The zephyr of early dawn

The cool rays of evening sun is just blending into a point where twilight is about to happen. Birds are going home.
If there is one thing I learnt from my last love, it is staying true. He didn't speak so, but it is the only amalgam of his homecoming.

Arriving on a fluke into a dusty place called home.
It’s a rain forest and you can hear the bleating of germ.
Some nectar flies. Some birds, exoticise.
If you hold your breath long enough, a brook breaks into laughter.
If you release it, spring arrives.
The wind in hair makes trees shake in delight.

Your feet may be covered in sores, ant bites

Your shins epigraphed in thorn
But there is enough melancholy here to graze your throat, vanquishing the short thirsts on a long journey.

He came, wandering through the wilderness of his mind.
Wading through the talk barks of searching, and to understand. And when he sees me he knows we are to be partners in crime.
Well, up until a time.
I sit with his head on my lap. My hair covering my breasts. The wind flapping against us, whispering mimes.

Ah! the erotica of a finding mind.

He sucks onto raw, savage fruit. Its acrid taste renders his tongue insipid.
So we speak, in alternate.
He is prime in his urge to know. I am the same. We are twin soul.
There is a canoe in the distance sitting over rippling, gleaming moon but we have set assail. Not in it.

We settle our ears close to ruddy soil, thinking with our eyes.
The breeze caresses our goose pimpled fleshed skin.
The frogs start croaking from the black river behind

and when the fronds atop a very tall tree shiver we know our journey has come to an end.

He moves a distance. A shadow.
I move a step. A silhouette.
His nose makes a faint mountain against the ridge of his cheek.

We move away further.

My laugh lines are disappearing. It is dark.
I can sense the teeter on his little finger has stopped.

A crackling of jungle wood fires. Orange flecks soaring with desire.
It is the past that is changing her garments, every moment.

She refuses to stay quenched.

There is a blanket of hungry amber ...all over.

bored housewives

Maybe she's a bored housewife

Maybe the men watching her know better

Maybe they don't

Maybe she isn't bored

Maybe she's lonely

Maybe she's not

Maybe she has a loner DNA

Maybe she's thinking of her lost love

Maybe she's not

Maybe she feels she was never loved in the first place

Maybe she's self-pitious

Maybe she thinks too much

Maybe she is just theatrical

Maybe she's playing with us too

Maybe she has too much time on hand

Maybe she is bored

Maybe she's a bored housewife.

if she were stone

if she were stone
she did have no feeling
no remorse
life would pass by her
fire under its wing

she'd be indifferent
to it
and
to herself

if she were stone
she would be God
people would come with woes,
sorrowful scores

she'd listen
knowing only too well that
the wishes they so desire
would pass around her
like life
like fire

unlived
untouched
unheard

nights of longing

It’s the nights that are easy to suffer
the days are unbearable
they are hideous and there is the sun
that causes inseparable loss of sense and fluid

it is the night that is calm, aromatic
in its stringent hue
owlish peace; neon blue

where she hides her peace
her sustenance
and the reasons of her persistence

and there are so many, besides her
who are not getting
their nights’ sleep

in this strange city
of faded winter longings

Last laugh

You wouldn’t even believe how far our love story could go
We thought it would end when the sun set and waters receded

I thought it would end when my cat died, suddenly
You thought it would end when you didn’t get that raise

I thought, it would, when I saw how you still remembered her
You thought, it would, when you found someone else

I thought, it would, when you didn’t come calling for days on end
You thought, it would, when we meet face to face

I thought, it would, when we draw the last breath of a late evening
You thought, it would, as long as winter lasts (which is not long)

I thought, it would, when summer sets in
You thought, it would, when we finish all our thoughts

I thought, it would, the moment we shared our last embrace
You thought, it would, when we have nothing more to say

It outdid all of us
It outlived all of that
It outwit us

It’s having the last laugh

nomadic residue

water receding
into clay granules

giving it its hue,
contour

you holding me
in your palm,
gaze, arm

making me
what I am

will love ever die?

enjoy every moment
tears welling behind closed eyes

as I heave the corpse of my
love story
to its final resting place

'are you okay?' asks a stranger (or someone I thought I knew)
'define, okay', I say, 'so I can tell'

my soul is watering through my eyes

the stranger embraces me
'happy valentine's day'
love is in the air

I look back
at the fumes arising
out of the ground
where my love story lay

will love ever die?
even to this day

(c) Rochelle Potkar

Muse

I have got the muse
Didn’t we all want one?
When we wrote our stuff

I have got him by the cuff
He has got me by the strings
(Winding on my neck)
Every inch he moves closer
my eyes turn in
Every inch he moves further
my color is thin

I’ve got the muse
He is the same one
From the shop
The mannequin in the dark
Which you could see only half

He is the same one
Who you would love
and love to forget

But now that he's yours
you have a price to pay
for his huge appetite
his trite
his spite
his uncaring delight

I have got him by his goat

He has got me by my heart

-r

jhootha, chappal...

jootha, chapal, insectman and light beings enlightened by their quest (on stage - Kala Ghoda)

jealousy

Seething, scathing I will be
when she touches you
with her smile

when her eyes light your heart
the warm red of your ears
when you hold her hand

Prickly drops of yearn
will rise out of my back
like an exodus of flame

and when you bite into her cheek
Her lip
Her jaw line
I would melt, morph
into steam

nights at kala ghoda

In the company of

Your absence
were that many philosophies
that many theories;
lessons of a lifetime
friendships that had to pass a certain test
(all put together)

your absence
needed that many words to mend
that much time
that much thought

and I want to forget you
be what I was before
because I never learnt
why you came
and if you came
what you brought

and now that you have gone
I do not understand if I am
less by love or
more by experience

Should I wear the ‘less by love’
as a handicap
or the ‘more by experience’
as an ornament

But one thing is for sure
that you remind me
of how I had left
a boy with dreams in his eyes
years earlier
across a college road
never to come back

He told me later
he took six months
to recover

my absence equaled
in many moments of memory
in many words from friends

probably that’s the same thing now
you have come to make me bleed
and show me the opportunity cost
of a love lost

- R