Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Voiceless in Gaza
This is my current status. So please, people, upload your stuff here. I think everyone has received an invite and been added to this blog. I can't say for sure when I will be roaring again, so rather than wait for that fateful day, come one, come all. For a start, everyone please (re)write out and upload your picture exercise so I can assess it. If you don't want it to be displayed publicly, send it to me by email. (you all have my address; I sent you the invites, remember?) Or if you like I will set it for private showing here.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
What You Can and Can't Put Up
OK, valid question: should we post lots of stuff here or not? I agree that we don't want to get too choked up, so i would recommend that those who have large texts to share and have blogs should put them on their blogs and crosslink. short texts can be placed here. Better to have Babel than the seasonal silence :)
Friday, July 11, 2008
I've been wondering...
while I appreciated most of the past few posts, doesn't it become a little too crowded if we all post our individual creative efforts (out-of-course that is) in this blog? Since, if you consider, there'll be an amount of coursework we'll need to write and share, and then after you pass out (not me personally, since i'm auditing, so i used "you"), the same blog will be used by later students of the course?
Maybe we post small excerpts from our prose or poem or anything else and leave a link to our personal blogs, and request Rimi'di to link them at the sidebar, as Bodhi's novel-in-progress was once linked?
Just my opinion though.
Maybe we post small excerpts from our prose or poem or anything else and leave a link to our personal blogs, and request Rimi'di to link them at the sidebar, as Bodhi's novel-in-progress was once linked?
Just my opinion though.
Con-front-ing
A passage dry
Two wet floors.
Three clips alone left upon the string.
--All in a life of silence.
Till a sound like human hand appears!
May no such human hand appear!!
Words waiting in a cue for a mouth.
Four horizontal lines upon a white page.
And words becoming mouths!
May such mouths ever move in tears!
Till the words are well mouthed into fear!!
Two wet floors.
Three clips alone left upon the string.
--All in a life of silence.
Till a sound like human hand appears!
May no such human hand appear!!
Words waiting in a cue for a mouth.
Four horizontal lines upon a white page.
And words becoming mouths!
May such mouths ever move in tears!
Till the words are well mouthed into fear!!
Pour
Potholes uniting people
A moving umbrella
One hand
Another.
The switches of light and fan
Positioned like a cross.
A tiny man holding up his umbrella
In a high interim to avoid pricks.
And such continuous sentence-like stretches of oddity,
Till I give up on a Period.
A moving umbrella
One hand
Another.
The switches of light and fan
Positioned like a cross.
A tiny man holding up his umbrella
In a high interim to avoid pricks.
And such continuous sentence-like stretches of oddity,
Till I give up on a Period.
Gilotin
Hands dipped in hot, boiling milk. Utpala. Even an un-man like me! When the second bullet had struck, I knew, this was to be the end. Still inched forward with the body on wet soil, holding all the pressure onto the elbows, crippling on as ever. In this bullet-hit hell of a body, for the first time, in the (w)hole of 32 years, I felt some sort of an instinct, boiling up to a considerable height. If home can be reached, I will put in one final effort, even if it is the last gasp. Neither eroticism nor exactly self-love, it was like a desperation to create a future to resistance, that had been clawing my blood-smeared hell-body! A man like me would do something to deserve a bullet sometime! Could Utpala ever imagine this in her wildest day-dreams?
Perplexed hands then, Utpala's, dipped in hot, boiling milk. Hands almost fully white, further whitening, Utpala's. Day in and day out, this dipping, this dripping! Some inexplicable comfort, as if, Utpala's! Each time, when she lifts her milked, whitened and further whitening hands from the bowl, a child gets designed (ah! only to be a figment!)amid her finger-lines. After that, a strange anger, Utpala's, which can kill and does kill as she strangulates the mis-imagined child, dipping it into the hot, boiling milk. Utpala can create as well as uncreate.
Had to stop in this bush. The body, nearing stagnation, could hardly move on. But, still enough understanding left to realize that I had had an erection. The thing had stiffened so much, that it was becoming exceedingly difficult to crawl forward. Could not even stay on my back. There were bullets in the shoulder and underneath. Tried to dig a hole with both hands. The soil was soft due to rain and went in comfortably. Then I opened my zip and entered the thing straight into the hole, I had dug. It went deep, out of visibility. The pain started to soften. My eyes were closing in ease.
