acid

 

It is always the same #acid

That dissolves relationships.

Indifference as understanding

Ignores the stink of others;

When lies burn and spread,

Inert like a boiling frog;

Hope, sick and bare, feigning life,

Why is it a lesson never learned?

#vss365

purposely

 

I once called her #munch-kin,

She called me pumpkin.

When I scowled,

She frowned.

You used to call me Big Ethel she said,

And look how you have turned out I said.

I am not sure why we never kissed,

Life is full of purposely missed chances.

#vss365

chweet

 

"Oooh, I love your #farm. That calf was so chweet, the mother didn't have to be so protective."

"Stand still, let me hose you down. You didn't have to fall into the dung pit. Oye, don't remove that towel."

"But, there's no one..."

"Trees have eyes..."

#ConverStory

the jealous one

 

It's that type of morn,

A cool refreshing one

Such as that when we acted

A couple after a sweaty night,

At Koshy's for hot appam 

And a #pot of stew

With the Sunday church lot,

We winked and whispered

How we acted silly  

That morn,

The jealous one

Made it our last.

#vss365

(from an old one)

18+

"What's a #tart? This interview guide's weird! Read Q1."

"What comes after 69?"

"Not 70. Mouthwash, it says.  Q2.."

"What does one hear before the pubic hair hits the ground?"

"Ththu??"

"This interview is for?"

"Sainthood. Btw, isn't a #deodarant just that?"

#vss365

#ConverStory

 

the politician

 

"What's today's #vss365 prompt?"

"#Patriotic."

"Brrrr...I'll have to tell my friends I won't be liking most of the posts with that."

"Why don't you try #ConverStory?"

"Ah! That reminded me of the politician who told Wolverine 'May the #force be with you.'"

"What did Hugh do?"

airport at 03:00

 

#Egalitarian?

03:00 Airport driver (that's Me),

Them picked up. Ha! Ha!

#haiku ?

#vss365

Sparrow-kuttan

 

Do you remember our night there?

We took time getting used

To the birds, bees, other pests,

And that #foreigner we called Sparrow-kuttan

Must have seen all that we did.

There, I got to know what love is.

If I talk about it, it might fly away, 

Not our Sparrow-kuttan.

#vss365 

trees

 

He was a young boy then. A respectable-looking middle-aged man was peeing behind a tree. 

Was it that tree, like that man’s hand reaching for him? Or that, with shadow spreading, dragging him into those depths away from innocence, the #thunderous pounding dying within?

#vss365

from 

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-tellers-sabbatical.html

her song

 

She's everywhere. Her eyes follow me, with love that #eclipse accusation, why. She sings a song. I don't remember the words. It's not exactly this, it's better...

If we had... 

one more day,

If we had... 

oh god what, 

Would we have 

Remained

Together 

Forever...?

#vss365

from When I Try To Create

 

I #pray well now, when I try to create,

‘Can I use you?’ supplicate at love’s grave,

‘In a dubbed flick of old couples, Him and us -

Face turned away, blank smiles, lying, near?

Let me empty albums full of yellowed past,

Fake diaries too. I hear well now, your silence.’

#vss365

from

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2013/10/when-i-try-to-create.html

cypher

 

Trees have stories. Long ago, two lovers dreamt of making love beneath this tree. The clouds and the heavens beneath them. Lies from lips that kissed deeply. Their love was in such #cypher. With the little time they had, they could not have done a better job with truth.

#vss365 

from

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-tellers-sabbatical.html

from She Went

 

Alex left no suicide note, just a novella for me. It has no plot, only the minutiae of moments with a love 'Deeps'. 

With Veena, I reproduced whole scenes from it. The perfect #undercover lover I was.

When I married Divya, I avoided the book. Her nickname is 'Deeps'.

#vss365 

from

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2017/12/she-went.html

Without a hope of a hope

 

When I could not handle the Kafkaesque,

I engaged in Mittyesque daydreams.

