The Case For Singledom

Clean Sheets
Compact convenient one person meals
cooked to perfection
and appreciated fully
No pig like grunts in the middle of the night
no nasty yawns that sound and smell like death
no phone calls in the middle of a particularly interesting
bit of prime time telly
toilet seat devoid of dribbles
tables devoid of mug stains
the dishes done when they need to be done, not before, not after
no nasty surprise waiting
when you open the door to your abode
occupied, however temporarily, by your other
nothing precious precariously balanced
making your heart jump
Beautiful Silence

Batman

Winged terror obscuring the moon
Comes flying from beyond
The dark

Telling traces or trails he leaves not
Never to be found or seen
Only imagined

Like shy scent of brine blood spilling
From a hole in the head filling
Your nose

Of murkling molasses, milding mushrooms
A trudging aftertaste of peril
Slow sweet

A grip of bat claw piercing bone so
Dense, descends gliding
The span

Of his wings, petrifying black hearts
That leap as quick as he scales
Mere walls

Muscle and bone in a cave of head
Still as sarcophagus
Batman stands

Points of Light

crushed
ccdim
pupils awash in cataract
blinking blindly
Points of Light
blurred by the window glass

Beckoning string of pearls
white now
ccThere yellow
phosphorescence of
a blue and green sea creature
ancient and wily
luring fresh meat to walk
tantalised towards it
mesmerise with its miasmic
interior of pitch tar
Pliant Penumbra
studded with glitter
like a starlet with potential
like the sky itself
lights
glow
low
ebb
by

Getting Ready

Slick wetting streams
Off the slope of my back
Steam sprouts and floats
Like elusive dreams
Through the gap above
Luminous white curtain

Undrape the towel
And smooth over
Little globules of penetrating
Moisturiser
Little blobs of sweet smelling defeat

Nourish and feed the need
To flatten spurts of thorny
Animal
Cultivate a culture
Of shiny baby necessities

Give me your look
Give me your love
Give me your need
So I can feel
Necessary

I pull over clothes
Over my supple new nakedness
Tempered, perfumed
Acceptable
In civil society

Preferring waxing to
Shelves of stubble
On display counters
Inured to Pain
But open to criticism
Getting ready
To exfoliate
extract and expunge

Tinny

The wood of my desk vibrates
Before you sound
Your need to be picked up

Tinny, a cry shattering the air

I blow my breaths away from
Your sensitive maw
Your ears bring me disembodied
Voices brimming with need
For mindless chatter

I hate you
Though I look at you longingly
Sometimes, and touch you to
See if you would come alive
Startle me with a sudden

Tinny, a cry shattering the air

A trick, if I really think about it
Black and sinister
Like black pudding
Lurid invitation to partake into some

Unimagined sin
Though curiously commonplace
Can it be real
Or am I just hearing voices in my head

Tinny, a cry shattering the air

Bringing news I do not want to hear
Keeping me near persons
I do not want to be close to
A lifeline I do not need
To live

Consuming me like marriage
My ears bleed
As my tongue peels
off banalties like
banana skin

Tinny, a cry shattering the air

The Woman (first draft)

I saw a woman in an orange coat and a green hat
who loudly said, 'He was so damn cute'

I was walking and it was raining
the overwrought sky was in a sulk
miserable people huddled with their armpits
fingers in pockets
chin on the chest

And there was this woman
in an orange coat and a green hat
exclaiming loudly
not giving a damn about the weather
not caring that this
was a world of greys and steel blues
of whispers and smiles
and not exclamations!

She was talking to this man
as they were walking along
with their pointys up and out

brown jutting, an affront to the very air
oh how the people behave
these those from the land of orange suns
and indecent mangoes
and head turning flowers
and strange religious pastes

And so I was walking as I said
one step at a time
huddling into my armpits
skirting puddles with stolid shoes
with doubled up laces

and here was this woman
in her orange coat and green hat
throwing her damn into the air
cutting the sheet of rain with her cute
leaving behind her a reverberation
of a remembered warmth
that I left behind on my way

That Undeserving Bitch

'She was a nobody. Hardly Sharukh or Amitabh, or even a Preity Zinta or Kajol.'

