Just like you allow the hills
to seduce you
and have cold winds wrap
around your shoulders
Just like you match
every heartbeat with
its undulating echo
across the valley
I crave the beaches
- my home -
where the warm waters lap
leaving me shivering
I lie in the sand
watching wing-flapped screensavers
I remain as still as a rock
just the way you do
on the cliff
wishing,
releasing a silent prayer
In that quietness
as the sun sets
We both can feel
the earth has moved
© Rochelle Potkar
(to VP)
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
a day in life
It was an early, rainy morning and the sky was painted a dull grey.
I had placed my mirrored bag and transparent umbrella on the adjoining seat and had just fished out Pamuk’s book to read while at the wait, when he arrived.
I wouldn’t have raised my eyes. I shouldn’t have raised my eyes. Because I lost the paragraph I was, just a moment ago, concentrating on. In front of me just a table across he - dressed in a lose t-shirt and lopsided jeans with chappals - settled, doing a customary round of nods. The girls in front of him seemed unperturbed.
But something inside me quickened, thickened, melted like cold drops of frozen water sliding across the glass of cold coffee.
I quickly bent my head, tucking a wisp of hair behind my ear, trying to trace over to the paragraph I had last left the story. I was going to appear cool, no matter what. He must have looked my way because there were few other people in the café and certainly no one like the girl-woman dressed in a white t-shirt and rolled up jeans, hair flowing to the beckoning of the wind, one hand heavy with copper bangles, so deeply engrossed in reading her book that she did not even stir when the rain announced another hiccupped bout of its ferocity.
The tiles on the porch caught the glint of drizzle. I could sense the bristles of rain wetting my toes but I managed to keep my body very still and breath low and very ordinary.
I read a paragraph thrice noting how unbearably elusive its meaning was getting.
He moved suddenly to answer a call on his mobile and that was the chance. I asked the waiter to get the bill and without stopping to look or think I lifted my things.
I had to find myself a place of reclusive safety in order to preserve what was happening inside me from getting outside.
I reached the warm insides of a new place and searched it. There were people playing in the bowling alley. Two turned conscious if I was watching them at their goal. I smiled and quickly joined in.
Anything to wade off that energy.
Anything to de-mystify.
How funny thoughts are, even for the very same person. You may think one thing of the past and miss out the thing happening in the present, though my thoughts were more on a tangent, going awry. I never thought that he must have searched for me when he came back to the table wondering where that girl-woman so deeply engrossed in reading should have disappeared.
By this time, the girl-woman was heaving a blue ball, her fingers tucked in its grooves, towards eight dancing white pins. She was taming the growing violence in her body with each move, her face a thousand shades of crimson.
A man and his little son were looking on nodding encouragingly every time I knocked down those pins. My scores were quite good said the scorekeeper.
By the end of it all, I was spent. I leant toward a pillar breathing lightly.
A glance at the clock reminded me that the festival was about to start. Totally oblivious to the heavy greetings of rain, I exited the alley.
The boy at the café was hurriedly shifting the tables and chairs toward an inch inside. I studied the way in which the rain had invaded, caring least for man-made boundaries.
Just then I catch him watching me with those drunken, lustful eyes.
He: where did you go?
Me: where do I go now?
He turned to continue the conversation he was having with someone and my eyes caught the nape of his neck that the breeze revealed when it blew his hair aside. The urge to bathe his neck with the warmth of my breath was too much. I stood in the corner wishing the crowd dissolves me.
But every time he turned, his eyes found out mine, utterly disregardful of the people he was with.
I was recording how helpless and weak I felt.
The only other thing gaining power that day was the rain.
© Rochelle Potkar
I had placed my mirrored bag and transparent umbrella on the adjoining seat and had just fished out Pamuk’s book to read while at the wait, when he arrived.
I wouldn’t have raised my eyes. I shouldn’t have raised my eyes. Because I lost the paragraph I was, just a moment ago, concentrating on. In front of me just a table across he - dressed in a lose t-shirt and lopsided jeans with chappals - settled, doing a customary round of nods. The girls in front of him seemed unperturbed.
But something inside me quickened, thickened, melted like cold drops of frozen water sliding across the glass of cold coffee.
