Of Curses and Goodbyes

He stopped at the window display. There was something that had piqued his interest. Something that he couldn’t quite put a finger on. A scarf maybe, or perhaps the boots. Yes definitely the boots. They were an odd color. A color you wouldn’t find anywhere else, an ugly color actually.

She had had one of those boots. Ones that were so ugly they made you stand out. She had always hated her boots, but was one of those people who didn’t do much about things they hated. He on the other hand had found those boots unique, strange as they were. They suited her somehow, because just like her boots, she was ugly… in a more endearing way though.

He thought of her. He seldom did. But today, somehow, he couldn’t keep himself from thinking of her. He had seen her picture somewhere, very recently. She looked different now. Not beautiful, no she would never be that, but prettier. Like she was finally happy. Like she had finally found some peace.

He remembered the day when she had said her last goodbyes. He had taken her in his arms and kissed her lips. Not because he wanted to kiss her, but because he just didn’t know how to make her stop crying. Just before she had decided to leave, he had called her one night and told her the truth, that he had never felt anything for her and that he had forced himself to, because she was such a nice person, but had not been successful. She had taken it surprisingly well. She had swallowed it without the usual hysterics. It all went so well, that he wondered why he hadn’t done it before. Of course later, she had started to stare right past him and had started to act all crazy and weird, but at that time, that particular moment, she had seemed so perfectly still and calm.

He remembered the night they walked on the cobbled street right outside Raheja Arcade, arm in arm, their bodies tensed. He remembered exactly how she looked like. Her round face shone in the moonlight. Her nose pin was looking especially radiant. She wore a light green T shirt and had gray pedal pushers. She was wearing those ugly boots of hers.

He had chosen to remain quiet because there was not much that he had to say. She had decided to move back to Delhi and he knew that his chat with her last night had triggered off her plans to leave. He was feeling really sorry for her but knew that it would be the best thing, for both of them.

She of course was silent because that’s how she usually was – weird and emotionally unavailable. Looking back, he didn’t really understand why the two of them were together, even for the brief time that they were together. She had appeared so intriguing, and of course, she was intriguing and engaging till the last goodbye but he simply didn’t know what to do with that, how to deal with it.

On that particular night, she had looked at him very intently and then taking his hands in hers, had spoken softly into his ears, almost as if cursing him for life. She had said, ‘You will never forget me, because you will never find anyone who will love you like I do. And when I am gone, you will pine for me.’

Her words had had the desired effect and when he had reached her place, he stopped for longer than he had intended to. Throughout the drive to her home, he had kept thinking about how much he would miss her. He didn’t love her, but he was smitten. Were these two really all that same? She could touch him in these forbidden places and evoke desires that he had never known before, pleasures that he never knew existed. And yet, when he thought of her, his mind always drew a blank. He just couldn’t feel anything. He never saw her only as a good lay. No that would have been disrespectful to her. She was everything that he would have wanted to see in his future bride. She fed him, fussed over him, loved him and the sex was just amazing. But there was one thing missing… he didn’t love her.

Over the three years, her words had rang in his year every time he set foot in Koramangala. He would look at the empty seats in the Barista cafe on block 4 and think of her. He also thought of her every time he read a poem or ordered a plate of pasta. His new love interest, this beautiful catholic girl would also sometimes remind him of her. He didn’t want to think of her but simply had no other choice. It was almost as if she had cursed him. Later, when he had run into her again, he had deliberately not looked at her, deliberately ignored her. He had wanted to forget her and had wanted to erase her from his memories, but she always clawed her way in.

Time did heal the gaping hole that her insignificant presence had left in his life, but he had had to fight for it really hard. In fact, he had had to leave not only Bangalore, but also India to lose the memories of her. And still on some days, some peculiarly odd ones, her smile would flash in his thoughts and he would recount the emotional shit that she had drawn him through. And on those particular moments, he felt a mixture of hatred and pity towards her. A feeling that he just could not understand.

Vagina

I know you have one,
I just dont know where.
I have a suspicion,
It’s in your ear.

-by Felicity M.

Scrumpy’s Distress

And something,
And then you don’t talk.
And life dries up,
And there’s no moisture for my soul.
I need to redeem myself,
Held tight, and talked to.
I need some warmth, some comfort and water,
I feel powerless against the abbreviations of my name.

A Portrait

In a small room in the vicinity of the stableyard, betimes in the morning, which was ushered in by Mr. Pickwick’s adventure with the middle–aged lady in the yellow curl-papers, sat Mr. Weller, senior, preparing himself for his journey to London. He was sitting in an excellent attitude for having his portrait taken; and here it is.

It is very possible that at some earlier period of his career, Mr. Weller’s profile might have presented a bold and determined outline. His face, however, had expanded under the influence of good living, and a disposition remarkable for resignation; and its bold, fleshy curves had so far extended beyond the limits originally assigned them, that unless you took a full view of his countenance in front, it was difficult to distinguish more than the extreme tip of a very rubicund nose. His chin, from the same cause, had acquired the grave and imposing form which is generally described by prefixing the word ‘double’ to that expressive feature; and his complexion exhibited that peculiarly mottled combination of colours which is only to be seen in gentlemen of his profession, and in underdone roast beef. Round his neck he wore a crimson travelling-shawl, which merged into his chin by such imperceptible gradations, that it was difficult to distinguish the folds of the one, from the folds of the other. Over this, he mounted a long waistcoat of a broad pink-striped pattern, and over that again, a wide-skirted green coat, ornamented with large brass buttons, whereof the two which garnished the waist, were so far apart, that no man had ever beheld them both at the same time. His hair, which was short, sleek, and black, was just visible beneath the capacious brim of a low-crowned brown hat. His legs were encased in knee-cord breeches, and painted top-boots; and a copper watch-chain, terminating in one seal, and a key of the same material, dangled loosely from his capacious waistband.

