Bird Droppings

A Poem About A Jack-Fruit

2009-08-23T22:29:00.002+05:30

I spy a jack-fruit lying

beside the gutter

on the side of the road

blackened bruised and bibbing

flies drunk on spoilt juice

buzzing

What if I...

pick it up.

will it collapse

into fleshy rotten pieces

burdened with water and pus

will its fibers cling

veiny knots together

like a baby under attack

heavy

warm

Stinking of fear.

Body

2009-08-12T13:05:00.001+05:30

Again, a rough draft. Still working on this one.

hips

mouth

thigh bone

your heavy breasts- long and pomelo shaped
brown-tipped

Your neat nails, and

the stubble on the back of your calf
it always grows there first

the darkness inside your elbow

the tiny v of hair at the nape of your neck

your hands so long, so white, so faded
scrubbed
with open cuticles and bluing veins

tiny pink pimples on the top of your leg
red spots of capillaries burst on your shoulder

the natural arch at the end of your eyebrow
the unnatural thinness of the beginning

your sun-peeled nose
your mouth your ears
pierced clean

your heart.
steady.
warm.
through the pulse at your wrist
licking at the base of your throat
scratching your chest
a throb at your temple
hidden in the redness of your
eyelids

careening wildly
when I press your toes

Settlement

2009-07-29T21:38:00.002+05:30

Sleepy cat. Yellow eyes. Fur coat the colour of milk and browning apples. With long white whiskers. Her face is soft and folded with recent sleep, and she blinks languidly as she stretches and yawns, baring sharp silver teeth, bald bone. I want to smell her. See whether she has picked up the scent of the mud and rain around her, or the must of the wicker chair she sits on, or the hard smell of the painted wooden table between us. Or whether she has a purely unique smell of her own.

She sits companionably across from me, glances occasionally at my little glass of lime juice, eyes my fat book with practiced disinterest and then turns away to gaze unseeingly at the rain. Fully awake now.

I wonder what she's do if i tried to bite her. I want to see if her fur really is as thick as it seems. To feel her muscles contract against my teeth. She'll probably scratch my eyes out. Or bite me back with those long, pristine fangs of hers. Or do both.

Vader the crow fusses over a scrap of filthy brown plastic bag in the middle of the quadrangle, unmindful of the drizzle or the round eyes watching him through slits in the surrounding buildings. They have repainted, and rebuilt the buildings, so the settlement now resembles a giant butterscotch cake. The thought makes me crave sugar. Suddenly he abandons this pursuit and flies off in a screech and flutter of black feathers and discarded plastic shreds.

As if on cue, my companion on the chair opposite mine, uncoils herself and jumps blithely to the floor. She strolls off, stretching her back and shaking out her paws. She, unlike me, has better things to do.

Poem

2009-07-25T15:12:00.003+05:30

A rough/ first draft. Needs work...

I can smell him on yellow T-shirts

see his face in bus tickets

and my first pay cheque

pranav’s credit card and big sun-glasses.

Thrown awake

find my phone my clammy hands had

somehow dialed that number.

This Number Has Been Temporarily Disconnected Please Tr... at

this point I cut it off. Hard

to describe the mild panic and

horror… shock

at what I’d done. Under cover of darkness

blankets and white bed sheets It comes

like sticky strings of memory spiders legs and spittle.

Camera flashes. In between waxing appointments

and birthday parties, breakfast lunch and dinner,

World Poverty and two different hair conditioners

he creeps slithers

into the fronts of my eyes

a niggling ache behind my right temple

a word stuck at the back of my throat

just below my voice box or even

that twisted knot on my grandmother’s face or

the hollow smile in my father’s

eyes

5. 5. 2009

2009-05-22T15:01:00.001+05:30

The water is so cold. I take a deep breath to fill my lungs with oxygen and pour a dipper of it over my head. And it is still cold.
The water in Vellore is hard. It coarsens my hair and requires superior species of soap to lather. Still, I persevere, rubbing my thin, transparent sliver of Pears Dry Skin over my thigh, rubbing in circles around my knee, and then balancing my leg against the rim of the bucket, my calves and feet.

There is black dirt in grimy cakes between my toes, underneath my toenails and cuticles, grey slime coating my heel. I walked barefoot through the hospital campus this evening. Plunging my naked feet into puddles and gutters along with crow shit and dog piss and everybody else’s shoes. I studied the contrast of my then white limbs against the night grey of the cement roads, turned my palms upwards to catch the light summer drizzle from the sky. I could smell the pungent boonh of wet pigeons and dogs, my own sweat dissolved in the rain, the traces of yesterday’s shampoo in my hair.

I scrub. And scrub. Finally, I use an old toothbrush and a discarded floss stick to wedge the muck out of the crevices in my feet, and them rinse them clean.
Pink and white again.
White hardened soles.

