STRIKE

Once twice thrice
A hundred times
A thousand trials
Then he lost count
The stones were too rough
The stones were too smooth
The stones were too small
The stones were different
The stones were no good
He shivered as he squatted
He shivered from the fear
He shivered from the cold
His hands were scratched
His hands were bleeding
He struck repeatedly
Struck stone against stone
Struck a sliver of hope
That struck itself off each time
Until he struck gold
When the spark licked itself
Spluttered and flamed out
And roared its head of yellow yellow fire

Hot from the Oven- Apricot Cake

This is a departure from my usual posts- I’m posting a very good recipe for apricot cake that’s perfect for tea-time instead of talking in my angst-ridden way. Food in general cheers me up, especially desserts. I haven’t baked in long, but today I was totally in the mood. The usual favorites are all chocolate based but I was bored of baking brownies (which are very tasty nevertheless) so I tried my hand at apricot cake.This was the result.
Ingredients:
 1 ½ cups flour
 ½ cup caster sugar
 125 gms dried apricot, chopped
 ½ cup hot water
 1 tsp baking soda
 2 eggs, beaten lightly
 125 gms butter, softened
 1 tsp vanilla essence
 1 tsp cinnamon powdered
 1 small scoop of strawberry/ raspberry jam; caster sugar for garnish
Procedure:
 First, soak the apricots (dried and chopped) in the half cup of hot water and soak for about half an hour. Set aside.
 Place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Slowly add the beaten eggs to this mixture. Beat again till uniform.
 Preheat the oven for 15 mins at 150 degree Celsius in the meantime, to get it ready for the actual baking.
 Sift the flour with cinnamon and baking soda. Add to the mixture. Blend till the mixture is consistently thick and yellowish-white in color. (You could add some milk if you think the batter is too thick and unyielding)
 Grease tin
 Spoon half the batter into the greased tin. Spread the soaked apricot over this and spoon the remaining batter over the apricots.
 Place the tin in the preheated oven at 180 degree Celsius and bake for 35-45 mins or until baked. To test if the cake is ready, you could put a knife through its centre and if it comes out clean you’re good to go.
 Take out the hot cake and invert.
 Dust with caster sugar and garnish with strawberry jam.
This cake is best served hot, when the apricots are soft and juicy from baking. The sweet smell is also better retained if served immediately. Sip your coffee, read a nice novel and enjoy this easy to make tea-time snack on the side.

Blood, Beauty and Lipstick

Odd combination you think? Joshua Petker, acrylics artist begs to disagree. Petker caught my eye when I was randomly surfing the net. His striking portrayal of a woman with an attitude problem immediately got me to browse through his online gallery. This artist is unique in that he uses almost only acrylic in all his artwork and only paints women. Classic Petker includes use of bright colours (blue, red, pink, green) in unusual combinations to produce something straight-out, scandalous, sketchy and sexy. This isn’t to say that his work is trashy; he’s got much deeper themes running underneath the pretty faces. He seems to explore identity confusion, angst, despair and several other negative emotions through his subjects.
Petker only started painting professionally five or six years ago but he has admitted to having created graffiti all his life along with friends for amusement’s sake. Of course this unknowingly gave him the scaffolding needed to pursue Fine Arts in earnest. Only aged thirty, he has already achieved quite a bit of success and his artwork has found its way into the hands of interested private collectors. Now he paints almost every day in his Hollywood home, enjoying ironically the privacy and space it provides.
Petker claims that he draws what he finds beautiful and drawing girls comes to him most naturally. What he sacrifices in versatility of subject matter, he makes up in subject detailing. Each painting is unique, with one primary color hoarding the canvas. He makes use of a subject reference each time he begins a new project but often changes the face and body of the model, going with the flow. His paintings, as a result, are impulsive, whimsical and young- something that appeals to me both as an artist and an onlooker.
He’s one of my favourite artists at the moment because what he does is real, alive and possible. His paintings are very relevant for the now. They don’t exhibit social problems and squalor but instead show you exactly what you want to see- raw beauty-relentlessly and without shame.

CLENCH

The hard spot where I feel you
Is getting tighter like a clot
The whispering gasps when I see you
Are starting to grow like creepers
You’re creeping into my veins
You’re slithering into my blood
And making it dark
Snip-snip and my hair’s gone
In its place is thorny grass
Chop-chop my hands are fists
And my head is full of beats
My sneakers squeak and fidget
They’re new and a size small
My shirt falls about my chest
Flatly, like it wants to hide me
In its innocent child’s shape
My eyes are young and narrow
I don’t want you to know
I throw myself in your lonely face
But you’re missing something else
And you probably don’t see.

