317 Watch My Baby Die in Space
a hundred megatons of lead, it’s floating out there, near the International Space Station - where vyomonauts are trapped by hip-hop beats booming out of broken black-boxes. but there’s no sound to be heard: and that’s their curse. signals, they reveal a spaceship on the map - and it’s mine, i know - sailing through terra-incognita, while i try to make sense of this beautiful flower that rots upon my touch.
salt and pepper dressings - on eggs in her womb - they’re boiling with hate, with love for father who’ll exist the moment they’re born. a silent bird sings at dawn, while i watch from the hull, hands dissolving to nothing. cuz 30 days have passed and the gates are open - and pulse-beams, they’re surging through the ship, emerging from a secret location in my head.
the walls crumble and i want to go back, but this baby giant won’t let me, crying dollops of rain, wailing - let her go! don’t let her go! but too late cuz she’s married now, to a man thrice her age and ketchup stains on their wedding night proved she was pure - and oh so delicate.
sunrise and the playground’s full of kind fathers who rock screaming babies in cribs while mothers crush their heads with bloody rocks. it’s a new reality show called Watch My Baby Die in Space and the folks back home can’t understand why they can’t stop watching.
316 faces in the dark
claims, they’re forgotten and the machine is churning out poison-nectar for the masses to consume to their heart’s content - some will soar, others will commit suicide, he says from behind a huge oak desk. vision monster, he’s creating fruit juice packs, deo-cans, trippy umbrellas, silver wheels and armpit scissors for all of us, too busy looking for a way to spend that surplus.
no time now, to move to the edge-stage that stands deserted, in this desolate city we’re looking around, hoping something’s gonna show up. he’s a million dollar man, playing a non-sum game where there’s no winners - only losers, the unluckies and the stupids falling down down down into his billion faces, merging - it’s not me. not me. just an amalgam of faces in the dark.
315 lovebirds
something in the haystack, it’s not a needle but a blue bazooka that shoots out shards of ice for people already blinded by the light. they’re nuts those who try to fathom the nature of the stock market, failing to anticipate the momentum of their gesticulations. sweaty armpits on a summer day and chubby women, they strut about scratching panty-lines: and he’s got rashes on the insides of his thighs cuz humidity a double curse that comes with heat and hormones.
fruits are who we are, hanging upside down from tropical trees, swaying in the breeze, gently, like how mother rocked us. and it’s all about remote accessibility - to those centers that lie long forgotten in grooves you’ve been meaning to define. mumblings in the morning and lovebirds unite cuz they can’t stay without each other in a cage or in flight. and i’m walking around this cityscape in a daze wondering where she’ll take me next.
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hi folks, just did a studio recording of keep moving - check it out! demo version.
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314 women in black
there’s no time to wait, nothing to be done in this intestinal maze, all dark and rancid - he’s waiting to eat you, to pull you into black pits of depression. they’re raging wars of misunderstanding, singing yesterday-anthems and gleaming in the golden light of history but today’s another time, a clap of thunder gone in an instant - and fleeting those memories i try to hold on to as i rush on forward, hoping something’s gonna happen now.
but too late they say, laughing in glee, those beautiful angels, with full breasts and luscious lips - too late, for then was your time. and their eyes turn red and they swirl in the storm that strikes the shores of my perception with a deafening roar. i’m falling into spirals of vengeance and vision-pools - down down down - like icarus the fool, he’s only concerned about numbers and UIDs to categorize us into mute columns, demographically divided for extreme control.
the lust train is infested with roaches, flies and the unmistakable stench of the spirit of mankind - they’re fighting, pushing and the women-in-black they’re striking out at eve teasers with crackling tazers and i’m trying to ignore it all, looking out the window and reminding myself it’s just another day in this machine: and i can turn it off forever, if i choose to.
313 price
disillusioned in the machine and interest rates are rising, the common man is sinking - in pits of logic. defend your post, don’t let them take your territory given to you by fathers of yore who were - too kind too pure - to snatch it away from the weak - no!
minority’s in trouble cuz they’ve got a raw-deal and now they’re moving up in that churning chichi of aggression that binds us all as one species, cooking over the same old fire. the doors are banging and cows are flying, it’s cyclone season and i’ve got 2000 trees dead in my name. never kill another - he’s your brother born of your mother in another lifetime when you were a saint - or a raving lunatic frothing at the mouth.
judgement day when you’re dead and anthropomorphic gods, they make you run through tall corridors for appropriate papers to get that golden ticket to heaven. but if you know how to cut corners in this world there’s no reason why you won’t be able to bypass the trial with bhagwan. and maybe you can seduce him with the twinkle in your eyes: after all, everyone has a price.
312 urban machinery
Good morning says the bird cooing, it’s a koel and i’m sitting on a cool verandah, shaking a leg to keep the flies off. It’s hot here at ten in the morning and the visitors, artists and coolies are all walking about. There’s things to do i’m sure but i’m still waiting for my aaloo paratha that i’ve noticed is served with chunks of butter.
Ms DALDA P. 517 MB
8339 SM 14312.
Moradabad - the biggest junction in UP apparently. An old lady with thick black specs looking at me while a trolley-wallah is pushing a rattly trolley, probably to pick up veggies for the afternoon meal. Khaki cop with walkie-talkie on his hip he’s pushing fat passangers around saying train’s on time so get a move on.
BAITH JA! RES CHART
NR 30050 and Co. Ltd.
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She asks her husband: bachche ikattha ho gaye? while the fans are humming on the ceiling of this 2nd class chair car at 16:21 hours in the peak of delhi summer. Train patris click clacking as we gradually pick up pace; i’m at the window seat, on my way to find out who these people are, those who look for escape routes not realizing it’s an exercise in futility.
IL 624 19631 WSD4
THANDA BOTAL! PAANI BOTAL!
Laal kila in the distance and in here the heat is getting to some. He fidgets next to me scratching nail on nail and the metal bridge over the yamuna rattles and hisses like urban machinery forever on a loop.
311 fumbling
Strategy was to go back home to check on the people who were reportedly swaying like grasses in the breeze, but no: they weren’t green. They were red like paan-stains in the corner of the mouth or a nosebleed i had when i fell off the slide as a kid. A few years later and my legs have become crocodile jaws - with a snapping maw i’m running this senseless race to the top of something.
Of course nobody notices, they’re too busy powdering noses, spraying perfume and beating fists on bus windows shouting: Get me out! Get me out! No trouble really once I figure no one’s interested cuz a whole lot of space now to walk in circles, talking to myself, making booger balls and chomping them up with satisfaction. It’s salty like the ocean where crabs skitter sideways and i spend my last days with once-upon-a-girlfriend. it’s all over cuz it’s dead that flame or the heartbeat or the pussy.
Who knows: but i knew then. Of course it took a year for contract to end cuz oscillation periods they stretch imagination, like pretty-kids in movies who teach us all we know and porn on the comp: avoid fumbling in the dark.