Hands dipped in hot, boiling milk. Utpala. Almost the dead of night. Subimal arrives pretty late these days. Must be some secret meeting again! With a pain that had started to soften, Utpala lifted her hands from the milk. There was something in her hands. Utpala observed. A bullet. Bloodless. Utpala looked at the blank wall, which was in front of her. Then, she threw the bowl full of milk, towards it. Little columns of milk started to make their way down in the form of streams. The wall had become partially wet with milk. There was some heat too and perhaps the surface of the wall shook a little as there were little twig-like rings of smoke, making their room from it. By that time, Utpala had closed her eyes and got stuck into the bullet with her sharp, boiling teeth. Even the bullet had to be silenced, silence.
Arka Chattopadhyay
Perplexed hands then, Utpala's, dipped in hot, boiling milk. Hands almost fully white, further whitening, Utpala's. Day in and day out, this dipping, this dripping! Some inexplicable comfort, as if, Utpala's! Each time, when she lifts her milked, whitened and further whitening hands from the bowl, a child gets designed (ah! only to be a figment!)amid her finger-lines. After that, a strange anger, Utpala's, which can kill and does kill as she strangulates the mis-imagined child, dipping it into the hot, boiling milk. Utpala can create as well as uncreate.
Had to stop in this bush. The body, nearing stagnation, could hardly move on. But, still enough understanding left to realize that I had had an erection. The thing had stiffened so much, that it was becoming exceedingly difficult to crawl forward. Could not even stay on my back. There were bullets in the shoulder and underneath. Tried to dig a hole with both hands. The soil was soft due to rain and went in comfortably. Then I opened my zip and entered the thing straight into the hole, I had dug. It went deep, out of visibility. The pain started to soften. My eyes were closing in ease.
Hands dipped in hot, boiling milk. Utpala. Almost the dead of night. Subimal arrives pretty late these days. Must be some secret meeting again! With a pain that had started to soften, Utpala lifted her hands from the milk. There was something in her hands. Utpala observed. A bullet. Bloodless. Utpala looked at the blank wall, which was in front of her. Then, she threw the bowl full of milk, towards it. Little columns of milk started to make their way down in the form of streams. The wall had become partially wet with milk. There was some heat too and perhaps the surface of the wall shook a little as there were little twig-like rings of smoke, making their room from it. By that time, Utpala had closed her eyes and got stuck into the bullet with her sharp, boiling teeth. Even the bullet had to be silenced, silence.
Arka Chattopadhyay
Angularity
The thread was being moved through the surface of the grass. Perhaps, somebody had been flying a kite somewhere. As our feet came into its tangle and we got stuck, we looked down, only to see the thread being pulled away from us, across the vast stretch of the maidan. I was trying to kiss her, but the thread had got in the way of it. The kiss. The lips. The family. Like upturned shoe-soles in the sea-beaches. Cross-currents, there were in the quicksand. The thread had become a pointer. Trying to take us along--an anchor? There were little pockets in the grass. Little errors. The thread was strangling them one by one, striving to establish a pause in the two of us. We looked up. Not a single kite in the sky.
There had been one such thread, sometime back. Taking life. A pigeon's left wing had come under its power, impairing the ability that may have led to flight. Then, the dog's turn arrived. I could not do anything for the bird. The thread was the similarity between the two events, the lack of a kiss over there, the difference.
Now, I could see the thread, up in the air, going round and round like a web and linking the remaining tree-tops all across the maidan. It had started to emit a tremendous energy of darkness, blanketing the blueness of the afternoon-sky with a dusk-like madness, as if the whole sky was about to turn into a giant wingless kite. She had been mute all along. Not even a sound had come out of her. Could she peep into my thinking? I looked at her. She was looking up towards the sky. She finally broke her silence, of my thoughts and of her words---"Can we get married now?"
There had been one such thread, sometime back. Taking life. A pigeon's left wing had come under its power, impairing the ability that may have led to flight. Then, the dog's turn arrived. I could not do anything for the bird. The thread was the similarity between the two events, the lack of a kiss over there, the difference.
