Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas

The sun came in and swabbed the floor

Kashmiri chillies kissed a wall

Parrots seeped into the rocker

And teakwood spun a yarn so tall.

…

A squashed bug bemoaned Neruda

Face creams swirled in jars

Milk shimmied around on skateboards

And printers whirred on Mars.

…

Singers snored for inspiration

Peaches whipped batter with their toes

Photographs changed their colors on whim

And verse cackled at prose.

…

Now if you’re done fulfilling

This flippant Friday quirk

Perhaps you’d consider, Miz OJ,

Getting back to work.

And we’re the global generation

With our frequent flyer miles

Our fluency in foreign tongues

And friends across continents.

…

We fill our hollows with zinfandel

And raise toasts to 18-hour workdays

And rattle off names of all the massages

We need to de-stress, unwind, feel human again.

…

Strange words we consume,

Rigatoni, kim chi, sake and bagels,

And molten meltdowns in the candle-scented café

At the corner of 7^th and 17^th.

…

With our international degrees

And accents from back home

We walk our pedicured feet around cities

With elation, with pride, with joy,

That comes from loving

Securely one’s own.

…

Relationships are always in the plural,

Commitment necessitates a therapist and much pondering

And babies before 30 is suicide:

Only fools or the very brave would attempt it.

…

We have memories of snowstorms

And Mardi gras parades

And none of the nights

We stumbled home drunk.

…

And reunions stir up nostalgia

That only barely settles

At the bottom of our core

Threatening to regurgitate

At a moment’s notice

(And sometimes, not even that.)

…

We dance the salsa with abandon

Reworking the heavy kathak tread

Learned in a blurred, sepia childhood,

Our bodies unashamed,

Our spirits unfettered

Our lives the way we dreamed them.

…

And pillows are for soaking

All the broken dreams

That look around quickly

Before gushing forth and flooding

The silent, unjudging night.

P.S. Haaaaalp! How does one add line breaks to this darn thing?!

“Have some faith,” he offers, extending a marigold basket,

Is it round and white and spongy? I ask

“And sticky and drips from trees.”

Is it brittle and lined and aged? I ask

“And soaked in delta waters.”

Is it gnarled and craven and smiling? I ask

“And gurgles on its deathbed.”

Is it close and warm and vicious? I ask

“And lives in your childhood dreams.”

It ain’t over until it’s over, dahlings. Until then, suck it up and deal with the rotten verse.  Orange Sadistic Jammies is on a rrrrrrrrroll! 

*******

Vivaldi is straining

To tell us there are four seasons

Above the thunder of the Indian third,

And the boom of drums

And tramping feet

And idol-cart squeaky wheels;

A minority Italian

In a roaring Indian nation

Drowned out,

Marooned,

Amid decibel peaks,

While a clay elephant head

Smirks at his isolation

And trumpets noiselessly

To crown the din.

*******

My dream come true over at Zigzackly’s page. A fortnight of write-all-you-want, bad, bad poetry. Jump in and get churning!

Now the Boy can’t turn to me and say (all perplexed and lines furrowing his brow), “But you’re such a positive person! How come your writing is so morbid?”

So bye-bye morbid & hello downright groanworthy!

*******

She picked at her scabs, all pickety pickety,

Started on the boogers next,

Do you really want to know what went lickety lickety

In this huge honking grossfest?

Splashing into snot, all splashity splashity,

Soaking up yellow-green scum,

There’s more fun around the corner, quite sickety sickety

Coming out of a baby’s bum.

And if we’re quite done, all pukity pukity,

We’ll traipse off to use some soap,

Are we any cleaner on this blogity blogity,

The answer is a resounding nope!

*******

Ahhh. Such a post-crap feeling, this.

I’ll be back, goopsters! You can’t keep a bad poet down for long.

His scent drove her to distraction.

It wafted under her nostrils as she meandered through the day,

assailing her from under her nails, over her shoulder, out of her hair,

from the crevices of her body

where he had nestled.

His smell of intoxication,

their intoxication,

the heady fragrance of skin on skin

and seeping sweat

and rain

and longing

and babies-in-waiting,

cloaking the earth in an urgent, primal need,

festering, clawing for its right to survive;

swirling into somnolent minds

and jaded spirits,

leaving craving, anticipation,

and half-mouthed miss-yous

in its wake.