anonymous
Ashok Niyogi
With myopic vision
I see you tree
Weeping willow
With a small Chinese boy’s hair-cut
This is not my religion anymore
I started
Without pinning the fundamentals to the ground
My knowledge of history is not strong
I vacillate in the plural
Try to pronounce something profound
And fall flat on the ground
Just as in relations traditionally defined
I play ‘roses on the ring’
Not grappling
Not letting it flow by
Like an island in some stream
I duck incredible cruelties
Of ones ostensibly so near
And yet I miss the masochism in the fear
The tightrope walker stumbles and falls
From his chosen degree of difficulty
We politely applaud
And dismiss a lifetime of strife
Disguised as convention
Killing is punishable
But you can twist off my wings
Warmth in breasts metamorphoses into boredom
So visible is the ‘ostrich’ syndrome
Yet amputation of the rotten parts
Is forbidden in the Holy Scriptures
Cremation is a final act which deprives all
So we closet me with my primal fear
In the mind of your morgues
Wait for the sickly putrid smell to waft through
And formaldehyde from green walls
We find catharsis in good times we had
Anecdotal memories
Of the good man that I used to be
In front seats of cars on our way to groceries
Jalapeno in plastic bags
And me with the sleeping owls
After the thrashing and the lack of breath
After lengthy discourses on the internet
Whispered consultations with psychiatrists and palmists
There is always a ‘fall-back’
Infidelity sits pretty on the hangman’s noose
Not yet tight around my neck
But ever there
The noose is your necklace
I have to take my medicine like a man
And free myself of these shackles
Take flight to sit with the owls
Mulish in my obituary
I will not be re-punished by me
I will travel baggage-free
Through societal labyrinths
I must never ask or demand only beg
I must teach myself to continuously smile
Sons and daughters march to this charade
So stereotyped
The victim with a halo of good
The aggressor pinned and labeled
While offspring apportion affection meticulously
And admonish me to be happy
To let the stone hop skip and jump
Minor direction change in the wake of waves is acceptable
Ostrich ears cannot hear
Ostriches have terribly organized lives
I must not make a ripple when I drown
And disturb their equilibrium with a frown
But I am this proverbial pain
Rectal piles that keep recurring from near or far
I must take a step forward in evolution
I must learn to chew the cud
Have a routine mundane
Or disappear into a furniture mall
It will not do to be the owl
During the day watching all
Inconveniently hooting after nightfall
Get on with life my dear sir
See the world pulsating
Observe the jelly-like forward movement
Watch octopus tentacles
Pick up a worthy tit-bit of commerce
To be disgorged on the unsuspecting
For hard cash
When the sun sets
On psychiatrists’ advise
Let the sun go down
It will inevitably rise
Traverse its course in the sky
And set again
What right has it got to stop forward motion
To hinder me at work and play
Despite minor interruptions
I have served notice
Dead adulterers should not wake me up
Alcoholics must die at some godly hour
In between morning exercises
And my walk with my dogs
Varices of the esophagus
Must not bleed on weekdays or workdays
I will not be strapped to a wheel chair
I will not even push one
So let the world around me
Behave in proper orderly fashion
If I have to hiccup
I will take me to the toilet
And hiccup away
Raindrops splatter
On superheated black rock
Lizards scurry for cover
The man stumbles about
Almost blind for now
Sweat from his eyebrows
Makes rivulets down his upper eyelids
Before acid from his sins
Singes his eyeballs
Protection against the midday sun
Up on the meadow
Stretching into sky
From where this pathway reaches a dead end
Lizards scurry across pine needle slopes
Camouflage to blind the eagle’s eye
Pine barks are in jungle uniform
Branches frozen in acrobatic pose
Mimic the sun’s trajectory
The root systems of hunchbacks
Are twisted and finally snap dead
Like a pistol shot
Birds hustle
Make a lot of noise
And fly away
Inside the hut it is dark and musty
Clothes on a nail
Dirty blankets in a corner
A cough that will not go away
Light from an oil lamp
Enhancing the gloom
Licks of fire from the wood burning stove
Artfully ‘up lighting’ a ‘girl-woman’s’ face
I have to have air to breathe
Even with wispy hair plastered across my forehead
Rivers running into my shirt collar
Squelching shoes
A growing wetness around my crotch
Cows flatten themselves against a wall
Their whole bodies exposed to the afternoon rain
Eyes full of dumb pain
From flea-sores
An ant army has curled up with the maggots
Beneath a rotten stump
Soon on the mountain road
There will be fast rivers of rainwater
For ants to swim across
Snakes will try to retrieve homeless eggs
Old sores fester and ooze pus
The mind grows gangrenous
Flowers drool
Like grotesquely made up clowns
Knobby knees make pointed shapes
Through a pair of faded jeans
A tuft of armpit hair peeps through
The rent in my t-shirt
Above the latissimus dorsa
Too pompous for a TV commercial
Yet mountains
Want attention
Will even oblige a camera crew
With a trick or two
No social comment
No lament on ecology
Just shacking up for the night
As disasters dance in tandem
Tomorrow bridges will collapse
Landslides will block approach roads
So many choices taken out of my hands
Now I must but persevere
Make do with potatoes sprouting tender green leaves
And flour layered with mould
The stream leaves in its wake
Garbage from the over-ripe summer
Washed up sanitary napkins abandoned
By the tourist clamor
Office excursions with
A little touching and feeling
And incredibly stupid sexual innuendos
My drinking water is polluted now
Countless deadly microbes swim arrogantly upstream
I will boil my water and measure calories
I will mend the car wiper before I am on my way
If there is sunshine
The crickets will troop out in number
Cows will munch wet hay.
