DEAR ME: Life is ..

I remember this day, although I can't remember now who the bereaved colleague was. Feeling some of his pain, and going home to find those two letters in the mail, one for my mother, and one for us all.

Life is a young boy dying
and his friend
who can't cry,
and who won't leave the office
in case he does,
and who won't cry
until he is too drunk tonight
to hold it back.

It is opening a letter
and finding that your friend
died.
Three months ago.
And her daughter
could not bear to tell you
till last week.

It is opening another letter
and being invited to a wedding.
And seeing that the nikah
is on your niece's birthday.
And trying to recapture where you were
and what you felt
on the day that she was born.

(written on 17 March 1997, Bahrain)

DEAR ME: How dangerous to love ..

This is a poem I wrote about a decade ago, the day I heard the news that my nephew Sameer had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I found it in my papers and wasn't sure if I wanted to share it, but after the recent events in Bombay, I thought there may be someone out there who needs to hear these words.

How dangerous to love
to fill your heart with hope
to invest in dreams
to care
to share precious moments
and create happy memories.
How dangerous to gamble with joy
that sorrow can snatch away,
when death, that one surety of life,
can take in one swift move
the hopes the dreams the moments -
and all one is left with
is the love and the memories,

and the fear that one cannot forgive
the Hand that moved
against the one you loved.

I cannot hope to understand
so how can I explain?
I know only that life is here and now
and so is death
and their balance follows no law we know.

With one Hand He gives us life.
With the same, He takes it away.
This Birth is Mine, perhaps He says.
This Death is Mine, perhaps He says.
Between the first wail
and the last breath,
is My gift to you,
and your gift to Me.
Live it well:
love, hope, care, share, create.

I dreamed Him once (and this is true)
and He told me:

There is a Hereafter.

Perhaps it was an answer
to a question I haven't asked yet.
We can ask Him for time and for love
and for mercy and strength.
But we cannot ask Him: Why?

So I still cannot explain,
and I still do not understand the answer.
But I know that He does,
and I can take comfort in this.

Infinity is everywhere
Before the first breath, beyond its ceasing,
Before the seed, beyond the sealing,
is a secret arc we may not know,
till we gather our gifts and
step forward into His reality.

DEAR ME: Men are sweet, if foolish

Men are sweet, if foolish creatures.
They think that they rule the world.
Women are not much better,
for we let them think it so.

"The face that launched a thousand ships" -
the woman got the blame
but not the husband's ego
that could have been contained.

Though testosterone's no trifle,
our hormones make good jokes.
So men go off to battle,
and we pick up their socks.

Peace when it comes is rarely true,
a temporary quiet.
Bought in the name of man.
Paid from a woman's purse.

DEAR ME: "Every day that I live ..

Death is something I think about, almost every day. Not in a morbid way, at least I don't think so. But I'm very aware of it, very aware - and yet I never come up with any real answers about it. Here's something I wrote back in 1993 about it. Mulling through some answers, I end with just another question.

Every day that I live
I am more alive
and closer to death.

Every day that I live
I have more left to do
and less time left.

Every day that I live I die a little
and every thought of death
brings more life to every moment of living.

Accepting life is not enough.
Accepting death is all there is.

Between life and death is a lifetime.
Between living and dying is a moment.

And when I die, will I have lived?

(written on Nov 12, 1993)

I wrote this after reading a wonderful book "Knots" by R.D. Laing, which explores contradictions.

DEAR ME: "Fools and puppets ..

Here's another poem I wrote around 1993 .. though I keep using the word "you" I suspect it was really addressed to myself. This was around when I started getting jaded with all the glamour and fun of the advertising world, perhaps when the seed was sown for me to get out of that career and into the life I lead now?

Fools and puppets,
junkies and whores,
peddling your souls away
on oil-soaked shores.

There's more to life than what you think.
There's more to life than 'me'.
There's more than what's between your legs,
but it's nothing you'd care to see.

One day your bank account will close.
Someone else will be sleeping in your bed.
One day it will all have meant nothing
and all you will be is dead.