-From The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

For The Dead

I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer

The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself

I have always wondered about the leftover
energy, water rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped

or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting there long after midnight.

– Adrienne Rich

Neurotics

People who know nothing about nature are of course neurotic, for they are not adapted to reality. They are too naive, like children, and it is necessary to tell them the facts of life, so to speak to make it plain to diem that they are human beings like all others. Not that such enlightenment will cure neurotics; they can only regain their health when they climb up out of the mud of the commonplace. But they are only too fond of lingering in what they have earlier repressed. How are they ever to emerge if analysis does not make them aware of something different and better, when even theory holds them fast in it and offers them nothing more than the rational or “reasonable” injunction to abandon such childishness? That is precisely what they cannot do, and how should they be able to if they do not discover something to stand on? One form of life cannot simply be abandoned unless it is exchanged for another. As for a totally rational approach to life, that is, as experience shows, impossible, especially when a person is by nature as unreasonable as a neurotic.

– Carl Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections)

A Description of Finnegans Wake

Salvatore spoke all languages, and no language. Or, rather, he had invented for himself a language which used the sinews of the languages to which he had been exposed—and once I thought that his was, not the Adamic language that a happy mankind had spoken, all united by a single tongue from the origin of the world to the Tower of Babel, or one of the languages that arose after the dire event of their division, but precisely the Babelish language of the first day after the divine chastisement, the language of primeval confusion. Nor, for that matter, could I call Salvatore’s speech a language, because in every human language there are rules and every term signifies ad placitum a thing, according to a law that does not change, for man cannot call the dog once dog and once cat, or utter sounds to which a consensus of people has not assigned a definite meaning, as would happen if someone said the word “blitiri” And yet, one way or another, I did understand what Salvatore meant, and so did the others. Proof that he spoke not one, but all languages, none correctly, taking words sometimes from one and sometimes from another. I also noticed afterward that he might refer to something first in Latin and later in Provençal, and I realized that he was not so much inventing his own sentences as using the disiecta membra of other sentences, heard some time in the past, according to the present situation and the things he wanted to say, as if he could speak of a food, for instance, only with the words of the people among whom he had eaten that food, and express his joy only with sentences that he had heard uttered by joyful people the day when he had similarly experienced joy.

-From The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

From “The Sea and the Mirror”

The nightingales are sobbing in
The orchards of our mothers,
And hearts that we broke long ago
Have long been breaking others;
Tears are round, the sea is deep:
Roll them overboard and sleep.

– W.H. Auden

The way to Glaxo Mall

you’re losing your grip on reality, smith!
turn around, look at me, tell me what you see, smith,
no, that’s not the way to glaxo mall, smith,
what are you saying, that’s the toilet, no!
there are no pretty girls there, smith,
remember, that’s how you find your way, smith,
turn back, come here, sit with me, smith,
yes, i’ll take you there tomorrow, smith,
tonight, it’s too late, smith, don’t you know the time, it is,
two in the morning, smith, we better go to bed soon,
come here, let me change your clothes, you cannot go to bed like this,
what’s the matter with you smith, you are in a strange mood tonight,
what happened? did you talk to that girl again?
i told you she’s not good for you, smith, come here,
please don’t cry, smith, it’s alright, we’ll go to glaxo mall tomorrow,
and you know how to find the way, don’t you? it’s full of beautiful girls, smith,
nothing like the toilet you are looking at, smith,
there are no pretty girls there.

-K.

Family Problems

Mrs Galahad you don’t understand, you
cannot step inside this line,
there’s a raging fire inside, your husband
is saving young ladies from death.

-K.

the green grapes plucked no walls for me

furious midnight uproar last night
flat 51 got blamed once more
their third warning and free beer
from friends

3 parakeets died in the commercial dryers
when nobody was washing their clothes
on sunday when it’s too crowded
to wash

and beer was drunk in glass bottles inspite
of warnings of expulsion
and wine in boxes to drink
disgusting

got locked out of my room and paid
no fees because the guard is my friend
and everyone elses otherwise
50 dollars would suck
and rain

– K.

I have been faithful to thee

“Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae”

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was grey:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

- By Ernest Dowson

Reasons

“I’d gladly take her back, sins and all, because she is my flesh and blood. It’s for Quentin’s sake…And yours,” she says. “I know how you feel toward her.”

“Let her come back,” I says, “far as I’m concerned.”

“No,” she says. “I owe that to your father’s memory.”

“When he was trying all the time to persuade you to let her come home when Herbert threw her out?” I says.

“You don’t understand,” she says. “I know you don’t intend to make it more difficult for me. But it’s my place to suffer for my children,” she says. “I can bear it.”

“Seems to me you go to a lot of unnecessary trouble doing it.”

By William Faulkner, From The Sound And The Fury

Make The Pie Higher

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It’s a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

by George W. Bush

Drunk As Drunk

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it – our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky’s hot rim,
The day’s last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

- Pablo Neruda

Wish Everyone a very Happy New Year!