Glopowrimo #14 :)

His name was Dick. Now don't laugh. Isn't it better than Dirk, or Dirt, you carp? A single syllable is enough, it seems. To make some people want to barf. Barf it is, not bard, I swear. And her surname, it was Kant, not C*nt. Yes, as in the philosopher Kant. Don't know what you will do with such a dirty mind! If I said wussy, you would hear *ussy. What can I do if English is crazy? Now Dick and Daisy, - yes, it was not *ussy! - were about each other totally crazy. He was a square and she, well, a skirt. He, crazy about her skirt, and she, about his shirt. He was quite flirty, and she pretended to be shirty, till he lifted her skirt and she took off his shirt. They were a pair, and she had two pears he wanted to eat, so she gave him her seat. When it was night he said "I am your knight", and she gave him a slap on the tip of his... cap. Nightcap, I mean, you reader who can't keep your thoughts to yourself, and want me to write what is not right, to laugh at my gaffe. Now Dick and Daisy went for a ride, as Dick was 'in' Daisy's.., car, not care. Dick was a poet and Daisy a stripper, so to the bar they cavorting went, where Dick would read homonyms and homophones and Daisy let folks write homographs on her while they stuffed her stockings with cash as she suspendered herself or upended her legs on a pole. They play Johnny Cash in that joint and smoke joints.
Then a man called Sick tried to put coins in her bra. Sick, not sic. Dick had a gun and he took it out. He knew where to show his beef. A gun, dear reader, not his wussy, in truth! He shot Sick in his potbelly and Sick died. Sic. And sick! Daisy did not know whether to laugh or to cry. They took Dick away to the gaol next day, but he swore he would reach his goal next time. Sick to the morgue they took in a hearse driven by a horse  for his last rite and Daisy was left. But Daisy was right, to love Dick and not Sick, though the course of true love runs wrong pretty quick. What's with that and homonyms, and homographs and homophones we write? No telling, but no one can help standing and staring when beauty cums by. You gotta  hold on to it, through thick and thin, you gotta ride it, baby, hard and fast.

Long, long ago I had put a story on storymirror on Gaza which also came in my short story book Scream and Other Urbane Legends by Dr Koshy AV

Today was amazed to get this stats from story mirror - can't say I am not pleased! Would be lying - I am damn pleased! I mean 26225 reads and 540 likes! What on earth! Though it took a long time!

STORYMIRROR
LITERARY REPORT
11th April, 2019
Dear Ampat Koshy,

We are glad that sometime back you stepped into our army of literary warriors and began your journey to protect literature and reach out to millions of civilians. Your journey so far in the literary army battalion has been highly appreciated and we would love to share a glimpse of the same with you:

1. Number of contents written:
1
Contents Submitted

2. Number of views [All contents]:
26225
Total views

3. Number of likes [All contents]:
540
Total likes

4. Total minutes your contents have been read on SM [All contents]:
131125
Total reads

5. Average Editorial Score:
8
Average Score

After taking your work into consideration, we would like to formally designate you as our Literary Colonel.

Congratulations for the same.

As the Literary Colonel you are responsible to keep promoting heartfelt literature to millions of civilians and preserve it for the endless years to come.

Once again, congratulations on your new designation!
We look forward to keep reading and listening your stories & poems.

Here is the story if you want to read it.

"https://storymirror.com/…/sto…/english/33cutfnq/gaza-s-child"

# Glopowrimo #13/2 Vodoo doll :D

Brenda was a very cute and very pretty doll
When her owner grew up, a girl would come to call
Her name was Zelda, and she made Brenda rather cross
That Tom no longer wanted her but Zelda, after all
Brenda made a small girl, who was still rather tall
Stuck her full of pins, and, oh yeah, she looked like Zelda Koll
You could hear Zelda scream throughout that fall
As the pins went in, to make her creep and crawl
And Tom had to leave her, as they thought her mad an' all
Tom returned to Brenda, or being all alone:
Brenda smiled her cute, cute smile, and made lil' Zelda drown
As a fitting finale, to invert the usual tale
Of the vodoo doll. She killed her human doll.

Glopowrimo #13

Believe it or not
there are ghostly incantations
spells that are cast
at midnight, and in graveyards
tantric ones, some chants
invoking the help of spirits
that can bind a man or woman
to another
in strange charms
if done aright -
believe it or not!

There once lay a maid
on a perfumed bed
Her eyes were closed
her dreams were sweet
when suddenly she felt
a man standing by her
who reached for her breast
and said, "do not move",
who slid under her coverlet -
She froze into a trance
did she wake or sleep? -
while the stranger, at the chance
did his bidding, & left
When she woke up, next
there was nothing in the room
except for the curtains moving
moving, not at rest!