There's a love you would never have dreamed of.
There's a kindness you never may show.
There's strength for your fears and peace for your pain.
There's a man on the cross makes it so.

(written in 1993)

I wonder if that last verse should just be a separate poem.

Look Again

Look Again

O how the mighty fall.
Jesus turns to Judas
and Hamlet to Macbeth.
Men fall off their pedestals
when love falls to its death.

(I probably wrote this in late 91 or some time in 1992)

I do like this poem - its sarcasm, bitterness and humour - it reminds me of Dorothy Parker's style of writing. Incidentally, she is one of my favourite writers and I was titillated to discover that we share the same birthday.

DEAR ME: "Even when your heart ..

How desperately we search for solace from what we lose, in what we have.

Even when your heart is breaking
your diamonds shine for you
Even through your tears
their light can still shine through.

Nothing lasts forever
not hopes, not dreams, not love
But the diamonds stay
and shine.

You'll find the women with
the most diamonds
are the most content
or the most lonely.

(written in 1991, sometime after the war)

DEAR ME: "You never said ..

You never said you would.
I never said I do
and yet we knew that you were mine
and I was part of you.
No one witnessed
this sharing of souls
or heard them tear apart.
No one knows
that for a while
we lived in each other's heart.

(written in August 1991)

I like this poem very much. Not sure why, and not sure why I felt the need to announce that I like it.

DEAR ME: "They say that men ..

It's interesting that these four poems quite clearly show the path this doomed relationship took! And also my changing perspective (as you will see in the fourth poem!)

They say that men are hard
But I know a man as soft as
the seldom-touched flesh of my thighs

They say that men are strong
But I know a man who is
scared of the truth

They say that men don't cry
But I know a man who crushed me
tight against him
and buried his head in my breasts

They say that men don't know
But I know a man who said
I was the best and the worst
that had happened to him

They say that men don't feel
But I know a man who recognised my love
and loved me and hated me for it.

(written at 9:40 pm on 19.5.1991 Bahrain)

"Through the eyes of my lover ..

Finally! It took me four years to get over Bops. Then I met and fell in love with the sweetest man (who must remain unnamed!) and, but of course, my next set of poems were all inspired by him. I shall post these poems in order, over the next four days.

Through the eyes of my lover
my mirror lies to me
and I am all the woman I want to see
and my imperfections were meant to be.

Through his eyes I am much, much more.
I stand taller than before
he came.
He gives a name
to feelings I'd abandoned
and though he does not hold my hand
and leaves me to walk alone
I am never quite on my own.

(written at 8:36 p.m. on 11 March 1991)

There are a few little "secrets" hidden in this poem. I will leave them that way.

Come back tomorrow to read the next in this 'series'!

"DEAR ME: "Take a walk ..

This poem came with a dedication!

To D.D.L. (Hamlet - National Theatre, London 1989)

When I had gone to London to visit Akila, she gave me one of the finest times of my life. Those experiences and stories will surface in future "Once Upons". One of the shows she took me to was Shakespeare's Hamlet, with Daniel Day Lewis in the title role. He was brilliant. He BURNED.
And then two days later, it appears, he burnt out: collapsing on stage and having to retire to recover.

When I heard about this, emotionally unhealthy person that I am, I felt his pain, huge waves of it, and wrote this poem.

Take a walk when the rain is gone,
when the clouds hang uncertainly in the sky,
and the trees stand with bowed heads.
Soon the sun will return and
with a gentle hand lift their faces
up to him.
The earth breathes easily, damp,
challenged, refreshed,
and the evening sky speaks to me of heaven.

All around me is beauty born
again and again.
When I am faced with my own frailty,
knowing this brings me some peace.
I shall have to die one day,
but the sky and the earth
will thrill, will soothe other hearts.

I wish you shelter from the storm.
A warm mug of coffee, clasped in your palm.
Someone to love you, nestled
in the crook of your arm.
These are the things I wish for
you and everyman.

As for me, I am content to bear
the brunt of a storm
or the dull dry weight of a windless day.
I will take the bad for the good
that may follow,
the hard that will with time be easy,
the cruel that might teach me
to be kind.
I will take from life what I can.
Laughter and sunshine.
Thunderstorms and tears.

