"These ladies loved you."
"Not love, Ma'am. Attraction, perhaps. Eventually an embarrassing thought. It was I who loved them. In love with them."
"Then, why did you kill them?"
"Love's #progenitor
And sentinel is sweet death.
Pluck the lovely bloom."
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
It was a hectic day. I had chosen too many #parallel lives.
As usual, my body went to office.
During a presentation, I fumbled at two points.
Two other lives exerted their influence – first, making love to Ann; and second, the fight with my nemesis, my twin.
#vss365
from one of my few sci-fi short stories (it's not a genre I enjoy reading):
https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/12/12-31-3010.html
Yama's #susurrus
Soothes souls. For the living dead,
Clarion call for change.
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
have you married? she asked.
(have? not are? is it a #primordial urge?)
widower and divorced, i said.
(right order?)
a murderer plagued by guilt, she said.
(thought)
better story other way around, she added.
(yawned)
once shy twice bitten, i said.
(in an empty room)
#vss365
In loneliness company made, in silence a tune to rouse,
In gloom a smile to blossom, in dying life to be astride.
In pain did descend dearly into depths too black – reason too late –
Too late – fiery lines #slash upon lighter blue as a growing strain.
#vss365
from
https://discardedthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2009/10/oddity-iv.html
"Swaps, it's our old gang."
"I could tolerate them when they admitted their class, caste and religion decided all. Now, they say love gave #shape to everything. People who forget their sins are monsters."
"Idiots."
"Us."
"With too little love, it shows."
"Shut up!"
#vss365
They shared that scene in early light; listened to the same birdsong; felt nipples stiffen as the fresh cool touch of chilly morning air caressed naked #skin; and, breathed in air with a tinge of eucalyptus.
They looked at each other before going inside to another life.
#vss365
from
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-tellers-sabbatical.html
"Bruised, scarred,
which balm will ease you,
which hand refused,
the silence shatters,
which word would bind
that wishes no longer
to be whole."
"Swaps, don't laugh."
"If you have been using such words to be a knight in shining armour, it's no wonder you are #single."
#vss365
from
https://discardedthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2009/10/sketch-of-you-and-me.html
When love was snatched,
Tried to say "Pfft,
#Splinter can cause
More lasting pain."
That and other
Weak barricades
Crumbled to dust
With first #sunbeam.
#vss365
Do you believe the #vision before you
when life seems sublime,
graced by whoever's above,
caressed by sweet love,
or
when life is the usual,
screwed by the corrupt,
without water or power,
or
when there's black nothingness,
with too much past too little future?
#vss365
That turn in the path. The tree house.
He could still see what his young eyes saw then.
The man peeing behind a tree. Grey hair, prim and proper. Half-sweater over shirt, well-ironed pant, polished shoes. Stern eyes staring at the young boy. A #predator eyeing a prey.
#vss365
from
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-tellers-sabbatical.html
11 minutes past midnight. I'm in the doghouse.
Because I called her a #narwhal.
Why did she google?
"Corpse-whale?"
I too googled then.
"See. It symbolizes uniqueness, mystery, freedom, and intuition."
"Get out."
"Can I finish my pizza?"
#vss365 can be so life-altering.
"Are you calling me a chameleon?"
"Swaps, why can't you be romantic for three seconds?"
"With you, Arj?"
"Ah."
"A seal?!"
"I said:
Love is a #selkie,
Could be mine if I knew how.
Calm temperament."
"Oh! You want me to be that. Bloody patriarchy!"
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
"I saw a #wraith-like version of you coming out of our son's room. Wearing your nightwear."
"That's your son's living together partner."
"Why is she here? Why did you give her that? They can't do it here. Even we don't, do we?"
"Come here, old man. Let them be safe."
#vss365
"Can he stay with your mother?"
"Is your mother ok with that? Has she forgiven him?"
"No. Never. On that topic, #clarity is her middle name."
"Agree with her. He's cheated her as long as I've been alive."
"He doesn't have much time. Let him be where he wants to be."
#vss365
Herd #immunity-
Why did we choose wrong target?
Against peace. Not war.
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
The scene would have made Van Gogh cut off his right ear or Wordsworth prance on the vale like a senile seven-year-old. Such a setting is fine when you enjoy solitude or #soporific matrimony. Many brave men before me have fallen from grace on such a scene, I knew.
My head was tilting to the right and hers to the right too, ready for a long and tender kiss (as per philematologists' decree).
Without going on my knees, I crooned to that amazing lady, “Will you marry me?”
She replied, “Enschuldigung, ich verstehe nicht (Sorry, I don’t understand).”
