circa 2002

First Degree

A creature of my own making murdered me today
It took a sharp knife made entirely of regrets
And sunk it deep into the soft cushion of my soul
Twisting it till i screamed silently for mercy.

Silently, for if i had made a sound, any sound,
The cut might have bled all over my defenses
Darkening the colour of my dejection
To a shade reminiscent of death.

The creature was bright and happy once:
It bred cheer of a hopeful kind into what i loosely term my life
But which is more a random collection of souvenirs
From calendars and days when you were mine

And now, the creature, dismayed at its descent into a vile world
Where beaches littered with the flotsam and jetsam of sadness
Gave way to lagoons and inlets of fear,
Struggled, mutated, gave up on itself, and resorted to homicide.

boobwatch, 2001

Boobwatch Boobwatch

 

The small breast performs a lowly function.

When not lactating,

It serves to remind us of our shortcomings in the sex bomb department

 

My flatness

Confuses my audience into thinking I must be bright

My little mosquito bites

Itch, pushing me to buy that wonderbra;

My undeveloped pectorals

Send me in search of a silicon workout.

 

I dream more often, and more consistently 

Of cleavage and Pamela Anderson,

Than does my adolescent sibling

Tossing among wetted sheets.

At least he has an excuse.

 

My boyfriend attempts to cheer me up

‘more than a handful’s wasted’, he says,

with one eye on my inspirational poster of madhuri on the wall

and I bend back to my task of pleasing him,

in the only way I know how.

 

There must be a happy ending to my tale of too little

Some form of self assurance

Some post-modern-feminist statement that makes everything ok…

 

Germaine Greer, where are you now?

poems circa 2000

1
the naked streets
are as long as my memories
their human razai
banished to the linen cupboard of time...
the pain of severance
begs on the footpath
for a morsel of relief that i cannot give-
starved as i am
of what passes off as emotion
and what is, really
fear...
fear has no colour,
i read somewhere once-
a child had written that on a bright piece of paper
with the drawing of a big yellow sun
dominating:
but the colour of fear is painted on my heart
the brush a fine steel icicle
of terror-
technicoloured shivers
send my soul scurrying down empty roads
to places in my head that remember you


2
the dark undertones
of my hand-painted hallucinations
colour the reason
i thought i was mistress of-
playing a demented kind of holi,
soaking me in the liquid
of confusion-
(which, surprisingly, wasn't as cold
as my fevered imagination
demanded it should be..)
the dye hasn't quite sunk in, yet;
the permanence of my obsession
multi-hued, lingers,
staining the periphery of my consciousness

3
the dance of your personality
captivated me
its choreographer, even more so:
your eyes flashed abhinaya at me
all eight rasas in one long look
the slap of your feet on the mosaic-tiled floor
sent sensuous telegrams
up my quivering spine;
your sinuous inflection
was my dramatic downfall.
yet i did not resist the graceful curve
your passion created on the stage of my senses
instead, i welcomed (from the wings), with a mudra of acceptance
your utter hold over me

4
and now,
i crumble at the chorus of your memories
my song a sad refrain of rejection
a tuneless hum that never quite reaches your pitch...
the convulsive tones of despair
sever my connections with sanity...
why does your music
touch my senses like this?
it seems so unfair
that the harmony of you and me
is reduced to a rhyme in a child's nursery book:
so I slip between envelope-like sheets,
and softly breathing a lullaby of hope,
mail myself off to sleep