusioned, my heart wept. All my hopes were shattered.
…And then the magic happened. From the heart of the grizzled beard, a complicated pair of lips parted, and from under two white brows, the liquid brown eyes smiled, and love shone through.