[[miiah]]

swarthy blue skin, third eyes, demonic heads, multiple hands - fingers that can count till the moon, prophets, shamans, madmen, snake-charmers, radiant buffaloes - my land has all of these things & more

in a land where the Gods Themselves be dancers what then can be said about the people, flailing arms and girdles both - pelvic and pectoral, thrusting and twirling, swaying and sashaying.

The oldest whore, the most interesting bore,
the learned prostitute and the dickhead,
i've had them all, yes, at one time or
all at once
i cease to remember (for)
other thoughts seize me



"the truth is forbidden and my lies will not salve you"
but
what was your question?


what did you once ask me
was it about spades & hearts
toad-blooded darts
light shafts piercing my barren broken flesh
they've cut me up from the inside
into shards of mirroring glitter


your breath escaping our kisses
that's all i remember
you still linger on my tongue
that too is all i remember
for now [stop]


but the feel of our skin
i'm loosing that [pause]- numbness (you bastard) wins heroically
go bash the cymbals
anoint his head in purple symbols of a warrior victorious


my glorious blood stays red for you
tomorrow it go blue
[slowly] i've lost, [slower] i'm lost
[pause]
[observe silence, even]

behead me
(or)
give me head
it don't matter now
I'm already dead

...

photocredit: Addie

"Krim's son"

And like the sun rises and the sun sets, naked in a fire of red sky, I too was born here and will exit here naked and covered in blood, in a sticky shawl of red. Such a star am I (too).

~ an extract from Pinker Panther Banter

Trois Questions

"What is your oldest memory", she once asked me, even as she coiled herself around me, "of me?"
The hands of lovers are more than that; have you noticed. Watch, the next time, you have lovers before you, or you are with your lover, see how more than hands the hands of lovers are. Notice, if you will, how they hold each other, the way they rest and stroke and caress, soothe and hurt, and once again restore love and comfort. Lovers-hands are dancers all unto themselves.

"Why do you go away from me", she once asked me, even as she unlatched her jaws to swallow me entire, "so abruptly, so unkindly?"
The waves dance, have always danced and will always dance. To their own tune. The moon sings, as if in silent Gaelic, and there is a joyous stirring in the heart of the ocean. On those nights, I think endlessly of you, and sleep is banished. But the moon sings every night, so every night I think endlessly of you. Now, I am weary and must fall into repose.

"What is the most worthy thing, the most precious trinket", she once asked me, even as I went into her, "that you have gleaned from existing on this planet this time around?"
There is nothing left to learn from men. But, make cats your Gods again. And sit with flowers in your lap. If everybody was high all of the time, there would only be rejoicing and man would transcend or stumble into bliss. It is in letting go that much is gained. And if nothing else, serve love. Follow shamans and madmen, because you may atleast have a day of joy than decades upon decades of misery and grief flailing about within society.

or

Shore Traveler

I go to watch the sun set. I go to the seashore. The sun sets in the water and for no particular reason at all, I'm cheered up. I don't become happy, ecstatic, mind you; I'm just cheered up from a dark gloom.


They say angels collect on the beach to watch the sun set and listen to the music that accompanies the setting.

I reach just in time. I race to the shore. I taste the salt in the air. I smell the salt all around. I feel the wind in my hair. I look around for a quiet spot in the dry sand. All I can see are mere mortals being inconsiderate like always, being nosy and noisy. I tear away from the lot of them and drift to a corner of the beach. I sit there and stare at the sinking star.


I close my ears to all the mechanic humdrum and open them to the sound of the birds, trees (palms), wind and waves. I try to catch the music that the angels must be listening to, but I don't. And I don't see any of them either. I stare at the disappearing sun, nothing else is in focus. My eyes start hurting but I don't shut them. There's no other mortal doing this; the sun let's me know this.

The sun has long gone down. The sky is still beautiful. And half an hour later, dark bands form on the horizon. People begin to leave. I persist. I remain. I have no better place to be. A cool wind sets his fingers in my hair, ruffling it. The waves turn dark, only the foam is visible, a haunting frothy white.

I lay down in the sand. I feel the sand cling all over my hands and neck and hair. The stars are faint but they are slowly coming closer. I'm not acquainted with the constellations but I can spot Orion, thanks to his belt. So I lie there looking up at Orion becoming more and more visible. And somewhere else there's a brighter star and there there's a tiny red one and over there there's a small blue one. All of 'em in their places, shining, twinkling, winking at me from so far away. Just the thought that they had to shine and twinkle and wink so many yester nights or yester years ago, so that I would see them tonight, fills me with appreciation. I'm still lying down in the sand. I shut my eyes and I have a beautiful movie playing in my head. I'm listening to a beautiful soundtrack at the moment. I taste the salt in the air and can smell it on my body now. I'm all by myself and I suddenly want to talk or listen to you. I want so much to do this. But all I hear are the waves and all I see is the night sky.