Seven Guilty Pleasures

2009-03-31T18:54:00.007+05:30

This is in response to Option 4 of the March/April Project -In The Garden- at Cafe Writing.

1) Jumping up and down on our black foam sofa in tune to Elvis Presley, until I slide off the edge and bump my knees on the stone-cold floor. Yes, it messes up all the new silk cushions, and no my mother does not think this is fun.

2) Filching my seventh piece of chocolate in under an hour from the refrigerator to satisfy my PMS cravings.

3) Standing stock still under a scalding hot shower, enjoying red tracks of water on skin, letting it dissolve away my contours and making me feel smooth, polished, shiny even... while the rest of the family hops from foot to foot outside.

4) Stealing mama's almond milk body cream and rubbing it furiously into my black knees and elbows, trying to make them the same colour as the rest of my skin. I'm a feminist, I shouldn't care that I look funny every time I wear a skirt. I shouldn't, really.

5) Reading cheesy romance fiction online when I'm too tired or unhappy to think. I'm an English Literature student. That's blasphemous ;)

6) Sleeping naked during the summer months and watching my brother recoil in shock and horror every morning when he comes to kick me out of bed. It's almost pavlovian, the way he reacts.

7) Hoarding like a pack-rat. Old wooden spoons, chocolate wrappers, the cardboard sheets used to pack formal shirts, bus tickets, train tickets, torn bags, broken doll's tea sets, Ladybird books, single socks, a much loved dress from when I was 7, empty perfume bottles, ripped envelopes, cracked spectacles and what have you... and I'm 18, not 81 :)

2009-03-01T14:12:00.002+05:30

Days slipping into days. Nights are only. Rest periods. Or blank periods rather. Because days are rest periods. And the nights are exhausted and blank from too much rest.

An Initiation

2009-02-21T23:05:00.000+05:30

Shine. See the the smooth black oak
Shine to it?
Dark. Four thin
long lines on each square

Big enough to fit in the

hollow of your hand. 'Lindt'

in curly letters, scrawled

diagonally on each piece.

Snap. Hear the snap as I break

it? Pop of air from between

your lips, clean, powder-less

break. Take the piece. Hold it

between your three fingers

feel the edges melt into the

grooves of your skin.

Smell. Sniff it. Heady, strong,

intoxicating. suffocate. You

cannot drown in this smell

this unique smell that only

Eighty five per cent Coal black chocolate can

Give you

but

you can Suffocate in it yes it

tends to overpower you

completely until you're

smelling through the pores of

your face even the holes

in your ears the slip of air

behind your eyes. Smell.

Let it overtake you.

Bite.

Swirl. Suck. Nibble a little.

Bitter coat on your tongue

turning sour and then

nauseous and flood of

feeling tight very tight

little little drunk but

in a good magic lights

exploding in my head kind

of way with my heart

melting swimming in butter

and cocoa spilling

into all the nerves of

my body and

taking over vibrating

through my pores

I have liquid heart flowing in

my nerves liquid heart

Vibrating.

An Interlude

2009-02-19T17:10:00.002+05:30

Of shadows and that thing between darkness and light.

It is so hot.

So hot.

I have both fans running full blast and still my armpits, un-waxed and sweaty, smell. I lift my legs, cross,

touch.

Huge, Goliath-an, flat black imprints on the ceiling.

Rusty white ceiling.

I close my fist on the fan. Squeeze. Pressing air out as if juice from an orange. Spinning white orange.

On the ceiling the hair on my skin is invisible, the filed tips of my nails blurred into my podgy fingers. The ceiling tells no lies. It is more truthful than the mirror that dissects your face into colours, the photograph that distorts disfigures you into muck-white, plastic-thin statuettes.

The ceiling talks only of shapes.

Larger than life.

Blacker than midnight.

It outlines you.

Swallows you.

Whole.

Unbroken.

Plasters your protrusions to make you smooth, shiny,

scarily real.

The day I tried to live in the fishpool

2009-01-07T20:37:00.002+05:30

A random thought? Perhaps. I needed to post, and this was there. So. It's still a start :)

Fish in my hair

Tiny golden guppies

Shitting

I think I'll stay on land

2008-09-01T20:31:00.006+05:30

Am in the middle of an examination. Reason have not been posting for so long. Next post on November 5th when the exams end.

Looking forward to it :)

2008-09-01T20:21:00.005+05:30

Hopelessness is like a disease. A virus that enters through your nostrils, the space behind your eyeballs, the cracks in your clenched lips and teeth, the closet hole between your legs. It diffuses through your skin like air water carbon dioxide. It enters your cells, injects its DNA and forces you to multiply hundreds and thousands of tiny infected cells crawling like an army of ants, a sea of terror over every single part of your body.It eats up, engulfs every single hope-filled particle of you until your eyes are yellow and pale like the whites of broken eggs, until your skin feels loaded with the weight of too many inner bodies you cannot contain and your brain and heart have surrendered every fortress.

