If I was to write this pain

If I was to write this pain
Paper would tear and shadows under the moons of your eyes would feign
Which is to fade and yet attempt to make
A difference in the way I see you.

Which is why I do not write this pain. I do not,
For I cannot take your multiple choices,
Your Oprah, your wiping my sex so dry that skin yells desert hunger howls
with your sanctimonious sanitation.
Your hugs, your chicken soup, your Johnson & Johnson god
Who squeals and burps up words of love that
Cry from the fear of being burnt by the mouths of
Crow and I.

I do not want your help, your concern
your things that will soon be better.

I do not write. I yell.

I scream and howl and rage and shudder and weep at the inexplicable certainty of it all.

For fail we all must.

Leaves must curl, whiten, die.
As must this love, as must I.







__________________

N.B- from the archives. Dusted off, and glued back together.

12:30 am

An incredible ache
like the time you dared yourself to clutch
ice-cubes in your fingers
till nothing was left but water.

Here lies one who waits
for the cool drip-trip to write her name
with frozen-old-man-bent fingers.

Here lies one who chooses to tell the truth-

(that is behind
noisy psychotropic legging around a back n' white world,
that leaves territorial markings pungent tears where it
is ok to pause)

-The fact that we will all
smoke cheat cry weep
gulp rage suck kill
fuck break run sleep,
pull strings spin yarn
then darn the souls of ourselves
when fifty,
quietly
stirring cotton white robes in government homes, because:

Sometimes the pain comes not from what has happened,
but is due to the scientificonstantaxiomofreality that

Ice changes to water, water to ice. And that this
does not end....

A Fucking Poem

We act like it's no big deal.
You inside sleeping, and
me here, smoking.
Headphones. 5:56pm. TD for the Colts.

Yet every moment I imagine
the turn of a door knob,
and the give of wood.
I cough, practising my first line.

I could say-- "The knife broke before lunch!"
(Bad luck in love if one is Irish;
the onions just help the tears along)
Or maybe even-- "Overkill. Like too much salt!"

Perhaps the music gets louder and louder,
so that even if you did turn the knob,
did call my name,
I wouldn't have to hear. Or cough.

And thus you have me bound.
By your silence. The hope of your speech.
(For you I hold my wrists together,
my arms over my head)

I should go away, of course.
Birth this pregnant pause, only to
return-- sporting a flatter tum?
And you would be there at the station...

... Like a Jane Austen book.

Such irony though: this evil eye anger
silence guilt too much salt
has made a poem.
A fucking poem.

Her Gripe

And it was as simple for you,
as placing your lips further down the rim
and sipping with your eyes closed,
while discussing the future of Parma
and the effects of war on network tv.

you murmured out your secret easy,
like a malyalee smiles a request for tea.
It is that simple for you, as simple as taking off your
shoes, giving the girl a nickname for tonight,
or getting drunk on Old Monk at 4:30am.

Do not fool yourself, dearest, by thinking
I grip this knife harder only to make sure
the onions are sliced fine. No, do not fool yourself.
Wars have been fought and children sold
because of words spoken while swimming in rum.

Imagine the terror unleashed then,
by this woman you just declared long-hid passions to!
There's a knife at your throat for only one reason:
no woman wants to know she was put away for a rainy day
Keep your mouth shut, your bottle corked, or just-- keep away!

Message in a Bottle

you send pictures and news,
wear your life like mosquito bites
draped all over your pale skin.

You have new people in your bookshelf,
one dog-eared more than the others.
you have started smoking. I only smile.

We laugh over sex and future plans,
knowing with quiet comfort that it will
or wont happen. You'll wax your cunt anyway

and I will leave my heart open, and point at
the fireflies on the sill, rorschach undies on the floor.
What would you have done, if we kissed that night at Saarang?

for I loved you then, as much as I loved anyone else;
your light-eyed, soft-pawed grace. The way no man could ever mark you.
We both carry tattoos now. Mine are underneath the skin.

You take pictures of the night. The stories in your beaded,
red and silvered pouch sound familiar to me,
like I was there, naked in the forest inside you,
Caiman-staring at your cigarette's rising smoke.

You are beautiful now, just like you were that night-
bra-less, smiling with the grasshoppers
under amber-lit trees.

Dryad. The one old women warned them about,
only because you ate bread-jam with your left hand.
I come gladly, and with only one fear--

will you stay unhurt, tree-being, you whose hair
has grown long with moss and iguana song?
only the lack of faith ever killed a sprite;

and I have died many times over,
as I have killed, many times over.
I stare at the pictures you took:

under the night a cloud moves.
Under the green mist, a fish darts unnoticed.
This is how it will be, then--

passed over and precious,
like a cloud at night over Ecuador.
Like a fish at rest in sleeping reeds.

Code Red

She couldn't help her smile. Walking down the street, she wove her steps between demolition crews, a crying child, gliding below the iron girders that swung precariously over her head. She smiled, oblivious to the warnings, curses and surprised yells that accompanied her path.

She ran across roads, ignored 'don’t walk' signs, and didn't wait for her change. In response to words of praise and magic and prophecy from old women with cards and parrots, stones, candles and withered flowers in bunches she let 20-dollar bills rise from her palms like setting doves free. The women took one look at her face and put away their potions with a laugh.

Musicians followed her down the street, making the grand sound like it was an old time Mardi gras. Mothers held their children to her smile, eager for blessings. Young men threw phone-numbers, roses—One slid down a drain pipe and pelted after the procession, chanting like it was high mass and arsenal vs. juventus in 2001 at one and the same time.

