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Poetry,

I want you

to read me –

to flip to my single page

in this ever-growing

global anthology

and be drawn in initially by the

ink wells of my eyes

that have been dipped into

several times to write

the calligraphy of my smile.

You’ll find my first lines

brimming my underlids and flowing

with tears that glide

at night, dripping

free-versely down my neck,

my arms, my feet – the ink of the words sinking

into the different strophes

of my skin, staining

each filament inside.

Poetry, please, I don’t want you

to read me

with a lens – no postmodernism, no formalism –

but just as what you see:

macroscopic, single-spaced,

streaming consciously and enjambed

at each unpolished thought turn

the sulci of my grey matter takes.

Poetry, then scrutinize me with

a little bit of patience –

find yourself pondering

along the question marks

that these ears of mine shape

and analyze the stanza breaks between my ribs

exposing heart you maybe didn’t see

the first time.

Keep rereading me,

Poetry,

and gather all the details drawn

by the unexpected diction

carved into my mandible,

inaudible and permanent,

and decide for me my true setting.

Fold the corner, my shoulder,

to save my page,

keep me warm,

and

return to me,

Poetry.

Hypnosis

Watch This Video

I agree whole-heartedly (CLICK HERE PLEASE).

Unformity

release me from
your shaping me
I am like playdoh not legos
quickly unclink and clink back
into some other place and still unfalling is not
me I'm soft at times
but me solidified is a more
or less unchanging
not-breaking mold
drop me and
there isn't me anymore a while
scattered but
try to melt me with belly fire
weld me and surprise to you standing smiling
I will morph and balance most
basally.

That's Nonsense

Like speech she with pink roses flows under phantom eras and garners frost along the way, never turning her head to even nod at robins fluttering in fog. I would say the memorization of oil spills churned somewhere, but it's hard to be sure when trembling hands shiver vision as well. Belting lugubrious lullabies in such a case is far from the plateau where she lived alone with people. Saturn's ice rings skated on a rink but no one agreed with that either. She vandalized the barriers by spray painting typeface and facing all types of perplexed stares and narrowed jawdrops. The mist in the midst of things was warmer, milkier, than she had expected. So she kept going. She kept believing in unbelieving, and the honeycomb followed with more than one queen.

Hero

At noon,

you'd walk in through the wooden door

on channel 12.

Your chin was always up

and your lips would stretch into a

no-reason, every-reason

smile

every day.

You'd transform from

overcoat to cardigan

zipped up to the neck

and then zipped down

to sternum's base

so your heart could breathe.

Workboots would leave --

one tossed from right

and caught lightly by the left --

and be replaced by comfortable canvas.

You would walk from Learning to Learned,

each sidewalk step a stone

in the splashing stream of

heartfelt intrigue.

Along your searching paths

you would ask us to be your f-r-i-e-n-d,

we accepted you each time

and walked with you to places

of invention: the peanut butter factory,

its endless conveyor belts;

of creativity: the richly painted art class

of the underclass;

and the most real of them all,

the place of make-believe: where a red trolley

and about four piano keys would take us

to cloudless skies and

where love spoke in puppet voices,

which we found out later

were almost all from your very own

ventriloquy.

We'd answer your questions

of gentle philosophy

from our couches, between sips

of our mini caprisuns,

and our elders would chuckle at

our eager replies.

But for certain we knew you heard us

and listened,

neighbor.

Ignis Fatuus

Stockpiled behind tear ducts and between heartfibers
are little clusters of emotion just for you.

Each one glows
after every harmless compliment
you place in my hand
and fold my fingers over.

Some little bundles, though, elide
the warmth in your words, while

others quaff it -- like you would
sparkling wine, many a sip at
many a time right after midnight
when the new year
begins -- until
each comment in passing
turns

into a handsel of jade hanging from a
thin chain around my neck
or another added charm dangling from
small chainlinks around my wrists.

Then, even when overcast are
nimbus clouds, campus lawns are
verdant and the flowers that sprout
from three-leaved clovers
are precious. And my face is ridiculous
with erubescent undertones from so much
capering across pastures only I've seen
and watered.