I knew enough German to translate but I did not.
#vss365
from
https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/09/will-you-marry-me.html
In the fight of '83, the neighbour had the support of some. We fought alone.
Another neighbour, the rich one eyeing both our properties, egged us on.
Gentian violet #dissolved in fish washing water was used.
I was at the receiving end.
Married their daughter in '03.
#vss365
She was a school teacher. My first semester in college. On the 5 am bus from Pilani to Delhi.
Even before Loharu, we began confiding. The comfort of strangers? We wanted to trust someone.
Scared. Sharing troubles can be misunderstood.
No names to rupture the #sutured.
#vss365
"Arjun, stop wailing.
She is dead. And without you,
In a better place."
"Is that a #senryu,
Or a cruel #elegy?
Succinct truth cuts deep."
"How about a movie?"
"The Omen, Swaps. She shaved my head once. Tattooed the mark of the beast."
"$9.99?"
"Funny Valentine."
#vss365
For the kids,
A #selcouth postprandial tale:
"We faced the worst demons
To have the bare minimum,
She had four brothers,
Who would have put me in ICU
Because they were there to do that,
I was on her balcony every night,
Not for love,
For friendship..."
#vss365
#truestory
"They are Trouble," a priest said when we were born.
"Irritating twins with #echolalia," teachers complained.
In our 20s, police tried to pin a dozen murders on us. But, "Which one?"
We shouldn't have fallen in love with twins with the sobriquet Copycat Black Widows.
#vss365
He has no reason to live nor die
He has no #karma nor bhakti to guide
He gathers pain from every corner
Searching for some way, some answer...
When one fears not death
Can one be mortal
And love, and dream,
And live, and pray...
#vss365
from
https://discardedthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2009/08/scavenger.html
Apart from the stunning view, the room had an #additional intrigue: a photo gallery.
On two walls, photos of the rural urban divide.
On the 3rd, a photo of a corridor in an old house, sunlight creeping in reluctantly, a small footprint imprinted on the dark red floor.
#vss365
from an old short story of mine 'Like You and Me' (where Shokie meets her nemesis):
https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2020/11/like-you-and-me.html
She read the poster in front.
‘Massage, spa, infinity pool, discounts for enema, purgation, vomiting, spiritual and physical rejuvenation, bring out the old you, become the new you.’
"Is this the spiritual #conversion that's going to save us?"
"Fantasy Island 2.0."
#vss365
from
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2018/05/reunion.html
Her companions always made her parents very uncomfortable. The last one was an insurance agent.
He tried to sell to them an insurance #product which
‘assured kids a happy future, and promised a hefty bonus if the parents met with an untimely demise in the 3rd year’.
#vss365
from
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2013/04/who-troubled-mrs-vijayan.html
Marriages are made in heaven. We, at Premsucks, create that heaven.
'Ideal partners at an impressionable age': that's not vacuous #promotion.
Take my case. Pa chose Rocky after she floored me with a left hook.
"Her innocent look after the deed decided it," Pa said.
#vss365
The visitors' exit was sullen and hasty.
“What did I do?”
“You didn’t give them what they want.”
“I am new here. They are supposed to give.”
“Is that how it works in the city?”
“Sure. Give and take."
“Do you get any visitors?”
“No, but the principle holds in any #place."
#vss365
from
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2016/10/bumpkin.html
Her companions always made her parents very uncomfortable. The last one was an insurance agent.
He tried to sell to them an insurance #product which
‘assured kids a happy future, and promised a hefty bonus if the parents met with an untimely demise in the 3rd year’.
#vss365
from
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2013/04/who-troubled-mrs-vijayan.html
I was not old
When #segmentation
Hit me hard,
In class 3,
In a convent
With boys till 4,
Sr Brenda
Punished me
For whoknowswhat,
"Sit with the girls,"
she said,
"Away from those 6 boys."
Hurts even today,
When I'm with a lady,
I feel the jealousy of 6.
#vss365
#truestory
I bought a time-machine.
Killed Hitler.
Visited Atlantis and Pompeii.
Stopped my parents from marrying.
I came back to the present.
I am still there.
#Customer service says,
"Sorry. No refund."
#vss365
from
https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-riddle-of-time-machine.html
"Love is like God. When times are good, one assumes that it’s there; when times are bad, one hopes that it’s there; and at other times, who really cares," I said, without much hope in #marketing that to her.
"Anything marketable is certainly worth it," she said.
#vss365
from
https://gatheredthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2010/04/for-gods-sake-listen.html
#vss365
The strife that is #life began on these steps no one now dares to tread upon.
