Ode to Cortisol

If you shudder,
without further ado,
at the first sight of dew,
the premise is set.

I did…
This morning at 3.

I kept aside those
good morning sensibilities,
murmured to the wall,
while in angst, the words flowed.

They flowed…
This morning at 3.

This is the flawed poem
that was born when I,
tired and droopy,
tried to mop up the dew.

I mopped…
This morning at 3.

With insolence, I wiped
the drops off the petals of a
weary, two-day-old flower,
and dared to call it editing!

I dared…
This morning at 3.

-- Leslie

(Poem: I am but a janitor at 3 am, and with my mop, I wipe dew and scribble poetry.)

Biennale Diaries

Those godowns,
gracefully silent in its
typically humid
and mouldy past glory.
They once fed my father,
his mother;
and her grandson twice,
or even thrice, I hardly remember...

They fed aspirations:
A few were to play football,
many to trudge Westward,
and some to fight for
small pieces of land,
hoping to find peace in Kochi,
salvation in her fresh fish
and dream-gilded sunsets.

An unknown bricklayer’s toil,
these walls;
they get abstract splashes:
Geometric visions, asymmetric missions,
reflecting the incongruent,
esoteric aspirations of
a town lost to time, tourism,
and a migratory identity crisis.

And yes...
Art breathes life into them all.

Is there more to
the Biennale than what
meets the pilgrim’s gaze?
Yes... And yes, No!

For we are damned
to feel the waves, and creation
in fleeting, attention-starved steps
that warrant selfies for posterity.
The immortal light?
The laborer and the artist?
Obscurity at sunset, yes… In the
long shadows of coffee shops.

Yet, yes...
Art breathes life into them all.

-- Leslie

The Cold Shuffle

I shuffled Burman CDs, flipped records
for my grandfather once.
And played for him his youth...

What do I play now?
When my own soul seeks
an anchor from yesterday.

My blessings end there.
Damn! Am I seeking nostalgia
on an Android mobile?

There it is... My AI grandchild
gifts me warm, lossless songs
with cold, emotionless precision.

-- Leslie

Whispering Pebbles

All those pebbles,
they whistle my name​ in hushed tones.

It is I
who threw them
into our backyard pond,
breaking its silence,
its ​monochrome serenity,
and rippling its sane emotions.
The still water,​ a ponderer’s haven,
a pool to reflect,
became a ​storm
​posing questions behind my home.

Brick and mortar,
laid over the pebbles​ in earnest,
​forcing them to groan
under the load​ of a house
laden with life’s residual gifts.
But they still...

Oh, they still​ have the will
​to whisper my name.

-- Leslie

The Receding Christmas

All those Christmas gifts​...
What remains of them is
​the slightly withered wrapping,
​the memories.

Their meaning and worth
saved in sunset-yellow cases,
as scents.
The whiffs I captured
through an untrained nose
​as a child,
and a trained ​Google searcher
​as a grown-up,
​are all neatly stacked.
​With them,
​I satiate, in futility,
​a life-evolved taste for posterity.

And, as a golden sunset
reminds me of
a receding Christmas​ vibe,
I seek the scent this year.
​For that whiff of longing.
​Oh, and a desire for belonging.

-- Leslie 

War Dust: A Loss Foretold

Dust is but a reality. There are more truths ​w​ithin your reach when it floats, ​tickles your nostrils, ​and makes you sneeze.  You conjure up a silly game with the sunbeam. ​A shadowy game of will and desire.

No one gets hurt in it, nobody wins either...

​Oh, is it? What if those opaque particles were dead conscience, the dust specs mortal remains of what used to be dreams. The wails hardly prick, the fireworks lack empathy, all lost in dust. If it is a war, then why are you at peace?

Hmmm... We all get hurt in it,  and, nobody wins either... 

​As the dust settles, on aspirations, ​on the books and the music box, a nightmare begins. No light to play under, a huge shadow looms, eclipsing all memories of a ​happy child at j​est.

​-- Leslie 

Worth My Weight in Dust

 

Hey, you, the respectable Dust. 

You are on an errand,

tonight.

The morrow, you shall trudge

for the rays of sunlight.

And day after,

you shall reach 

a place of absolution.

If and only if,

when and only when,

you deserve peace. But no, 

yes you don't.

The if and when

of life

magnifies the truth,

a reality, mine and yours.

The inevitability of

a tanking worth.

— Leslie

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

Zooming in on Fireflies

A few minutes past six,

​as light dims on

the Monday chores,

they appear,

on my right,

beyond a pale green

pre-summer canopy.

Six lamps. Or is it more?

Oh, the inadequacy of vision!

They, the fireflies,

hang in the air, a straight string;

dot on the line of sight my

seat provides,

through random banters

and toward specifics in history,

for the politics of posterity.

-- Leslie
​ 

The Dilated Song

Wish I could slow down

the song I play,

buying dilated time.

Its tempo reigned in,

but it's timbre intact,

for I dare not change the tune.

Will it help the dreams 

linger on in a trance,

a tad longer,

a minute or two,

a second or an hour,

a day or eternity.

The song heralds eternity,

and it plays in a loop.

Alas, time, its vagaries,

is linear, is a knife.

