moonlight to daylight
The city was comatose and still, unaware that the rain had come out to play and was splashing the buildings and washing the wind's face. It was dark and night had covered the township with a shroud, lightning offered an occasional surreal snap-shot. They looked on from their high rise, otherworldly in their appearance, cosmic soul mates who had found each other after travelling multiple galaxies and surviving many life times. They had never compromised refusing ordinary love and lesser lovers never doubting that there existed another who will unlock the secrets to the soul and all the mysteries of the universe.In those moments of rare doubt she would close her eyes and listen intently for the throbbing of his heart and it always came however faint like she had her head on his heart. When they had finally met, everything became silent and the world around started to dim and fade like it never existed. Their eyes grew misty and they embraced. The transformation was immediate all anxiety quelled , serene songs played in their hearts and they understood why they were born and why they would now never die.
They danced involuntarily as every cell of their bodies moved to the beats of a divine cosmic harmony. Magical feelings never experienced before wracked their hearts making them weep in uncontrollable glee. They were ablaze feeling light and airy like they were unable to feel the burden of their own bodies.
He looked at her and said, without you I was like ...
'a sky without stars'
'a violin short of strings'
'a symphony sans it's conductor'
'an ocean devoid of a shore'
'a song bereft of music'
'a rainbow minus it's colours'
'a forest with her trees felled'
'a bird wanting her wings'
'a sun vacant of light'
'a prophet robbed of his prophecy'
'a lover missing his soul'

Dawn had arrived clothing them with an orange-yellow glow.
I had a dream last night she told him.............

metrosexualmenu for saturday night
4 prozacs
tequila + trance fix
fury fuel of life
seducing dull death
self-destruct or self-ressurect
festival of sleaze and savage skin
head trip
heart flip
salty eyes....tear drop tasted
delirium in dance
distress demise

simone diya prabhu-new and improved (version 2.0)
Simone is playing with her toys; an ecletic mix of barbies, cars, cooking utensils, jigsaw puzzles and a frisbee. I say ' hey, 'run along' (just part of a long list of names that I call her, the others include 'ptsst yo' and 'culndhe(baby) mary), what do you want to be when you grow up'? She stops playing with her toys flashes me an enchanting smile and replies, 'I...... I want to be a 'magarmach' and eat all of you.' Hmmm, she does look like she is constantly plotting something, but mutating into a croc and eating us bit by bit; it never quite crossed my mind that sweet Simone had such gentle career plans. Gee, to think that her Dad figures that Simone is headed for superstardom in the tennis arena.
Simone is like a bright flower floating in pure spring water. She is animated innocence.... radiant like pristine white light pouring in through roofs of tall trees in a dark damp forest. Soon she shall have to be broken in and told about the ways of the world, her spirit skilfully compromised, crafted and cultured. Her intuition will be smoothly bartered for intellect in the hallowed name of higher learning, her rapturous faith in Santa will be traded for the cold comfort of Shoppers Stop, her spontaneous smiles and laughter swapped for tact and trained good behaviour. Dear Simone has no clue about what's in store, the long list of must not do's and the definitely must never do's. Taboo and tradition, sin and salvation, education and erudition, discpline and decorum, immorality and immortality, rules and restraint, falsity and faux pas. She will slowly make that ultimate acquisition of the grown-up, 'the personality' chiselled and moulded from years and years of conscious conditioning.
The real Simone will be left behind to play with her toys........ smiling an enthralling smile to herself.
Dont grow up Simone, maybe not just yet.

the rise and fall
fall in the market
rise in viagara sales
unhappy wife
happy pharmacist
cock, stock and one non-smoking barrel

free
we sat by the setting sun
stoking dying silver embers
basking in a web that twilight spun
blue-black skies of dull decembers

she said hold your head up high
open your mouth to swallow falling stars
'my supernova', i hear her cry and sigh
only cosmic mates hear the music of the Gods to heal all scars

zenwhim
its crowded in here
thoughts arranged like crooked teeth
sift them and caress them
file them like smart soldiers
ready to do your will

the soul is a ghastly gift
wants to fly winged horses
upon a zenwhim
rein her in
kindle her on an alchemist's slow flame

springwater freshness douses the pyres of falsity

soul stirring
i need to find something to die for
before i learn to live
do i eat on the apple
and abandon eden
to feed my soul now starving?