We sat down there near the water. On step 1. Sand-mining has taken that. It used to be called the Bathing step.
We made love on the next few steps. Not all the way. She said let's wait till I'm only yours. I was fine with that. I was hers.
These are the Temple steps too. Did we forget that? Did they snatch her from me because of that? That was on step 7.
No one goes even to 20. The place for killers and ghosts, they say. I killed my lot. Before the others. The kid finished me. They keep me alive.
I went with another to 21. She got so scared. Saw the true bloody me, she says. She saw her too. How can she be scared of her? Of love?
I don't go there often. Only when I wake up from nightmares that keep me in a coma. When the vines release my limbs. When the Serpent, the one that leaves the golden trail, lets me breathe just to wish I could not.
I am here, the Sun says. She too.
"Class, for today's Comic Relief, the topic is: #Death. Arjun?"
"Wham! Bam! Thank you, Ma'am.
Grim Reaper says that to all.
Sans gender bias."
"Swapna?"
"It's not always wham,
Can be a careless whisper.
Death is like a fart."
"Out, you two."
"Last Christmas"
"Out!"
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
(Apologies to the spirits of GM & Wham!)
She studied the #grief, the determination and the rare smiles. In Court, no case is personal or confidential. At first, it seems like a breach of trust. Later, it is like a cure. Initially, each grievance sounds strange and harsh. Then, just oft-repeated scenes. Life!
#vss365
from an old short story of mine: 'The First Lover'
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/09/first-lover.html
#vss365
Hang by a #thread,
That's the 1st situation in
Mix'd marital arts.
After a decade
Of mating-dating we thought
We knew the other.
That 1st night I shooed
Away her pesky dog,
She said, "I'm Jane Wick."
Morning after, with
My nunu still tied to fan,
We said, "Jane." "Arjun"
She did not have any #luggage to wait for.
"I'll take you home if you will buy for me a cup of coffee."
"Hi," she said softly turning towards him.
For a while, they stood there. With the echoes of silent memories.
"What'll you do if I grab you and kiss you?"
"Try."
#vss365
from an old story of mine, or is it from my diary?
"On the first page of the notes, I saw a date marked near the left margin '17/3/1997'..."
https://discardedthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2010/01/just-for-weekend-from-scrap-shop-v.html
Who should I blame,
The useless middle-class
Or the rich and powerful,
For these rules
And censorship,
All for my well-being?
Why do they rob
Me of that Mittyesque #euphoria
Those few moments
When I can have sex
And vengeance
And the bloody ohsoawful truth?
#vss365
My autobiography in Ghibli form.
(Thanks to Ghibli & Grok)
Without my love
First love, on first date,
Saw my #velveteen undies.
Ne’er got to first base.
Moral of the tale:
Reveal one’s inner self for
Unrequited love.
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
"Seen this, Swaps?"
"What, A?"
"Today's headline is a #haiku.
Huge tariff on jokes.
Register to #canoodle.
Big Brother is Here."
"redruM."
"Don't get the second line."
"Can't find anyone?"
"Where should I register for a can of noodle?"
"We need you in politics."
#vss365
I wish I knew a wise poet
To lay bare love.
She will hear out my tragic case,
Scoff at the acidic guilt burning,
"That alone keeps old love alive."
And, smirk at new love.
"Cream on stale cake to sate #desire.
Who wants to know
What we think
When we say
I love you."
#vss365
"Arjun, why are you standing outside the Principal's office?"
"I erased the Thought for the Day."
"What did it say?"
"God is the tangential point between zero and #infinity."
"Why?"
"Dunno. Got too close to that point."
"I will stand with you."
"Oh."
#vss365
#truestory
how many times have I
stood like a fool
expecting
a bit of love
to leave with
nothing given
something taken
Mother says
it is worse for Her
not even expecting
a bit of decency
from her #guilty kids
to be left used
barren and dead
#vss365
#vss365
On #sempiternal love:
I forgot about you,
And I still
Call you my one love.
Is that the norm or not,
And that's me
Trying to evade.
I could generalize,
Find comfort
In ways to survive.
Let me state the obvious,
If there was
Another to love,
It would be the same tale,
Or will I
Remember you then?
#truestory
I asked a girl I liked
If I had abused her then,
"You were like all then."
We were bad in many ways
But we were good in trusting none,
"Ain't whitewashing what's done."
On a dark stormy night
Thought of the #cerulean sky,
"Dream on! Don't fight, say right's might."
#vss365
March 16, 19--.
A day before her birthday.
We kissed. The first time.
October --, that year.