I quickly bent my head, tucking a wisp of hair behind my ear, trying to trace over to the paragraph I had last left the story. I was going to appear cool, no matter what. He must have looked my way because there were few other people in the café and certainly no one like the girl-woman dressed in a white t-shirt and rolled up jeans, hair flowing to the beckoning of the wind, one hand heavy with copper bangles, so deeply engrossed in reading her book that she did not even stir when the rain announced another hiccupped bout of its ferocity.
The tiles on the porch caught the glint of drizzle. I could sense the bristles of rain wetting my toes but I managed to keep my body very still and breath low and very ordinary.
I read a paragraph thrice noting how unbearably elusive its meaning was getting.
He moved suddenly to answer a call on his mobile and that was the chance. I asked the waiter to get the bill and without stopping to look or think I lifted my things.
I had to find myself a place of reclusive safety in order to preserve what was happening inside me from getting outside.
I reached the warm insides of a new place and searched it. There were people playing in the bowling alley. Two turned conscious if I was watching them at their goal. I smiled and quickly joined in.
Anything to wade off that energy.
Anything to de-mystify.
How funny thoughts are, even for the very same person. You may think one thing of the past and miss out the thing happening in the present, though my thoughts were more on a tangent, going awry. I never thought that he must have searched for me when he came back to the table wondering where that girl-woman so deeply engrossed in reading should have disappeared.
By this time, the girl-woman was heaving a blue ball, her fingers tucked in its grooves, towards eight dancing white pins. She was taming the growing violence in her body with each move, her face a thousand shades of crimson.
A man and his little son were looking on nodding encouragingly every time I knocked down those pins. My scores were quite good said the scorekeeper.
By the end of it all, I was spent. I leant toward a pillar breathing lightly.
A glance at the clock reminded me that the festival was about to start. Totally oblivious to the heavy greetings of rain, I exited the alley.
The boy at the café was hurriedly shifting the tables and chairs toward an inch inside. I studied the way in which the rain had invaded, caring least for man-made boundaries.
Just then I catch him watching me with those drunken, lustful eyes.
He: where did you go?
Me: where do I go now?
He turned to continue the conversation he was having with someone and my eyes caught the nape of his neck that the breeze revealed when it blew his hair aside. The urge to bathe his neck with the warmth of my breath was too much. I stood in the corner wishing the crowd dissolves me.
But every time he turned, his eyes found out mine, utterly disregardful of the people he was with.
I was recording how helpless and weak I felt.
The only other thing gaining power that day was the rain.
© Rochelle Potkar
Thursday, November 22, 2007
a blue dream
music swirling
across undulating metaphor
faces of hard, gritty disillusion
sparked against
the warm belly
of
youth
gasping
dreaming
hallucinating
a place haunted in blue
and a street, cobble stone prostitute
A quivering old face of wrinkles
searching for solitude
A girl standing over a bridge
waiting for love to return
A boat with a lantern
going by
He, a weather ravaged boy
partakes her breath
off the street
night lamps glower with a halo of flies
a life-large clock spins a universal lie
a town in daze
ripped open by a long, chugging steam train
the blue God
- God of Love
watches
face blackened
heart submerged
haunting echoes,
evil men
hail and snow
rain on
her cheek
wind in
his hair
an appeal of their heart
quickened and threadbare
entwined,
bleeding,
brimming
losing
dripping,
diluting,
hypnotizing
totally
spare
© Rochelle Potkar
across undulating metaphor
faces of hard, gritty disillusion
sparked against
the warm belly
of
youth
gasping
dreaming
hallucinating
a place haunted in blue
and a street, cobble stone prostitute
A quivering old face of wrinkles
searching for solitude
A girl standing over a bridge
waiting for love to return
A boat with a lantern
going by
He, a weather ravaged boy
partakes her breath
off the street
night lamps glower with a halo of flies
a life-large clock spins a universal lie
a town in daze
ripped open by a long, chugging steam train
the blue God
- God of Love
watches
face blackened
heart submerged
haunting echoes,
evil men
hail and snow
rain on
her cheek
wind in
his hair
an appeal of their heart
quickened and threadbare
entwined,
bleeding,
brimming
losing
dripping,
diluting,
hypnotizing
totally
spare
© Rochelle Potkar
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
What happens?
What happens when a second-hander has a will of steel, patience, strategic thinking and gumption?
He will eventually or instantly succeed, even if:
his ideas stink
he has no originality
he fails to find the stream/river/rivulet of who he really is
What happens when an ideal man has the same will of steel, patience, strategic thinking and gumption?