simone diya prabhu
My four year old niece's big black beautiful eyes stay transfixed to the 21 inches of instant nirvana. A kaleiodoscopic flurry of images and symbols exquisitely fashioned to seduce the mind and engage her in a surreal cell. She is like a supersponge, not missing a anything, picking up the latest commercial and hindi movie tunes and singing them effortlessly. No, she goes beyond that, she re-mixes them to suit her tastes, Chak de, Chak de, Chak de, Chak de sare gum becomes Maama (that's uncle in tamil) Maama, Maama buy me bubble gum. She has Pokemon tee-shirts, Barbie pants, Tweety baseball cap and loads more of cartoon character driven apparel and accessories.
She is a child of mass consumerism. She has been that since maybe her umblical cord cut was wiped with a Johnson wad of cotton dipped in Dettol. No,actually it was much before, I had made sure my sis listened to BMG or Sony music promoted 'Music for the unborn child', soothing western classical music guaranteed to make your child a mathematical, science or humanities genius. You cant go wrong with research, Harvard and MIT types have for years espoused the positive effects of listening to classicial music and how it makes children more intelligent. Simone you see had no chance, she listened to BMG promoted classical music from the womb. Now she is an infant DJ, mixing tunes and spewing them at will. She is onto Harry Potter presently and in love with Radcliffe from the looks of it. If Potter drinks Coke and chomps on Kellogs, she will demand that she be fed the same diet.
But not all is lost. Ask Simone, as to who she likes, Tom or Jerry and she would smile lopsidedly and say Tom. Ask her why and she says she feels for Tom as he always gets the wrong end of the deal. He never gets to devour Jerry and instead has a plethora of painful near death experiences. Disney's interpretation be damned, there is some freedom of choice after all.
You go Simone.

power of suggestion

There's this house in my neighbourhood. It's huge, maybe 300x200 square feet, maybe bigger. I would'nt be suprised if one day the owner fancied razing it to the ground and conjured up a football stadium in it's place. The name on the black glittering marble reads 'Lakshmi Venkateshwara Nilaya', I have never seen the owners, but word has it that they are one of the wealthiest families in Bangalore; owning a score of medical and engineering colleges. It's built like a palace, a monstrosity reeking of a vulgar ostentatious display of wealth. Onlookers stop to gawk unashamedly at this hallowed turf worthy of kings, some even snap up pictures, others even pose next to the obscene dwelling maybe wanting to show the output to relatives and friends.

There's something else about the house which demands attention, though it has been fully completed there is always some construction work going on. Nonstop, every single day, there is plastering, painting or some other form of modelling. A flurry of activity with labourers mixing cement and sand, carrying bricks and stones geting their orders from an important looking mason. The reason for this is a prophesy made by the family astrologer, who told them that there must always be some building work in progress or one of the male heirs would suffer a horrible death. Now, when there is no construction work required the masons break down a piece of the palatial edifice and re-build it. They have been doing this for more than five years and because the family fears for the life of their sons this is destined to go on forever.

The power of suggestion is astonishing, it bludgeons reason and replaces it with kooky crap. It happens all the time and it gets itself deeply enmeshed in the inner reaches of the mind and then starts to govern almost every action of ours. Our every ego impulse becomes the sum of the number of suggestions that we have been party to. It gets sucked in and slots itself softly in the confines of the unconscious. No freedom of choice.

Childhood is fertile ground to plant the insidious seed.....

