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is full of

  seas rivers

  trees humans

  and air.

  words make

  life

  words make

  love

  words make

  language

  words make

  poetry

  words make

  lifebreath

  words make

  tears

  words make

  the milky way

  words make

  sex

  words make

  friendship fear affection belief betrayal

  hunger starvation murder blood suicide flesh

  phlegm jealousy pus sacrifice chastity lust pain

  seduction ardor wisdom joy ecstasy

  sorrow madness illusion art war philosophy

  light knowledge beauty darkness sky

  words make

  the voice

  words make

  the nipple

  words make

  the thin line of hairs drawn down from the navel

  impassioned wet lips

  green veins in the eye

  ass spit forehead eyebrow cheek

  cum-taste hair eye-gunk

  shoulder thigh mole armpit tip of the nose lines

  of the palm curve of the waist back earlobe

  ankle dimple finger wrist

  foot nape of the neck

  words make words make

  words make

  words make

  the

  Word

  outside my window there is no ocean there are no stars there are no clouds there is only the silent cemetery overflowing with nothingness the plant i bought you as a gift hoping you would visit on my birthday told me that my name is inscribed on a headstone there in the cemetery and then the plant died i keep watering it over and over trying to revive it as the leaves drop off i continue to water it i am obsessively watering a dead plant my friend laughs my life is vacillating between death and madness my eyes are searching through the window bars for the headstone with my name on it…

  On the porch under the tiled roof

  of the house scarred by tradition,

  a large

  green frog

  sat glaring at him.

  He tried to wave it away

  but that stupid frog

  could not understand his sign language.

  He trapped it

  under a plastic mug.

  Is the frog aware,

  as it hops up and down

  inside the mug,

  that the man has killed two serpents?

  That a third serpent escaped, wounded,

  and is even now seeking

  its vengeance?

  A TRAVELER MEET

  THE PRINCESS OF THE SHADOWS

  In the market

  at the edge of time,

  a traveler asked the multi-shadowed

  Little Princess,

  “Give me a shadow.”

  “There are many shadows.

  Pick the shadow

  that suits you,”

  the Little Princess said

  with a smile.

  “I want a shadow

  that has the fragrance of your hand,”

  begged the stranger.

  “What does a traveler want

  with a corporeal identity,

  a memory’s fury?”

  asked the Little Princess.

  “As soon as I answer that question,

  my journey will come to an end,”

  pleaded the stranger,

  “and until then,

  I need a likeness of your shadow.”

  “You’ll have to explain that

  to the original,”

  said the Little Princess,

  wringing her hands.

  “The music you love,

  the poem you love,

  the flower you love,

  the friend you love—

  you can never explain

  to the originals of all these things:

  your space,

  your time,

  your air,

  your life,

  make the essence of love,”

  said Chamundi.

  He gave her

  music cassettes

  and sweetmeats.

  Hearing a tinkling laughter,

  he said humbly,

  “Clamoring

  meaningless

  obese

  words

  are all I can offer,

  my Little Princess.

  Can nothingness

  offer plentitude?

  Can flesh

  offer the cosmos?”

  To him who did not

  comprehend the act of giving,

  Chamundi said:

  “Give her

  your dreams,

  your tears,

  your smile,

  your silence,

  your self.”

  You are the witch

  who has cast me

  into nothingness.

  You, floating

  down a stream as a twig,

  are transfiguring me as well.

  Now—

  “Extreme love will kill you,”

  you said, “Do not follow me.”

  I’m a man who cries torrents

  over a dead plant;

  you have overwhelmed me.

  “Don’t you love me?”

  I asked.

  “No,”

  your voice said.

  “Can you look into my eyes

  and say that?”

  With no reply

  but a sob

  you vanished

  into the mirror.

  Not knowing how to

  liberate you from

  the glass,

  my ears rent

  by your silent screams,

  I tried to withdraw

  into a long stretch of loneliness

  away from the memories of you

  I tried to withdraw

  into the smell of my solitutde

  As I set off,

  my nerves shuddered

  my veins

  exploded

  the pain seeped

  into the center of my bones.