There once slept a man
in a flowery bower -
a king or prince, they said -
when a white light entered
his sleeping tower
took the form of a woman
floating 'bove the ground
beautiful, and then she laughed
taking off her wrap
He watched, transfixed, unable to move
as she climbed into his bed
When he woke up, she was gone
but the bedsheet was sweat-wet!

There are stranger stories
of love made to the dead
of necrophilia in a boat
to an old lover's corpse
by a man who had turned
to the left-hand
path, it was rumoured -
a rumour full of dread!

But the strangest one of all
was of a lady who, 'twas said
turned into a snake
to clasp to herself, in coils
her lover who'd just died
and with her forked tongue kissed him
often, in the neck
while his 'corse' she dragged along
to the sea, to sink
into its deep crevices
with him, fore'er, but cleft!

There are other tales too
of deeds done after death
of spirits meeting in the air
commingling in the sky
restless, restless in the heart
and to the end, beware!
Going through some turbulence
caused in this life, to them
ne'er able to cease from wand'ring
spirits wanting yet
union with other sprites or souls
cut from the same breath
tossing, turning, waiting for,
bodies to possess
to go, & try to fulfill then
their longings best left unexpressed!
Yes! There are other tales!

A short story, for a change.

A friend of his had got an award. It was a very big one. He went along as they were like Leonardo and Kate. The program was in the night and at the VJT Hall. There were a lot of luminaries coming, and so she wanted him to be there. It was fun to be back in the VJT again, where he had gone long ago as a child and played TT, and run up the rickety, wooden stairs to the bell tower at the top. Red brick painting with white lines on the walls as most of the buildings in TVM had been then giving it a distinctive edge. She looked resplendent in a chiffon and there were the usual speeches in which they got some things wrong like the name of one of her books etc. But it was all grist for the mill. Usual. You were given an award by the Governor who had never heard of you before that day and would give the book you gave him as a complimentary copy to an aide who would keep it in the shelf in his home library or office. End of story, usually, unless what you had written was so extraordinary that it compelled people to read it. Age of democratization and at the same time every book, almost, was worth reading once. However the photographs would fetch you a thousand likes on fb, she in her resplendent sari and the Guv., not to mention the Sec. of Culture and Arts, IAS, and the writers, grey, old, bald, grizzled, spectacled, and the publisher and journalists.

After the meet and greet, and the usual party and wine and dine after it, she insisted he drop her home and then go which he dutifully did, where he laughed at her in the cab for the book the Guv. would not read. Awards given by people who hadn't read them and didn't know what was really significant about them as writers but given mainly on hearsay or some such untoward thing. The world of the surface. He was the only one she would let do that, laugh at her, she knew he was incorrigible and hearltess, and she brushed it off after laughing first with an impatient wave of her hand, as both she and he knew that all these were things that only mattered temporarily, he being the confirmed rebel not interested in them, and she being the sensible one knowing that it was all part of life and needed too.

The taxi felt empty as he went home in it after dropping her. He tried remembering occasions when he had been given awards, lesser ones, and could hardly remember them. He wondered what had really mattered to him in his career. There had been moments when a writer he respected or honoured had come to him and said you are really something as a writer, Nobel Prize nominees and such like. Perhaps those moments had mattered, yes, definitely they had, but not as much as the one memory he cherished, not having another one he had wanted. His mother had passed away before all his books came and he had instead only his father left to show them to. So when his first or third book came his sister had taken it as a large print-out and given it to his Dad who had read it and that was to him the most poignant memory he had which he felt was a real achievement as the book had been dedicated to him. Later had come the one dedicated to his Mom, though written earlier, but she was no longer there to see it. It comforted him that his Dad had read the one dedicated to him, before passing away. No award could match that feeling. His friend had no mother or father to show them to, maybe that was why he mattered so much to her. We all need someone who will actually read us, understand us, appreciate, weigh, assess, judge and value us, assign or give us our real value, and that someone should be someone whose word we count significant, not someone superficial or from the rabble and the riff-raff.

Show and tell #Glopowrimo12 (The signficant and the dull)

God told Abraham or Ibrahim
Take your son
and kill him at once
The father said, What the ....?
God said, if you don't want me on your tail, go on
Where do you want this murder done?
God said, you crazy man, it can't be done!
Instead of Isaac or Ismail, a ram was killed

Oedipus came into the big town
Seeking his mother and father he'd come
The king came down the road in a rush
In a carriage, and would stop for none
Oedipus, enraged, threw a spear at him
That was the first case of fratricide
Where the son had killed his dad
Without knowing it, Delphic oracle decreed

Mary or Mirian gave birth to a boy
Some people took him and nailed him to a cross
for saying he was a/The son/Son of God
whom he called "Abba"", which was pretty odd
He also said he knew Abraham or Ibrahim
My God, nothing stopped them from killing him
for being different from them all
But where he was, said Estragon
"It was warm, and they crucified quick"
Estragon who always compared himself to him
Waiting for Godot who never came in