There are also, of course,
rational voices inside which broadcast
adages that suddenly apply. They see the chimera
attacking neural networks
with purple fire. The voices flay
and suddenly there is my rigor mortis face with a
drumming heart and we walk
side by side you and I
as we have always.

This Week's Been Awesome

It's been a while since I've written a non-poem entry - well, I guess along the way I realized what I wanted the intention of this blog to be. On that note, what I have to say is very much poetry related! This entire week thus far (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) has been ridiculously fulfilling! On Monday, Steven and I saw Andrea Gibson. THE Andrea Gibson! Her performance was so amazing that anything I say will fall short of the praise it deserves. I think "Ashes" and "Jellyfish" were my favorites -- but honestly, EVERY poem she read was absolutely magical. And between poems she was hilarious; her humor was just as infectious as the intensity of the poems she shared with us.

While in line waiting to meet her, I realized that I didn't have enough cash to purchase one of her books nor her CDs, which was a complete bummer. Also, I wanted to take a picture with her, and I turned on my camera in line to see if all was running smoothly. I was terrified when I saw the "Out of Memory" notification, and I frantically deleted pictures I didn't need in my sim card. While doing that my camera had the nerve to say "Battery Exahusted" and turn off on me, never to turn on again that night. After Steven was done talking to her, he literally introduced me to her! I was shaking as I shook her hand, and in the midst of my nervousness and star-struck awe towards Andrea, I told her the whole story about how amazing she was and how my camera died. She laughed and was very sweet about it -- but I know that I did indeed make a total fool of myself. I did end up getting a picture with her though! Steven's friend Idris took it for us!

On Tuesday I was joined by Rohma, Mehreen, and Veena returned to the same venue for the Beltway Poetry Slam. All of the contestants were amazing, and there were some who were especially moving. Mehreen was definitely one of them! She shared two of her soulful poems and I swear I felt chills as I heard her read. There was also someone who looked 15 years old and who was basically slamming and rapping interchanably, and his pieces were absolutely genius. A man named Clint won the slam that night, and rightfully so. One of his poems was about being a teacher and how he responded to a student who asked why they had to learn about the classics in class. I loved it!

The feature poet on Tuesday was Ed Mabrey. I knew nothing about him stepping into The Fridge, but I definitely felt his heart when he recited his poems! One of his poems was about a lesbian and the torment she had to face growing up -- I was in tears once again just as I was when Andrea Gibson was in town. So, I'm definitely an Ed Mabrey fan. I was once again nervous while we stood in line, eating free cake, waiting to meet Mr. Mabrey. He was very, very friendly, sweet, and down-to-earth. You could tell that he actually wanted to meet people and have conversations with them. He accepted my friend request on facebook! I am so pumped about life right now!

And today came as a total surprise. As a requirement for many English classes here at UMD, students are to attend "Writers Here & Now" programs in which fiction writers and poets are featured. Today's poet was Patricia Smith, who to my very pleasant surprise I found to be a slam poet! Her work was chock-full of humor and yet so passionate! She also wrote more serious poems about Hurricane Katrina which definitely made me tear up again. Yes, I'm adding her to my I-LOVE-YOU-MY-SLAM-POET list.

Well, I really needed to share that! I have so many academic priorities I'm totally ignoring this week, but you know what? Poetry's worth it, doesn't matter when.

Love and Good Night,

Gowri Nadmichettu

Blind Observation

While your fingertips graze the engravings

of your doctorate degree,

and while you tell me that I'm not seeing

what I really ought to see –

a list of values so precise

of little value to me –

my lens is set on 40x

and my vision takes careful steps –

retrograde, delicately –

balancing on microtubules,

the same ones you dryly dissect.

Dodging vesicles, then, I row,

through a huge ionic lake;

at each turn I make by lipid shores

I see something sweet metabolize

for critical – beautiful – energy.

Ripples of reticula approach

and lead me to the envelope

which contains the message

that you've never quite transcribed properly

but stained time and time again –

methylene blue, acridine orange –

but not even once with your wondercolor.

I Am Not Alone

I get this sensation sometimes -

this dark sensation -

that starts as a tiny tingle

and matures into a sturdy pull

on the tender fibers

of that pounding muscle that lets me breathe.