'Here she's almost forgotten.. except for a stint as a judge in the indian version of dancing with the stars.. she's just got two films.. no one remembers which was her last release..'

'in the sense that a lot of people r saying that she's got no real merit.. in the sense, it's just real good luck that she was abused by this goody character. otherwise, as far as india is concerned, she is a has been.. '

Such seems to be irritated thoughts of many Indians that watch in disbelief as Shilpa glides on red carpets to accept contracts, accolades and even the British PM's handshake.

Why such ungenerous sentiment from the land of milk and honey?

Shetty was one of the biggest celebrities to grace the Celeb Big Brother, which is usually populated by third rate British has-beens with flailing careers.

She did not initiate all the brouhaha that followed her entrance into the big house. Goody and co did.

Indians everywhere seem to be asking, 'Why is the whole of Britain over-reacting to the racism issue and why oh why are the British putting Shetty on a pedestal?'

Especially since she has provided only flops in recent years.

Why is an issue is being made in India out of Shetty's level of fame or status of her Bollywood career. The Indians are trying to judge and measure the situation by the actress's box office standing, because they wouldn't know how to judge it by the standard of Goody's racist behaviour. And they wouldn't know to appreciate Shetty's attitude in the Big Bro house the way a nation that prides itself on good behaviour would.

Who cares about the horrors of a coining of a rude nickname in a nation where young girls take safety pins to hold in defense in public buses, where the loudest voice is the only one heard, where the idea of a queue only co-exists with the idea to jump it, where the police are doing their duty only with lathis and dicks?

How many races co-exist in vast numbers in India? One. They would have no comprehension of how big an issue racism is in modern times, especially in Britain that is like a rainbow tribe, where the whole of the white population like to think of themselves as tolerant and well behaved (with their pretty-please and thankyous) and entirely absolved from their guilt-ridden colonial past.

The issue of 'racist bullying' was what the whole of Britain was reacting to with horror. Horror at one of their own people treating a guest in such an uncivilised manner. It put everyone here to shame; even the college porter stopped me to assure that he condemned the behaviour of Goody and co, even ashamed of them. The British were suddenly thrown back into the skin of coloniser/tyrant which they feel they have almost escaped, albeit slightly slyly, out from under the shadow of USA (ironically, the real Big Brother)

To Shetty's credit, she behaved beautifully through it all. She never for a moment forgot that she was representing her people, and was utterly dignified and fair (or at least appeared so) peppered with typical Indian overinvolvement with the cooking and pissing people off with too many onions and spices.

It was enormously gratifying to watch the brown native setting an example in civilised behaviour to the white master race (another irony is that JAde herself is mixed race). Take that, you erstwhile colonising pigs, the uncivilised savage part of me wanted to chortle.

So I do believe Shetty deserves her millions and tv and movie contracts and the PMs handshake for putting the whole of Britain to shame and making the British wish that She, and not Goody, belonged to them. Only by making her win, again and again, can they attempt to absolve themselves of this latest sin and everlasting history.

De-Liberating Love

Nothing grows in a vaccum.
When people, things, expectations, negative emotions, rationalisations crowd around, they shut off the light, the air, the oxygen, the nurture. No space to grow. Nothing to thrive on.
I suppose some plants make a show of growing, in a jar of water, or even thin air.
They even sprout leaves, nod, talk about furniture.
Then they say, 'Oops, there isn't any more nourishment in this jar of water. What do we do now.'
Nothing. Wheres the soil dammit?
Soil? What's that like?
The stuff that binds us together with each other and the earth. Stuff that gets replenished all the time so in turn it can replenish us. Stuff of life.
No soil. Might as well be in a vaccum. Oh shit, we are in that too. Water unreplenished, the air cut off too. By a wall of bricks. Bubble wrap. Canvas. Now what?
We die a slow death, or fast. You choose.
I choose fast.