Stories about fathers and sons
Fathers kill sons
Sons kill fathers
Stories of God and gods and their unreasonable demands
Men and women look on, feeling dim and dull
Fathers love sons
Sons love fathers
Afterwards the irrational God or gods make amends
In the margins, a ram was killed
Did that ram have a kid?
A curse came on the land because Oedipus was quick
To throw a spear, to kill the Sphinx
To marry Jocasta, his mother, and to end up punished
His crime being wanting to know the truth
wanting to know who his parents are
Millions have died or spoken true in the name of Christ
Millions have killed or been killed or lied in the name of Christ
All this is, no doubt, significant

I come to tell you now of the dull
What of daughters, and of rams' and their kids?
What of mothers who lose children to war, hunger, famine or disease?
What of sons who lose their fathers?
What of fathers away from their sons?
What of fathers who are away from their daughters?
What of daughters who lose their fathers?
What of daughters who lose their mothers?
What of mothers who lose their daughters?
What of the orphans and the widows?
What of siblings left alone to care for each other?
Oh, this list of questions is very dull
But in it is hid my real treasure
Beyond the stories is an impenetrable silence
That only asks what have you done
Not not done
for each stone that you threw at someone
or each hand you gave to lift up the fallen
who was carrying his own or her own
weight or burden
transforming the dull
putting an end to the insistent tom-tom
of the what of of my innumerable boring questions
at least once or for a while
making the dull shine, in a trice
What of the questions, if there are no attempts
made to allay the fears of one
or some or a few or many
made to allay the fears of all?

Glopowrimo #11

Home away from homes after homes after homes...

Being born into a rented house
home was to me four people
not brick, stone and mortar
The four became five, then six
then five
and then finally a house
where the five became four
and then two were left
and here I finally start to include me
who became six
but we had to leave
five of us
back to rented houses
Then five became just me
in another country
and again in rented places
while four remained back
We occasionally meet
Life, a game of numbers
additions, subtractions, multiplications, divisions, tired miscalculations
and uncountable nouns
like joy, laughter, tears...

Where was home, ever?
In the arms of my mother?
In all those houses we stayed
or in that home my father bought
in Thiruvanathapuram?
In our ancestral dwelling in Punnaveli
or where ancestors and relatives dwelt
or later, in Alwaye and Banglalore
or in two places in Saudi
or one in Libya?
Where was home
but in the heart and family
in memories
and friendships
and in never having one
till my father died and gave me one
for the sake of my only autistic, begotten son
Where was home?
In the land that I bought
which has a well
or the village for autism
I plan to build but which has not panned out yet?
Or in this lonely self-imposed exile from
here to there
& then to now
a never-ending collage of images
I carry
the weight of which is like carrying the cross
killing me, but which I cannot yet set down?

Not that there was no happiness,
it was there too,
as Beckett says
in the smell of the kudamulla in one of those rented houses
by which my mother stood
herself, as bright as the moon
and in the neem tree's leaves that fell on the front yard
small, just a thin strip
just after she'd swept it clean
in the house that her husband had finally bought for her
where she would pass on to her 'heavenly abode'.

Where was home?
In the happiness of a few years in
the same house
with a laughing wench for a better half
and three golden children
like the stars
before life pulled out a red card
to wave me off
the football field
of my desire to live, crying foul to it
to punish me for sins done or good deeds not done...
as if I was more important than global catastrophes?!

Where was home when we went to a new town
and my chidlren tried to run out of their new school
two small girls
to try to stow away on a train to their old place
to be again with the grandfather they had left behind?
It was hidden for a while behind a dark cloud but revived in the smiles
of a little boy who could not speak
who became our rebuilt-time-and-again-home, the cement that glued
our lives again together
the kintsugi in our cups

Obscured by clouds
four there, one here
the Years fled by
while I walked strange streets
under foreign moons
visting foreign shores
where strange biblical waves
beat against the sand no longer of yore
not of the beaches of my childhood
blue bright daylit water water that looked black to me in the sunlight

Home.
The place that does not exist
unless there is one
around the arriving next-bend
home where even the lost years
the locusts ate
can be regained
One can only pray for that home
This is not poetry
Just a personal elegy
An attempt to build a temporary shanty
for the wayfaring
on a quest grown weary
to make ends meet
to have enough to
greet -
a home made of words and verse at which I am well versed -
the dawns and the tomorrows
the nights and the sorrows
to fare forth and be nearer
by not keeping still
keeping death at bay
like midnight's blue
so that before that there will be
a home
then death's home
and then that final rest-home of all
where even death has no sting
and cannot call.

Glopowrimo 10

Wrote one more. On the weather, and a belief.