She walked by, and big men, dressed in sleek suits and scented with rehearsed speeches, passed bills to save children in Uganda, then donated their yachts to Bangladeshi NGOs. One man smiled and dialed a number: instantly bombs filled with cherry blossoms and iris petals exploded gently over Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the ancestors of the people there rose up from the old tombs to share tea with the toddling dalai lama, lately discovered playing a flute on a tuna long-liner.

She climbed the stairs to her terrace, and faeries woke in Stonehenge, and played dusty pipes that had long since grown into trees, and all the Irish came out and swore by Odin, Thor and Balder that they had forgotten how to spell 'Ulster unionist'. For the first time, more Guinness than Bud was drunk; the lochness swam to Sea World and set Willy free.

Once on top of her water-tank, she danced and sang; Buddha smiled, stretched and woke. Gandhi danced the Cheraw, Harrison and Lennon sang let it be, backed by the invisible choir. Noting the sudden global warming, Wolfowitz and the CIA announced a code red, anxiously. The President announced on national television that the world was under threat from someone dangerously in love. She closed her eyes, thought of his face and kissed the night air.

On the other side of the world, he woke in that instant, and realized he had been smiling in his sleep. At that exact moment, a doctor named Patel discovered a cure for AIDS, and superman deflected an asteroid hurtling towards Iran. He sat down at his laptop:

"You won't believe this, but I think just saw you in my dream. Come online?"

Post-its

Do you know what its like

to be able to give you

nothing?



For what could I give,

I who have sat in dirty robe with cigarette butt,

hearing your stories from a lifetime ago?



A lifetime ago, I would've known what to give:

sonnets, clean feet, a warm neck.

Stories, laughter, smokeless breath.



A lifetime ago, we would've had whole afternoons,

Laughed over things we wouldnt put on our blogs,

made coffee and petted the sleeping cat. Or dogs.



A lifetime ago, I wouldve ensured smooth skin

and punctuality on msn.

A lifetime ago, all the men in the stories wouldve been you.



A lifetime ago, we may not have met.

you had your happiness and I had mine.

But now they've gone and—relatively-- it's just you and me.



we met like two druggies in a dark corner.

Our understanding began when we compared scars

and laughed at the funny shapes they left.



We pointed at each other's words in silence

awknowledging the one who would not return

and the clean bandages we refused to use.

On the nights you had to howl

I waited below, paws numb even before the snow fell,

for what comfort could I offer, I whose turn was next?


Do you know what its like

to be able to give you

nothing?



There are no flowers. But there is weed.

There is no fruit. Just dried lonely seed.



Two Quioxtes or two Sancho Panzas?

Im not sure at all, at all. Saddle-sore, I only know

we have cursed both windmill, and rusty 'amour'.



Now we sometimes frolic. All teeth and snarls and laughter,

like cubs in spring. Like spring, it does not last.

Night comes, and the snow hides your prints from me.


Do you know what its like

to be able to give you

nothing?



No virginity. No silken locks.

No rings. No matching socks.


What love-name could I call you that she hasn't?

What part of me could you touch that he hasn't?



What could I give you?

A cig when you were out, but

You dont smoke Camels, and I dont smoke Marbs.


Perhaps a back rub?


a sandwich


a crossword


hugs


Bad yoda imitations


(love you I do)


A lifetime ago, we may not have met.

you had your happiness and I had mine.

But now they've gone and relatively,

its just you and me.


A lifetime ago we would not have met.

I hold this thought like a raindrop,

and nod an ok to

the grey sky, and sun that's set.

Plan B

Or we could pretend that we were just waiting for the same bus, and all that happened, happened only because that bus was late, and all the coffee shops were closed.

It would be easy, really.

I could for instance, claim that the tip of my boot did not scuff a gentle line against your brown shoe: that all I was doing was removing a plastered leaf from the leather. I could claim that I did not tug at the warm circle of your trouser leg with the same boot. That all I was doing was drawing your attention to the waiter who had brought the same salty noodles back to the table, inspite of you having sent it back 15 minutes earlier.

It would be easy... I could say that I have never wanted to kill you, never wanted to kiss you, never taken advantage of a sudden red light to squeeze my thighs tighter around you.

And you could try this as well.

Pretend you didn't hold onto my hips when we all danced in the club that poured out too many large punjabis and too many dancing vodkas. Pretend you didn't...

Pretend.

And why not? Such dealings as ours is matter for memory. If the raven is kind, I will forever associate chocolate cigars with you. If otherwise,

You could claim that the crumpled bills are from Hutch, not from that italian place where you held my foot in your lap while he poured more ice cubes into my glass. Claim even, that my boots were dusty, my neck tepid, and that I did not know better than you what to order for lunch.

Or instead-- Pretend that we were just waiting for the same bus, and that just as you turned to me, the bus arrived. You formed a foolish grin and fingered your change, while I sipped at my takeaway latte.

It would be easy, really.

Hot Flush

Count-downs and new releases on t.v. Home food, and the old lady's reading 'the curious incident of the dog in the night time', waiting for her husband to drive home.

In a kaftan from a lifetime ago, her fingers scented with the pickle gravy that no soap made by man can ever wash off completely. Languid, like can only happen if one has recovered from a high fever, or has just fought and won an argument with a teacher.

Her thighs are as white solid and warm as they have always been. the fan's off because her nose is blocked, and she needs to breathe. Vh1 and all that is pop on television. Bad punk rock. Kylie has breast cancer, and everyone's still wishing for Jolie's eyes. Languid. So Languid. Like an old man who is tired after jiving with a younger woman and buries himself in his rum to make sure no one can hear his gasping over the loud music.