'Don't play in the water, there's a monster waiting to grab you'
'Don't go into that room, the boogie man awaits'
'Don't climb trees, there are ghosts in the high branches'
'If you don't eat your food you are a bad child'
'If you do not do well in school, nobody won't love you'
'Say sorry, you bad child, why did you play in mud'
'Sex is sin, God will disown you if you even think about it'

Guilt, shame, phobias, insecurities, neuorosis, depression and what have you.

The power of suggestion,when used as a placebo though has tremendous self-affirming and therapeutic powers.

Yeah, about that astrologer who made that prediction, it's rumoured that he has a fortune amassed, most of which comes from a monthly direct credit into his account from an anonymous builder. Some say it's the same builder who's built the 'Lakshmi Venkateshwara Nilaya'. I don't believe it, but hey I may soon start believing it. Never doubt the power of suggestion.

Plant it and it will grow. It's yours to use or abuse.

second-hand inmate of the corporate sewer gravvy mission
why have you shot down clear cobalt skies?
leaving her wounded and wet by the side of dawn
vampires fight over the feast of her scarlet soul
spirits of liberty and free-will flee the gory canvas

did they have to awaken you with enterprise pumping your heart?
do you feel alive now?
living another's dream
clean starched shirt and matching tie

where is nursrey rhyme bliss?
gentle spring breeze rocking swing and see-saw
nibbling on cotton candy thoughts
smoke rings, guitar riffs and 'happy hour' ales

time for a backpack, paperbacks and backwaters

gaza stripped
ismail and issac
brothers spat out from the same womb
twin seed of abraham and jacob
their rear view memory mirrors now cracked
eyes for an eye and teeth for a tooth
blood washes the holy land

ismail now walled and weakened
livelihood snuffed out
his dwelling taken a shelling
no place to bury his brothers
banished from his ancient abode
his new borns with umblical cords tied to turbulence

he thinks, " either i be the bomb,
or i be bombed"
a bridegroom to vengeance
"he be the bomb"

de-flower
rows and ridges of flowers in their bower
soaking up colours falling off rainbows
the fields planted with dapper diamonds
in bloom and beautiful
they shiver suddenly

upon the gardener's debut
he,saddled with an affliction
damned to play a savage game of
she loves me , she loves me not
clinically dismembering

dandelions,roses, daisies and orchids
garden of immeasurable grief
a multi-hued bloodless carnage
strewn petals decorating their own funeral
she loves me , she loves me not

my grandmom and me
my grandma is 81. she could be 91, i dont want to ask. she and me we have been running this race off late. there is a daily prize at stake. the winner lays claim to the sloth jackpot; an unending supply of free tv time, watching clouds, listening to music, talking to oneself, reading, guzzling tea, chatting, leaving permanent tush patterns on the couch and staring vacantly at strangers.
i need another showcase at the rate im going.
she is agonised at losing and the leaden victory laps i do around her don't help either.
this morning i want to put the smile back on her face.
i awake at 6. a sense of purpose greets me, i feel new energy pouring into every cell of my body, a larger than life atmosphere bathes me, i greet the sun-god when he makes his appearance.
its the world cup qualifiers on ten sports.
brazil vs argentina.
ronaldo is sublime. his feet are magic, the defence throws confetti as he waltzes past them.
three times he's brought down in the box. three times he slickly slots to make ball and net mate.he smiles a toothy "i'm orgasmically happy smile" to the brazilian faithful as they burst into rapture.
sambaaaah
the tush dimple on my couch just got further etched.
hmmmm....wonder if my granny fancies football too.

yesterdaze
time now to barf violently
these past regrets, wrongs and must have dones
they that have the power to rise
from the bowels of yesterday
these memory morsels stuck in cavities of time
regurgitated to be chewed and swallowed

........repeatedly...........

reach the insides of my head
wipe the grime from crevices in my cranium
lay waste my putrid past
keeping my mind in chains and imagined pains
bask in the golden glare of the nirvanasun
violins sound the gift of present sense