"In spite of that, they call this Friday good." - TS Eliot
"Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you - Crowded House"

I still remember that black blouse you wore.
I still remember how your skin shone like the sun
In the sky, the black clouds gathered
You swore
It being Good Friday, it would rain
Everytime it did
& I, child that I was, believed
Now you are gone
But still I do
Remember
& still, believe
Against all odds
That it rains
Each 'Sad' Friday, now
In your absence
& do you know, mother, it still does.
In Thiruvananthapuram
or where'er I am.
Now the raindrops fall
on my upturned face
streak it like tears
no more just for Him
but for you, too
gone to your home -
the sky is still crying -
for you are to me
what His mother was, to Him.

Glopowrimo 10

Wrote one more.

"In spite of that, they call this Friday good." - TS Eliot

I still remember that black blouse you wore.
I still remember how your skin shone like the sun
In the sky, the black clouds gathered
You swore
It being Good Friday, it would rain
Everytime it did
& I, child that I was, believed
Now you are gone
But still I do
Remember
And still, believe
Against all odds
That it rains
Each Sad Friday, now
In your absence
and do you know, mother, it still does.
In Thiruvananthapuram
or where'er I am
now the raindrops fall
on my upturned face
streak it like tears
no more just for Him
but for you, too
gone to your home
the sky is crying
for you are to me
what His mother was, to Him.

Glopowrimo #10 - one third of Glopowrimo done!

There was always a gap
between me and everything.

Reading of London
never having been,
or of American or French weather (terms and phrases)
but what did it have to do with my childhood, all this talk of heather
or gorse in the British countryside
even if it was in 'Wuthering Heights' which I indisputably loved?

It was the same with people
and my own landscape.
I knew the names of things
but the things themselves would escape me
unknowable
or I knew the things
but not their names
(or it was all confused between Malayalam, English and Hindi -
gloriously mismatched misfits -
Had I been sent by my mother to buy 'kakadi' or cucumber or ??????
Ah, yes, vellarikka!)
and people never understood me
that I was sometimes as harmless as the bumble bee
and sometimes as vicious as the ettadi moorkhan (eight-foot cobra)
but then again
I always saw
them
in a light, no different, that they themselves could not see.

Where were we, oh, let me see!
Yes, coming back to the weather
and this damn concept of the prompt
it never rained cats and dogs
in my vicinity
or even puppies and kittens.
As for regional phrasing and dialect
ours was much more earthy
we say "mazha peyunnu
maddalam kottunnu
maaraandachikku thooran muttunnu"
which translates to "the rain is falling
the drum is beating
maaraan's wife feels like shitting"
Don't ask me why or ''what is its meaning?" :D
We love the kodungattu (storm-wind),
the chuzhelikattu (whirlwind)
We don't have the kaal boishakhi (nor'westers)
of Kol
and every Malayali guy
has this dream of
"it's raining, it's pouring
the old man is snoring
went to bed and bumped his head
and couldn't get up in the morning"
a Spanish Feliciano dream
while the hero sneaks out
the back-door and back-yard
and makes love to the heroine
in the driving, frenzied, wet and thundering-lightning
at or by or near the sarpakavu (serpent shrine)
bitten by snakes and the snake of lust
and love, and longing, and never regretting.

1. rivers in verse
rivers inversereverse rivers
rivers re-verse

2. The Periyar is my river
Our river
The secret of the river
is that it once had banks
on which people settled
for giving them water
the drink of life
and no river is more
or less
than any other
holy

Celebrated in a song
in Malayalam
in a film
it holds intimate memories

I have sailed on it in a huge boatsat on its steps
gazed at it for hours
from behind it wall
adjoining the YMCAnear Aluvamanappuram
admired its depth and blue
and how the sunshine sparkles
and at night the moon
on its creased surface
and how the river flows

I could stand or sit for hours
just watching it flow

3 Nature in its peace
quiet
calm
aglow
symbolized by the river
used to make me slow-
ly wake up to what was saidin Holy Writ
Creation shews forth thy power
and make me feel its song
making me a poet
akin to the sylvan ones
of Romantic fame
and akin to Hopkins
who knew to learn from it

I too would jot down thoughts
but only in my mindhow green became greenr
framed against the river's blue might
how pretty was the contrast
'tween blue above and blue below
and how the reflections of the sky
made rivers put Dali to shame

For walking on its bank
and watching the clouds float by
in the mirror of the rivermade me feel in the sky
in which the river was flowing
that'd let me get off by and by

It was a tipsy feeling.

Glopowrimo #9

Hatelist

You know the neeru?
Funny name - not -for things that looked
transparent and filled with a kind of orange blood
scary-if-blown-up things
When one bit me I would try to drag it off
but it would not let go
and getting its pincers or legs or hands broken
to put it out of its misery
I used to be forced to kill it, you know.

