The Clown

When I was a lad
There came a circus in town
Acrobats and a juggler
Midgets and a magician
Lions and a clown…
I went with my folks
Oh, what a show
I wanted more

With friends, I sneaked in
On a packed Friday night
This time the clown
Picked me
Funny tricks he played on me
Poked fun of me
He performed each show
A routine of his
I knew the drill

Finally, the clown turns the prank on himself
His final act
He howled and cried
Beat his chest
Audience cracked up
The roars of laughter faraway
And the clown in tears
Next to me…

Lights fade out
End of show.

The Printer

This man works at a printing press at the other end of the doorway for over 41 years. He scrupulously places single sheet of blank paper one after another on the 62-year-old machine, that can still print 1000 copies in an hour, the owner said proudly but this man does 400. Time has worn him out and the owner is cool about it.
“Why not change?” I asked
“Why change family tradition? Definitely not for money”

Letterpress printing.

Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing using a printing press. A worker composes and locks movable type into the bed of a press, inks it, and presses paper against it to transfer the ink from the type.
In practice, letterpress also includes other forms of relief printing with printing presses, such as wood engravings, photo-etched zinc “cuts” (plates), and linoleum blocks, which can be used alongside metal type in a single operation, as well as stereotypes and electrotypes of type and blocks.[1] With certain letterpress units it is also possible to join movable type with slugs cast using hot metal typesetting.
Letterpress printing was the normal form of printing text from its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century until the 19th century and remained in wide use for books and other uses until the second half of the 20th century. Letterpress printing remained the primary way to print and distribute information until the twentieth century, when offset printing was developed, which largely supplanted its role in printing books and newspapers. More recently, letterpress printing has seen a revival in an artisanal form. (Source : Wikipedia)

No. 5

fly in my room
whirring buzzing…
my unsteady eyes
chasing the
Hungarian dance

night was sombre
whisky bought me sleep
and the sly fly was smooth
on me
like bourbon

The Salad Guy

It took a couple of seconds but then it struck me in a flash. I was driving at a speed of 70 on a remote state highway passing through the outskirts of a tiny Indian village.

I backed my car, went over, asked him to cut me a fresh bowl. “Dude, you’ve styled your hair?!”

“Brylcreem” He snorted “By the way, Mister, there ain’t much left on your head” (That’s the picture moment)

“Ahem…I’m a writer”

“Quit it. I love to chop but in a restaurant kitchen, the oven heat and closed room messes my hair. So I’m here in the open. Got it?”

Word

Met her outside a temple, serves water for free, smiles if you tip, I asked her “Do you believe god exists?”
She said, the word “God” exists, so it must be.

Pulp Romance

She hesitantly walked towards me
Smiled.
I burped “Hello”

My hair jazzed
My toes curled
My breath uneven choked
A redhead in front of me

Her perfume had struck hard upon my tarred lungs
I could feel her breath on my left hand ring finger
A lucky omen for an old surviving poet

I didn’t notice her hand
Slip into her soft brown handbag
But I sure did, when a .38
Emerge out blatant
Before I could think
She fired…

My eyes and nose resemble Russians
My ears have a Jewish noise
But I don’t look a pilot capable of flying

I wondered many a times
About my final eventuality.
A gunshot?!

I never aspired to be a politician
Assassinated, accused, of flirting with Monroe
During office hours behind the office
Clinton though survived
That’s unusual

I never cared much about men in uniform
Martyr my life, that’s not my kind of shit
Soldiers die in numbers, names don’t matter

The trigger in act and blood spurting out of my belly
I timed : .00002375 seconds
I ALWAYS WEAR A STOP WATCH.

Blame Casio
Blame the Japanese
They stop-watched Pearl Harbor
And later devastated by the mushroom war
They strictly focused on
Small cars and Walkman

I’m dying, right!
Just before I was to drop dead
She punched struck kung fu
Her fingers sneered through my ribs
And pulled my heart out
My small little tender heart
Reminded me of the healthy heart print
On sunflower oil brands
My eyes were in tears
My claims of an innocent, humble, adorable heart
Needed no more better evidence
It had survived all the abuses
The mean world had hurled at me

Oh, my poor heart
Foolishly throbbing on hope
For love
For me
For thee

This is worse than being Othello
I never had met this bitch before
It could’ve been a case of mistaken identity
I ain’t famous nor am I dating a beauty pageant
I never got involved with a lesbian
Make her bitch envy me
I hardly curse unless
I have to call a bitch, a bitch
I never had met this bitch before
Why me?

Alas, there I was, lying in my Budweiser pool
Budweiser did pay me handsome
Endorsed my poems
They send me a day shift maid to get my house cleaned
Poor old lady fainted
She couldn’t deal with my dump collected over a week
Flush didn’t work and my landlady didn’t care
It was my dump and I wasn’t going to disown it
So three cheers to Budweiser
Pool of blood

Right, I am dying
Redhead pressed the knob of her watch
She vanished
Blurred images…
Followed by a star shaped, crimson flash
Black screen.

