Tarun Cherian

Let my words have an unvarnished feel to them. Truth writ in the grain. Sentences that feel like bark and offer comfort like a bench after a long walk into the hills with a woman.
...

Dear Juliet, beware the snore,
the farts staining the underwear thrown on the sideboard,
the flowers not given, the 7th child, the daily bread...
surely they can kill more surely than the knife, the feudal hatred.
...

Sometimes I lie down on a stone bench in the park
and look down at the sky,
and I think if I let go I'll fall like a leaf
past the trees and slow into the clouds
...

Imagine a summer storm iridescent with lightning, only it happens in your body. And the lightning we were talking about? Well it isn't lightning either. Is more the deep content of a child massaged by his mother's fingers, the wine-heady satisfaction of a Sunday afternoon, the sensual slowness of amber honey lazily trickling, the curious stirring of a lover's tongue, the rippling dissolve of a half an hour orgasm, the fierce knowing of a prophet's eyes, sprinkled with volts. It, whatever it maybe, ripples up my body with exquisite slowness. Sparkling fingers touch, turning each cell dense with orgasmic incandescence. It moves with grass-suffused slowness,

Flickering-gold beneath lily pads, one may call chakras. Now nibbling at the toes. Now hyalescent fins moving at the crown. Circles on circles, of dancing children {only you can't see the children}, of molten gold {only you can't see the gold}.
...

They are there
even though they are gone.

They can visit
...

I hold your hand.
Warm fingers.

Then intrude, the long fingers of a viscount.
...

Soon, we will reach home.
After this life or 10.

After celebrating,
...

Dear God,
You are a tease.

You are always there,
...

May we Declare Freedom...
Freedom from Fear & Hatred,
Freedom from Pettiness & Greed,
Freedom from Hard-heartedness,
...

I hear the voices of a thousand mothers wailing.
I hear the sound of a thousand fathers roaring in despair.
I hear the scream of child in pain from a thousand cribs…
...

At an Udupi restaurant, a child asks to picked up,
her root is dark, scared of the bustle.
Her father's heart glows {He loves picking her up}.
and navel grumbles {Is he spoiling her? }.
...

See me not with eyes.
Touch me with a touch
that shows you know.
And I will wrap you in a moment
...

In my eyes, everything
is scarred and broken...
In your eyes, everything
is glorious, whole...
...

{A film script pretending to be a poem}

Open on a junior Angel, monitoring the Earth and in particular the World Cup Finals.
...

Where is India?
It is in the lice wandering like pilgrims in the filth-matted hair of the ascetic/sage walking half-naked down MG Road, (setting a bad example to visiting IT cats and so should be banned) not giving a 2nd glance at the merc desperate to overtake my ‘gaadi’, but afraid to risk rubbing shoulders, not to mention unaffordable paint, against the hoi polloi.

Where is India?
...