I never hated them
but then I met these un-alien creatures
who were also transparent
in their hatred for me
and bit into them with my words
which they had to ignore
to pretend they had killed me
while I spat my insides out at them
hoping I was transparent
orange-blooded, bloody
and a giant in my own centaur world
so they fled
pincered, broken-legged or broken-armed
and dragging their broken bodies with the intestines gushing out
across my territory
while my mates stood and cheered
the neetal I had given them
for daring to fuck with me

You know the women?
Martha, Desiree, Caroline, Jane
When the moon was high
they used to come out of my irises
and stand on my eyelashes
to dance
Going blind, I would close my eyes
and claw at them blindly
but gouge out my eyes
Every woman was that reader I broke
for not being able to understand
my verses

You know those boards
black, green, white and smart
You know those coloured-differently chalks
Those marker pens
permanent or erasable
and those pointers
that killed the best
Every time I stood at the desk
I wished the laser would transfix my breast
Death was better than the system
I only wanted to blow up the empty cistern
and the leaking faucet of education
that dripped like stinking sewage water
black and rotten, to the core, my partner
I wanted to dismantle its bloody core
and give back to the world the days of yore

You know that fucking word?
Yes, the one that changed the world
I would so gladly go around these days
putting its sass, balls and lights out with a stick
so darkness would engulf the night's bill boards
and the dancing moon would again appear
over the fields to make me feel
the word and never say it out loud

Hate list hit list and fuck list
You read them all
Now tell me I'm not
Ever going to be rich and famous
and I'll show you my bare backside
because beyond my bile and rage is a world
that's full of another kind of a list
I would write it but before that need to write out this list.

Glopowrimo 8

© Koshy AV

Glopowrimo 8 - A Roundelay :D

"8th April

Our prompt for the day (optional, as always), is inspired by Smith’s poem. You may have noted that the central metaphor of “Good Bones” turns on a phrase used by real estate agents. Today, I’d like to challenge you to think about the argot of a particular job or profession, and see how you can incorporate it into a metaphor that governs or drives your poem. This rather astonishing list of professional slang terms might help you get into the mood. Or, if you work a white-collar job, perhaps you can take inspiration from one of the business jargon phrases that seem to predominate in corporate environments (leveraging diverse synergies, anyone?)"

When people keep on asking me, with no vision
What, oh what, is your profession?
I lose my vaunted  gifts of elocution
Teaching is my profession
I pretend I am also good at seduction
But poetry, ah, poetry; has been my life-long passion!

Recently, I went to a rhyming, rhythmic, rocking, rolling poetry festival
A lady was much enthused by causes, and went on reading
Her poetry as if she was the only rider on the roller-coaster at some carnival
Her bosom heaved with all that emotional upheaval
I being a 100 percent, hot-blooded, repressed, suppressed, middle-aged, Indian male got lost in that commotion

A gent was sitting there 'sinisterlily' surveying the hall
You could see that he was a critic and having a secret, damned ball
Which one is in the canon? Which one has no cannon?
He kept on thinking, while I watched him decide who to make great, and who to make fall.

There were publishers and (sub-) editors and copies of copy-editors
There were proof-readers and journalists and would be's and wannabes
Some spoke of God and being and some spoke of dogs and peeing
Never a dull moment, yes, but was it poetry that I was hearing?

Poets, poets, everywhere, nor any verse to choose
Who all were writing iambs, or rhymes, or hemistitches, in twos,
Who all were counting syllables and who all waiting, impatient to go to the loo
Poets, poets, everywhere, all fancy free, footloose!

I began to feel dizzy at this profusion of poetry
To calm myself I chanted to myself the names of some poetic forms
Sonnet, nonet, haiku, haigu, ghazal, 'falafel':  then shifted to names of stanzas:
Couplet, triplet, quadruplet; no, these were of giving birth, the qualms

Nobel, Pulitzer, Booker, I tried to shift my tack
Jnanpith, Sahitya Akademi, I added to make up the slack
Shifting then to keep calm, Penguin, Pelican
Peregrine and Bloomsbury, Harpic, Hatchet, I dead-panned

Having run out of things to do, when they asked me for a reading
I looked at my mobile, chagrined; it had run out of 'beading'
Meaning its battery had died, so I stood there with a hollow, sinking feeling
As if cold water was sloshing around my legs, and in its iciness I was standing

Then gathering my courage in both my hands, I started thinking
Screw the canon, publishers, awards, editors and all who were pretending
I am a real poet, and can 'in an instant,' start leading

So after taking a deep breath and my heart from my mouth down-pushing
(Like Pushpa might have before her speech in Ezekiel's mind living)
I started on a glorious note, and began my composing
On my profession's argot, saying, "When people keep on asking..."
© Koshy AV

:D

Even when and where I think or thought
I am not being read
I am being read
I am spread out in atoms all over the world wide web
This is the brave new world, where I am particles discrete