  How can I be separate

  from you,

  having lost myself

  in your black iris?

  In the vast universe

  floating molecules

  collide

  somewhere in spacetime.

  On a bench

  in a deserted train station

  you sit alone.

  I sit on the next bench

  writing a poem.

  Our eyes meet;

  you show no recognition.

  You rise,

  walk to the edge of the platform,

  and return to sit.

  Why are you so tense?

  This waiting…

  You can’t complete the thought.

  You don’t even know

  why you are waiting.

  The poem,

  the waiting,

  the tension

  go on.

  Turning a poem into reality,

  reality into a dream;

  is this real?

  Or is it real’s shadow?

  A shadow’s dream?

  A dream’s poem?

  Huddled

  in my burrow

  drowning between

  sleep and sleeplessness

  Yanni’s music

/>   brings me to the surface

  A little boy

  sits on a porch at noon

  A woman’s corpse

  lies there still kissing her lover

  A child’s anklet

  lies alone

  like a crescent

  in a starless sky

  Eyes stare blankly

  out of a shattered face

  Somewhere, a dog howls

  Dried blood on the path

  “Hook

  your time

  in your poetry,”

  mocks the Little Princess’s voice

  Is it possible to capture

  time in a poem?

  The living dead

  wander the Earth aimlessly’

  I stand shocked

  staring at

  the headless body’s

  erect penis;

  remembering the angry hordes of feminists

  out to castrate

  poets who dare to valorise love,

  I run

  and bury myself

  beneath the Little Princess’s footsteps.

  Pretending that

  her breath is still lingering

  in that dead space,

  I begin to search.

  From amongst the corpses

  crawls out

  a weeping child.

  NOTES FROM THE SPHERE

  OF DARKNESS

  On that day

  a mute soothsayer

  mimed,

  You claim

  you deny yourself, and your words

  but

  you

  who claim

  poetry is dead

  will someday

  live in

  those poems.

  He gave no reasons.

  Today

  if I say

  it is my life and blood

  that becomes the poem,

  you will laugh at me:

  “Do not kill me with

  your withered words.”

  What is it then,

  that fills my emptiness

  and pens the poem?

  Is it your silence?

  Your writing?

  Your eyes

  widening in surprise?

  Currents flowing from

  your enigmatic memory?

  Are you really you?

  Or are you Chamundi?

  Or are you an intangible

  mystical symbol?

  Don’t just dismiss this

  as a madman’s rambling.

  With my poem

  I am postponing my death.

  TRIALS

  In my previous birth you were my lover

  before that you were my mother

  and even before that you were my sister.

  Before everything, you were

  my Chamundi, my God

  and before that before that

  before that

  for ages and ages, I have loved you.

  You promised me that in your next birth

  you would be my daughter.

  I trusted in you

  I spoke to the stars

  about my daughter-to-be-born,

  and to the moon, too.

  I imagined that I carried you piggyback

  and wandered the forests.

  I dreamt that you whispered in my ears,

  “Carrying me will strengthen your back.”

  In the horrific game of nature

  even as you were born

  you lost your breath and lay dead

  I kissed your curled fingers,

  slit my body with shards of glass

  I bathed you with my streaming blood

  I plucked out my single eye

  and tucked it into your curled palm

  The ancestors’ voices screamed at me—

  You may have been born dead,

  but

  before I lower you

  back into the Earth’s womb

  I must give you a name,

  they said.

  Startled, I wondered:

  What do I name you?

  I pondered and puzzled

  God, as She passed by, said

  your name was Genesis

  Genny Genny Genny Genny

  Genny Genny Genny Genny

  Genny

  I kissed you from head to toe

  and sobbed.

  Won’t you part those coral lips

  and call out my name?

  Open those lotus eyes

  and look at me?

  Extend those delicate feet

  and kick me?

