Poetry From Bombay - Volume 1

The worst day of your life is

The day

You realise

That you are not a genius

And nothing close to one.

You sit in this little room in a cheap hotel

With the lights off

And your laptop spread out in front of you

All wired out and lonely, just like you

You pour the last drop of beer

And bite the last bit of whatever you have

As some asshole in the room next to you –

Mind you, a loser, no less than you

And a rebel, no more than you –

He/she/it – gazes straight at his/her/its teevee and its blurts out loud

And he/she/it is watching and gaping at the same shit that

Will never happen to his/her/its life, namely, a movie

Where the rich girl lets a poor guy struggle for her,

Prove to her and to the whole world

That he’s a hero, a superman, The One -

And so she marries him and lets him screw her whenever he wishes to –

(Of course, the screwing part is implied)

Whatever. The poor asshole guzzling this shit down

Knows that this will never happen to him

And yet he/she/it watches the rot.

And he/she/it rots

Every day, melts away

And no one remembers the misery

Of being

Of the other.

I’ve never met a genius, a prophet or anything like that

All the boarders here,

And all the people i meet

Are made of the same shit

And will rot away all the same

You know it, and so do i.

But the worst day

Is when

You know

That you are no better

Than just this –

A being that eats from his/her/its mouth

And shits (and farts too) from his/her/its anus

And spends the rest of the day to gather sufficient resources to indulge in

All these activities, and in a few others,

Such as sleeping, fucking, being the other one

And not The One.

And you are stuck. Here.

Right in here. And so am I.

..............................................

I have noticed

That the majority of life

Comprises of waiting.

And I suck at this

And so do you

So let’s drink to that.

...................................................

From inside my room

I can’t communicate with the world

No internet, the phone’s fucked up

So it’s like this ancient cave

The only difference being

That i can’t look at the stars rolling out their dumb prophesies

If i go out

Because the moment i step outside

Its people and mannequins and waves and everything which

I can’t communicate with.

........................................................

So I went out with this broad

And we checked into this hotel

We fucked and we sucked

And when it was over

She got dressed. She looked out of the window.

And she said “the sun’s rising”

I was hard. I heard her.

And my thing went down

And the sun rose.

......................................................

I’m sorry

I couldn’t send you my half-baked revolution

Like i would have liked to

I couldn’t wear my hat

Or climb mount everest like

You have wished me to

So i smile the sad smile of failure

Like i have seen my father smile

When he couldn’t afford mutton on Sunday mornings

And had to settle for chicken

I have practiced that smile so many times

That its reflex action to me now

And i settle for

Compromises

Instead of the revolution.

......................................................................

You have never lived until

The moon breaks you down

And you see your mother in the flames

And the stars speak to you

And the stars speak to you.

And you have never lived

Until you feel your guts

Clotting up in blood and shit

Inside you. You feel, and you think

And you chase the dogs to horizons

Until that time

You have never lived.

..............................................

Real steel comes to you

In flood

And in murderous fits of rage

And i wonder about life and death

Knowing, and fully aware

That i have neither.

So,

I trust the flood

It brings honey and mirth

And when

And when

It’s all over

It’s time for the wolves to bite their teeth in

And solitude bleeds from the constricted heavens

You know of. With things getting easy

And priests, in their white robes

Robbing the horizon

Of its sprightly contours

Real steel comes to you

In waves that floods the numbers

In waves that hide the truth

And in completion of marks of silence

And so, you wait

For the gates to open, and for the fangs to glisten

In dreams.

.....................................................

Is the tide too high?

Switch the lights off

Let the cigars burn their tips out

In the reddish haze of dreams

I wade through the murk

And i dream of Indian nights

By Turkish lights of fire

And all the claptraps of professional efficacy

And calculated romance

That i live through

I can’t leave

And i can’t love

And that’s the truth of triumph

Which the multitudes pass through

As each day

And each night

Speaking of attainment

Through mediocrity and bullcrap.

...................................................................................

The angels exist

In nothingness

As they hope

That the humans

Could do the same.

The angels have seen the ocean

And they wish

That the humans were

Fast enough

To catch up with them.

As the humans exist

In bubbles and rainbows

And build up stuff

Such as empires and civilizations

Between the first fuck and the next

And then, it’s time for the jokers

To undo

Whatever. And clap the moon

Going down

With the stars

As whores gather by the froth that smells like

The best fragrance you’ve ever sniffed

Before it’s done

And then like shit

once it’s done.

And all that shine

attract the passersby.

And horses ride

And doves fly

And you feel too inconsequential

To be true

To the fact

That you too can live and get

Half of all you want

If not more.

Ah, for the Angels

Their life is truer than that of the priests

As we profit from our follies

And little drops of dew

Gather by lips

We had never kissed

Because we feared

Life

And loathed

Living.

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