It tugs,

stringing a part of me into

a black hole

where I don't even understand the stranger

laws of physics

for me to rectify them.

And dammit then it stabs

like I did something real bad

I mean something like threatened its family

or set its house on fire

only I'm sure

it's the sole of its kin

and it lives and thrives in me

(and many others, I've heard).

Either way, it keeps stabbing

and then I feel it scrape

like it's carving a pumpkin,

cutting out the flesh and soul

from my expression

leaving me with a hollow smile

for display.

Sometimes, many times, it even finds its way

to my tear ducts

and pricks them with little spears

until they do what they naturally do

under stress.

This sensation even bullies me into leaving the house -

it grips

my wrists

so tightly

and after a beastly struggle

I free myself

and my legs carry me to an open field where

I sit down, catching my breath

feeling safe

for a moment.

I almost feel all better until I realize

that it wanted me to run here

it wanted me to smell the blossoms around me

and notice that they were all

forget-me flowers

and he-loves-me-not petals.

A second later, I hear it

a susurrus in the closest shrub

a snicker

and I see it

a smirk

then a set of teeth

sinking

into my fading smile.

Restless

Music unravels from white sheets

in the summer's night wind.

Treble clefs split from staffs

and five lines become the five fine teeth

of a comb that runs through my hair,

leaving pretty notes to braid themselves

near my roots.

Chords become reins around my ankles

and hasten the tempo of my wandering pace

towards anything but

four walls and a closed door.

So I run

down the muffled carpet

and across the pavement’s pitch,

half steps turning into to whole steps,

my bare feet keep going

till city lights barely linger,

and there are only woods

I keep running –

the entropic ensemble

of ruffling maple leaves

and lilting katydids

urges me to sing lead in

the loudest lullaby,

so my feet belt out the lyrics

in stride with the wind’s rushing harmony,

fine-tuning my freedom at each refrain.

So I keep racing

past the trunks of hemlock trees

and then I charge up the first incline I see;

as I reach the hill’s top with my arms stretched out,

hugging the songs that might otherwise escape me,

the forte of the black sky stops me –

its booming base

the night’s final crescendo.

And then

as sweet sound still reverberates

between silver stars,

I let myself fall on the arches

of quarter rests

in the fireflied grass of June,

tucked in by the acapella beams

of the moon.

Subtlety

Love is catharsis

But only from eyes to heart

And from sigh to smile.

I Guess I'll Just Listen While You Make Everything About You

I’m sitting here smiling sweetly

at you.

My eyes are fastened to yours

even though your line of sight

never bothers to collide

or make a vertex

with mine.

My lashes flicker anytime

your head tilts a bit

or you put some em-pha-sis

on certain words –

yup, I’m still content

Right?

I mean,

maybe the small curvature around my lips

that makes my smile

a smirk

(a very, wow-this-is-ridiculous

or a very, can’t-hear-a-thing-you-say

type of expression)

isn’t evident to you

because what you’re saying is really important –

I mean, even if

your larynx

ran out of sounds to play

your mouth would still keep running

and I’d bother to read

your lips

but my rods and my cones

are in different zones

and I’m a bit too busy smirking

at you.

Your hands make motions

as though you want me to understand

but lord knows

you just want to continue

conducting your orchestra of beautiful rhetoric

and repeating your flawless rendition

of hackneyed phrases

like “I, I, My, My”

or pretty scales of do-re-mi me me me

oh yes, sing on please -

I’m still smirking so blatantly

at you.

And it’s lovely how you don’t notice –

no, no, don’t stop your ramble

don’t take a breath

god forbid

you’d forget what you were saying

or your train of thought

derailed

for even a second

because that’d leave my ears

with an eerie silence

and it would be a sudden shame

to be deprived of my supply

of gorgeous background noise

that I use to muse

while I smirk shamelessly

at you.

Blown Away

From the breadth of his clasp

he handed her a bouquet of seeding dandelions.

They sat on the slate-colored patio

confronted with a spotless fescue yard.

When they gave air to the silky parachutes,

he saw her float in a white dress on each one

While she wished, her eyes sealed tight,

that he would stop loving her with this much might.

General Torpor in Physics Recitation

The only colliding particles we see today

are the yellow ones that fly

from the filing of your chalk piece -

The room is hazed with them.