Hopelessness is like a disease. It feeds off you like some evil parasite, and when it is done, or you are done, floats away to find better healthier prey.

Annihilate. Exterminate. Eliminate. Obliterate.

Tattoo

2008-07-16T13:04:00.007+05:30

Blue marks on your Body
letters and eyes Deep holes,
numbers curled,
Frowning
where the skin has sagged;
hanging loose Like old cloth So pale
Underneath
the make up

I touch your hands (Almost lifeless I have never seen them so still)
And they are so
Warm; Wreathed
Signs; Some familiar Some not
Like the cobalt hands of Hollywood aliens

How long has it been?
Twen…
ty…
two years.
Days and weeks and months -Lightning flashes
For all I can see is you- your hands Bright white
Almost

girlish;

I loved them

What have you become

Insomnia

2008-06-24T12:18:00.006+05:30

In the darkness
Witches Hour
I make monsters
On the wall
Monstrous in the light of my torch

Massive scissors (chubby and round)
Snip Snip at the swing
Bulky clumsy Snakes
Eating
The bookshelf

This poem scribbled
On the underside of my thigh
In the darkness
Witches hour

I write....

A Memory File

2008-06-09T13:46:00.009+05:30

I attended a Poetry Workshop recently, at Prithvi Theatre, Juhu and co-ordinated by Sampurna Chatterji. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, and I wouldn't miss it for the world!! I have never before met so many people who love poetry just as much as I do, we read and discussed and critiqued.. We created together..
Below is the poem I wrote with Sampurna's help;

Twenty thousand nights ago
Do you remember
One morning?

Silence pressing upon my ears
Heavy corrosive
Grey air like smoke
smoke without smell
Obscenely bright
Beacons

Whose house was it?
My grandmother's or yours?
When we stood at the window
Black granite so cold
And looked...

Buildings
Asleep
Black windows gaping
Hollow eyes
Mourning

The summer heat was close
Hugging us in its sweaty arms
Sucking the moisture
From our
Bodies

Big green and yellow
Flowers stuck to my skin
And you?
Holding hands
We saw...

The city
A ghost book
Laid out before us
Blue hills
Peeling
A drawing in the distance

So long ago
An image pressed
Dried leaves in a book
My mind
Your heart
Can we retrieve it?

2008-06-02T16:21:00.003+05:30

Good news!!!
Just found out my poem, God is a Man has been chosen to feature in a printed chapbook of the online Word Catalyst Magazine's "years best"!!!!!!
Whew..

Actually, that's not one of my favourites at all, BUT I'M STILL SO THRILLED!!! AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!

The Great Boot

2008-05-16T10:21:00.008+05:30

This is a short story by my brother,Pranav. I loved it so much I decided to put it up! His writing style is very different from mine and unique in it's own way. Give as much feedback as you like, I'm sure he'll be glad for the encouragement!
-Ayesha/ Maya.

The Great Boot
By Pranav George Thomas

I scurried as fast as eight legs could carry me, arriving just as the boot crashed down behind me. Entering, I saw two eyes staring at me. I resumed scurrying.

Hoping the rat was too shocked to give chase, I ran to a crack in the wall and squeezed myself in. I thought back to how it had all started. There I was innocently spinning my web when a large juicy fly got caught in it. I hadn’t eaten for days and was starving. Seconds before I reached it something large and heavy hit my web. I was almost squashed under it but I managed to jump off, landing on the ground. Another immense structure crashed down beside me, this time hard and black. I recognized it as the god my parents had referred to as The Great Boot. What scared me was the fact that it was notorious for killing my kind. I have already told you what happened next. Now it was time to find a safe place to build another web. To my extreme surprise, the crack I was in led me to a ground studded with many boulders and bathed in an unearthly yellow light. I began to scurry through this strange landscape.
After what seemed like many years of scurrying, I came to a sea of moving mountains. In the midst of it all stood a long white giant. On what I assumed was its head, I saw two towers bending toward each other. One was green, the other yellow. As I turned to run, something that felt like a rubbery cliff fell on me.

And now in spidey heaven, I tell you, people, if you think a dog’s life is bad, then just take a look at mine!

You would probably think that I’m happy up here? Sure, they say heaven is God’s gift to life, the place of eternal rest, blah, blah, blah, but the hard part of it is the fact that spidey heaven is connected to human heaven. Now every five minutes we have a bunch of humans coming over to gape at us. None of us really care about this, but what we do care about is that they keep treading on us, muttering fake apologies and running off. And they seem to derive particular pleasure from stepping on Me, of all spiders!
I made the mistake of telling this to a friendly spider I met. He instantly gave me a disgusted look and ran away, leaving me standing and staring after him, until a human stamped on me and left me squashed and staring after him. Now, there’s a rumor circulating around spidey heaven that a self-important brat of a spider, who thinks too much of himself is wandering around spidey heaven.