I get up, dust whatever sand I can, off me, and walk away, meaning to get off the beach. But, before I've gone twenty steps, I come across this poor young woman. She looks so sad, so tired, so pretty. She's dressed in an old green sari with a short purple choli and her eyes are gray, her skin appears pale orangish. In her swollen belly lies her unborn child. She's walking slowly on her bare feet. And she's selling cigarettes.

I tread back through the fields of sand. And I sit down again. It's not cold and I'm not even feeling cold, and by the way, it is very rare for me to feel cold, but I sense that I'm shivering. The cigarette in my left hand, between my thumb and forefinger, is lit. But I'm not smoking, not yet, at least.

The smoke bites my throat. The nicotine plunges deep. A bitterness pinches my tongue. And a sigh leaves my shivering body. I exhale by blowing out too quickly. I begin to hate myself. I hold the cigarette in my lips and play with the sand, picking up the sand in fistfuls and letting it drain away. I don't want to use my hands to hold the cigarette. I sip at the cigarette, I keep it between my lips and hold it by biting the filter, as I let the smoke leak away. I watch the air carry away the smoke and I watch the sand, falling from my hands, try to imitate the fumes. I light another cigarette with the first one and continue to play with the sand. I repeat this yet again. And I'm thinking about nothing and no one in particular. And I want to smoke some more but I had bought only three cheap cigarettes.

I get up to look for that woman and I run along trying to find her. I follow her path but I can't see her. I'm finding it hard to move in the sand, because it's dark and my pants are falling, my sandals are loose and I'm not feeling like doing anything anymore. I just want to get off this beach. I want to get home and bathe. The sand is all over me and its sticky and irritating. And all my running about in the sand has left me sweating.

I'm on my way back home. I'm sitting in a rickshaw. The idiot of a driver has installed this blue bulb in his guddee (vehicle) and so I'm bathed in this blue luminescence. And if that's not enough, to make things worse, he's playing some inane Bollywood music remixes at loud volume. Never before have I been in such a shady rick, I tell you. I feel so depressed; I don't even tell the driver to shut his crappy music system. I just sit there blue as ever, trying to shut everything about me. I cannot smell the salt anymore. Instead I smell the nicotine and tar. I can still taste it on my tongue and feel it in my throat. The odor of the fags clings to my teeth and to my fingertips. I just want to go home, come home and wrap myself up in you.


I'm at my doorstep. I turn the key and push open my door. I look around. But you're not back yet. Tomorrow, I'll go to church, maybe. Maybe this time, I'll find the right angels there. The angels who will help you get home.

Run

I was at the beach the other day, when I felt like breaking into a run, ... yes breaking, ... yes into a run, ... yes , yes, dear reader, you're reading quite correctly. Such a thing is indeed possible. And it is quite the normal with me, for often times, I'm overcome by the feeling, nay the necessity, of making a dash of it, or rather a dash for it, and expelling the demons that cling to the pores of my hideous hide, of freeing myself from their clutches and raking loose from suffering their tiring ordeal.

I could run like the wind. Run far and long and strong. A local Forrest Gump, may be.

Running is a lot like a tryst with the wind!

Flashback to mornings in 1988, just before the school-bell tolled the start of another academic-infested day. A young lad in the chapel, before burning candles and saints, praying.

...
...
...

...
...
...

Amongst aiding poor people, and my parents and my grandparents and hungry children, I'd slip in a humble, "Help me run fast" amongst other 'vainities'.











Sometimes, for a few fleeting moments, as I go trotting along, I find that this is (really) my planet, in much the same way, the little prince has a planet and a flower. I had a flower once too, but alas ...

There is such a thing as walking on air, if only for a few seconds at a time. But then, an eternity resides, quite comfortably, in every second.

All photos; photo credit: Jo

the beach house

We'd sit for hours on the patio facing the sunset, until dusk disappeared silently and night came hobbling-on, as if on a bent stick, the sky turning from blue to darker shades of blue to purple and then finally to black with starry holes to break the continuity. Sometimes we'd sip at our rum and these times our silence was less incisive, less unholy, less sticky and more easy.

It might seem nonsensical, but you can tell about the relationship between a couple by the manner in which they share silence.