  Your warm touch

  the taste of those lips

  grabs my memory

  I howl with pain

  Expression

  that filled the vacuum

  of the dead

  turned his muscles

  to poem

  and then froze

  into silent rock.

  Centuries of pain

  were living inside

  the rock

  as curried fire.

  The language of the void

  putrefied

  and from the rotting eyes

  a poem oozed out.

  Standing at the edge

  of death

  with the scorpion clinging to his stomach

  He plucked out his single eye

  and flung it

  The rock exploded into

  smithereens

  The augur, travelling

  through the mountains on a train

  in the dark, said

  “She

  was the offering

  God loaned to the world.”

  Shakthi was nothingness

  in the void.

  Unable to bear

  the burden of the emptiness,

  to relieve

  her pain,

  She created

  the cosmos and the atom

  planets

  galaxies

  fire

  water

  air

  earth and flowers

  forests and deserts

  birds and beasts

  all these

  and many more

  Shakthi created.

  She roamed the forests, but then,

  feeling alone, sat on the seashore

  and called down the stars

  for company.

  The barren desert

  was violently desolate.

  Neither knowledge nor unknowledge

  was of any help—

  She created man.

  With him

  again She roamed

  the forests.

  By the sea

  on the shore

  She sat with him

  and pointed out the stars

  Tiring of the meaningless

  company of mortal flesh,

  She returned to the forest.

  Two serpents

  coiled in copulation

  entwined in pleasure

  The universe trembled

  She wondered

  was this an apocalyptic storm

  a cosmic dance

  or a divine drama

  Comprehending the barrenness

  of the desert

  She beckoned the man

  Come, have sex with me,

  Entwine your body with mine.

  Scared,

  the man refused


  Weary Shakthi

  Created a second man

  and summoned him,

  told him the story of the serpent.

  Come, have sex with me,

  Entwine your body with mine.

  He too refused

  petrified with fear

  She created

  a third man

  Even he refused and

  ran away

  Shakthi withdrew

  hating her loneliness

  The third man told

  the first:

  Shakthi,

  All-Powerful,

  Creator, Protector, Destroyer,

  Let’s fuck her

  Appropriate her powers

  Neutralize her!

  Thus by treacherous sex Shakthi’s

  powers were stolen

  Creation, Protection, Destruction

  The three men divided

  the chores amongst themselves

  Tired, they returned

  to ask Shakthi,

  “Where’s my chapathi?”

  FEBRUARY 4TH

  This day is a special day

  for it was today

  God gifted this world the Little Princess.

  The forest-dweller, having nothing to offer

  either the known or the unknown,

  asked the moon

  “Do I have anything

  I can give the Little Princess?”

  “Don’t play with her temper,”

  warned the moon.

  “Warnings are meant to be

  disregarded,”

  murmured the forest-dweller.

  Here

  this day

  this moment

  this object

  is not the abstraction

  of any particular.

  Awesome and pure

  is the dust

  touched by your feet.

  35

  IS THIS REALLY A NOVEL, or merely a bunch of notes thrown together intoabook? Nano, Muniyandi, Surya, Misra, Ninth-Century-A.D.-Dead-Brain, Thayumanavan, Genesis, Neena, Shireen, Avanthika, Fuckrunissa, Aarthi, Kottikuppan, Anandhasami, Thirumalai, The Honorable Tamil Writer, Monica, Deepthi, Kavitha… is this just a list of random names? From among the scattered sheaves of paper, the imaginary character Nano asked Muniyandi, Did you create me just so that posterity would have some record of your existence? In his memory the past never leaves a trace, and there is no clue about the future. He is constantly at time zero; this zero time is traveling on a line made of uncountably many points, as an imaginary point. You have read all these pages patiently; at this moment, while you are still my reader, I am trekking across the snowy Himalayas. I am leaving you. Since I have emotionally detached myself, leaving you is not sorrowful. What else can I do? Please, go ahead and search for meaning in the host of words scattered in these pages. I try to bring it to a close, but the words keep endlessly pouring out. Our conversation may end here or be followed by an ellipsis or