That is in the past,

In deep-#freeze.

No more of the Mittyesque!

Till life grinds to a halt,

Today, tomorrow, who-cares-when,

Without a hope of a hope.

Don't tell me that that is Kafkaesque.

#vss365

poets & storytellers

 

"Did you know #Utopia is different for poets and storytellers? You poets need a few flowers, lover D-or-A, the mood to brood. Don't scowl. We need more, especially a lover alive to kill. Flower for me? Lovely! Is that a lemon-squeezer in your hand? No, not my ba...owww!"

#vss365

dominoes

 

I wish I was young again, to be 

A hypocrite with great one-liners.

I still try that stunt, and collapse like #dominoes 

When they retort, "Is that how you lived?"

I won't tell you the good I thought or did,

I will have to tell you how really stupid I lived.

#vss365

from

https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2021/06/is-that-how-you-lived.html

Epitaph (written~1992)

 

By my grave they stood,

How they did brood;

She who I loved yet declared not,

A tear! I know not her thought;

Lads! How well you look,

Do you count the time I took;

#Move on, wash not the broken clay,

You who stood by my grave. Or did they?

#vss365

from 

https://discardedthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2010/01/his-epitaph-1992.html

Ennu njan naaley nee

 

'Ennu njan naaley nee' (Today me tomorrow you).

That heavy duty sign at the gate welcomed all within.

I was not in the best state:

strapped to a stretcher, 

covered like a mummy,

stinking of incense and flowers,

waiting for my turn 

at the gas crematorium.

Forgotten. 

Already.

(They might remember

to place me in the oven.)

I spotted a pretty lady.

I winked. Auld lang syne.

She gave me a cold stare.

(Cast away wokeish propriety and protests,

Send me away with the right spirit, will you?)

reflection

 

I remember our honeymoon.

A strange incident happened.

We were making love.

"Look at the mirror on the ceiling," she said. 

It took a while to figure out the reflection.

#Maniac, it said.

That's when we knew we were made for each other.

#vss365

fading

 My love was brain dead. I was in the ICU to say ‘Bye’. And ‘I love you’.

A lady stood at the next bed. Her love was paralyzed,  except for his eyes. They made love with their eyes.

I met her later in the hospital prayer hall. 

Two #maniacs praying for the afterlife.

#vss365

from 

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2015/06/fading.html

nightmare

 

"Is a nightmare in which you have a nightmare a dream?"

"Huh?"

"A girl with my dream girl's name called and said I love you."

"Is that a nightmare?"

"A dream girl should remain a dream."

"Bah!"

"When I called back, a kid picked up. The kid called me Papa."

"Be #brave..."

#vss365

country

 

It was my childhood dream

To shift from the concrete jungle

To my lovely #country manor.

Life is lovey here.

Half are crazy,

The rest kill.

When my kid took me 

To the river to bid adieu,

Statistics survived.

#vss365

loss

 

Markets are falling.

Money in #escrow awaits

Loss. Love and life too.

#vss365

 

The Bakery

 

1.

I felt like an old poacher, 

without a gun, on unfamiliar territory. 

It used to be a hunting ground, 

when it was a hideaway, 

before it became a copycat coffee-shop, 

before there were too many friends, 

virtual and real, 

when communication needed thought. 

Casual encounters must have been rare even then. 

At best, a look or two, a rare smile. 

Now, that is not even a dream, 

the weight of experience 

is a drag on such quick wit. 

2.

I saw a best friend of old; 

she looked through me; 

that was not unexpected. 

Most people there seem busy, 

that’s not new; 

it’s always been a crime, 

a shame, to have time. 

If we had talked, 

we would have promised to meet again, 

not really a false promise, 

with too little hope. 

If we met again, 

we would have wondered 

when we became strangers. 

Or not wondered at all. 

3.

I smiled, inwardly, at two couples. 

There was always a Che Guevara and a Joan Baez, 

in t-shirts and old jeans, with wild hair and borrowed air. 

