Sunday, 6 March 2022

Viral Woman

 


The woman from Delhi, and the one from Kashmir, both earlier this year,
and the one on telly, from somewhere near here,
and many more; beautiful names they bore.
Many more, far too many more;
Oh the beauty and the terror in the names they bore!

Each one of them, when her screams were choked,
was it a prayer or a curse that she invoked?

Was it a prayer or a curse that she invoked
when her scream was choked?

Her scream has gone viral.
In a smoky spiral, spreads
into other women
her pain;
pain, viral, vaginal, spiritual, cultural, eternal..….
No woman now is only herself.
Woman gone viral!

She is the aborted female foetus,
the bound bloody foot, sad
told she is mad and bad,
frigid if she says no,
a whore if she wants a go,
too sassy, too small,
too smart, too tall,
sold, controlled,  butted, rutted, survivor….

Forever survivor,
screaming louder and louder………
in spite of the fables glorifying her abuse,
minimised by media, made back page news,
physiology,  psychology used as excuse.

In an age beyond abolition,
emancipation
and human rights,
she fights
for life;
a crucible
about to ignite.



Wednesday, 8 September 2021

Travel

 


 



There are places in my mind I will not go to,

perhaps a void

or a place of pain,

of unbridled longings,

even a fistful of sunshine,

or surrender to some secret gods.

There are places in my mind I will not go to.

 

Flying over the Hindukush mountains

with the soft bloom of apricot valleys,

acrosss rivers, ravines and ridges

through deodar forests,

past ancient monasteries,

beyond icy passes and snowy peaks,

perhaps to a point of no return.

 

 

 August 21

Snoozedance

 


Dance, to keep old age at bay,

they keep saying, since my last birthday.

 

You hate skiing, and you hate swimming,

your mind and body’ll start ageing.

 

Here’s some reggae, they say, just sway,

sashay your hips, it’s fun, like play.

 

Foxtrot and tango? I could, I would,

but a snooze on the sofa is just as good.

 

 August 2021

Under one sky




 


the weekly street sweeper

--faded tattered dress

fresh black eye--

rattled our garden gate

to refill her water bottle

 

‘he got drunk again’

--flat tone

straight back--

avoiding the insistent gaze of blue marks

peeping through my silk scarf

 

august 21

 

 

SHADOWPLAY

 


there is a battlefield of shadows
just beyond me

sparrowhawk and sunbird duel in the whirlwind
buttercup fields  smile, shrouded by a pair of empty eyes
light and dark tangle in a necklace of joy, then pull apart
the future, a dreadful fear, dances timeless destruction
teardrops pound soft mud into diamond
my limbs are caught in the crossfire

tall bare branches escape a square hole
reach for the sun

 

 June 2021

 

It’s a small world?



 


‘It’s a small world’, I’ve often been told
It’s not what I’ve found, as I grow old and bold;
the world keeps opening, fold after fold
giving me treasures more precious than gold.

Yes it’s a small world
if I build a close wall,
keep face down and crouch
fail to see the sprawl.

If life throws us together
when we had been so far
it’s the thousand steps we took
the doors we kept ajar.

It’s a huge world to search
when I lose something held dear,
I meet a kindred spirit
and find yet one more sphere.

My mind is a world, an infinite space
of countless beings and thoughts to embrace
scaling mysteries I come face to face
with courage, compassion, joy and grace.

 

 March 2021

 

Thieves

 


Thoughts
ever greedy
for more
and more

rake roots
scour for deepest desires
scan skies
seize mystery, majesty
fearless fancy
flight of frenzy

scuttle,  steal
the wanted
and the unwanted

hue of rose
whiff of sandalwood
sting, venom
ingest, digest
sundrop on frost
sacred in silence
hurt, healing
love, loss
peacock plumage
of oil spillage
on still waters

stun guards
sail through gates
light as air
thick as thieves

Feb 2021

 

Bread and milk

 


My mother’s ultimate comfort food,
soft spongy white bread
soaking up the milk like
fluffy marshmallows
melting in the mouth
warmth and sweetness oozing through;
scraped knee
spat with sister
schoolgirl crush,
all sobbed away
into a bowl of bread and milk.

I tried this remedy for lockdown blues,
spent a good few weeks in a blissful snooze,
then, bored, decided to switch to booze,
got nicked on the tube for trying to schmooze.

 

May 2021

Sculpting a pandemic

 


I collect stones,
adore the textures, the contours
the shades and shadows,
cup in my palms,
caress with my cheek,
press close to my heart
like a personal god,
its  pattern and poetry
a unique piece of possibilities.

I carry a pile in my chest,
each stone covering a hole
where a life had been,
a life breathing into me,
each stone a unique pouring of glowing lava ,
flame orange dancing upon ash gray,
epitaphs shining through in silver and gold.

 

May 2021 (written during the second wave in India)


Beachy Head

 

(Beachy Head is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, close to Eastbourne, along the East Sussex Coast. It is a popular tourist attraction, with many walking routes, and is also one of the most common suicide spots in the world.)

Born of the ooze of the deepest ocean
then lifted through its sunlit surface,
I stand with the skies,
 waters separating me from myself.

Seams of flint etched upon chalk
knowledge before knowledge
before perception
before thought.

Sight, sound, all sensation,
the breath of each ancient one
become my memory, my wisdom, my intuition.

You explore my shores and hills
and the landscape of your being.

Your sadness
always the weight of your sadness
weeps down every crevice and crease
seeps down every column
even in the occasional ripple of your pleasure.
Each flint digs a deeper stab of pain.