THE MYSTIQUE

A still red pool of water is a pond
I can see in the sunset,
And the dark feathers of trees
Shroud it like a roosting bird.

Closer and closer it draws me,
Tighter and stronger the bonds
That tug me by the arm
As the sleeve of a boy’s shirt.

Fear and exhilaration drumming
In my ears and chest
I take clumsy steps forward
To the heart of the lake

And suddenly a woman’s scream-
Like a Shakespearean witch;
The strands of hoarse voices
Breaking out like ripples
Over a quiet lake; and echo
Once, twice, thrice and again
Until it’s in my head and in the forest
And it reverberates everywhere.
But the lake is still as a child
That knows more than she says.
That’s when I break into a run.

Who knows if I lived or died.

LIKE A BASIN

Water gushes out crystalline
And fills the trough full;
Splashes around the corners
Spraying grey-stone briefly.
Finger dips in veritaserum
Then dips in windy mouth,
And snuffs the fire of water.
Finger twirls and dances
In the tenacious still lake,
Swirling whirling, a whirlpool;
Before swiftly the water drains away.

SNAKE

She lives in the mountains
She lives and breathes the chill air
And feels the happy warmth of her clothes
She sleeps beside the foggy window
Around evening she can see yellow flowers
Dancing in the distance

The top-hat man waves his magic wand
Over her sunken heavy eyes
She’s drifting in the blank comfort of sleep
The top-hat man is gone
And she has no idea of the time
Except that it is a dark uneasy time
When blackness wells and she snaps out
To find herself blinded by blackness

The knife is sharp as it plunges in
Into her glistening graying skin
And she feels a scream and a gasp
There is a fishbone stuck in her throat
From the naked double-edged pang
She feels a swoon and a nausea
She feels intolerant, she feels ridiculous
She feels alive like a burning pyre
She feels parched and rabid with fever
She feels in one instant
…
Eyes fly open like disturbed bees,
Lips quiver and tremble in shapeless shapes,
She will be alright in a minute;
Steadily she walks to her closet,
Whips out the razor,
And rips her vein out.

DRAUPADI

Because of the weather, the food court and the Palace of Illusions

I’m very busy with my hands,
I’m churning butter;
My fingers are sticky and creamy
With thick streaks of butter
That he licks off my finger.
I watch him sprint,
The most beautiful creature
That I laid eyes on;
I’m his mother, I’m his lover;
I worship his blue skin
And his fickle black eyes.
I long to flick the feather
He flaunts in his crown,
To have him chase me,
To be pulled against his torso.
He showed me all the world
On his sharp flat tongue
And I still did not believe.
He showed me the depthless ocean,
And the orange id of the sky,
He showed me men and women,
And his petty eyes came alive.
He’s endless like a rune;
Ancient, exasperating, child-like;
Sifting and stretching himself
With his half smiles,
And light mocking tones.
He loves the Sun, he is the Moon.
He is Krishna:
Friend to Arjuna,
Husband to Rukmini,
Lover to Radha,
And to me?
He is quicksilver.

BURN

Swelling and subsiding orange glow
Swelling like a blossoming flower
It throbs softly, pulsating like a flesh wound.

The pain isn’t come yet
As it steals over like a gossamer cowl
Over his bowed head.

Eyelids droop in pleasant stupor
Head weaves slightly drunkenly
Liquid light dims in black eyes’ island sheen.

It dips in and out quickening
Into the flesh, into the bone,
Into the gut as it helps itself to some Life.

Bright flashes in the boy’s head
Chunks of soul break loose
Crash and smoke like wilted leaves.

Dipping in, dipping deeper
Sharp red softens to orange
It picks him between two fingers
And sucks his earthy grit flavor into blackness.

GUT

The mind’s clock is ticking:
Thoughts float thick and thin
Like oil on water or paints
Blending unblending changing
Colors in spurts or smoothly;
Thoughts spouting new thoughts
Ideas Emotions but not Action;
Jumping like a frenzied monkey,
Then jeering like a hyena,
Then muttering like a caged cat.
Swallowing me in a swoon
And letting me fall weightlessly
From an infinite cliff of Ego.
And I never hit rock bottom.

When it is a blank sheet,
It hears the drop of a pin;
It sniffs and cocks its head
As the noises warble mingle
Grow louder shriller into a scream-
Or get doused by a bucketful
Of water that I just filled.

Snatch

Yes, this is my first post. And this is my first move. This blog is going to be about a lot of things- things I love. Music, Art, Movies, Desserts, Books, Poems (mine!) and anything that I feel like snatching off from the little places where good things hide. This would include my brain and the 'net mostly. So pick your way through the blog. Have fun.