In a few years, they would become the other, 

dressed in formals, talking softly 

between clicks on their laptop or smartphone. 

Some will be sad, disillusioned and lost by then; 

most will have dreams, opportunities, 

expensive lingerie 

and a vacation at the Majora in the Maldives. 

The bakery always had a privileged touch, 

even when the puffs were five rupees 

and two could share 

couple of parotta and beef curry for twenty. 

There is too much body-spray now, 

yet the body stinks, 

too little cigarette smoke, 

not enough soda. 

How do they rebel now–

by going organic, 

by exchanging a few characters as protest, 

wanting to be a billionaire by twenty five?

Don’t get me wrong. 

I would not have noted all this 

if I had not met her. 

4.

She was two years my senior in school. 

We acted in a drama once. 

She was my mother, 

I the black sheep of the family. 

She slapped me, hard, 

the audience went quiet, 

it was that real, 

she got the best actor award 

and I nearly cried. 

Was that before or after 

that day I jumped out of a bus, 

ran to her and offered 

to carry two heavy bags of shopping? 

She had let me. That was fine then. 

We walked side by side, hardly talked. 

I deposited the shopped bags, 

she invited me inside, 

her parents and sister stood by her. 

I said, next time. She said, thank you. 

5. 

We noticed each other 

at the same instant. 

She said my name, 

without hesitation. 

I smiled, 

raised my hand to my cheek. 

She laughed. 

She collected her coffee, 

I a chocolate pastry. 

I took her to my old spot. 

We hardly talked. 

She sipped her coffee. 

I took a bite of my pastry. 

I looked at her. 

How did I offer the pastry–

a gesture with my eyes? 

Did we think about the baggage we carried, 

or about the weight of indiscretion? 

Did I make a move to get her another spoon, 

or did I not? 

She took the plastic spoon from my hand 

and had a small portion. 

I watched her lips and tongue 

take in the rich chocolate, 

the spoon in her mouth, 

the delicate suck on that. 

Back to me, 

then to her, 

we made the pastry last 

a dozen or more small turns. 

Someone there must have noted 

our few-moments-stand. 

They might say we thanked each other at the end. 

She did not. I did not. I did.

The message in parenthesis, 

the present isn’t bad at all, 

or the future, 

with hope in such a past.

from

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-bakery.html

the bogs

 

When I see the most beautiful hideouts,

the most romantic places where I could be with you,

high in the mountains with clouds beneath us

or in a cosy cottage in the middle of a lagoon,

I hear the old college-hostel battle-cry, 

"Where the fcuk are the bogs?"

secure

 As a lover, a partner in strange beds, homes

with half-lies, faked orgasms, true charades,

The barter for old times’ sake, to be safe, #secure, I gave,

they looked at me with pleasure, that as love, I took.

#vss365

from

https://gatheredthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2011/02/best-thing.html

tragicomedy

 

"How did your love end, A?"

"Oh, S! It was a tragicomedy of errors."

"With you, the error part is a given. Tell me about the tragicomic part."

"Used hombre instead of #ombré in a message."

"What did you write?"

"Your new hombre style made me realize why I love you."

#vss365

from war movies

 I hate war movies.

We don't shed a #tear

When foot soldiers die like fire-flies.

We don't get irritated

When the officers last till the end

And the political leaders

(Don't die don't die don't die)

Write a memoir about a war

They led from the front.

I hate war movies.

#vss365 

from 

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2017/08/war-movies.html

The Curse

 

When she removed her mask,

Did she know about the curse? 

The old warrior has to #retreat

From the shadows into the darkness.

He smiles wistfully at the old him,

The rebel fighting lost battles.

The curse won't allow that fight,

As he sinks into the amnesiac void.

#vss365

native

 

They say my father is an Iban (a #native tribe of Borneo, erstwhile head-hunters). I smell like them, family jokes. Is it the smell of longhouse, cockfights, spilled blood, tuak (rice liquor), the earthy scent of their women? They don't say that when I polish my parang.