There were always more sunsets than there were sunrises. "Each sunset is unique", I said to her merrily, in between sips of warm strong rum, as that star Raa, about 8 light-minutes away dipped steadily below into a watery grave, even as coconut palms dueled with the wind (trying in vain to protect their nuts), even as a toddler tried hopelessly to kick a football into the receding tide, even as the waves splashed about dreamily tirelessly in boredom, even as the saline air salted the pores of our skins and settled in our hair, in our noses and in our eyes. She did not reply, she did not even give hint that she heard me. So, I repeated myself "Every sunset is unique!" She replied simply by sighing exasperatedly, then shifted forward in her bamboo chair and looked even more pointedly, at Raa, then a scruffy wet dog, the waves, the football, and again at Raa, in precisely that order[, yes precisely & deliberately].

Our conversations were never like this, they were beautiful, fresh, lush, blossoming, words sprouted and grew, ideas thrived as we discussed them, and there was all this: daily gossip and events and happenings and debates and arguments and jokes (oh how she loved my stupid jokes) and word games and bits and bites of foreign languages (Francaise and Deutsch) and Indian languages (Bengalee and Gujerati), all flitted about from mouths to ears' like noisy chattering twittering agile birds. The beach house was our planet our home our haven our retreat our corner our world, ours, and an extension of our 'us'.

But somewhere along the way, we got broken. And things, names, places were ne'er the same again. Silence loudly fell upon the house, and we were, as if, consumed by it, cocooned in it's moth-like powdery white invisible wings. Ugly retarded tentacles of words grew from our oral orifices and just suddenly fell to decay en route. Our audible universe was under the BIG shrink, under collapse. Outside, the world turned and thrashed about oblivious to our falling-a p a r t.

Egos and Pride, even the Old Monk could not drown. We grew sour, bitter and the beach salted us - preserved us in that dreadful unappetizing pickle. Sometimes the yellow of the sunset would trickle into me, and I would feel the stirrings of mirth in a small locked chamber of my heart. And I would feel compelled to try and break the ice - thick as glaciers - between us, and if not break it at least to chip away at it. So, I repeated, again, for the third time, "Every sunset is unique, no?" and then I laughed, stupidly and chokingly, even shocking myself in the bargain, and continued, "unique like you only"

To which, she cracked up too, o wonderful, beautiful world. Laughter bursting forth from her like bubbles, getting all mixed up with the waves, making them wave back merrily, soaring into the salty skies making 'em stars shine brighter some of them fall into her eyes in return, making the beach house - natkati mansion by name, echo with the radiance of its once forgotten name.

The Crazies & Me

"Yes, it is absolutely true, "we" have Multiple Personality Disorder (M.P.D.).

But, we - all of us, each of us, am also utterly heartbroken, irreparably heartbroken. And it is only by the grace of this common hearty affliction, that we am able to integrate ourselves in common unity and literally pull our personas, string our many selves together and so also our many choices together and make it one choice and thereby live and march on and into this world, relate to this world and thereby, well, get by just about.

The many of us screaming from within, flailing, falling, running a muck, breaking into new but different terrain - interests, feelings, ... it is very distraught, in fact distraught is a gross understatement.

First, it was love that held us together, bought us all together, in a cradle ... You see we - all of us, each of us, was quite hopelessly in love with her. And through this, we all saw third eye to third eye ...

But, now, ...

... love has been spent, and it is this common sadness, this sourness of life, this deep common pain that we all share - different and still the same - many heartbreaks - same heart - that holds us as one."

~ from the diary of the man without one face

HG2G : Towel Series

Well, erm, if I needed to explain myself, I would say, "Erm, well, it's Towel Day today ..." (see links below)

for Herr Douglas Adams and this Utata project.
Don't know what a towel is? Click here for free enlightenment!

Love is a L-o-o-p

We all belong to hugs, and kisses and love-chains,

Where would this speckled planet be,
if it were not for the warm arms of love, hah?


Let love be a religion and all of us its fervent devotees.


Let's crowd together and worship each other
on every other, corner and square.


Let's bare all and do all and be all
all of the time.

Some R@ndim part of "Bitter-Blacker Banter"

School-boy Gustav plucked butterflies off pretty flowers. Butterfly wings lie crucified in what was to be a stamp-album.

Dark blue blood slipping out my veins. Onto cheap hospital-white bathroom tiles. The artwork of his blue hunting knife.

The snake in her head always wore a hood.

O madness come make a port in me.

