Sometimes it's Like

It’s sometimes like the campus buffaloes who
Stray in to the main road amid darkness and dust
Blocking the traffic with their shit-smeared buttocks
Obstinate hooves rooted in the earth
Sending colourless gazes in to the piercing headlamps

It’s sometimes like the campus buffaloes who
Love the gentle warmth of bird-shit
Running through their temples and then eyes
Yet not blinding them, unlike Tobith**
Whose days drowned in dark white bird-shit

It’s sometimes like the campus buffaloes who
Love grazing in the meadows
Dreamily making love to each other in shadows
And remain strangers until the next season
That brings back the odour of lust

It’s sometimes like the campus buffaloes who
Cool their hairless hide
In the slimy filth that glitters
In the halogen lamps of footpath
Like the satin coat of the Richman

It’s very often like the campus buffalo who
Nods to the chatter of the bird
That sits on its back, pecking other parasites
Swearing eternal camaraderie till
It’s weary of pecking and flies off to the next


** ‘The book of Tobith’, The Holy Bible

Sleep-walker

In the night, my watch ticking away
My heart’s rhythm to the morrow
I woke up with stiffness
Between my thighs
The bladder, you know, must release
The tension of the buttermilk of my supper

I don’t believe urinals
Hypocrites, clad in white robes
They sieve out everything
Leaving bubbles and stench

I am afraid of trees
Trees, black monsters, conspirators
Whisper against me in the night
Because, in my every pilgrimage
To library and back to hostel
I piss deep at their roots;
The roots, you know, are very sentimental

In the night, my watch transferring
Its motion to my heart’s rhythm
I stopped
The wind breathing stopped
The trees whispering stopped
And I saw
A ghost
Gosh, a ghost!
Pale as moon with meteorite impressions
Eyes swollen with unkind sleep
(Just out of bed like me?)
A ghost indeed, still

A breeze gushed
To change its stance
My tension released through the stiffness
But, you know, one doesn’t sweat then

Grinning in melancholy
It spiralled and spiralled
Into a whirligig
Vanished through the pores of my hide
Leaving its pale hue and dry veins
Impressed on a plantain leaf
Dancing in the wind’s breath

Gogmagog’s Leap*

He did not leap
He was hurled down
Twelve feet tall and huge
He couldn’t even have been moved
Corineus killed him
The right hand of
Brutus, gods’ Anointed
Gods said, "Kill
The giants, Invade
The land and
Rule’’
And they killed them
And established Peace
Till they found Gogmagog
The largest of the Natives

He was dumb
For he never spoke
In their Language
And savage
For they saw he was He
He was Bare and unarmed
But they detected the invisible Atom
Throbbing to explode
Beneath his Tongue

Cruelty copulated with Horror

In the course of time
The Fist came out
Bursting Mother
(Later he killed Father)
He tried Gogmagog when
He was asleep in his Cave
With his Children
And convicted him
Of War and Penury

So they gathered their arms
Marched to the cave
Through the Spider-hole
Saw him sleeping

They swarmed over him
Tied him to his Cot
Plucked his Unknown tongue
Blinded him of his Visions
Lowered him to their shoulders
And carried to the Heath where
Corineus awaited him
Striped like a cat
And Stars in his eyes

(And Brutus sat under a Bush watching)

The contest began
Gogmagog freed his hands
Broke Corineus’
Three Ribs
Two on the right and one on the left
Corineus infuriated
Heaved the giant with his cot
On to his shoulders
Ran to a cliff
Hurled the monster (could he?)
Far out into the Sea where
He was dashed into
A thousand fragments and
Stained the Waters with his blood

His Young grew up

Some of them were killed
Some died in prison
Some were tamed and
Used to pull their Chariots
They corrupted their Heifers
New Gogmagogs were born
They live in caves
Some of them are hurled down
And some leap
To the sea


* Geoffrey of Monmouth
Historia Regum Britanniae i. 13

The stranger sitting against me

Parted the lungi
Two fingers between
Navel and the cord of undergarment
Blue plastic cover
Three-cornered with one triangle lost
Into the paw poured
Dark brown smile
Crushed and transformed into laughter
Clutched between two fingers
Safely concealed into
The sanctuary between lower lip and gum
Eyes shut
Relaxed and waiting

A toad in the English class

With sores and blisters
Jumping and leaping
Against the concrete wall
Till someone gently collected and carried
In the palanquin of a dustpan
Back to the backyard

Trail

Had he got a mobile phone,
I would have called him and spoke to him,
Of the days, my present was
Buried under his past,
When he was just what he was
And knew nothing
About colleges and universities
About girls and how intoxicating
They could be, filling one’s sleep and
Wakefulness with strong
Fragrant odorants.

Shaali, Laijo… and yes, Shalini,
(How could he forget her?)
Who suckles her third child which
Never had intended to be born,
When he playfully hugged her
While playing father and mother
In the attic, between the piles of bamboo-mats.

At ten, or eleven?
Betwixt and between, he stilled
Or distilled? into the grossness of
Cerebral mass, cut into four,
Rather five:
Indian writing in English
Seventeenth century literature and Shakespeare
English language
Eighteenth century literature
LISP
Or lips? sealed tight
That he may not ease out,
Turn into a ten digit number,
Vibrate under my pillow,
Awake my room-mate who
Feigns sleep to hear my whispers
To the other half (for, I often
Whisper to her lips).

I sleep you to death,
Subtracting and dividing your numbers.
Not into zero, for, zero
Is life, circular and hollow.
Into past where
You will be stilled again
And I walk free