#vss365

from 

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2015/06/family-joke.html

punishing

 

There should be a #limit

To one's bad luck.

Why am I between

The devil and the deep sea?

Literally, 

Figuratively! 

In a ménage à trois 

with a Martian and a lover;  

One knows not how to #invade,

The other knows not why.

Such punishing philosophy 

And psychology!

#vss365

angst

 

The narcissistic Net! 

It's the biggest revolution 

after the all-purpose nightdress;

 

cure for mid-life crisis, 

release of angst; 

to forget snail mail to agony aunts, 

to cook up news; 

and, of course, 

to contact old best-forgotten pals, 

compare visiting cards.

#vss365

from 

https://discardedthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2009/12/fare-thee-well-or-after-reading-larkin.html

On the beach

 

On the beach, the day before the rains... --- --- --- 'Monsoon will be here tomorrow,' the Met Dept. said. It's late. Maybe the early May showers left it spent. The schoolkids' new books and shoes should be drying Under the fan on the dining table. Those are still dry.

Strange dark clouds are gathering in the east (why east?), Too weak to be the real mob. Above, a half-moon teased. To the west, bright blue sky and the evening sun beckoned. I knew I had to be on the beach, the day before the rains.

There, I should have prayed to the evening sun. But a lovely young one, A twenty something I should not look at, stood between Sad hopeless me and the sun. I could look at her mother But she looked like me, company fit for the lovely one's father.

I scowled for a while, kicked at the wet sand, But it's tough to keep up that mood on the beach. I took long strides and raced to the setting sun, Like a dog after a ball, I chased the waves.

Some time soon, I will swim to the deep, I promised. The blue sky and the stars above me, the dark deep beneath, I will try to float for a few moments, to tell her, 'I am coming, my love, we have been separated too long.'

They might find a bloated corpse, eaten, rotten. The romantic will say, 'He did it for love.' The cynical friend might add, '...after many decades. How convenient!' They might not find me if it rains well.

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2014/06/on-beach-day-before-rains.html

ghosts

 

Kundra took me everywhere.

We explored the hills, prayed at the crack/abode of the sacred king cobra that leaves a golden #trail.

He took me to the three rivers’ junction. I met her there. 

"Are you here alone?" she asked.

"What are you smiling at?" Kundra asked. 

#vss365

from 

https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/08/stochastic-resonance.html

from I think

 

I chose to dwell on lighter stuff.

To the ones who would die in the days to come

I turned my back to protect my life's love.

His girl was religion and #nation, mine too.

So dangerous it has turned out to be,

With no guts to face our femme fatale.

#vss365

from 

https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2021/10/i-think.html

from My Funny Valentine

 

Swapna met her love on V-Day at Pappu's on Campus. 

Manoj hugged her. Handsome, well-read, passionate.

Raju sat opposite. He shook like a dysfunctional wet grinder when he ate/laughed.

Shekhar leaned against a #pillar. He gave her a bored one-raised-eyebrow look.

Me?

#vss365

from 

https://gatheredthoughts-swapna.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-funny-valentine.html

fighting

 

Relocated,

after the second nuke,

to the dark side of the moon,

We still fight:

Those who knew what an #aspen was

Versus teak-lovers, 

Every growth mere memory now;

Them who want one suit for all

Versus those in their god's colour

For us the blind to see; 

etc. etc.

#vss365

numero uno

 

Believe it or not,

I was a #wunderkind of sorts.

Even that came with 

admiration & expectation.

Then, I was a genius 

In being the iconoclast.

Sounds great,

Like a bumbling fool.

She came along,

Love & lust followed.

She was & is numero uno,

The only one to be within.

#vss365

some wives will smile

 

In such situations, most wives will use a #featherlight scalpel to slice the better half from ear to ear. 

Others will smile. That is a result of love, care and trust. That is, she accepts the sad but true cliché: for some men, there is only one woman.

