de profundis

love like a sunset

sink into the sea

turn into a shipwreck nibbled by the little fishies

wait for deep sea divers

to find a bottle heart

they'll put it in a museum smelling like a perfumed fart

mouldy as you're parked now

pickled deep in blue

a squid will come by sometimes (squid sightings are few)

and it's worth it in this funny place

to see him spray ink too -

you're sticky, but he's found himself a mottled sunset loo.

Our revelry will one day be a rule. I've realised that old people know this best, followed by children. My grandfather was once fed alligator meat when he was a kid and therefore knows this bothways. Only we in our innocence with our graffiti and our piercings desire the periphery. The wackiness of this is pure gold: tomato soup will be institutionalised and so will yo mama, oh wait. See what I mean?

This is not a rant. I have resolved to eat no more than ten peanuts today. This resolution concerns peanuts solely.

I wasn't born to be contrary but
for a part two to happen things cannot cave in

they must not, because, well, look at ants
what we do (which isn't much, mind) either
lives on or sinks
into the soil

soil is porous
so is a sponge
and blotting paper and the atmosphere
and, I'd like to believe, the universe, although I don't
know enough physics
to verify that

=)

I'm half-afraid of reading Villette again. I read it when I didn't understand most of it but even then it seemed so overwhelmingly mad in its despair. Also disjointed. Also whimsical. Wuthering Heights is mad in itself but it's the obvious kind of mad, it's dramatic and passionate and tempestous, yeah, but it could push itself into becoming cumbersome, or maybe that's just me. The quieter kind of mad is scarier, Villette scores there.

Earthsea will not get read. I'm not a good reader when it comes to long sea voyage descriptions and all this sailing's reminding me of Old Man and the Sea. I badly want to read something funny and decadent and utterly brainless. Auugh.

Must list:

The Pilo Family Circus
Toystories
Mango slaw! (Yes! Yes! Mango! Slaw!)
Bookshelf
Ghost

In spite of what I sound like, things are not what I sound like. Drift. Get. No? Double auugh.

Flautists and harpists and potato-chip slicers do not go together. Neither do I picture you in the sun and Once I had a love and it was a gas. Or bhyaan bhyaan and hum kaale hain toh kya hua dilwale hain. Most things do not go together if you spare them a thought, consider tea and biscuits.

A Brief D. on L. Part Five

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

A Brief Dissertation on Life Part Four

If not void, certainly null.

A Brief Dissertation on Life Part Three

If not null, certainly void.

If then we fall to
like bears
like beasts
is there a pact about
pretending not
to notice
how peculiar
our faces look
while we're chewing?

This is the story of Paresh and his watermelons. No one knows why Paresh is so meticulous about wrapping every melon he slices in half with thin filmy foil. People wonder about the manic look in his eye as he smooths down the edges with his little fingernail. He's happy to sell you as many as you want, he'll weigh them in perfectly with only the slightest suggestion of anticipation in his actions. But every watermelon around him is a ticking second, and Paresh waits in the centre of his rounded, green, striated universe with two blood-red circles covered in clingfilm on either side of him.

cxviii the fruitfly does not care. Reflected in the shiny orbs of its eyes are the gleams of light thrown off the transparent cover. Vigilance is not an issue, neither is hate, there will always be a moment when Paresh looks away. There will always be a blink of eye, a speck of dust, a bead of sweat. Whatever the distraction, it will be too small to evade and too quick to invite a premonition, cxviii will swoop down from the lightbulb and sit on a watermelon tonight.

Which leaves the watermelons themselves. If it's tragic to be human, consider being a fruit.

Now call me Kafka.

So x bends down and thinks of possible outcomes - plausible ones even - and weighs the pros and the cons. Much mustered calm. Next x draws imaginary blueprints that shimmer slightly under the ceiling fan, escape plans and and graphs and things that can covertly be pushed under the 'Subterfuge' label. x, however, is a colossal ass and it would do x well to realise that at the end of the day it's all the same crap, if x can't yell back at the world now x never will. No famous declamation, no angry outburst, no drunken confession, nothing. Nothing is a good word, also a good response to questions or queries. Everything is intermittent and this too shall pass, but it's always the same, right, x must never think of being able to share the battleplan. Would it therefore be possible to say that x is a lone ranger? Find the value of x. Six marks.

Say you were my love in a faraway land, I would describe this morning to you thus: Everything outside my window looks like it needs to be vacuum-cleaned of mould. Or maybe that's too banal, a better and more beautiful sentence would be: There is fog all around like vague wisps of forgetfulness. Or I'd just say, blast it you're not here anyway so why bother telling, but just so you know I woke up this morning with my fists tucked under my stomach for warmth.

Predictably though, there is no love and no faraway land and no incentive to write anyone a letter, so I'll let you know of my socks. They contain cold toes. And I'll tell you of my nose, which when placed against your bare skin would most definitely induce a shudder like a cold pebble touching your neck. But mostly I will tell you of my hair which demands a shampoo even in this weather, I shall sit down with it hanging damp and cold down my back and write to you anyway. And if I debate the propriety of it I shall shrug once and go on, it is the body that responds to weather first, the mind merely follows suit. Like in so many other cases.

The white shines through and you've always been proud of that because of all the trouble it took to get them this way. Aligned. Even. Straight. So it's a little unprecedented that you can feel things crawling around inside, tiny things and tiny movements, enough to take you to the mirror. So you open your mouth and look in and there's nothing really, just a speck of black wedged between two teeth. Then it moves. On an impulse you pull up your lip and press the gums underneath and a louse slides out like it's been squeezed through a nozzle. You press again and another comes out, then another and another, then they flow out of your mouth and into the room and everything is suddenly variegated, everything is dotted lines, everything is dash dot dash dot crawling around till it isn't anymore, till everything stops and you open your eyes.

And realise you should have brushed your teeth before bedtime last night.