In Poetry's Fist

Poetry cannot be weighed
measured
judged,certified
rewarded, awarded
can only be read
and pushed to jump off the ledge and fly
like a cat with a ball of twine
pushing it back and forth
back and forth
waiting for it to unwind
fully
Those that do you play with more
while the ones that have knots in it
make you wave your tail at it angrily
Poetry is that ball of twine
Different colours every time
I read and read hungrily
I read to slake my thirst with it
hunger for life
thirst for life
lust for life
it never dies
it lives
it grows
Poems, poets and poetry
Something more must be in store
around the corner
more balls of twine
great balls of fire
and balls of thunder
Poetry rains and falls on my face
like 
an orgy
unslaked
wet, ache
Poetry cannot be judged but some
remain
and some fall away
subjective and relative
like quantum
but absolute in having me in its grip and sway
Am I the dreamer
or the dream,
am I the keeper 
or is it the keep?
Am I the snake or the charmer of venom?
Do I draw out its blood and spit to save its life?
Am I the man rising and thrusting into each poem?
I can never have enough of it
Poetry. So I make everyone write it.
Especially the soft birds of the days
They know its secrets, they know its place
They know how it plays out
its sports and games
They know its grace
They know its hands make gestures lovely
Mudras of eternity
They know its hips are languorous and it buttocks sway savvily
They know the pots it carries on its heads
And no drop of water is spilt on the way 
They are its music makers
Dreamers of dreams
They are its songs
They are the ones each day I frame
to make them be found guilty so they can never escape
Poetry is the answer to the questions
Makes me a gaoler
and me, the forever jailed.

Ten Reasons why You should Vote for the Congress starting April 11th, to rule from the centre with its allies for a better future for India in the coming five years.

1. Congress knows the main problem in India is eliminating poverty and plans to address it.

2. The Congress encourages trilingualism of mother-tongue/ English/Hindi which is better for us globally than the one of Hindi/Sanskrit and truer to our diverse unity.

3. The Congress has young leaders in Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, and Sachin Pilot and others in the wings like Hardik Patel supporting them backed by experienced war horses like Manmohan Singh, Shashi Tharoor, Raghuram Rajan the economist, Scindia, and Sonia Gandhi, and new people like the Shatrughan Sinha family to counter the BJP who only has old war horses, whom people are now totally fed up with, like Modi, Shah, Jaitley.

4. The names I mentioned at the top rung show evidently that the Congress is multi-religious and multi-caste, still, though upper class, whereas the BJP is only one religion and upper caste based, and at the same time also upper class.

5. While corruption was the main charge against the Congress, it is now proved that BJP is as corrupt, the only difference being Congress allowed all to be corrupt, being weak, but BJP allows corruption only among its own ranks and lets others feel the heat. Both are wrong approaches, but one is not better than the other.

6. The Congress eschews violence, whereas the BJP and its satelllites like the RSS espouse and support it. The former trend is any day preferable.

7. The rupee has crumbled during the rule of the BJP showing that economically it could not deliver.

8. The Congress stands for unity in diversity but the BJP stands for uniformity at the cost of diversity and names as seditious, meaninglessly, those who speak against this kind of uniformity by calling a spade a spade, i.e.; as false unity.

9. All the issues raised by BJP like Pakistan, corruption, terror, infiltration of refugees,, Ram mandir, are all issues - except for corruption - that has no relevance to the ordinary, daily lives of most common people in India, whereas the ones being raised by Rahul like poverty alleviation, unemployment or underemployment, and women's reservation or help for farmers now have pressing relevance.

10. Democracy is based on plurality or at least having a binary system of party politics which makes it imperative that Congress be voted back this time so that democracy is upheld and not emotional appeals to only one third of Indians in the North alone, in the name of religion and hate, and division on such lines which only affect a few parts of North India and not the rest of India. To defeat BJP now, it is not enough to vote against them or to not vote but to vote for Congress presently as each vote counts and a vote for Congress is also a vote against BJP and a vote not wasted.

© Koshy AV

Dr Koshy AV is the author of six books and an established literary critic and theoretician of repute. He is presently teaching English literature in Saudi Arabia and is also an editor and compiler and anthologist in the fields of fiction and poetry wherein he has nine more books to his credit. He also works in the field of autism.

I do not know what I deserve.
But I don't seem to have got it -
Whatever it is!

I am ready to let go of nothing
and no one.
My hunger for love knows no limits.

If I gave myself a gift
it would be nothing less than
- the gentlest gift -
the Nobel
for what I am capable of writing which has not yet showed up on paper

The brightest song I, my body, ever held
was thrice, my new-born children
but first, my wife who birthed them

If I gifted myself joy
I would also gift you, my love, the moon
but only if you said I am your universe
could or would I give you the moon
and
everything else which are all in it
including this gift which given alone can be received multiplied
the gift of my love for 'thee'
for free
for all time, y' see.