So, she smiled.

#vss365

from my short story 'Love in the Time of Ayurvedic Viagra'.

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2012/02/love-in-time-of-viagra.html

flicker

 

Once, you refused to open your eyes hiding the last #flicker. I shouted a stupid silent I-love-you. I touched your forehead, your lips before I switched off the ventilator, before the cold entered. Damn it, woman! Open your eyes! I didn't cry. I don't cry. I won't cry.

#vss365

from

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/01/i-see.html

isolate

 

He followed them to the old abandoned boat-house. He watched them enact their version of 'Rebecca' with no second chance. The man held the woman's head beneath the surface of water, counting the bubbles till there were none. There, they #isolate love and discard future.

#vss365

from 

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-tellers-sabbatical.html

angry shadows

 

He stared at the roughly hewn steps. 

He remembered the cottage at the top, the #anxiety aborted dreams gave birth to, the quarrelling. 

He saw angry loud shadows race past him. 

He felt a cold silence. Those ghosts had sucked the air and created a vacuum around him.

#vss365

from

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-tellers-sabbatical.html

from Kiss of Life

 

Some VVIP was expected. There was a rally. 

I #surrendered to the emotion of the moment. 

I ran to my wife. Kissed her, like that kiss in Life magazine.

Then, it was all a blur. 

At first, I heard mata ki jai. Then, it was kuththey...patti...adikkada...maaro. 

#vss365

(Translation censored for the sake of global audience.)

from

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2017/05/kiss-of-life.html

other lives

 

5/24/3022 : 10:52

I fumbled briefly during the office presentation. Two other lives exerted their influence. 

The orgasm with Ann coincided with the moment my nemesis, my twin, left me #paralyzed. That caused that brain fade.

The other lives were less eventful today.

#vss365

from

https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/12/12-31-3010.html

lonely till company left

 

I was in a meeting when she called. Remembered her husband, switched off my mobile. Took the team to a wine bar. Went home with a lady, felt lonely till the company left at the #break of dawn.

Returned her call.

"Hi."

“He died last night.”

She disconnected. Or, I did.

#vss365

from

https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/07/last-time-i-wrote-about-love.html

waiting

"I'm done with the waiting." Said that to many a love. Leaving every dream, every love, never waiting. Defeating myself? I used to say that to her too. But, she knew I would wait. She was my life after all. How could I desert that? Then, she went. And, I'm done with the waiting.

 

job interview

 

It's tough to #predict the outcome of job interviews. 

“I've a green card. Will you come with me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do you like cooking?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want kids?”

“Yes.”

“I want two. Organic. Did you want a love marriage?”

“Me?”

“Love's better arranged,” she said.

#vss365 

from

https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/07/catharsis-before-wedding.html

which one

 

I can remember plots and characters but names and faces slip away fast.  

Yesterday, I had dinner with two colleagues and their wives. I am in an affair with one of the wives, nothing regular. 

One smiled sweetly. The other scowled. 

Which one, that broke my #reverie.

#vss365

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2015/05/jigsaw.html

awestruck

 

Are you not #awestruck

By the common sight around?

Common affliction.

#vss365

#haiku ?

#sernyu ?

Two contract workers at a bus-stand. She, late teens; her husband, a few years older. 

He shouts at her. From within her blouse, she takes out a Rs 500 note. He snatches it from her small hand. He marches off in the direction of a liquor shop. Her dark unblinking eyes follow his back. 

The bus starts. The husband returns. Shouts about how hungry he is, how he could not get anything with the Rs 500 note. He gives her the note. She slips it within her blouse, treasures it next to her small firm bosom. As they move towards the bus, she gives him two ten rupee notes for the bus-tickets. They touch briefly, then. He stands behind her in that departing bus, his arms shielding her.

from 

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-tellers-sabbatical.html

life without...

 

The early morning light crept across the lake. He noticed a lone figure on another balcony. 