Said I love you. First and last.
She could not hear me.
Diary stays blank.
Was it an #interregnum
Between empty states?
But, I see beauty.
Like the tree with the lone bird
Reaching for the blue.
Can I hope and dream?
Should fatalism decide?
Should I fall further?
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
"Tell me something that's funny and sad."
"Friends are people one can't love."
"What's sad about that?"
"There's something about them one hates so much."
"And, funny?"
"One rarely realises that."
"Like us."
"Knew you would #chime in with that. We are not pals."
#vss365
The reunion triggered status anxiety (for us nearly 6 feet under).
Bruce Lee Raj used his walking stick as a nunchaku.
After 5 pegs of Old Monk, Wodehouse Cyril recited:
Winter will no more have snow white and #flocculent,
Love has left me a flagellant and flatulent.
#vss365
Am I a dirty old man
If you and gods enter
My life only after dusk,
Can I defeat insomnia
Without that deceitful faith
In a togetherness,
Till then,
Lemme fit a #Pomeranian in a pome (Aargh!!!),
Lose battles before first cut,
Bluff with rhetorical queries,
Am I a dirty old man
If I feel you when gods smirk
At daydreams that were real.
#vss365
"You are a coward, #incognito and all that."
"Not that. Just a nonentity."
"Bah!"
"After you left me, I became that. Not just invisible, so easily forgettable. That's for killing you."
"Bah!"
#vss365
My first love was my own creation and she remained in the umbra.
The true one managed to put my consciousness in the #penumbra, enough light to love, dark enough to lust, b4 death.
Then came the love in the antumbra, never sure of the cause for the eclipse of the mind.
#vss365
99. When a man loves a woman a lot but knows too little, it is advisable for him to be a man of few words.
100. A man should keep his better half away from his worst half unless… (show more)
from ‘100 points in the #Countours of a Lovesick Old Man’s Life’ 5th ed.
#vss365
"Arjun, amuse me."
"Swapna, did you know that Man created Work to be away from Love?"
"Jobless you implies no love?"
"I'm between projects. In the #interim, working on pareidolia."
"What?"
"I see you everywhere. This morn, on a boiled potato."
"Work isn't working."
#vss365
Why can't I write a love poem?
Don't I miss the playful #petulance,
the lingering troubles?
Can I deal with trust without hope,
with desire without tomorrow?
Can I crush her against me,
wonder if I'm good enough?
Minus skill amnesiac with words
I should write about that.
#vss365
#Reservoir of love?
Life is not for tomorrow.
Give-n-take, that's best.
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
All that remained of the hill was the portion in the middle. Right over us. Like a multi-headed serpent, guarding or waiting to strike.
When the floods are over, if it is still standing, they will bring it down. No serpent, no god can survive the #onslaught of man.
#vss365
from my short story 'The Third Night':
https://gatheredthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-third-night.html
It moved lightly on her shoulder, to her neck. It skirted past the thin strap of her nightdress.
Was it his fingers?
Or the spider? What if she turned and found it on his face? How will she #displace the arachnid?
She reached down and picked up her bedroom slipper.
#vss365
from an old short story of mine 'Stories of the First Night':
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2015/04/stories-of-first-night.html
Love in lust's #slipstream,
Or vice versa. Right eM-Oh
For good crime fiction.
from 'Wisdom of Mata Hari & Casanova'
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
"Arjun, I am so bored. Confess."
"I was very young when I read my first adult book. Sidney Sheldon's '#Bloodline'. That accelerated the onset of puberty. Your turn, Swaps."
"Biggest
Lie
Of
One's
Disillusioned
Life (:)
Insufferable
Notions (about)
Extraction."
#vss365
#acronym
For some reason, not known to me, I used to post stories on #ValentinesDay. Otherwise, it was just another day. Kept that 'tradition' for a decade or so.
Not too sure why I stopped writing.
https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2020/02/valentines-day-stories.html
From ‘The Thirteenth Book of Meaningful Life’, volume 13, chapter 13, page 13:
“One’s life is meaningless if one does not #chase the following*:
Food
Health
Knowledge
Wealth
Lust
Love
Kids
Ghosts
Friends
*If one does not chase in that order, one is doomed.”
#vss365
"#Liberation? Bah! The old ways were better. I went to her house. She was walking in the courtyard. With a few cousins. I didn't know which one she was. She thought my uncle looked good. Didn't notice me."
"How is that liberating?"
"When you are free of all illusions."
#vss365
My land is big enough to keep my neighbours distant. That advantage also brought troubles. They took it for granted their cattle and goats could graze on my land. Even cleared a #thoroughfare across my land to get to the market.