(written on Dec 13th, 1989)

I love the line about the earth - challenged, refreshed - it says so much, it's so wise. I also like, at the end, the way I have used 'may' and 'might' to underline that in life there are no guarantees, no entitlements.

Anger

I like this one, it's interesting. What I find, looking at it now, is that the anger is all symbolically expressed, and violent but never physically so - at another person, I mean - also how it points out the potential for anger to have a healthy expression, although clearly mine in this poem does not. And the most interesting line to me is the last, because that is what we do with anger when we don't let it out in healthy ways. It turns inward and that repressed held-in anger destroys us.

Anger

I am the sun but I do not shine
on the cold and I don't warm the night.
I am the sun and I burn in my rage
and it flares but I don't spread my light.

I am the storm
and I roar as I lash
the earth but I bring no rain.

I am the fire
cradled by my prey
I gorge on its gentle embrace.
As long as there's food for my
flames I shall burn
and when there is nothing
left I shall turn
on myself.

(written on 23 July 1989, at noon).

"Is it a memory ..

Here's an odd poem I found, written in 1988. Not too sure what I had in mind - old friends, I think. Bops, probably! I do remember that this was a sad time when I had left India and moved to Bahrain, and he had broken all contact with me - and my heart in the bargain. Later on, I realised he had done the best he could, because had he kept in touch I would have returned to be with him - and smack. But he didn't, and I didn't. And the result is the Me you see today, clean and sober.

When I look at this poem now, I think of dissociation: that confusion between memory and dream, between the world's reality and one's own. I would often dream of friends back then, but never of Bops. I remember once sitting in the ladies' room at Arab Advertising and crying because I wished I could just DREAM of him - that would have been better than nothing. But it never happened, and it's only now, years later, with him dead and gone, that I am sometimes visited by him in dreamtime.

Is it a memory or was it just a dream?
I never know, for they both seem
So real.
It was just yesterday and I can still
Smell the rain in the air,
Draw upon your faces at will.
Then the faces blur and change
And I see strangers.
And the road winds down another way
And the colours are pastel, tinged with grey
And I'm going somewhere I've never been,
Though I know the way.
I hear a voice and touch a face.
But something is wrong
and everything is gone
when I open my eyes.
So how can I know if it ever took place?

(written on 26 July 1988, 8:33 p.m.)

"I think there may be poetry ..

Dear me! What things I write. I found this poem while going through (and destroying) my old diary from 2001. I was in therapy for my Child Sexual Abuse experiences at that time, but in the middle of all the angst and raging and desperate scrawls about flashbacks, I guess I kept going, and managed to write something as ridiculous as this! I love it.

I think there may be poetry in
everything I sense.
Poetry that's more than words,
in each experience.
Could there be a poem, right here
on my plate?
Did I swallow a sonnet with
the last mouthful I ate?

"Bright geen pearls of boil-ed pea,
scattered in my rice,
Sunset hues of curl-ed prawn
that look and taste so nice"

No, this meal is a poem I do not see,
the poetry lies in its taste.
And the only part that's visible
is on my unpoetic waist.

- written on 16/8/01 at 2:10 pm

P.S. The meal in question was a Thursday lunch at my favourite Lebanese restaurant in Bahrain, Tarbouche.

"What gifts ..

Dear me. What do I make of this poem? By these standards, it's no wonder I am still single. Again, no idea when this was written, although I like to think it was around 1990-91, which would mean I had written it for a certain man-who-shall-remain-nameless, the only one I can think of who came close to loving me this way.

What gifts do lovers exchange?

Bodies entwine
but grow shapeless and old.
Lovers exchange that which never goes cold.

Roses of red
lose their scent, fade and dry.
Lovers exchange that which never should die.

Champagne and song
thrill the heart, then are gone.
Lovers exchange that which always lives on.

Jewels and gold
can cost more than they mean.
Lovers exchange that which means more, unseen.

These objects we give
on this path we are set
are treasured, and hoped for, and valued, and yet

lovers exchange
that which sets them apart.
Lovers exchange that which comes from the heart.