They enter our ears

and clog our cochleas,

muffling the monotony of your lesson.

Stains form on our skin

and drain our facial glow,

replacing it with a jaundiced tint -

We want to recover

But our bodies can't accept anything

save for the soporific tone of your questions.

That's why you hear

a deep-breathing drone

from the back of the room

cascading now

to the front row:

We're answering you

in our REM sleep -

please don't

ignore our silent

somniloquies.

Severance

When our hands locked,

even the ridges and grooves

of our fingerprints

would complement each other -

whorls of mine would anchor

to loops of yours and bring our

life lines so close together that

they'd forget which palm they belonged to.

When our gazes touched,

the lids of our eyes

would save us -

soft skin would form a shingled roof

shielding us from life's hails and bolts

and soon we would be surrounded

by walls of sod and silk

that (somehow) nothing could penetrate.

When our smiles spoke,

the lines on our lips

would murmur riddles

without answers -

riddles like, "what can topple the very thing that

an earthquake cannot shake?"

or "what can burn like lava

and leave no blistering trace?"

I think I know the answers now,

as I watch you pack your bags,

and sling on your rifle

over your camouflage uniform.

I think you know the answers too

as you see my hands tremble

while I try to wipe the dust

off your combat training boots.

Forecast

The sky was trying really hard to smile when noon hit. Its pearly blue shine and wispy white blush almost convinced me of its contentment. I took off my headphones in hopes of hearing a hearty laugh. But instead I heard a sniffle. I turned off my ipod. The sniffling slowly but surely turned into gulping. The kind of gulping that hurts your throat and spreads a burning discomfort to the thickest of arteries. The kind of gulping that you can't stop once you start, and each time you gulp the fire just expands its territory. I looked up. The sky was trembling. Soon it drained its color and stopped clenching whatever it was that gave it that desperate hue of feigned revel. It tried its best to line its weary eyes with solar kohl. But before I knew it, a surge of shimmer streamed alongside my boots. I looked up again. The sky wouldn't stop. It was breaking down. It was breaking down light and sound. All I could do was look up. I was much too far from it to console it, and much to small for it to feel my hand on its shoulder. My neck started to hurt from looking up so much. I looked around and found more faces. My eyes froze when I felt the lachrymose wind that had caused it all – it was unnaturally icy, sucking the warmth out of every countenance that put up a fight. I looked down at my boots and kept walking.

Broken Synchrony

Enraptured, hearts beat

one-and-two-and-one-and-

two people incessantly

captured, frame after frame

by strobe lights, splitting

seconds, emitting

cartoons of real humans.

Each successive shot

each obsessive swing

of slick hair and hip

make her feet glide

front step back step turn

step across the floor

and collide with his

until his hand is

clutching her side

and his fingers lock

with hers, and for

a second they're breathing

the same sticky air.

His start-up smiles, his

charming lines and

screamy what's-your-name?

and where-you-from?

conversations don't hint

any trepidation -

she even thinks maybe

this guy has a bit of

class in his moves

on the liquor-shined tiles,

but the move he makes next

is a different style:

a bit of force on the small

of her back he presses

and messes

up her rhythm,

making them face-to-

resisting-face so she says

the usual “no-please

-just-dancing” line once then

twice waiting for his eyes

to stop looking so

strangely enticed.

She shakes her head

tries to loosen the arm he's

got clamped tight

around her waist but

dammit he moves closer and

closer because right now he

thinks that he knows her

but I'd like to make a bet

that he only knows

her silhouette.

Snowflakes and a Power Outage

The dark night

was a white sky

amplified

by muted thunder.

Now and then

a flash of luminol blue

shocked the blackness

of the living room.

Still, blinkless eyes

stayed hypnotized

by the ivory dust

that fell from indiscernible clouds.

The shavings landed, peculiarly,

as textured liquid

and hardened as glossy ceramic

atop cold, wooden arms.

The limbs never flinched

but hypothermia

revived their grace

even as they grew numbly stiff.

Maybe it was the stillness

under the netted drape of motion

that polished the strips of bark

and adumbrated the radiance of their form.

Or maybe, they were just beautiful,

and beautiful all along.