The old lady reading 'the curious incident of the dog in the night time'. Like tracing a line of wet paint on paper, she reached down between her thighs with her right hand, the remote controlling the number of ads viewed with her left hand.

This was a deep sea exploration; Cousteau seeking the anemones. Languid like one who has recovered from a high fever, or who has masturbated far too often in a day. This much at least, was the truth. What was incredible was the damp, clear warm wetness that lay there, like the moisture in the roots of a desert plant. her finger came up quietly slick, like a finger given to a baby to suck. So tired. Everything is asleep: the curtains, the shirts on hangers in the corner. Her breasts heavy and soft, mildly damp like dimsum steamed and forgotten by some harried waiter. In the folds of her soft, mildly damp body, moisture lay like the last drop of water hanging on the tassle of a cotton sari out on the line.

Languid, and so tired, but to see if one could still... after a long day of... inspite of a blocked nose...

she had never done this seated bolt upright. It was like sucking too fast and too long on a hookah. It was hanging upside down on a ferris wheel while the guy who worked the circles went to get popcorn. Her eyes glazed over, and she thought she might be sick, and then feverish, and then sick, and then...

This wasn't about a man or woman, or even many men or many women. Maybe it was the medication or the lack of oxygen, but the 1,000 invisible hands that hundreds of years and a taj mahal ago had aided Arjumand to her silken lord and hot bed suddenly found her on this languid january night, with Vh1 and Jolie's eyes running across the telelvision screen...

1,000 invisible hands. Some supporting her back, stroking the inner skin of her arms. Others touching, tracing, rubbing all murmuring

you must. You have to. It is better this way. Come.

It was every man's folly to not know the simplest secret about her. And it was this. The flowers and talk and tongue and anger had nothing to do with it. All one had to do was ask.

Please, come. It is better this way.

She gasped during the Madonna interview, clench-unclenching, feeling a single long-stemmed drip of sweat explore the curve of her back. Hot flush. The antibiotics did not help.

She hadn't moved, except to fold her right leg, the bottle green kaftan 4 inches above her solid warm thigh. She laughed aloud thinking of the picture she made-- her legs like two whales beached on some polynesian island. And the tide would come with the rising of the moon, and lift languid, tired fins up and out, back into the lapping ocean.

She relaxed back on the cotton covers, and released the mute button that had been pressed down these past six minutes.

It was not about need. But what a lonely task it is to make sure one remains languid.

She gulped down water, watching madonna while her pulse came back to normal, thrumming in her forehead and palms. Like a prayer.

About taxis and need

There's a thing about certain songs. They sing loss and need with such potent life that no cliche can ever hurt them. For me, Father Figure will always be one of them.

Its a thing about taxis. And dark streets.

Watch Video:

FATHER FIGURE (George Michael)

Video Code provided by VideoCodeZone.Com

Love Letter

Dearest,

I wanted to write to and tell you of how I long for the moment when we will be together again. The cold winds pace, howling, in the balcony every night, and the moon is unsympathetic to a lover’s sighs- Even the Countess Rossini said so last night while at cards, while Lucia was at the harp.

Ah, the pangs of love. The pain we must endure, the pain we seek even— do you not think that it is most unchristian of us, feeling and thinking and mouthing all these words, and then seeking redemption every sabbath? But I lose myself in the writing of this epistle, and now must focus on conveying my thoughts to you.

Precious light, how goes it with you? Are you well? Is business all that it must be? I pestered Claudio for news of you when he returned last sennight: he tells me you are somber at business, gay in company and morose when alone. He tells me that you are in solitude most often, writing verse dedicated to me. Dear dear heart! It will not be long, I assure thee. Not long at all.

In fact, our moment will have arrived with you opening this little parchment with your hands. How well I know your habits, dearest: how often have I traced your attitudes and postures, your sweet brow and your full lips in my mind, closing my eyes in the middle of the day in spite of mama’s remonstrances. I can in fact see you this very moment, as you read this very line.

You will throw your coat at Francois, and place your cap atop the bust of Pericles. Still reading, you will cast your eyes over the cards you have received for tonight’s revelry. Picking up the wine Francois has brought you, you will make your way into your chambers, first bidding Francois to not disturb you for an hour, during which time you will caress the folds of this letter, imagining it to be my arms under your fingertips—Tell me if I lie! But you cannot. You laugh now, I can feel you, in merriment over this precocious little chit you have chosen to favor with your love and regard. And now you will chew at your thumb or forefinger, peeling away tiny bits of your skin, smiling as you read my girlish avowals of love.

There. The door is shut, and Francois has gone off with your boots to scrape off the mud of the day. You are in your bed, and the windows are shut tight, as you like the warmth. For you always did enjoy warmth, did you not my love? From laying your face against my breast, to drinking cider with Claudio, how often have I remarked upon your attraction for the heat, and for light.

At this moment, if I see true, your eyes are beginning to prick you, and your throat burns you till you wonder at the wine you are drinking, and put away the cup. Perhaps now you detect the faintest odor of garlic coming from the parchment, and your fingertips? You must needs cough, splutter, perhaps choke now—I wonder if you will read the rest of my love-letter to you, my heart… but I, your beloved, will continue writing till its conclusion, for I do have so much to tell you. Like for instance, how Venice is beautiful beyond comparison, and filled with the most beautiful and intelligent people in the world. Claudio’s lover, Beatrice, is one such delight: what a lovely creature! In spite of her great heritage and her honored name she carries none of the head weight one notices in the other Medici’s at Court. But she is young—my age, in fact—and we are both fast friends. It was she who told me that Claudio had whispered in her ear of how you played fast and loose with my name and our love in the taverns of Ravenna, in the company of sailors and militia. My dear you are feeling quite well? Beatrice told me that arsenic has a horrible way of catching in your throat till you cannot breathe—Perhaps Francois will not hear you calling?