I do not know
what you seek
in my contours, my calligraphy.
The perfection of Plato’s forms?
Some  mathematical  truth,  with no room for doubt?
Distraction,  escape, meaning,
your place in time and space
in the tangible world
and in the other?

I do not speak.
Your mind can show you what you need
as you stand
poised upon my crag.

I only stand,
in absolute attentive presence,
 with what is,
beyond examination,  explanation, or answer.

January 2021

Song to Suffragettes

 


I

I wrote a song to suffragettes,
honour a debt,  pay my respects.
Everywhere mocked for their wish for equality
they risked their status, security, prosperity.

Picket lines, marches, militant agitation
met prison, force-feeding, brute confrontation.
It won my adoration, this brave new vision,
this new kind of freedom, personal moral decision.

II

I did not see that they were white.
I only saw that they were right.
Till I saw long voting queues,
black men and women, their abuse.

Rules, rapes, lynching, beating,
instilled fear, obstructed voting.
Victorious white suffragettes
saw no more cause for protests.

Past protests were shocking in their hate
Black savage vote before us!  and a shameful bait.
‘Women’s vote will give you a base
to keep your nigger in his place.

Uncultured mammies, without education,
aspire to our cause, forgetting their station.
Let us admit them, they make such a fuss,
to back-of-the-march, from back-of-the-bus.’

My inspiration, suffragettes,
white dresses, sashes, and rosettes!
Why, oh why, did you forget
that black women were owed a debt?

Why do I feel that I betray
my idols, show their feet of clay?
An icon deep inside me rips,
my song freezes on dry lips.

September 2020



When the mind is still

 


Mistakenly, I sought
 to cut out outside sounds
for the mind to become still.

Only when the mind is still
do outside sounds speak
their message clearly.

Only when the mind is still
do I hear the stillness
behind the sounds.

When the mind is still
the revving of the motorbike is
the same as the hermit’s chant.

When the mind is still
all is sacred.


August 2020

 



Parminder

 


we know a brilliant accountant
into property development
is he into embezzlement?
no! not his style of management.

extravagant
flamboyant
not a bit arrogant
exuberant
 observant
pretends to be  delinquent
but  surprisingly gallant

efficient,  intelligent
but  a logic discrepant
object of endearment

does not have the refinement
that’s needed for retirement

his diet causes puzzlement
his humour, bewilderment
his exercise incessant
gives me a torn ligament

he’s such an odd oddment
that there is no  replacement

acts like an adolescent
causes embarrassment

a bit of a mixed compliment
who’d have  him any different?

He’s sixty today.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY.


August 2020


Translation

 We are lost in translation

 

colonisation
civilisation
christianisation
economic  consideration

 

democratisation

 

sexual  orientation

behaviour modification

 

transportation
concentration

one world one nation

cultural liberation

secularisation

gender fixation

 female objectification

beautification
emancipation

abolition

immigration

naturalisation

windrush generation

 revelation

redemption

moral obligation

 segregation

assimilation
integration
anti-discrimination
non-radicalisation

Help me
to free my imagination
find self-affirmation
actualisation


June 2020






R

 


I am R
rolling wide and far
revving a rickety  car


rowdy  bazaar
rumpus in the bar
rum and caviar
raucous guitar
recitation  bizarre
rancid cigar
rhapsodic sitar
rocking like a star
ready to spar

run through the reservoir
riot in  the abattoir
ruin the rare Renoir

raving  in full gear
 racket to the ear
rambling  with fear
raging king Lear
relieved to hear
rhetoric is clear

ripe as a pear
rude raunchy bear
racy underwear

ride to the fore
rant like a bore
retort with a roar
ramshackle door
rotting to the core
raid  the store
rob rupees galore
rap on the floor
relax and snore

I am R
rabid rabble rouser
ruling your browser


 june 2020




Surprise

 


i imagined the sky would fall
myself the heroine of a greek tragedy
my life an endless vale of tears

the storm came
and went

i am still here
i still smile

everything has changed
everything remains the same

the sky has fallen a little
all the easier for me to reach


 june 2020



After all this

 


When all this is over I mean
to tango all summer with the

sun spangled weeping willow, rescue
from scrap heaps more mini liquor

bottles for twig arranging. I mean
to still listen, through hushed Buddhist

bells, as the dark side of the
moon whispers to me. I mean

to STAY AT HOME more, PROTECT MYSELF
from an old disease, FOMO.


March 2020

 






 

Tuesday, 7 September 2021


 

Christmas

 


poetry workshop
i am asked to write
about favourite christmas foods
christmas songs
favourite gifts

i write
do as I am told
my lines have no meaning
do not pull at heartstrings
leave me cold
leave me hamstrung
inept

my pen freezes

then it dawns
I am different


i sit awhile
listen quietly
to the dialogue
of difference
discomfort
acceptance

pen flows warm and free
diwali sweets
lanterned streets
swinging skirts
fireworks
waiting by the phone
hope turning to stone
reflections
regret
empty nest
empty darkness the only witness
greeting
receiving
receiving
hope renewed
gathering
giving
missing
gratitude

universality of festivity

dec 2019

My favourite nephew, on fencing

 


I am learning to fence;

the rules make no sense.

The offense,  the defense?

What silly nonsense!

 

What grip? What glide?

I just want to hide!

I giggle in a bout,

at the referee’s snout!

 

But after a while

I’ve become more agile;

with my foil I prance,

enjoying the dance.

 

When all is said and done,

I’m having some fun!

 

April 19