©Koshy AV

http://www.napowrimo.net/one-week-down/

GLOPOWRIMO #6 IF ODYSSEUS RETURNS I & II or TWO POSSIBLE ENDINGS

If, one day
I come back
from far away
to one more home-not-home
but 'ours', not 'mine'
another rented stay
from where I was, alone
unannounced, and open the door
silently
and find
you there
turn to me, saying, "Dad"
so I drop my bags in surprise
my mouth falling open
that you are now restored
to what others call normalcy
and behind you coming to meet me
yes, they all, coming to meet me
one, tall, with a baby in her hands
behind her, the father
and another, small, with a child holding her hand
behind her, that child's father
and behind them one, silver-haired
I would weep

But then again
if it was not so, but only
that the door opened
to just you
same as you are now
and them too
same; and she, your wife, the same
just that all of us grew older
would it be any less joyful?

It may be, it could be
but it won't be any less joyful
even if...

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-six-7/

http://www.napowrimo.net/day-five-6/

Write a poem that incorporates at least one of the following: (1) the villanelle form, (2) lines taken from an outside text, and/or (3) phrases that oppose each other in some way. If you can use two elements, great – and if you can do all three, wow!

GLOPOWRIMO #5

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
Framed by street-lamp or in candle-light
Why do they think you are the killer, by right?

When a lamb goes missing, in the night
Or some calf, chick or turkey, they shout in a trice:
"Tiger, Tiger, burning bright!"

When a boy is heard of as lost
And found torn apart in some far outpost
Why do they think you are the killer, by right?

When a girl screams in the dead of the night
And her frock is found later, blood-stained, torn, out of sight
Tiger, tiger, burning bright

How dare they pass the buck and the blame
And reach for their guns and get up, you to slay?
Why do they think you are the killer, by right?

To me, you are the god of the night black as jet
The other side of light, and the lamb's midnight, yet
Why do they think you are the killer, by right;
Tiger, tiger, burning bright?

Copyright Koshy AV

Glopowrimo April 2019 (the journey so far)

I. Early bird prompt: "And now for our early-bird prompt (optional, like all our prompts!) Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poetic self-portrait. And specifically, we’d like you to write a poem in which you portray yourself in the guise of a historical or mythical figure. "

Self-portrait as .....

I am hanging between earth and sky
Breathing difficulty
Those who love me are far below
And somewhere up above is the Sky
When I cough it becomes thunder
The Sky answers with lightning
These are the words of my roaring
No one else answers
The drops of my sweat and blood
mingle
with the dust of the earth and the heat
Each drop has a cascading effect
From my eyes as they fall they seem to splinter
into the faces of millions
of drops
and shine
in the pitiless sun
tomorrow to be reborn
as a million different people
infused with my life and breath
Dead, buried, resurrected, ascended or not
The truth will be I will live on
in a million different others
Not in the ones who did not
but in the ones who will
My hunger for love
as vast as this Sky
in the echoes of always
eternity and infinity
being, from now on, fulfilled.

II. April 1
"For our first (optional) prompt, let’s take our cue from O’Neil’s poem, and write poems that provide the reader with instructions on how to do something. It can be a sort of recipe, like O’Neil’s poem. Or you could try to play on the notorious unreliability of instructional manuals (if you’ve ever tried to put IKEA furniture together, you know what I mean). You could even write a dis-instruction poem, that tells the reader how not to do something."

#Glopowrimo1

Instruction manual for poets

1.Better to be known by everyone
than to know everyone
so you can concentrate
concatenate your magic brew or potion
made of frogs, wood shavings and puppy dogs' tails
or lipstick, gloss and mascara's aid

2.Write to be the best
but don't rest
When you send things out and get rejected
remember it was only a misfit
and when you get accepted
don't take the credit lest you become lazy but
ascribe it to the same stars you were aiming for or at

3.The secret is to write
in such a way that
you write your heart out
so everyone reads you
but no one lets on
as they are jealous
as they get accepted
but they see burning in your poems
a fire
Icarus-like
in flight, without wings
soaring sunwards, higher than the heights
and just like Narayanathu branthan
roll your poems up Poetry Hill
then let let let let let them roll down
to the ground
and laugh
uproariously
whether they float or flail
on the ground
& whether they win, or they fall and fail.

III. April 2

Today’s prompt (optional, as always) is based on this poem by Claire Wahmanholm, which transforms the natural world into an unsettled dream-place. One way it does this is by asking questions – literally. The poem not only contains questions, but ends on a question. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that similarly resists closure by ending on a question, inviting the reader to continue the process of reading (and, in some ways, writing) the poem even after the poem ends.