I should add that Claudio, following Beatrice’s instructions, has bolted the windows from outside: we would not like you to catch a chill in that horrid weather, my lord. I’m told that arsenic works quickly, and is delicate—So delicate that I could paint my lips with it, and kiss you as is our wont, and you would die in my arms, as I would live, your face pressed against my breast in agitation and want. Are you quite alright, my hearts ease?

Perhaps this parchment would have fallen to the ground by now. Claudio is to climb in after, a wet lace kerchief across his mouth and nose, and retrieve it, after which it will be burnt. Flames will eat it, the heat and light licking at my writing, as they now lick at your throat and mind and heart.

Farewell, my lord. Isn’t it unchristian of us, feeling and thinking and mouthing all these words, and then seeking redemption every Sabbath? Such is what passion does to the soul. I will unburden my heart to the Virgin. It is sad that it had to end this way. But surely, where you will go now will give you far more heat and light than my arms ever could?

I loved you truly, and was yours for the taking. But now comes death, and thus we part.

Sincerely,
Cara Giuseppe.

13th November, 1519,
Venice.

Weak and Powerless

Tilling my own grave to keep me level
Jam another dragon down the hole
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren
One that pushes me along and leaves me so

Desperate and Ravenous
I'm so weak and powerless over you

Someone feed the monkey while I dig in search of China
White as Dracula as I approach the bottom

Desperate and Ravenous
I'm so weak and powerless over you

Little angel go away
Come again some other day
The devil has my ear today
I'll never hear a word you say
Promised I would find a little solace
And some piece of mind
Whatever just as long as I don't feel so

Desperate and Ravenous
I'm so weak and powerless over you
Desperate and Ravenous
I'm so weak and powerless
over you

~A Perfect Circle, 'Weak and Powerless'.

Diary of a Lovesong

31st December, 2004.

11:05pm, and lights out throughout the house. In one room, a couple who missed their son flicked channels, waiting for sleep but always returning to National Geographic. In the second room, an old wrinkled woman dreamt of her brother and of a son who had beaten her but only afer eating the fish curry that had sat up with her, waiting for him to come home. She dreamt, her mouth moving noiselessly. The maid, all dark sullen heated sex, snored on the floor, bed pan forgotten.

11:23pm. From where she sat-- the warm corner of the couch, curled into the cloth-- she saw the pale light of the television go out. Like other nights, her parents would consign her brother to the grace of god, and mark the time on the clock, knowing they would wake in an hour and a half to check if she was in bed, or still sitting awake-- in the warm corner of the couch, curled into the cloth.

The things they didn't know:

1) the old wrinkled woman had pissed her sheets, again.

2) the girl, their daughter, was waiting for a miracle.

He called. During their conversation, midnight came and went. The darkness of the house swallowed the new year, and ate her smile forever. For the rest of the year, the girl preferred the night to the day.

It is better for a man and woman to shout and weep their anger and loss when they part ways. It is better that all the love that has been is burnt up in one huge pyre, the flames licking at their eyelashes, warming their cheeks the way they will not touch each other ever again.

It is far worse when they stay polite, and invite the cold inside them, turning their love to ice so that nothing is heard melting, slowly. Running down to form a salty well where your arms close your breasts against the couch, into the wall, into the night which falls around this building like soft warm cloth.

"If only you had asked me to stay back, jo. I was waiting to hear that, but you never did"

Her mouth froze with all the cold she had allowed inside. She clutched at the phone, burying her ear into it, painfully eager to hear him breathing in the silence.

"It's better this way"

For the first time in her life, she said nothing. Knowing that he was in control of this conversation, knowing that her mouth was frozen, she squeezed tighter into the corner of the couch. He said he had to go, and she closed her eyes, falling back into the cave that was behind the corner of the couch. She fell far, and it was all fast and dark and cold like an underground train. The ground was hard. She closed her eyes.

12th May, 2005.

She sat next to the wrinkled old woman and smelt the talcum powder, the faintest aroma of decay. She touched the wrinkled old skin, like she would touch the shell of a sea turtle, the bark of an ancient pine tree. Like a trapped whale, the old woman lay there calm, knowing she was being watched, being committed to memory. She went on the plane with the phone, knowing it wouldn't work outside india. 3 months later, she would bury it in foreign soil, without a marker.

13th May, 2005.

They sat at a lazy right angle. She was sitting forward, holding onto a single neat linen crease at his knee. The world was in that crease. Between her fingers, in those fibers was where they hugged and kissed and forgave and apologized and laughed and cried and held and slept. He spoke. Her mouth was frozen. The beer was flat. the hotel bar was loud, filled with people that did not read poetry. She watched the car pull out of the driveway.

6th November, 2005.

The train passed by the city you live in. Twice. The first was in the daytime. The second was when towers of blinking lights rose against the night that fell around manhattan like a soft cloth. You did not know. And if I ever bring myself to stand in timesquare and increase the volume on my 'pod, you will not know then either.

7th November, 2005.

A perfect circle's cover of the Cure's Lovesong is playing. The wrinkled old woman, contrary to all expectations, has not died.

"sanity now and beyond me
i will always love you
however long i stay
i will always love you
whatever words i say
i will always love you
there's no choice"

Deep [inspired by the movie of the same name]

Down by the salt-stained boats and men, there is a story told of black haired girls who would disappear into the sea, in the days when my father was a boy.