I had to guard my boundary. At any cost!
#vss365
This is from an old short story of mine about 'outsiders' and what creeps (aka 'bumiputra' or 'son-of-the-soil') do to them:
https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-land.html
"Class, tell me about the #oak tree. Arjun?"
"When I croak..."
"Don't you dare!"
"But, ma'am, I have never seen an oak tree."
"Ok. Swapna?"
"Beneath the fine oak
Lies buried my weak darling.
Afterlife? Ha ha."
"Et tu."
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
"Filling your pocket is no rocket science."
"I have no time for your #rockets pockets."
"Bro, what's the leading cause of deaths among the elderly? Parricide. Who checks all those peaceful deaths at home? Everything will come to you, no?"
"Two goats and the old car."
#vss365
"What is your research topic?"
"Natural redistribution of wealth. It's about how the blue-collar workers stand to gain when the white-collar lot loses faith in matrimony and procreation."
"And the black-collar?"
"They will accelerate the process. Without gain, sadly."
#vss365
I saw 'Eye of the Needle' (1981) at that tender age when the past becomes irrelevant, and the future and the present are coyly entangled in deep uncertainty.
I knew then my love (in the future) would not let me live. That too, without me using the #needle on her hubby.
#vss365
I like to see her
Without the #flush, morn or night.
When others don't look.
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
I was a Poet Laureate
Till I used
décolletage (for decalage)
&
amanuensis (for anamnesis),
They still remember
Me the gladiator,
"My name is Gluteus Maximus Coitus Interruptus,
Loyal servant to my love..."
She interrupted,
"Don't #fawn
&
Stick to 4-letter-words."
#vss365
Pausing the flight
To escape the blues,
There's hyped solitude
#Laced with grey uncertainty
And memories a mirage
Of mere nothingness,
Such thoughts trouble
Before scavenging,
Or call it hunt
In the epitaph.
#vss365
Why do I feel your touch?
They say the amputated is like that.
I could lose money
Or write about crime,
Why can't a condemned #fool
Change for the better?
In between the ebb and flow of moods,
Life lingers in a smile at the sublime.
#vss365
Whispered I love you.
Then, #silence before the kill.
Brain dead. Pull the plug.
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
When I had most of my life,
I lost nearly all of it.
Nearly all, I did not lose
The memory of a love too brief.
That killed me, leaving
Nothing but the rest of my life.
Why did I put all on #ice?
It's too late now. To answer.
#vss365
I go round
the temple pond
to keep count
there's
the sublime
and
minors destroyed
innocent dead
a world drowning
or on fire
I am a serpent
coiling
before
swallowing
its tail
on which
a serene god
rests
waiting for me
to #quit
the quitting game
to accept
the end
#vss365
tgif
i don't have to lie or love
for 48 hrs
not that you noticed
not the #esoteric crap
not the needy cry
i can lock myself
in a cage too small but right
for a fantasy
in which i wake up
after an or-gy with ah
i can't tell you that
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
"So, that's how I finished off hubby 4."
"This is not a normal first night chit chat."
"I didn't chit chat with the others. Don't worry. I won't kill you."
"Did you say that to the others?"
"Take a #guess. Why do spouses always think their case will end differently?"
#vss365
"The follies of youth
or adult stupidity-
which should I #measure?"
"Try to blame it on
the system, company or
Peter Pan syndrome."
"Be serious, Swapna.
How many loves did I miss
With word or act wrong?"
"Do you want the truth?
Even if you had done it right,
You would still be you."
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
Do you know why I loved her
I wanted all to understand
With her
Realized it didn't matter
A #question would be enough
Do you know why I loved her
She told me about all her lovers
Me too
Knew it didn't matter
My loves were imaginary
Do you also love for wrong reasons
#vss365
I love people who:
believe in an ideology;
vote for a single party;
think there's only one love;
read-write feel-good crap;
hate unpleasant truths;
smile for a time-filler;
etc. etc. etc.
They say
I'm too old to love.
Ha am I #turning into
an idiotic teenage rebel?
#vss365
Declared war to lose.
My New Year #resolution.
Enough of BS.
#vss365
#haiku #senryu ?
#EndCasteDiscrimination
#Vanchiyoor #Trivandrum
#NoWater
#HappyNewYear
I said Hi to 2025
After #AmarSinghChamkila on Netflix
Did I forget 2024
And all the abuse I took
Am I going to take
More of that from them
Am I going to beg
When the m*F* won't give even water
I will be ready without a #prompt
Let me be honest about the real creep me
#vss365
