Birthday: A Self Portrait

Is it not on a birthday,
a lucid evening,
the struggle bore meaning?
A will to embrace life,
the urge to breathe,
and wail — a tad hard;
the first sigh of many,
we all breathe, don't we?
And there I was,
ready to win,
having only tasted life.
Today, I tasted more...

Now, as I stir
the cauldron 27 times,
anticlockwise, as time flies;
clockwise, to urge time to fly,
at traffic signals,
at modern post offices,
at the bank, facing blank stars,
at unscripted wrestling bouts
and scripted poetry jousts.
27 times it is,
the number, the date,
an obsessive compulsion
— it presents life,
represents living,
and in more ways than known,
reminds me of mortality.

Yet, I seek immortality,
to vindicate
the struggle we are born in,
to substantiate
the ire we live in.
The portrait ends here.
Abrupt.
The final stroke strives
to find completeness
in the incomprehensible.
A painting? No…
A Birthday.

– Leslie

Pain, Painter!

It shivers, the frame,

which locks within

its rigidity, a reality…

It once was a dream,

born out of a notion,

a hunch, a regret maybe,

just after the young painter

saw blood dripping

from the shaft

she pulled out

from his heart,

made of cold alloy,

forged in hell,

and aptly named love!

Art of Denial!

To infinity... Spreads this
off-white canvas below my feet;
vandalized to insanity by
the stomps of arrogant youth;
by plastic waste from drunk,
mindless punks straight out of college
and their campus-recruited IT jobs;
guised as hard-working fishermen,
who fight the waves of change
to provide school uniforms for
the smiling ones and snacks for
the smirking, bribe-belied cops.

T'is, the time for my painting here,
but my will fails to power the strokes
across its breadth,
legs fail in the sprint across its length
to my bike parked yonder.
I can only crawl to her feet,
begging her to adopt me
into her depths,
urging her to let her salt
seep into my blistered heart,
cleansing it with burn,
the scars will remain black though;
a dark reminder on pale skin
of my stand now:
Helpless at the edge of the canvas
I need to colour fast.

I had my crayons,
have also seen those water-hued days,
even wax and fabric paints
and 'em fancy acrylic I found in college;
but I wanted just coal,
just black and white
from mother earth,
who always denies me my due.
But I still dared to ask:
Please, a li'l love this day...