Godawful Poem #3: In which the sniffles take over

Sniffles,
like punctuation marks,
pepper my conversation.

Those who love me less
for being a stickler,
now detest the grotesque
nose-pickler.

It's far worse when I sneeze:
I feel like a stage artist,
suddenly naked,
everyone staring,
holding breath,
what will she say now,
will she embarrass her loved ones,
will she impress?

It's far worse when I sneeze:
Microphone in hand,
the first awkward 'hello',
a squeal from the mic,
people waiting, judging,
"today I will be singing..."
and the song is forgotten,
averted eyes,
poor woman, poor woman,
squirming and squeezing
the tissue in her hand.

Sniffles
are like the curtains opening
before a massive audience glares at you,
demanding their money's worth.

Now when I sneeze,
I imagine the audience is naked,
I imagine the spotlight is on them,
dimpled thighs and wrinkled breast.
The fantastic bark escapes my lips,
and I feel tall,
the sniffles that follow
are a raucous curtain call.

Inherited traits

She chopped vegetables by the window
for years,
watching her son grow.
The neighbours, his uncles, her lovers-
all the jigsaw bits of a father.

She chopped vegetables by the window
each day,
he grew taller and stronger and stranger,
in the image of his father,
forever earning, forever "abroad".

On the first day of his first job,
just for a moment nervous like the child,
he trembled at his mother.
Pulling a knot below his collar,
the stale scent of lavender sachets she put between clothes,
she looked into his eyes,
the eternal wall between them falling.
"You have your father's ties."

Godawful Poem #2: In which a muse appears

On most evenings when the ink runs dry,
I can explain why:
Poems are rarely of use
When there is no muse.

On such evenings, one appears in my head,
Of magnificent soul and passions that are red,
Of cruelty so attractive, and kindness like a drug,
With tears for a puppy, but for mankind just a shrug.

On these evenings, I steel my heart
I steel my heart, not steal my heart.
(Imagine the state of oneself,
If oneself were to fall for oneself!)

On these evenings, I steel my heart:
I turn away before I can start.
I put away the pen again,
Close the inkpot and count to ten.

A bad poem, even if factual
Is the result of a muse that is actual.
A good poem about an apparition
Is a lie, a farce, a kick in the shin.

Godawful Poetry Fortnight

Hello nears and dears!
Yes, I'm aliiiive. And it's Godawful Poetry Fortnight, which is right up my alley.
Here. Read about it. And 'attend the event' as they say on Facebook:


Here's my Godawful Poem #1

Poem #1

Some art is laboured like
learning to ride a bike,
some art is unforgivingly fun
like squeezing a bullet out of a gun.

I know how to ride a bicycle-
it's something you'll never forget;
but the gun-toting abominable
I'll never ever get.

Some art is weird, for example
a portrait of a stool sample.
But my heart in rooted in the thrill
of writing poetry made of swill.

Matrimonial

Twenty- eight year old Brahmin girl,
having been stripped of most of her religion
and almost all her dignity thereafter,
seeks
super-religious youthinAsia
of any faith, as long as he has it.
You can be antiabortion, antifeminist,
antiapartheid, anticolonialist, antisemicolonialist,
anti-climax (God forbid).
But remember this as we grow old:
If you love me well enough,
then kill me when I’m ill enough.

Word Ogres

I mix up words all the time.
Got thrown out of English class
for saying "accomplice" out loud.
while the girl in my head cried,
"Companion! Companion!"

Completely dyslexic
in the order of numbers while calling a lover,
the cacophony of cries while running for cover,
while quoting from poems, befuddled, I hover.
Completely dicklessic.
Like the friend who said he had penis ennui.

I limp through words,
lisp through life,
freeze over fricatives;
my diphthongs take lives.

When I bick the kucket,
having accidentally come in contact with a double-edged words,
they will berry my bones,
curry my poems,
write on my gravestone:
"Anoopa Anand. Born with a silver spoonerism in her mouth."

The number you are trying to reach is busy

The new world
with its weird wireless ways
has taken the zing out of friendships, relationships, romance.

On meeting a boy,
his dimples plugged into your brain
like a shiny new i-Pod,
the memory of his five o'clock shadow colours everything,
and you realise you can't call him at all.
So you text him.

Text.
A word stripped of context,
having lost its glory in academia
over smart kids, drunken nights, bad sex.
Where is the literature,
the verbal prowess,
the confidence,
the dramatic beginning of silver screen romance
in "it wuz nic 2 meet u. c u soon. tc."
And so in the bravado of badly written words,
he will say things,
you will say things.

The second date is on e-mail.
Do you dare to spell right,
to punctuate,
to use the evasive sentence case?
Do you dare,
when you are building castles in the air
and the man next to you in the internet parlour
has discovered breasts in his vicinity?
You don't.

But the e-mails go so well,
he is so witty, so pretty,
you can't wait for what's next.
GTalk friends, Facebook friends,
common friends, friends of friends.

And somewhere in the frenzy of an electronic world,
where a power cut could announce the end of a relationship,
you glance left at a little column below his Photoshopped picture.

This
is
how
you
find
out
he's
In A Relationship.

Even a fling these days is devoid
of the delicious
eyes-meeting, hands-grazing, lips-smacking.
Even a fling
is a long-distance thing
played out in Twitter updates and status updates and no dates whatsoever.

Thank god you never got around to calling him.
The number you are trying to reach is busy.
Please hold the line, or try again later.

Neevu dial maadiruva number saddhyakke kaaryaniruthavaagide.
Dayavittu swalpa samayada nantara prayatnisi.

For Christmas
I want a real boy without a cell phone.
Not Pinocchio with his long
thick
hard
nose.