Sometimes I think of jack-o’-lantern, not being fried in hell or being squashed in heaven.

Lucky chap.

Bead

2008-05-09T15:19:00.006+05:30

CAN YOU SMELL THE BEAD FACTORY?
CAN YOU SMELL THE BEAD FACTORY?
SEE IT
HEAR IT
SMELL IT
THE BE-AD FACTORY

Silver black
Red and yellow
Beads
Rows and rows

Heaped in piles
Like chilies in the sun
Beads
Left out to dry

Long and fat
Thin rounds
Curves winking
Pale glass
Watching

Ceramic, wooden, metallic clay
Colourful stones
Like seeds
Pits retrieved
From your stomach

Orange fuchsia
Noiseless blue
Tanning themselves
Stretching, sighing
Under the weight of their
Friends

Beads

Waiting.

Dream

2008-05-09T15:16:00.003+05:30

Her hair is tightly wound, drawn into a bun at the back of her head- twenty bob-pins and a little gel. She is wearing a black, low-back swimsuit and white tights. And ballerina shoes of course. As we watch, she lifts her arms, slowly, softly…and then she is dancing, twirling, bending, an ecstasy of movement, so purely beautiful. The auditorium is so quiet; you can hear her arms cutting through the air, a whoosh as she spins- it is as if the air is moving with her, jumping here, falling there, flowing around her…you can almost- just almost- see it.
The light is cold, white, single, drawing patterns on her black skin, her feet as light as feathers, her eyes closed- iris pulsing beneath. And yet, she radiates heat, those sitting closest, like me, are already sweating. The curve of her back, black, babelicious.
A gasp as she stops, frozen in mid-step, and begins to shimmer. At first we think it is our own eyes that deceive us, then blame it on faulty lighting- but no. She is shimmering. Like gossamer, blue oil on water, silk threads in a Cinderella dress… she shimmers.
Back flip, she’s solid again, bowing, turning, a hint of a smile on her lips- a private joke with herself. Nobody claps. We just stare- immobile- her fingers pat out a tune in the air- absentmindedly, distracted, her hair is slowly beginning to come undone, her skin glowing, radiating something akin to light but not the same. And then she’s gone. An empty, soundless stage. As if she were never there at all.

Brunch

2008-05-09T15:09:00.004+05:30

I’m so hungry
You could put a scraper
Inside of my stomach
And not find anything
But vapours
From the food I can smell in
Your kitchen.

Stories

2008-05-09T14:54:00.004+05:30

EVER WONDERED, ABOUT ALL THOSE STORIES,
POEMS, ARTICLES, THOUGHTS, FEELINGS
IDEAS
BILLIONS AND TRILIONS OF THEM
ALL OVER THE WORLD
THAT NEVER GOT TRANSALATED
INTO PRINT
AT ALL…?

2oo metaphors
Broken lines
Word choices
Scattered

Messy offices
And baskets filled with paper
Torn and crushed
Tears

Empty pens
Fingers stained blue black
Green and red with blood
Spent

Sweat washed
Saltily down the drain
With hopes and dreams
Flashbulbs
That never came

World of a writer
Poet Poetess
Spurned rejected
Volumes of language never
Ever published.

People I was

2008-05-09T14:47:00.003+05:30

I like fruit
I like chocolate
Bright colours
And rooms without lights

Cold weather
Hot bubbling bathtubs
Coffee
Cream
And rubber slippers

Spicy curries
Pink gypsy skirts
New shoes
Old friends
Happy days

I like roses
Black white and red
Perfume
Cold water
Swimming in the sea

Somewhere somehow
Last millennium
Something happened
Somewhere
Somewhy?

I don’t like children
They remind me of him.

Our Vows

2008-05-09T14:29:00.004+05:30

Redacted
Retrieved
Taken back
Unsaid
Cut, chop, cleanly sealed
Staunch the bleeding
We’re officially divorced

My Morning Backyard

2008-05-09T14:27:00.003+05:30

Blue Birds
I can hear you
Early morning
Softly Softly
Singing just for me
I can hear you
Your voices
Carried in the wind
Blue Birds
Gently Gently
Through the summer
Singing away the heat
Tell me Blue Birds
What’s your name then?
Blue Birds
Like a warm sea
Never seen your color
Blue Birds
Just singing
For me.

2008-05-05T12:44:00.004+05:30

I am sitting on the edge of nowhere, looking down into the depths of nothing. A vast white canvas -that is my life, and my brushes, my pen is dry. Somewhere, somehow, the ink is stuck and I cannot write. This whiteness is blinding, it makes my head hurt- but my body can feel no pain. Deep down below, a gravity is pulling me, tempting me calling out

to jump.