Now, I could see the thread, up in the air, going round and round like a web and linking the remaining tree-tops all across the maidan. It had started to emit a tremendous energy of darkness, blanketing the blueness of the afternoon-sky with a dusk-like madness, as if the whole sky was about to turn into a giant wingless kite. She had been mute all along. Not even a sound had come out of her. Could she peep into my thinking? I looked at her. She was looking up towards the sky. She finally broke her silence, of my thoughts and of her words---"Can we get married now?"
Yellow
It's this piece I wrote but conviniently forgot to bring to class!
I’ve often wondered what the colour of a scorching summer afternoon should be. Should it be white or should it be yellow? White, said a poet, but I decided yellow. Sure it looked yellow as the sun rays flirted with the tree tops, it was the exact shade of a fire cracker whirling about madly on some festive surface. The crazy buzz of a cracker, I noticed the other day, sounded exactly like the distant drone in a shopping mall that despite the music fought into my ears. You shouldn’t wear purple lipstick, I read in a beauty magazine, it makes your teeth look yellow. The girl’s lipstick was purple. Did her teeth look yellow? I didn’t notice but her dress reminded me of a woman I once saw on a local train. She had spent the entire length of the journey weaving a yellow thread onto plastic rings. The rings would embroider some dress whose owner no doubt would be oblivious of those nimble fingers and the face behind the hands. Meanwhile the current goes off again. The deep yellow of the street lamps give way for a single strand of pale flame that flickers on in my one- roomed apartment. It casts a yellow shadow on the legs my girl…she has fallen asleep.
I’ve often wondered what the colour of a scorching summer afternoon should be. Should it be white or should it be yellow? White, said a poet, but I decided yellow. Sure it looked yellow as the sun rays flirted with the tree tops, it was the exact shade of a fire cracker whirling about madly on some festive surface. The crazy buzz of a cracker, I noticed the other day, sounded exactly like the distant drone in a shopping mall that despite the music fought into my ears. You shouldn’t wear purple lipstick, I read in a beauty magazine, it makes your teeth look yellow. The girl’s lipstick was purple. Did her teeth look yellow? I didn’t notice but her dress reminded me of a woman I once saw on a local train. She had spent the entire length of the journey weaving a yellow thread onto plastic rings. The rings would embroider some dress whose owner no doubt would be oblivious of those nimble fingers and the face behind the hands. Meanwhile the current goes off again. The deep yellow of the street lamps give way for a single strand of pale flame that flickers on in my one- roomed apartment. It casts a yellow shadow on the legs my girl…she has fallen asleep.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Song about the Wild Car Schizoprhenia
[Here's one of my prose poems, guys, although I am not aware if prose poems are allowed on this blog :-O ]
….the winter runs though your hair…the car moves through lairs of dreams and darkness…cuts the night in deathly cubes of ice…the dice spins upon her body…spinning infinite pieces of the city in your throat…the road reveals the laughter of hidden ghosts….and after the memory is shaken…after the panther is born…you suddenly feel alone…you are the only pulse in the sky….
And you throb among the skyline…your wings shine…a vampire slips into your mind…around you now is the forest…where guitars charm the graves…electric trees sink into the poem…and find the keys to the soul of winds…the car gathers speed….broken city offers its homes…its windows…its cold forgetfulness…
It is good to be forgotten…to be an ancient king’s sword in the museum…it is good to be forgotten at times.
And the smells of the day linger in her veins…and won’t let her die…
the car moves through the sleeping souls…a mole tunneling into the bones of lone women…who clasp the vampire’s teeth to their breasts…even the skyline is unaware of their secrets…the guitar stabs his muscles…his memory tussles between windscreens and the smell of panthers…
and may the city never wake again…never take its morning tea with friend and enemy…never mend its torn shoes…never remember whose hands were crushed by the machine…
and my enemies are dead now…I can see their ghosts dining in the old
And among the music…among the fragments of the dead sky…among the windows and the shadows of trees…the road unfolds like her skin…tonight her smells remind you of the meaning of time…of the soon-to-die forests in your blood…
But you choose the blade…and make a cut on your forehead…so the winter seeps in with its own stories…my enemies are dead.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
A suggestion
Why don't we do the freeyourmind exercise with music too. We tried colours. That was fun. I find music conjuring imaginary landscapes as easily as pictures or colours. We could stretch it from a landscape description to a short story or something too.
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