“What did they go looking for?” I asked. The old man snorted and churned his ass into the polished wood of the chair that had been bleached sad by the sun. He squinted, in spite of the grey dull clouds and light rain, and spat 5 feet to his side. “Sea cock. They believed old witches’ words of mer-men and love at high tide”.

Before I could ask anymore, he humped out of his chair and stood for a minute in the blinding light of the rectangle sky, his hands clinging to the doorposts. Then he swayed down to the docks, where the others stood sniffing at the wind, wondering when the tide would come in.

“Old bastard. It was more than that, but this is what happens when you spend your life slitting soft fish skin, with all them young boys watching out on the lonely water”.

Her forearms were like street-light poles; she swung the wet rag over the counter, lifting my mug to leave a wet gash where the wood was dry before. The water smelt like rotten cabbage. Dolores was known as a barmaid who loved Yeats. I looked a question at her, over the rim of suds.

“Wicca. Part of the stones we walk on, in this town. Can’t shut away history, lad. We all didn’t just get up, pull on our clothes and go to work. This land’s older than all the old bastards put together”. Her voice and the smell of rotten cabbage receded with her into the back room.

We walked down later that day to her cottage. It smelt of old woman and dog. Her mother sat crumpled in a chair, gazing through the television to her bed that lay a wall away. The dog scratched the door as Dolores fumbled with the key. Whining, he dashed out in a streak of musty fur to the scraggled grass outside.

Her voice tore my eyes away from the arcing back, and the brown memories of lunch which now lay steaming with the marigolds. “Here’s a book of my mother’s. It’ll tell you more than I could. Lemonade, lovey?”

I sat next to the old woman as she farted in a deflated, woebegone way. Dolores was in the kitchen, her black nylon behind straining in front of the fridge.

The book had no covers, and was filled with the yellow faded pages that come with being left by the window. It told of the sorrow that came with a black haired daughter, of her will to return to the sea. Stories of families who had left this island for fear of losing their daughter to Manannan Mac Lir, the sea god who followed his own wishes. Tales of girls gone missing, their bodies never found. That when they did, the fish would be plenty that year. And finally, the myth of the blood-vow.

Come high tide, if a young girl was to prick her vein and drop her warm blood into the waves, a mer-man would come and claim her for his love that night.

“But Dolores, she wouldn’t be able to breathe. There were no bodies found”.

She flicked grains of butter, shining their sweat onto the knife before grinding them into the bread.

“Wicca. Magic to you, laddie. Don’t ask me how it works. All I know is there are no more black haired lasses on this island. The ones who went missing were never seen again by human eyes”.

“But…”

“Touch”

The old woman blinked. I had not expected her to speak. Dolores walked into the room, butter on her fingers, and crumbs over her breasts.

“Touch. She wasn’t supposed to touch him”. Her watery eyes looked at the space between Dolores and me. “They all had to swim out; they knew when he was there. They had to swim and swim, out to deep water, past the point when you’re tired and want to sink, just let her take you in her cold arms and hug you. He would swim alongside all the time, smiling and urging you to swim further. If they could keep swimming till the water turned sweet, then he would hold them to his heart, and take them home”.

We sat silent. Dolores in patient silence, me fingering the page that held a Gaelic chant, her mother’s crumbled figure nodding in the chair that had become a part of her.

“But not all of them could do it, could they Dolores? I—

“Mother, it’s time for your bed. Lad, you can let yourself out? I’ll have to give her her bedpan as well, and there’s time enough before you have to be around such work, yes? Tomorrow”. So saying, she of the strong arms lifted the frail body and gently dragged it to the room beyond the television.

The dog walked me out. A picture on the shelf caught my eye: an old print, a tiny face in a mass of dark hair… black hair…

Black hair.

The dog shook his fur and looked pointedly at the door.

I couldn’t sleep. The cold shingle under my boots crunched and shone with the moon’s light.

The sea called me that night. Moon called to tide, tide called to man. Madness or loneliness overtook me, and the moon had not traveled far before I pulled out my Swiss army knife and, legs blue-veined under rolled trousers, I stood in icy waves that sucked my feet lower into their wet underlip, dripping blood into the sea. Salt stung the fresh slit.

Clothes were lost. I dove in, striking arm-length after arm-length.

I don’t know how long I swam. Black water shining where my arm left a trail, covering me up, bearing me on, but I could feel the time underneath my tiny body, the ships and dead men, the coral in skulls, the sea weed forests, the fish guards who would come for me when I could breathe no more.

His arms tired, he struggled, and then paused lying on his back, closing his eyes. A porpoise rose out of the waves and nudged his feet. In fear he swallowed a lot of water, then came up to stare at the fish. He reached for its back in fear, and when he realized the slippery cool skin would not desert him, he clung to her, his face out of the water.

She took him to where the whales sing, to where they feed endlessly. They swam past green ice, and fishing polar bears. They swam past Orion and the water was sweet, her heart warm and beating where his ear pressed against her skin.

Before dawn, she left him close to shallow water, nudging him towards the soft-sucking sand. She turned and swam—the ocean ripples she left behind streamed like soft black hair.

He was found sitting where the tide left white foam lines over his thighs and face. He refused to move. Dolores brought him food for three days and three nights, which the sea took without a fuss. On the fourth night, he uttered a great cry, and plunged into the waves, again beating forward towards the moon.

A year later, Dolores found a squealing little boy with black hair lying on the shingle. She put him in her fish basket, his gills flared red and gasping against the silvered-mackerel death under him. She put him in a clean fish tank when she got home, gasping from the run. He coughed, eyes shining, kicked his legs and darted about the tank.

Her mother went missing 3 evenings later. She was found sleeping on shingle, smiling. Her hair had come undone, thin silvered black strands mixed with dancing crabs and red seaweed. An empty fish tank lay next to her.

