Ra Sh

2
1998

THE DECLINING ART OF HEART MENDING

Cannot deny that I have a brittle heart,
weak and fragile like thin ice!
As it happens with hearts
that are volleyed back and forth,
mine too drop and crack with a crunchy sound,
like a bag of wafers.

Now, you know that girls make the best cardiologists.
The Heart is their medium, their crystal ball.
They can gaze at it and stir up storms.
So, every time my heart is broken,
I take it to another girl.

One girl squeezed out the blood,
washed it with peroxide and
dried it before pinning it all together
with safety pins.
Another pumped it with distilled water,
rinsed it with prill and spirit
before binding it all together
with a thick stapler.
The third one weighed and measured it,
blew hot air through it to check for holes
and stitched it masterfully
with a gunny bag machine.
The last one was so precise and trim,
she took my semen and mixed it with gold dust
and plastered it all Kintsugi style,
heart gleaming in blood and gold.

But, my heart is going phut phut again.
I can feel it from the thud thud of the pulse.
I just heard of a tribal girl named Hadni
in the valley of Buzzanooks
who can mend any broken heart
with the sap of the Merjalinna flower
and menstrual blood of the third moon
mixed with the pollen of Grzychterumb
and volcanic ash from the misty mountain
of Nettttzzzkkkppoo and the juice of Bahmabah.

I wonder whether she has a customer care number
toll free.

Note: Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of mending broken porcelain vases with lacquer and gold.

MR. BUFF AND MS. DRUG—A CLASSIFIED SAGA OF LOVE

Ms Drug was a narcotic agent and a ninja in love
Mr. Buff was a vegan addicted to chewing grassy cud.
But, his majestic herd-watch on an elevated rail track
Upturned wagon loads of counterfeit currencies
And maploads of coal, copper and gold mines
And sudarshana chakras to saw down the trees.

Ms. Drug flew in to catch the mythical Mr. Buff and
Spotted him on a wild hill with two suns on his horns.
Her clitoris throbbed at the sight of the night black figure,
But she engaged him in a war of weapons and Herzog drugs.

Mr. Buff had never seen such a pretty thing
Like a cotton cloud, fringes painted by a rainbow.
He locked her onto his horny horns and threw her on his back
And enacted a dream like sequence of a Kurosawa war.

For nine days, their battle raged.
By day, they fought.
By night, made love.
Washed each other’s wounds.
Dressed them with herbal salves.
She sharpened his horns for him.
He honed her tridents for her.
Then, tired, they spent the night under the ogling spy cameras.
Sleeping not a moment, attacking, withdrawing,
Mounting, slipping, squeezing, releasing,
Dreaming of endless days of war and nights of love.

Tenth day morn, a chopper landed
And chopped his head off her bosom.
She was dragged off as a drag queen
To Guantanamo as its first woman inmate
Where all their progenies were aborted.
But, since he was not killed by a feminist,
Mr.Buff reappeared when the first bullion
Rolled out from the vedic mine.

Mr.Buff was spotted on the denuded hill
With two suns on his battered horns.
Ms.Drug was piloting a captured chopper
In a daring escape to the East.
His nostrils had already caught her spoor.
He sauntered downhill to his people
To declare ninety-nine years of war and love.

SOUND BITES

One day, I get a sound clip
With one word chanted ten times
My name in ten languages without script.
It’s her voice from the stratosphere
From the ozone layer from space
From beyond space beyond some
Cosmic debris of a long dead star.

My name my name my name
In her voice of honeyed love
That settles on me like a rich thick
Fog of winter mist pollen star dust.

A sound clip is tricky matter
Devoid of mass energy volume
But it’s dense with gravity
A magnetic storm on a far away planet
It pulls me in a whorl in a weird whirl
To the depths she inhabits now.

Voice voice sound sound echo echo
Her lungs her heaving bosom her voice chords
See, she has been dead for a hundred years
Yet I float in her sadness
Like a pickled embryo.

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(Ravi Shanker N) lives in and writes poems from Palakkad, Kerala. Many of his poems have appeared in both national and international journals. His poems appeared in the anthology, A Strange Place Other Than Earlobes, and collection Architecture of Flesh. He is also a prolific translator of poems from Malayalam into English.

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