They shared the same scene, birdsong, touch and smell of cool air with a faint tinge of eucalyptus.

They looked at each other before going back to a life without #imagination.

#vss365

from 

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-tellers-sabbatical.html

attack

 

The day we caught our cousin Indira with our football rival Sasi, we attacked him with iron bars, thick sticks and cycle chains. 

I met Indira, Sasi, their kids recently. He walks with a limp. He caught me looking at his skewed face where #parallel lines met. He smiled.

#vss365

from

https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-football-days.html

how I met

 

I was in a crowded train with no #sign of hope/life. 

The young lady next to me, when she had to feed her baby, sat cross-legged facing me & the window. With arm on raised knee, I shielded her from the male gaze around.

"That's how I met your mother. And you, my son."

#vss365

from   

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2012/03/her-smile.html

without an end

I killed the women I loved. People say it's because we were opposites. My loves were kind, friendly. I was just a filler, I resented that, the motive-seekers say. I killed them to kill myself, to suffer without an #end. Why am I admitting this in my last note?

#vss365

false tales

 

After the first peg,

We discussed: wife, job, travel,

Chest puffed out et al.

After the second,

Remembered: old loves, bad lives,

#Weavers of false tales. 

Who counts after that,

Silencing truth till we puked.

"Who the hell am I?"

#vss365

 

young couple

 

In a restaurant, you observe young couples and remember.

You remember a place, you and another, a place not so fancy, but you two were a young couple in love. The food, the place, the money, none of that mattered. You two were priority number one to each other. Family did not matter, work, ambition, none of that mattered. You felt safe and loved.

You are woken from that reverie. 

"Stop ogling at those young couples."

You laugh. 

They ask, "What were you thinking?"    

You say, "Old stuff."

They say, "Whatever."

barrier

 

We thought there would be

A #barrier between love 

and indifference.

#vss365

#haiku ?

#sernyu ?

alien concept

 

Spring '23. The aliens amongst us stepped into the shoes of the top 3%. Minimal #tension for the rest. 

When I brought it home:

"Of what god/caste is it?" "How will you do it?"

"It's for love," I replied.  

That stretched the family motto: amor est in aliena conceptu.

#vss365

If Google has given me the wrong translation, don't blame me. 

VR

 

Enter. Five flights of stairs. A dark hall. 

A brunette with dark eyes, pouting lips, cream chiffon blouse, deep décolletage, leads with a lit #candle to a narrow steep spiral staircase. 

Blue jeans, those legs...

Trip. 

"I hate this VR version of snakes & ladders!"

#vss365

from 

https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/11/shrinking-hope-near-innsbrucker-platz.html

before I could

 

"Remember our last meeting?"

"A week before your wedding."

"In that seedy restaurant."

"I thought the #diamond ring would shine bright even there."

"Diamond..."

"You gave me your wedding invitation card before I could give you that."

"Oh!"

"I still have it."

"But..."

#vss365

diary

 

"There is no #teaching worth learning," my kid said.

"You shouldn't learn such stuff."

"It's in your diary."

"Anything in that diary about love and wife?" wife asked.

I looked at my son. He returned a blank-eyed stare. 

Finally, I understood the last scene in 'The Omen'.

#vss365

time to leave

 

It's time to leave.

22 months back, I lost my job in the Middle-East. Thought I had enough. My parents were the first to tell me to go. Nothing #mysterious about that. Then, her folks. She kept mum. No more fights on SM about men-women equality, about love conquers all.

#vss365

mage

 

It's congenital:

I, the #mage, make things happen.

Without luck, always.

#vss365

#BanBadHaiku

prison

 

Can’t you be like them

And feel good in my #prison?

Nope, love! Freedom first.

#vss365

#haiku (definitely not, yet again)

quarantine

 

My writing has been

#quarantined or worse banished

without the hashtag

#vss365

#haiku (surely, I am joking)

Hosism

 

There is a politician in my constituency who frequently throws unfamiliar and big English words at his hoi polloi, that too for free. His work has been immortalized with the word 'Tharoorism'.

