In the mornings, the city is almost indistinguishable from the city I knew 15 years ago, if you ignore some ugly new architecture. There are sparrows skipping on rooftops and sidewalks, morning walkers in monkey caps and woolen sweaters diligently pacing parks and pavements, sleepy schoolchildren emerging from their homes, the briefly opened front doors giving out a haze of filter coffee fumes and sambrani, the roads are empty and you can have a plate of steaming hot idly-vada for twenty rupees, a lot by the standards of 15 years ago, but surprisingly little for today.

Bean Town Blues

You will never leave the bean town
The old bean town
The plague mother will fold you
In her arms
The ghosts will caress your 
Swiftly cooling flesh
The songs of the Minstrel
Will infect you
Infested, you will hear the ballads
Of the Eukarya
You will join with the Dancer
You will stumble through streets
Lined with glass towers
And fall through shadows
Into empty courtyards
Into forgotten lanes where
Cottages gather dust
You will never leave the bean town
I will not allow it
I am the Bangalorey man
And I will not allow you
To leave. 

\See? You’re still here.

death is in my lungs i think

it can't be everywhere

i can't be sensing that whiff

 - sweet, cloying

   over-ripe, nauseating

   heavy in the nose

   heavy in the lungs

   heavy in the head

   heavy in the air and in the gut - 

                                 everywhere

it can't be following me 

it can't be that death is everywhere

and my dead always with me
                                 it can't be me

it must be that death is in my lungs
and all i need to do to escape it

is keep breathing

                       out

I want to write a zombie novel, a novel that is devoid of all life but just keeps shambling on, consuming the life force of all literature it comes into contact with until there is nothing but zombie literature, zombie poetry, zombie drama, zombie non-fiction, zombie memoirs on every shelf and every ebook reader everywhere. But I think it's already been written and you've already read it.

I think I know why
the idea
of an afterlife
is so persistent
It's not for ourselves
I think anyone can
contemplate their own
extinction
calmly
if they take a moment
to think about it
and anyway when it
happens
we're done and that's all
no, the afterlife
is so that our knowledge
of everyone else's death
can be put aside
the afterlife
is so that
you can lose a child
or a lover
or an enemy or
anyone else
(I don't mean misplace
but lose to death)
the afterlife is so you can
lose these
and not lose yourself
(of course I mean
the idea of the afterlife
of course there is no
afterlife
of course we are all
lost)

all week I've been going for 3-4 hour walks, stopping at parks and cafes, just rambling around mostly in the cantonment area

I want to be indistinguishable from the city


a sparrow contemplating kamaraj road while the newspapermen sip tea

i want to be the bangalorey man

to walk through shivajinagar and turn aslant and find myself in blackpilly

slip through a shadow and stroll down east parade

oh and further back

i want to find a terrible secret at the city's heart

want to go even further back and find a wonderful truth soaked into this land

and further, furthest, i want to walk in empty space forever right here

don't follow me

the cat watches me make tea
he is fascinated.
the cat is a hunter
he has only two modes of regard:
absorption and apathy

gig alert gig alert