For You, Marina Abramovic

Standing for six hours, an exhibit,
Seventy-two objects on the table,
Feathers, razors, knives, flowers, water, and a gun,
Were you not afraid of what they would do?

They made you sit,
So they could abuse and humiliate;
Slowly magnified the torture,
Attached things to your body,
Touched you to feel your skin tremble,
Used a razor to lacerate your neck,
Excoriated your tender breasts.
Did their glee mitigate your pain?

Experimenting with your garments,
Tearing up parts till you were naked,
Enjoying your shame.
Curiosity: arousal: masochism: BDSM:
Call it what you will,
It was nothing but savagery
Of man against his species.

Not content, not satiated,
Pointed a loaded gun to your head,
These common folks stuck rose thorns to your bosom,
Drove a knife between your legs.
They grew frenzied towards the end,
Searching for ways to hurt you more,
A gradual spiral of cruelty.
Were they ugly perverts in ordinary garb,
Looking for some distraction from boring lives?

Now, what lies inside has been revealed,
The cruelty lurking inside us.
Admire your courageous performance artistry,
Not even once did you flinch.
When they treated you as an object,
Why didn’t you,
Defend? Defend? Defend? Defend?
Like any human being would.

(Performance artist Marina Abramovic stood for six hours subjecting herself to an array of instruments of love and hatred. Sadly, people chose hatred.)

പാമ്പ് - Snake (Poem in Malayalam)

പാമ്പ്
----------

ഞാൻ ഒരു പാവം പാമ്പ്
എന്നേ ഉപദ്രവിച്ചാലേ ഉപദ്രവിക്കു .
ഒരു കാലത്തു
എനിക്ക് കാലുണ്ടായിരുന്ന .
അത് എവിടെയോ പോയി .

ഇപ്പോൾ ഇഴഞ്ഞിഴഞ് നടക്കുന്നു
ഒരു വികാലങ്ങനെ പോലെ .

മഴയത്തും , വെയിലത്തും ,
കാറ്റത്തും , എല്ലാം ഇഴഞ്ഞു നടക്കും .
ആൾക്കാർക്കു എന്നേ കാണാൻ ഇഷ്ടമില്ല
തല്ലാൻ വടിയും , കല്ലും എടുക്കും
ഞാൻ ഓടും .

എത്രനാൾ ഇങ്ങനെ
ഒളിച്ചു ജീവിക്കും ?
അറിയില്ല .

ഞാൻ ആണ് നൂറിൽപരം
 ജീവികളുടെ മരണത്തിനു
കാരണക്കാരൻ .

ഇപ്പോൾ മതിയായി ,
കൊന്നതിന് ശിക്ഷ അനുഭവിക്കണം
നരകം ഉണ്ടോയെന്ന് അറിയില്ല
ഉണ്ടെങ്കിൽ അതിൽ പോകണം .
ആരെങ്കിലും എന്നെ
തല്ലിക്കൊന്നാൽ മതി
എന്നൊരു ആഗ്രഹം .

ഞാൻ ഒരു പാവം പാമ്പ് !

Note: will soon be translated into English.

Valentine's Limerick

They say Valentine was a saint,
Who loved to create abstracts in paint,
The paint was pink,
Wine was his drink,
After a few sips he began to feel faint.

The Scream!

Too long have we suffered tyrannies of powerful people,

Engaged with them in their enterprise of human deceit,

Rarely have we asked this life to be indexed, better organised,

We fell in love, we forgot, we ignored what is important to us.

We believed in love but love never gave us a second chance,

One chance too many, life seemed to whisper in our ear,

We saw our true love disappear in train rides, and crowded airports,

We didn’t read their histories, or, what happened to them next.

We stared at the things we don’t have in store windows,

We postponed the things we wanted to the nearest future,

We didn’t mind the profanities, the insults, written in restrooms,

We forced our habits around hardwork to rest our heads in sleep.

We sleepwalked days chasing corporate targets, but forgot our own,

We lost what we earned in the sweep of cards, a turn of wheel,

We wept our sorrows in doctors’ clinics and intensive units,

When the needle hurt us, we shook up, and screamed in pain.

Like mad we clung to seats in office cubicles and conference rooms,

We said tomorrow will be ours, but tomorrow never arrived,

We dreamed our dreams in theatres and pleasure houses,

We were full of promise, truth be told, those promises never came.

Our ill-health took us by surprise; we never knew we could be sick,

We realised doctors can test and diagnose but never heal,

We wept bitter tears when our hearts were clogged by unhappiness,

We wanted a quick death, but it lingered from drugs to emergency, back to emergency.

Why Do We Hate?

Why do we hate:

People who are of a colour different from ours,
People with slanting eyes and high cheekbones,
People with curly hair and broad noses,
People with brown skin and sunken eyes.

People who wear cloth wound around their loins,
People who wear colourful turbans and grow hair,
People with exquisite and lush beards,
People who wear leather sandals.

People who eat noisily from leaves,
People who dance and sing freely,
People who talk with gestures and interjections,
People who walk in the wild without shoes.

People with distracted looks who create beauty,
People who learn and teach others about life,
People with a begging bowl and hungry looks,
People who build homes with cardboard and plastic.

People who sleep on streets in the cold and rain,
People with nothing to call their own, no loved ones,
People who hate just for the sake of hating someone,
Our parents who teach us all we know and to walk and talk.

XI/MMXVI

The Breast Tax

In my faraway homeland of Kerala state,

There used to be tax, records indicate,

Called Breast Tax, a tax on breasts

On women who cover their chests.

One day, Nangeli covered her chest,

The Pravathiyar grew wild and upset,

“Pay the tax, at once,” he said,

“I will not,” said Nangeli, unafraid.

“You defy the law and thus your King,

For this you will do some lamenting,

You shall be whipped and made to pay,

The price of trespass will come your way.”

Grabbing breasts, she cleaved it with sickle,

Watching people cried, “Don’t be so fickle.”

Laid them on leaves, presented to Pravathiyar,

“Here’s your tax!” she said, as he watched in horror.

Nangeli died, whereupon the tax was withdrawn,

“It’s not right,” said the owner of the crown.

“Women will have all rights in my kingdom,”

Thereafter, it’s said, women were harassed seldom.

“The Jungle,” Calais, 2016

Here we die slowly, he said, in our land it’s quicker,
Slow death is our choice, as the pain is bearable and boring,
In "The Jungle," at least, we are alive and breathing in the cold.

A thousand bombs rained on us in the desert and children cried,
Their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, disappeared every night,
A million shrapnels in their bodies, a cry frozen on their lips.

Here, it’s cold; our lands are hot, sweltering,
Reeking of gun smoke and smell of cordite burning,
The mornings we forage for food and water amidst the ruins.

In the refugee camp our bones slowly chill with the cold,
Our flesh freeze, we submit to the endless hostile gaze,
The batons of power rain blows on us, but, that's okay.

It’s no different this land and the one we have left,
It’s both ruled by powerful men with guns and tanks,
War lords who are lobbied by ruthless corporations.

Yes, we die slowly here, so that our children might live,
Sleepless, they stumble out of our flimsy tents into the cold,
There’s no place to play tag or learn alphabets here.

We never asked for wars or guns in our lands,
It's their endless wars fought in Councils and Assemblies,
They sold us guns and when the money was gone, sent food packets.

"The Jungle," Calais, France, is not far from Paris,
Twelve dead in the Charlie Hebdo shooting made big news,
In my country one shell kills twenty, and, they say, it isn't news.