He changes the world
He creates a new planet
(an observation)
- Rochelle Potkar
Second-hander: a person who collects his opinions and sensibilities from others, more or less bypassing his own reason and values.
(Randian) Ideal man: a person whose ability and independence leads to conflicts with others, but who perseveres nevertheless to achieve his values.
He will eventually or instantly succeed, even if:
his ideas stink
he has no originality
he fails to find the stream/river/rivulet of who he really is
What happens when an ideal man has the same will of steel, patience, strategic thinking and gumption?
He changes the world
He creates a new planet
(an observation)
- Rochelle Potkar
Second-hander: a person who collects his opinions and sensibilities from others, more or less bypassing his own reason and values.
(Randian) Ideal man: a person whose ability and independence leads to conflicts with others, but who perseveres nevertheless to achieve his values.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
our circus
The resolutions were forming in my head. Each pixel whirred into a specter of rainbow light before settling into oblivion. Some walked the tight rope. Some rode the one tyre bicycle. Some walked on stilts looking over the heads of those who hoola-hooped. Some could see only two rays coming out of the prism. They said the prism was bad, others argued it was their eyesight.
We bit into candy floss, our mouths getting covered in its smells. There were village belles with bells sewn onto their skirts which made noises providing us with our sense of direction. There was fog over the giant wheels or maybe clouds that were cut through by shards of neon light. There were the screams from tattoo shops and roars from caged lions.
I sat in the corner near the frozen round-a-bout wondering if this was where I was supposed to be. This was a rather tough world. Rather hard. Rather wicked…no not wicked rather empty, insecure? Rather envious…no not..., rather sad, apathetic.
I felt pity and contempt and fear. The round-a-bout set in motion.
I continued sitting, watching. The boys made a big so-sha about not seeing the light streaming through the tilted prism. The girls fussed over bangles that would go with the deep blue of their mirrored embroidery. A sweet meat man untiringly made pyramids of his sweets which the flies covered and protected against the moisture in the air.
The man walking the tight rope was coming back. The girl on the bicycle circled around a path that marked an infinite loop. You should have seen her face. There was a mask of content. The only other face that rivaled hers was the man with placid expressions. Running across his chest were blades and hooks tugged into his chest. Dried blood erupted in straight lines like a dug out palace garden.
And did you see the fortune teller? She sat cross legged caressing the baldness of her crystal ball and when the boys came to her she drew roadmaps on their palms. Did they ask which countries they were leading to?
No. They just tendered the exact change and left.
And did you hear what the man said when the girl asked which was better entertainment: laughing mirrors or almond bhang. "It's the same thing".
'though, there is a difference', I wanted to shout.
One is within, the other without.
but the rain quietened us out.
© Rochelle Potkar
We bit into candy floss, our mouths getting covered in its smells. There were village belles with bells sewn onto their skirts which made noises providing us with our sense of direction. There was fog over the giant wheels or maybe clouds that were cut through by shards of neon light. There were the screams from tattoo shops and roars from caged lions.
I sat in the corner near the frozen round-a-bout wondering if this was where I was supposed to be. This was a rather tough world. Rather hard. Rather wicked…no not wicked rather empty, insecure? Rather envious…no not..., rather sad, apathetic.
I felt pity and contempt and fear. The round-a-bout set in motion.
I continued sitting, watching. The boys made a big so-sha about not seeing the light streaming through the tilted prism. The girls fussed over bangles that would go with the deep blue of their mirrored embroidery. A sweet meat man untiringly made pyramids of his sweets which the flies covered and protected against the moisture in the air.
The man walking the tight rope was coming back. The girl on the bicycle circled around a path that marked an infinite loop. You should have seen her face. There was a mask of content. The only other face that rivaled hers was the man with placid expressions. Running across his chest were blades and hooks tugged into his chest. Dried blood erupted in straight lines like a dug out palace garden.
And did you see the fortune teller? She sat cross legged caressing the baldness of her crystal ball and when the boys came to her she drew roadmaps on their palms. Did they ask which countries they were leading to?
No. They just tendered the exact change and left.
And did you hear what the man said when the girl asked which was better entertainment: laughing mirrors or almond bhang. "It's the same thing".
'though, there is a difference', I wanted to shout.
One is within, the other without.
but the rain quietened us out.
© Rochelle Potkar
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