There was good fish that year, the old man said, speaking to the bored tourist. He then squinted, in spite of the grey dull clouds and light rain, and spat 5 feet to his side.

Rendezvous

She sat outside, staring at her boots.

She always wore boots with this skirt, this vermillion patterned generous-like-curtains flared skirt. It had been her mothers, who had been a little lady wrapped in red breezing around her like a cape, peeping over the rails to watch the ship plough through the water below.

The name vermillion derives from the Latin word vermes, which originally referred to the kermes insect that was used in the preparation of red dye in ancient Rome. Since prehistoric times, vermillion has been highly valued by the Chinese and has been used not only in works of art, such as scroll paintings, but in burials and in alchemy experiments as well.

She always wore boots with this skirt. Only because no one expected it. All that flaringdaring beating red life, singing women carrying children on aching shoulders while leaving tea gardens in Sri Lanka at dusk [for the skirt was from Sri Lanka], and then-- boots. Shined. Black. Prufrock going to work on the tube, eating a cheese sandwich, brushing crumbs away from his black umbrella.

Since vermillion was a rare pigment, it was as costly as gilding in the early years of its use, but by the 1400s, it was so commonplace that Cellini Cennino chose not to include a recipe for it in his famous treatise. Renaissance artists considered vermillion one of the most stable and pure-colored pigments. It was the perfect complement to ultramarine and gold leaf.

She used to make her skirts swish in company on purpose, so they would see her neat, rounded legs end in boots. But now, the sun and dust and traffic made them seem forlorn. The skirt was like a limp flag seeking a breeze on august 15th. Like an Englishman in a lonely station, her boots waiting for movement.

They should've been worn by the sweat drenched acidic little man in the counter, 40 feet away, selling tickets to a mob. He was safe behind a glass wall, his whiskers trembling with the movement of the universe in ever nerve, as he gave back 15 rupees and a pink slip that said balcony and then snapped at the next girl to hurry up.

The movie had begun 15 minutes ago. A ticket, with her name scrawled in black ink over it, waited with the guy at the door.

Two children playing a game, they had decided on this months ago.

He would go in and wait. She would collect her ticket, and then slip into the seat next to him. Unless one of them wanted to risk the light of an ipod or nokia, they would stay like this, watching each other out of the corners of their eyes, lit by 70mm of light. Refusing to truly meet till the movie was over. Content to sit next to each other, learning of body warmth and scent. They would keep to this agreement . Like gentlemen walking 10 paces, guns and ears cocked: Good form. Three months ago, they had laughed over this plan, delighted the way five year olds are when the wave misses the sandcastle. Laughing, and then covering their phone receivers with fervent kisses, the sounds like suction cups leaving a cold tiled wall, resonating over 10,000miles of churning salt water.

And now she couldn't bring herself to go in.

1:25pm. The only company she had was a contemplative dog, and a lonely teenager who wept over his cell phone before redialing. The acidic little man had gone into the back room with a poster of Bipasha Basu in Ajnabee. Somewhere inside the theatre, a man shifted in his seat, a frown deepening in his forehead.

she couldn't bring herself to go in.

Inhale.

It wasn't 'why': 'what if' was the terrible question this time. Doubt. Like a toothache, it got worse as the actual appointment neared. They had talked about the possibility of the feng shui being wrong, and it was all worked out, like an a la carte menu, tax inclusive. They would watch the movie, then get coffee, watching each other for signs of a lack of rhythm. When there was nothing more to say, he would drop her back at the hotel. This was their exit strategy. They would use it, without fuss, like grown ups do.

But she didn't want to have to use it. There had been such a light grace about their... communication? dance? Relationship was too big a word... team work. Two people playing tennis, two people rowing a boat...

She walked towards the big swing doors. Vermillion against black granite. Up four steps, towards the three second zone where a clone of the acidic man stood, outstretched hand and lifted eyebrows demanding proof of purchase. Her skirt billowed in the wind, her hand unconsciously going to where the two panels of the wrap-around ended, steadying the stormy ship.

Vermillion is not used by contemporary artists, because of its unpredictable nature.

Deep breath.

Cold blast of air. She's in, clutching a piece of coloured paper. She doesn't analyze the handwriting; instead, she concentrates on not stepping on the generous folds of the skirt while climbing the stairs. Balcony. She is nodded in, the ticket finally a crumpled ball in her hand. Darkness. 9M. Right corner, the last but one seat in the row. And he was there, in the last seat. Right leg stretched into the aisle. Sandal under big toe. Screen reflected in glasses.

This moment was worked out in her mind-- noiselessly slipping past his knees, gathering the vermillion folds so that she wouldn't curtain the view of the fat man in the seat on her left, and then stare calmly ahead till he made the first move.

Vermillion is a red pigment based on artificially produced mercuric sulfide (HgS). Its hues vary from brilliant reds to more purplish tones.

Her face was heated; the temperature was causing a fall in air pressure around her. She noiselessly slipped past his knees. Gathering the vermillion folds so she wouldn't curtain the view of the fat man on her left, she sat down, and glanced up at the screen. A small movement, his watch glinting in the reflected faces of the Dolby digitalled screen. She glanced down.

In her attempt to keep her skirt away from the fat man, she had forgotten about a large soft panel of vermillion that now lay spooled across his left forearm and thigh. A cool draft of air licked at her calf muscle, her knee. It was the curse of a wrap around, and this was karmatic punishment. His hand moved gently, replacing a sleeping cobra, a curling vine. His fingertips grazed against the bare space of warm skin, before the red could cloak her again. Tingle.