Bittersweet
Almonds agitated
By the death-throes of a Manatee
We will get over our jet lag
And settle down with warts and pimples
Centipedes nibble away under our skin
These low clouds make me cry
Moving in from San Francisco Bay
They are convex with memories
Solitary woman
In tall grass sloping into Lake Herman
Dog poop and blue jay nests
A lone duck protests.
Squeaking tennis shoes on asphalt
The lunge forward into the net
Yellow balls thrown up at the sun
Crack of her baseball bat
A home run
Pool by the swimming pool
Comfort in caressing felt
Wavelets catch afternoon light
Throat tight
Through September
Her Oleander bush marches by
Hummingbirds nest busily.
Those yellow Anacondas and red Pythons
On six-eighty
Convulsively stop and start
Plane headlights over Mission Peak
Emotions tightly parked in overnight lots
Old habits shed like lizard skin
New body suits packed with Alaskan ice
The wise nod their heads thrice
And then it is enemy action on the turnpike
As you go about your daily chores
Playing mind-games with elegies
Picking life-style tips at a convenience store.
Evening time
The geese fly squawking by
I reach with feeble bloodless hands
To caress their feathers
Sores fester on my instep
Bones creak in my toes
Sprinklers switch on
To wet the lawns
The railroad crossing blinks
Rolling stocks
To take me to sea
I must incinerate trash heaps
Dead leaves this coming fall
Leapfrog over argument
In silence devour the scent
Of frying fish in ground floor kitchens
Rice and lentils
On foothills
My gap-toothed mouth
Mumbling hackneyed rhymes
In weak whitewashed sunlight
Pining for pines
Legions of dead mercenaries
March to the beat of the college band
Volleyball in the sand.
Police brutality Paki bashing
Fairness creams in the commercial break
Afternoon sun on the lake.
Beachside barbeques
In the Mendocino Fracture Zone
Breasts scooped up in ice-cream cones.
Whittled evenings with winter rain
Needles with piercing pain
Unbearable loss or gain.
The marketplace is demand and supply
I must pull up my socks for the mammoth lie
As the sunset prepares to die.
Inwards towards me
Sightings at forty-nine
Pier 39
Vinegar in the wine.
Chipmunks rolling giant pine cones
Wildflowers and buzzing drones
Through wooden window slats
The afternoon moans.
Clothed to kill upon the window-sill
Activity is an act of will
Nostrils flared in missionary zeal.
Harry Houdini unlocks the barn
Souls enmeshed in a filigreed urn
Artists’ impressions as ashes churn.
Emotions like madness on railroad tracks
Contrary arguments suffer from parallax
Punctuation with markers from Office Max.
The little wind in the birdbath
Wraps itself around my ankles
Has haunting eyes in an Afghan chador
And thin brown wrists with bangles.
Pupils dilated in gray-blue awe
On my knees from lattice-work to tomb
Supplications to the Womb.
The epiphany of clowns flitting by
In the shadows of wrecks
Slaves throng decks
Of an upscale parking lot.
This parchment has the wherewithal
To document a beggar’s call
As we exit the shopping mall.
Serendipity at the Marina stop
Cool and dark inside the antique shop
Martyred skunk on the boardwalk top.
On empty stomach and parched throat
I grope pus-oozing walls for your pin-up note
Pot-bellied priests scurry and idols gloat.
Oxygenation of a flailing corpse
Flimsy coffin drawn by a three-legged horse
The nearby ones look for calories to endorse.
Unrelenting
This heart machine
It will not let me conquer sin.
Ants march in single file
From Lafayette to Livermore
This heat wave across the bay
Gives my potted-plants excessive bile
On today’s treadmill I surpass yesterday
As tears whittle my cheek-bones
Valleys and canyons run astray
Into earlobes loaded with dandruff
Deposits of an eroded life
I wade through faded life
On spindly legs in boxer shorts
Pockets full of nutshells and seed husks
Thrown away by hoarding chipmunks
Old male elephants have chipped yellowed tusks
Astray in the ripened corn dandelions sway
Tender tree trunks are gnawed away
Days shorten nights are velvet
The salt flats are a throwback to dinosaur land
The bloodied and potent sickle moon
Will harvest soon.