Silence perched on his lips. He saw her dance with another man.
Silence slithered down his tongue and into him.
But his eyes sang every sad song there was to sing.
And what a foolish clumsy dance it was, he thought, but he didn't speak a word.

He plugged my face with his fists
I tightened my jaw around his punches

Dance like drunkards under the purple sky with starry holes
This life will not repeat itself
Here take my hand and take vodka from my throat

Violins and cats and hats and poems that don't rhyme.
Fur and sour wine and cocaine.
Whiskers and claws and paws and one sick crime.
Fear and Love and You and Me. This is all we have.

Explosion(s)

What is it about fireworks bursting in a black sky that fascinates and thrills us humans? Is it because we're somehow mysteriously-strangely-eerily-darkly reminded about the Big Bang from whence we came a long long time ago? Exploding and explosions, is that it, the important, critical, vital thingamabob? That we wouldn't be here if explosions didn't take place? The universe exploding into nothingness, followed by many more explosions, stars blooming and bursting, more explosions, matter shattering, getting scattered, atomic dust blowing, strange celestial brews brewing, spiraling, flying, more explosions and a whole lot of similar and dissimilar hogwash... ... stellar drops, protein lumps, cellular stews, microcosmic soups, primordial coups, ...

... an explosion of sperm, followed by frantic swimming, some race it was to that spectacular sexy ovum. And another explosive meeting, pronto, enter me, enter you, enter us – you all everybody, yeah!

Hello Earth!

Hello Universe!

The heart in love exploding inside of us making us too big for this everyday minuscule life.

brick

bake me a brick, baby,
bake me a brick
recipe repeatedly
your one only trick

brick me a wall, baby,
brick me a wall, till all
that remains of me,
are but remains

i will be your deep past secret
your only friend, a hidden trinket
behind a mossy green wall
now, lies my hall
a hidden tomb, so catacomb

Recalling the Oasis

zeaurazan, originally uploaded by miiah.

... follow the stars and they lead me to where you are sleeping - in the cool shade of a desert palm... trace the lines in my palm and see how they end where yours begin

... go back to Gondwana to find us, to learn how we began - how we first met and how we got separated...

We were united in an oasis, once upon an ageless time, d'you remember... and when our lands tore, a palm tree was pulled apart too, d'you know?

... funny isn't it, she said, how some tales end up in the mouth - how stories happen, how snakes form rings - how beginnings and endings get fuzzy, how eyes fall into eyes and how nothingness connects everythingness

The Desert, on meeting her for the first time

She is ripe with vastness. You can but sit in the palm of her hand and hope to see the whole of her. And when you look into her eyes - and you can feel it too - her ancientness and her treachery becomes apparent.

At first you only see how very dry she is, how very fierce she is, how she sinks her fangs of heat and aridness into the back of your neck and claims you - claims the dust in you. You begin to realize that the dust in you is actually hers - it never was yours in the first place.

She makes you see fountains when there are none. She teaches you what water is - She is an answer to the question - who is the ocean?

Her sun is brilliant and strong and dominant; & when he rides, you must bow down and hide. He is young and arrogant. But she can easily bury him in her folds. And she might do such a thing if she favors you.

At first, yes, she is terrible to behold like some evil demonic queen - powerful and spiteful and vengeful - overflowing wth spite, spit and hiss.

But lying in her palm, when you surrender, when you submit yourself to her openess - her monotonous infinite continuity - she envelopes you within herself and enters your being. You can feel her on your skin, in your hair, in your nostrils, on your lips - you taste her on your tongue, even, and lastly her emptiness and silence occupies your mind.

She penetrates you and reveals herself by revealing you to yourself. You are a nothingness too. You are barren. You are empty. You are filled with the divine, with particles of 'stars and heavens' and drops of light. You are both - whole and a part of the whole. She is beautiful to behold, then. You plunge your hand into her - and you can sense the life in her sands. You can feel the warmth lurking there - you can feel a pulse there - her sand is alive; it is like feeling some huge beast which is living and yet dormant. She is the unity of numerous-countless particles, and she exists in each and every minute grain. And when she lies in your palm, she blesses you almightiness - you are holding all of her - her totality is floating, there, in the palm of your hand.

And as she slips through your fingers or disappears on the wisps of wind, you know that she is 'freedom and wildness' incarnate - no man will ever be able to tame her, rule her, or claim her.

Polaroid

Bean bag may all the asses bless you ...

Guitar

I'm musically illiterate. I can't play the guitar, or any other musical instrument for that matter. My only contribution to music, up until now, has been and is, listening to music.