The final color corresponds to the amount of grinding it undergoes: the more finely it is ground, the more vivid its hue will be.

Her face was heated; the temperature was causing a fall in air pressure around her. He leaned in, seeking her ear, his nose greeting her lobe. Raspy warmth breath. Tingle.

"You're late" he said.

_____________________________________________________

References: Hildebrandt, Rachel & Cindy Heller. Sewanee.edu: Student reports on pigments, 1998.

At first glance

Can you feel this?

I would not let us speak, to say the unnecessary words that serve as a blind, the everday murmurings, till the desperation of time, or this breathing behind closed doors turns our human bodies the usual way.

Words that serve as a blind are like japanese rice paper against a burning flame: they only serve to suffuse this strange passion, a glow against the dark lean-leafed fingers of the night outside. But here is no controlled house fire, no tiny lantern to guide eyes down rigid lines down a page.
Here, I fear to touch your cheek with my finger tips... what scars would I leave? I ache to feel your scalp under my palm, cool skin to warm, but there are flames running up my wrists...I fear hurting you.

But this is only the beginning.

Soon you will beg to be burned, to press your sweat and dreams and anger into my skin so I carry you like a tatoo.

Soon I will press and drag my fingers into the cold recesses of your mind and pull you close, urging you to not leave space for thought or.. words, that serve as a blind, the everyday murmurings, till the desperation of time, or this breathing behind closed doors turns our human bodies the usual way.

Here, see this: the purest ground you will ever lie on, lungs aching from the strain of taking in the smell of rain. Here is the moment before the music starts. Here is the moment when just standing in front of you is almost too much to take. Here is the moment where with absolute care you reach out to touch the ends of my hair with your palm, as if I would break or dissapear if you held too tight, too soon.

Our eyes begin it, before the music does. Digging deep past bone, we look into each other trying to see what brought us here, when did the words pause themselves?...

...I swear if you were to touch my shoulder, here, this knob, this flat blade of skin that moves reflexively under yours, while murmuring hello, welcome, please stay.. if you were to touch my shoulder, I would cling to your skin, nose and mouth buried in the deepest parts of your heart, hopelessly afraid of how you came and then words left the room without a fight.

Where is the dance, the light laughter over cold water in cheap crystal, over roses sad-faced in tiny bud vases, over the stained cloth, and knives and forks... where is the opening of doors, the traces of ice cream on chins, the noticing of your walk-rythm? Where are those silly moments when like napkins we twist to keep each other neat and tidy, tagged with a number memorized by the second afternoon?

You will hurt me. This does not cause any fear, for it must happen.
What causes fear is a thought: you holding me away from you after, and looking and looking-- and not saying a word, for after they left, they refused to come back in.

I beg you, dont. Leave if you must. But do not stay silent, and just look. I will wither and stay creeping about the flush-tank, the curtain rod, in the corner where the a/c doesnt reach, for I will not be able to leave... I will not be free.

Kill me.

Take my heart and bones and gasps in your fingers and run them through like sand out the window. The flowers that will grow will not speak to you, for they are polite neighbours who are interested only in the weather. Take me and let me come in-- I will show you the lonely places of your bed, the old memories of your head that nowadays, sit mumbling outside your door. I will show you the lonely places of me: the warm inside bend of an elbow, a hip-bone left to be bravely alone-- my shoulder will speak poetry to your chest, murmuring, watching the tiny dark roots wave like grass under wind over meadow.

I will know the fear only till you tremble with me, your mouth and eyes a mirror for this surprise-- where is the opening of doors, the traces of ice cream on chins, the noticing of your walk-rythm? But then we will melt, honey over sun-dried silk spun from a worm that sat within the heart of that first apple, and knew what it was to sleep with desire in front of a god. We will melt and surge like an ocean, tasting our salt. Bone to bone, I will watch your face to see if you ever close your eyes-- Please, do not close your eyes.

At some moment, our arms will hold each other, our chins and cheek seeking out the warm space where neck turns to thrumming skin... the words will come like ancient women from some fort, and laugh softly, making music that we will both ignore, concentrating on my breathing, your breathing.

I will tell you of being barefoot in a room filled with home, at age 10. You will tell me what your favourite song is, again. You will mouth the words to me, and walk your fingers over my face and chest.

I would not let us speak, to say the unnecessary words. It is like japanese rice paper against a burning flame: a glow against the dark lean fingers of the night outside. But here is no controlled house fire, no tiny lantern to guide eyes through rigid lines down a page.
Here, I fear to touch your cheek with my finger tips... what scars would I leave? I ache to feel your scalp under my palm, cool skin to warm, but there are flames running up my wrists...I fear hurting you.

But this is only the beginning.


Can you feel this?

A sparse tale: the myth of the beginning of red heads, and their tempers

She sat, frail, pale, folded. Odin stroked his beard, his one eye contemplating a crossword. Only Frigga rose, tight-lipped, and bid her sit at her feet, and undo her blonde tresses.

The Stone comb dragged in and through,
Further and deeper as in her consternation, Frigga realized what this affair could mean.
Loki was a curse at weddings, and now his bastard wolf get: Fenris. Who would not wear a tie, and dribbled rabid hate into the wassail cup.

The Stone comb dragged in and through,
Further and deeper
Its teeth biting down in punishment.
The blood drained from her lips, only to reappear luxuriant, lustrous, till the tips of her hair.

Under the bright moon, the dye set.
She rose, revived, by the water he brought, panting his rage.
The ice has melted on his way back from the world's end.

She gathered her flaming hate around her, and left for an island,
where the clover reminded her of her lover's pug-mark,
before he stretched and entered their cave.