It rips open the winter jacket,

but it cuts cakes too...

-- Leslie

Love, A Reflection

In a world without mirrors,

sans judgement,

and harsh glares,

I would spend

the vanity left in me

to cry, then reflect...

I become my mirror.

And, in the images

flashing by,

droplets of cold sweat

provide gloss

as well as the shivers.

Then, three hours past midnight

I touch her,

she kisses me,

and we see

our reflections merge,

within hand-held Amoled frames.

... In a world without mirrors,

three hours past midnight!

-- Leslie 

Winter Longing

Lost for words, are we?

No. It's just that 

no brew could drown longing,

the one in winter...

​It is but a whiff of winter, sure,

yet the longing grows for

the warm rays of a sun

as seasoned as the coffee 

made by the first Italian barista,

or as potent as the sun

outside the smoking room

of an Indian cafe.

But it rained outside too,

and when it did once,

and when the leaves turned

greener with envy,

it indeed was a reminder

winters don't last,

but its longing does,

and it freezes it below nought.

-- Leslie

​Poetic Reality

If it's​ a slap one seeks,

look no further...

Pick a mundane pen,

write poems under the sun,

wrap it in soiled,

oil soaked crumpled newspapers,

preferably with stale news;

take it up a flight of stairs.

​And ​when,​ ​only when it's past midnight,

light it up...

Hold it up longer,

enough to burn the fingers

which held the pen,

and also held meaning

​a ​mere few seconds back.

Leave it there, let it burn.

Morning, read from the ashes​.​

​C​ry... Pry open the poetry chest,

search again,

soul searching, hole searching,

and write:

Some verses for posterity,

some for the next paper

to wrap the day's love and effort​.​

-- Leslie

The Milky Way

The flashes are daily now, 

the forgotten Astrophysics lessons,

-- meant for the stars,

grounded for substance --

visits me in the mornings...

When, earlier,

I would only see chaos

dancing at the traffic lights

next to my window,

the dance for a living.

Now, I deal with bubbles,

brewing in the warmth 

of my words,

thoughts and deeds,

a fine white brew

meant to be gulped down,

but sipped, always, like whiskey.

That's a galaxy, it's the Milky Way,

and it's where science ends,

and my art begins.

​-- Leslie

Flowering Epitaphs​

​If there were a few plaques

placed in random order

next to my flower pots,

would that make them

party to the larger injustice

the blooms ​highlight?

Life, indeed, is a collection

of epitaphs​ in stale air​,

some lost in the attic,

some to the vagaries of

destructive rebuilding,

and many among flowers...

... In random order,

the ​notions gather grime,

​my dog chases squirrels around them.

His present, mine too,

​and the world stays

shrouded in smog.

-- Leslie

The World in a Cupcake

I seek dreams in the embers,

the stragglers which linger on,

after the flame was doused

by the will of the girl.

It is life she

holds aloft tonight

-- a blueberry cupcake,

and our world.

A very different 

winter moon sings too,

shedding arrogance and indifference.

The hymns, no the chimes,

the songs of destiny,

leave me gasping for verses,

to breathe into her poem

that would reignite the flame.

The embers smile,

they know exactly why...

They need her breath 

of fresh air, 

but are yet to fathom her words.

Two winters into her book,

I am yet to metre 

its depth either.

-- Leslie

The Whining River

In ​torrential ​spate 

it realised​ ​​the bunds,

​the boundaries​,​ 

were not ​set by its will.

​They belong to the contractor

who poured the concrete​, 

a quick mix, 

a quicker fix,​

​marked the limits,

killed ​its flow,

and tamed ​its will​,

bounty, reverence notwithstanding.​

Well, I'll be damned,

but aren't we all dam​m​ed!

​And, amidst the cacophony

of an eerily silent night,

we hear ourselves​

​whine like the winding river...

​-- Leslie​

A Sleepy Destination

The sheer thanklessness

of a winter night

gives us the right bearings,

and light,

to embark on a journey, 

any journey,

even the ten paces required 

to reach sleep.

Oh, indeed!

It is but sleep we crave for,

plan in earnest,

and pay for,

with the dreams,

the kind we all see,

and then fail to live,

come winter, or summer.

-- Leslie 

Ode to the Midnight Shadow

​If the shadow,

the one dancing outside

my window,

dares to move yonder,

across the road,

he will get arrested...

For sleepwalking, 

says the cop who snores on duty.

He reminds us of light,

of vision, or the lack of it.

He gyrates,

in and out of reality checks.

While we, hither, sit back,

stretch our egos,

talk with our fingers,

salvage conscience with a retweet.

-- Leslie

How to Age a Poem

​A few lines,

which, in its existence,

is older than the writer,

the bard, 

who scribbled the words

when he was in his 40s.

Now, how will a child

grow older than her father?

If the verses were written

with an half empty rum bottle

kept dangling near 

the pen that is showing its age;

and if it is read over wine,

a young, angry, red bottle,

the cheapest possible blend,

cheaper than the recited words....

Then, it grows old, the poem;

the writer gets younger,

and we all heave in

the brown, polluted,

yet sensuous air... 

So, shall we?​

-- Leslie