The wall melts suddenly
Then I find it's under me
The devil is after me
Money takes wing and flies away
My health is a pool at my feet that I try
To make freeze into a piece of ice and put back inside
My body. Someone has my throat knifed.
I lie on my bed, stiff as a board
If I move I will be engraved
Too young for that, I do not stir
No dreams interrupt my ragged fight for breath
I'll get up and go for a syringe
A change of medicine will be, right now, just like a refreshing change of scene
It's death I am fighting, but I am not afraid
We fought many times before and each time we failed
To bring it to any definite conclusion
It can still go this way or that like the walk of a drunken inebriate
As for God, God is silent as usual
I put a coin in the slot of the jukebox
And hear relaxing music, deep-sleep refreshing music
Sounds of Nature, something something Hertz (582?), but I forget just how much it was
For six hours or eight hours
Or non-stop Christian hymns
Or worship music that gentles
Or old Malayalam film songs
Or what my Dad used to play
Country-classic gospel songs starting with Jim Reeves
All listened to for healing thatcdoes not come when I am in my sleep
I put a coin into the cup of God as if I am begging him to bless me
I put a coin into the cup of the watchman, the one who stands at the gate, and the doorkeeper
Then I run out of coins so it cannot become thirty
Three is the number of the ones in 'Tolstory'
I once loved a woman who probably loved me
Now she always and only lies to me
Whenever I tried to make the coin clink back in those days then it worked
But my fever I could not pass on when she twerked
Soon she was a tree and someone an axe
Who brought between her and me a tax
Of separation, a divide of contortion
A contraption of four legs that had no name but crawled
It crept into my blood like black ink in a cauldron
And as for all the others, they were axed into perdition
By me who could not stand for an instant any key
That could set me up or put me down to be
To end a long story or cut it short is to let it grow a tail
Am I sheep, pig, horse or donkey? I am unable to make avail
Of butterflies, sisters and three or four women in jail
I don't say it but I am pretty sure God is punishing me for my sins
I wish to stand up but when I sit down I'm on the windowsill
I look down, and the distance is too short to jump and kill
Myself. And there are no faces down there wanting me not to for me to get a thrill
And feel wanted. Just empty street. No kissing or whispering lovers, or songbirds trilling even, still.
My head was spinning and I was falling before reaching the end of the till
They may call it attempted suicide but as for me it was just a home-run of the ill.
A commonplace thing, when the pupa or coccoon

breaks, becomes a wet butterfly. But does it take to crooked wing?

(My poem hopefully does the opposite of the prompt)

IV. April 3
And now for today’s prompt (optional as always). Today’s prompt is based in a poem by Larry Levis called “The Two Trees.” It is a poem that seems to meander, full of little digressions, odd bits of information, but fundamentally, it is a poem that takes time. It takes its time getting where it’s going, and the action of the poem itself takes place over months. Today, I’d like to challenge you to similarly write something that involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time. Perhaps, as you do, you can focus on imagery, or sound, or emotional content (or all three!)

Glopowrimo #3

Trivandrum: The 70s

You meet them, the mynahs, on the streets.

'One for sorrow
two for joy
three for a letter
four for a' ...
There you get stuck
so you listen, instead
to their whirring wings
(fluttering: small, chattering windmills)
their "key key key keeeeeeys" -
your home-brown smalls, their slender lives
see their black-and-white sprinkled, dark-brown coats
a variant of the crow-pheasant's browns
those yellow-ringed eyes, their dainty masks

Jeddah: 2009?

You see them again
They are not the same 'thems'
You, not the same you
Even the century, become new
The coconut trees replaced by palms
But the heart -
That longs only for some 'loving kindnesses'
and a few 'tender mercies',
'better than life' -
feels time fall away
and the dust of the past, of a space you love
settle again
on your parched lips
awhile.

V. April 4 "And now for today’s (optional) prompt, inspired by Teicher’s poem “Son“. One thing you might notice about this poem is that it is sad, but that it doesn’t generate that feeling through particularly emotional words. The words are very simple. Another thing you might notice is that it’s a sonnet – not in strict iambic pentameter, but fourteen rhymed, relatively short lines.

Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own sad poem, but one that, like Teicher’s, achieves sadness through simplicity. Playing with the sonnet form may help you – its very compactness can compel you to be straightforward, using plain, small words.

Happy (or sad, we guess) writing!"

Glopowrimo #4 - A Roseate Sonnet
Self imposed exile for God knows what or why or what it means to Not Be There/Around

Life and Love are the great betrayers
Judas and Brutus, their embodiments
But even ordinary men, my mate
Can be or feel betrayed by indifferent Fate

As a child, his mother taught him to cycle
Along with his father. till he was happy not to topple
Off its saddle, but when he became a parent of three 'tenders'
He could not be there to run behind his kids' wobbling fenders

The women he loved and he were always parted
The things he wished he'd learned remained dear, but departed

Rose, sadness wears your brightest red hues
Oft, as the colour of a ghastly wound
Seen from the inside, pulsating, raw
Ever not healing, red as an infected craw

©®Koshy AV