Every full moon she would return bringing the comb, its teeth now dry-dye-darkened.
Once a wolf cub with red fur accompanied her, hackles raised at her feet as he bared his

Teeth.

Frigga, tight-lipped, refused to go down.
Odin stroked his beard, his one eye contemplating the crossword, looking for 4 across: used to chew, times 32.

Scent

I must tell you Achelois, of the thing I have discovered.

Im beginning to understand why we are all drawn to touch, to hold and enter, to build, gasp, and fall apart, only to come touch again.

Im beginning to understand what it is especially about women. Smell. Scent. Perfume.

Fingers down between my thighs a while ago, and while walking to this coldly immaculate place of books, under tree and sky, I lift them to my nostrils and find that Marquez was right about the matter. The unforgettable smell of dried flowers.

Not rot, but that wrinkled knowing fire-glowing smell that tells you here was a living thing, here where there will always be a living thing, for it is here, out of what has lived and come down to its knees midst the softness and dampness of an earth afternoon post-rain, it is out of here that new tendrils will rise, out of here where seeds are caught and gently tendrilled into taller life. There is no substitute for this smell.

Bury your face in the fresh earth, the moist grass. It's touch is warm with the sun, and cool with the knowledge that water runs in secret pools by here, and has before, and will again. In your nose, on your tongue is the promise of all the undefined joy which, except for that first time on the beach-- when you were five, making castles and war cries to the ocean-- can only come again in your life this one time.
It is here that you know the only other thing that will last forever alongside the memory of the ground between the roots of the old tree in the back yard of your grandparents house is this-- her smell of dried flowers, and her touch like leaves that fall with the evening and stay caught up in the embrace of your hair.

And as for women themselves?

Maybe all they...we... I... do, is to seek at times, at times wait, for the one who can sense such a smell from a distance, and who then spends the rest of his or her life chasing endlessly after us for a chance to lift handfuls of deep, richly dull, copper-red dried petals to their nose and stay like that, crouching, living, warm and breathing, forever.

Domestic bliss

The centre of her smelt like cooked warm potatoes.
Each piece juicy, their skin crisp with chilli and the knowledge that they were being stir fried by her sweltering third eye.

This is why he loved her. She reminded him of lunch at 3:00pm.

Tattoo

What I love about them is that you can feel the lines even in the dark. Even while skin’s on skin, you feel them writhe, rise and breathe with you, your silhouette only a background now.

Which is why a tattoo is very like a bite. But different.

Unlike a bite, you require no company. The cigarette, the slender glancing of light where the light shies away from the glass, diving into the amber liquid inside—These are all extras. Props to a much bigger act that never ends, that throbs in every line, seen and unseen.

It’s the act of memory.

Some keep photographs. My mother used to label and date each one, serialize them into tameness, preparing you for the change that age makes, slowly. No gurgling toddler-smiles in a tub immediately followed by profile shots of breasts hidden under bemused layers of cotton. No sudden absences from group photos. Big bold titles, like “GOING AWAY PARTY” or “WEDDING” to warn you of the sweet pain that only change can bring.

Some keep bills. Letters. Underwear. Such have the ability to make you feel silly. And they become …cumbersome. Unless of course you prefer filing: then memory becomes the dusty box in the attic, which sits on top of the shaky cupboard where an old lizard lives, snaking up to nibble blue ink and nestle in red silk.

I sometimes let them see one, or two. Under dim lights, with music playing. There always has to be music playing. A lazily stretched tendon… claw marks. A twined rose and thorn. Sometimes from under a black shoulder strap. Lingering along the bone of my ankle. Blossoming where the slit ends.

And yet they do not come close. Because it is easy to see that I require no company. And also— Here are no decorations for a new bride. No invitations to try.

These are scars.

Which is why a tattoo is very like a bite. But different.

Bites are worn with the complacent smile that accompanies a crowd watching a pregnant woman, or a man celebrating a promotion. Cyclical, and will disappear with time. But like tattoos, they serve as reminders.

When he’s biting down just where that rise on your chest begins, his smile buried painfully into your skin, bone on bone to grip harder, waiting for you to give up… give in. When she sucks at your skin, the tightly stretched skin over the bone of your hip, her need bringing blood to cool your skin, waiting for you to fight… or give in.

The morning greets a blot that could’ve been left by an angry child alone with a wall and a purple crayon. To be hidden with the help of collars and scarves.

But these… these are scars. Every line curving scowling lilting crawling clawing on me is in memory of those I have known… in a biblical sense.

Of course they hurt. But they do not ask for your gasp, your strangled cry of confused pleasure. In Japan & the Polynesian islands, only men received the full elaborate back and chest work. Women were given tiny marks across their chest, arms and feet—even then, the receivers. Like insistent bites from weaning cubs. Now they are less confined, the artists. The only test of strength is silence.

Tiny needles, constant, metallic and into your dermis. The ink must go deep for the memory to remain. Being taken a hundred times by a thoughtful man, intent on leaving a mark.

Care is important. Antiseptic cream… no hot baths for a week. Mum labeling and serializing. We all turn into our parents. We all want to keep something.

These scars dance in darkness and in light. It’s the act of memory every night; violence and child-like fear have the same name:
Need.
To be reminded of when you were broken, and yet survived.

The Sioux tattoo their totem to the chests and backs of young warriors, who have proven their strength in battle.
Walking back under streetlights and light rain, you feel them burn under the fabric. Every demanding mouth and every hotel number stenciled into you. The knob of ash glows bright, reflected in the crack of water on the pavement. Somewhere a wolf howls.
Scars are a memory of victory, loss and pain.

Which is why a tattoo is very alike a bite. But different.