That must be why my uncle Hosappan has started responding to situations with German words. Will it be 'Hosism' or 'Hosappism', I wonder. Since our German is worse than our English, we have no idea if he is getting it right.

After talking to a friend who is thinking of divorce, he said: "Schadenfreude."

After trying to counsel that friend's troubled wife, "Vorfreude."

After his first date with her, "Waldeinsamkeit."

After meeting his friend after that date, "Sitzpinkler."

After the couple rode off into the sunset in Hosappan's car, "Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung."

why marry

 

"Beware the Ides of May."

"May is the cruelest month."

"Hanging and wiving goes by bad luck."

"Lovers whose bodies stink of each other...forever!"

"Why marry like the lusty Moor that leap'd into that #idea?"

"Bro, for fools' approval and honour, with strings and pains."

#vss365

(An experiment with not-so-humble apologies to Messrs William S. and T. Stearns E.)

poetic wall

 

"I love you."

"Rumi said: You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens."

"No Roomie-Shoome now. Break down your poetic #wall. Talk to me without your Plate and Dickens."

"Plath and Dickinson."

"Love!"

"I don't love you."

"So, that's what all that poetry says..."

#vss365

girlfriend

 

I met one of my first girlfriends. From kindergarten days.

We talked about love and marriage, that is, her kid's love and marriage.

Moral of the story: Always allow your love to go with someone else for them to live happily ever after. (Added benefit: There will be fewer love poems.)

from I See The World

 

I see the world in a reflection.

People reading the book

the epilogue the preface

and the #climax a catchy start.

These people seem so close,

close enough to touch.

Shall I? Oh, let them read,

if they wish, which they do, I think.

#vss365

climax

 

The first time, she was near #climax when a brilliant idea struck him. 

He read it to her once he was finished, with the idea not the act. 

‘Brilliant.’ 

Others agreed. 

Next time, she was less cryptic, ‘Regular Archimedes you are, aren’t you? You and your Eureka...’

#vss365

from 

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-big-e.html

(un)dying love

 

Writers think, therefore #animate I am.

Hemingway, Carver and I would have got along well. 

Munro and Davis know what I have been through.

But, this writer here is different. She writes about what will happen in my life.

Spooky like hell but worth my (un)dying love.

#vss365

from Never Together Ever Again

 

Like every other young couple, we were curious, excited, ambitious, principled but with rational pragmatism. With each passing year, was it disillusionment or #plain realization? Role-play, complacency, lethargy and resignation took over. Lethargy is the best of the lot.

#vss365

from

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2019/12/never-together-ever-again.html

fairy tale

 

12 years back, my sister eloped with a guy of another faith. 

I made it clear she should not be a part of my wedding and life. I received support on social media. #Oblique taunts too but I blocked those.

Today, for my wedding, my bride, her folks and mine were absent.

#vss365

The best part of fiction is that a good reader can get a message even from the worst writing. A good reader can turn a fairy tale into what it would be in reality and be rightfully depressed about life and society.

from Will You Marry Me

 

I was a #fledgling bachelor when a girl asked me: "Will you marry me?"

Many years later, another asked the same. We slept on the question. Next morning:

"Yes." 

"Yes, what?"

“Yes to your question about marriage, you fool.” 

“We talked a lot of nonsense, didn’t we?”

#vss365

from 

https://newnonentities.blogspot.com/2010/09/will-you-marry-me.html

diffuse memory

 

"He's ok. Only his memory..." the nurse said.

The young lady entered, adjusting to the light as #diffuse as memory there.

"20 years! Why did you leave Ma and me?"

I stared blankly. 

"It's ok, Pa. I won't leave you. I'm taking him."

That's the only way I can be with her.

#vss365

from 

https://justoneavatar.blogspot.com/2018/12/this-years-trip-part-1.html