Sometimes I surprise me.

Having decluttered closets of clothes, shelves of books, drawers of toiletries, cabinets of expired food products, I've finally got down to the paperwork. I keep finding little gems that I really like, yet can hardly believe that I wrote. Here is one I found, that - to my surprise - is written in the 5-7-5 haiku form. I'm not sure I intended it to be, but then again, maybe I did. My memory is awful. But I do remember why I wrote this: it was when what I thought was the most wonderful love affair, turned out to be just another abusive relationship.

My heart aches. It breaks,
I think -- but really it is
the pain of waking.

That's the thing. All the nasty shit in life is the stuff that ends up being good for me. I need it, in a way, in order to grow. And well, after all, what is fertiliser made of?

"Cigarette:

Another one of those scratched-out poems, that I wrote a year after the last one. Kind of forlorn and bitter.

Virgin white with burning tip
Glows with passion at my lips
In go my hopes
And out my dreams in a
puff of smoke.
Watch flecks of time drift
away
And faces form and fade
Then crush, and crush
beyond recognition
And leave it
forgotten in its black ash
graveyard.

(Written at 4.53 pm 1st June 1988)

"Caress

I was going to say something cynical about getting back to the mushy stuff .. but I'll let it pass on this. I wrote this for Bops, of course, and I think I entered it in a poetry competition at Christ College's Spring Fest that year. Did not win, evidently .. and soon after I lost Bops too .. was whisked away from Bangalore in an attempt by my desperate parents to save me from that terrible Coorgi boy who had ruined my life (and by a strange coincidence, his equally desperate parents were at the very same time hugely relieved to see the departure of that terrible Muslim girl who had ruined their son's life). After writing this, I don't think I wrote any poems for a long time.

Caress.

Do falling stars grant wishes?
Do twilight dreams come true?
My nightmares turn to golden dust
with a soft caress from you.

You give my dawns their hope,
Carried on fresh breeze.
You give my afternoons theirlanguid warmth.
You bring my nights their peace.

One look, one word, one gentle touch
And all my dreams come true
I want to live forever
If forever means with you.

(for Bops Feb/Mar? 1987. Spring Fest).

I can't be cynical about this one. It's too sweet and it brings up too much sadness, and although I can no longer connect to those feelings, it touches me that I once was the person who said this and meant it, and that gives me a sense of loss .. not so much for him, but for that Me that I no longer am.

"The mirror's shattered ...

Here's another embarrassing one - also scratched out with the words "iddhu yena" scribbled underneath! (That's Kannada or perhaps Tamil, I'm not sure, for what amounts to "what the hell is this crap?"

I have realised that at this point, I have moved on from tortured adolescence into not-much-more-mature tortured adulthood. I was 21 when I wrote this. Oh dear. I mean, iddhu yena.

The mirror's shattered.
The spell's broken.
The unspeakable has been spoken.
No use for charms and amulets now.
Where have the gentle caresses
And soft whispers gone?
Is everything over?
And am I really and truly alone?
I am so very lost
Without you.

(Written on 29/1/1987, 4.10 p.m. Presumably after some wrenched-apart-from-Bops time of my life. I wonder why I always insist on writing the exact time I finish a poem?)

"I'm an orphaned child ...

This poem I found scratched through rather viciously with with the words, "Yuk not worth reading!" scrawled underneath. But I'm being brave enough to post all my poems, even the ones that bare soul and secrets, so I shouldn't be scared of adding this. So here it is. I don't actually remember what it's about, but I'm assuming that I must have had a fight with Bops, or perhaps broken things off with him in an attempt to get off smack. Or perhaps he just went away to Coorg and I missed him. Who knows. Maybe the poem wasn't written for him at all. Maybe I was turkeying and wrote this to smack?

I'm an orphaned child,
A widow.
A bottle floating endlessly in the sea.
I'm the last lost dinosaur
Crying and calling for no one to hear.
I'm the final dry leaf
That falls from the withered limbsof a tree
Come back to me
I don't want to be free.

(Written on 29/1/1987. 4.20 pm.)