I faded in gently
lying on a large soft bed
In a palatial room
Head resting on a large black satin pillow
I gasped, sprung up
Facing a mirror, facing me
I looked a model
A handsome young model
Just like the ones in contraceptive commercials

Beethoven’s fifth symphony emerged in surround
I winked in disbelief
Digital bar lines appeared
Dancing in tandem with his composition
I winked again
Redhead star trekked through the bar lines
Her clothes tore in rhythm
With Beethoven’s conducting hands

Naked, she stepped closer to me
I grabbed her
She kissed me
Her tongue snaked wild with mine
I was living a fantasy I had never fantasized before
My fantasies are modest unlike me.
They never dare surpass the road side hookers.

She spread her legs
Inviting me to her world
“I am Eros, the God of Love, the poster boy of the 155th edition of Kama sutra
The contraceptive super model”
I slipped in
Her palms opened wide
Creating a hurricane of rose petals
Rising from the middle of her palm
But then I paused

In shivers
Guilty, I paused
I’m unworthy of love
I’ve killed the most beautiful moment
A moment of love destroyed in a moment
By my sexual act
“I’m a perverse, self-indulgent moron
Hang me for I deserve none but a painful death”
I pleaded.
She smiled, engulfed me in her soft arms
“In resides you an innocent heart. let him free for he deserves no
more pain but love”

My heart sank, speechless
Beethoven paused to silence
I looked up the hollow ceiling
Stars turned off their lights
Candles in million
Lit up in the sky
I surrendered to his voice silent

In symphony
We resumed in orgasmic trance
She moaned, her soft hands pressed my arms white
Blood gushed from my skin pores
It was a sight, a fountain spring red…

I rocked her, I rolled her
My bones cracked open
My fingers dropped off me
And punched the invisible piano
Stroking the notes in madness

She moaned in multiples
She moaned so loud
Disrupting the sync
She had slipped into her own glory
Forgetting she was to nurse my heart
My heart
Puffed out
Youth worn dry
Fuck the sunflower oil brands
Fuck my poems, my drunken nights
Fuck Beethoven and his symphony
I looked up
There were no more candles
Fuck the stars
Clouds hovered in herd
I gave way
to her multiples…

My heart couldn’t bear no more
Ashamed, pained, aghast,
My heart pleaded for death
And there appeared a sharp knife
Floating in the air
I gave way
To my heart, for one more time
The last time

tête-à-tête

She walks down the street
every evening at 5 sharp
I stood at different spots, rather posed
But her foxy eyes never acknowledged me
That drove me mad, so mad
One day, I blocked her way
and said “Why don’t ya look at me?”
She frowned “silly bear”
And walked away…

Later that night
I remembered
A girl in 4th grade
Called me – silly bear
She asked me to open the cap of her pen
I broke the pen into two and gave it back

Magnolia

Step by step
I traced backwards
My life in question
What would I like to change?

I hit a firewall right at start
I’m going through a bad patch, you see..

So I let my mind wander
Dig in the past, random
Moments of joy, mind reported
Are bleak and unworthy
But not the times
I sunk low
Apparently morbid, I didn’t deserve it

Can I get a drink please?
Thank you dear

Stuff I wish never happened to me
So many, which one do I pick?
But consider this, if I change any one
Alters following events in my life
There’ll be new memories…

“Stop” screamed my heart
“I’m hurt too much for new hurts…
Give it up
Just let it be
We’ll be fine…have faith
I got you and you got me”

Purple

In a deli
one cup of coffee
two hours
waited for this day
wasted, I stepped out

it was pouring
no cabs in sight
empty faces on the porch
and the orchestra just won’t stop

“I need a cab”
valet barely smiled
he’s never seen me alone
but this time

he returned in a while
my rescue in sight
took me under his umbrella
“don’t tell him your destination
just step inside
and he can’t refuse”
common sense, now i realize

I got in the cab
my hand reached out to his
from the window glass, half down
two bills
he took one as usual
“get going”
my cry for redemption
is a hoax
“next time”
he said with a broad smile

I rolled the glass
hazel rain drops race
I got home dry, not quite

The Guard

queen in her isolate room
her waning life, capsuled
been long, she stepped out

pictures of her vernal bliss
framed to calm her fading sight
mirrors condemned
queen scorned
they are mean

Man on the door
trades her world…
his watchful eyes
on the young queen
strolling in the palace gardens
first day of his job
since then…

she knew it all along
but prefers the sanity
of unspoken madness
Her antsy heart, pounds
for a trivial reason
and he awaits
outside her walls, uptight
“when will you call?”