I am the master evil genius!

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

it is only when you have the 'flu do you realise the boundless capacities the human body has for the egestion of fluid over a period of twenty-four hours, days upon end. constant rehydration means piffle to said human body, only resulting in tedious hourly jaunts to the restroom. nonetheless, said human body egestion remains very akin to the bottomless flagon thor had to drink from- the cup ended in the sea...

Mina at 9:14 AM

Monday, June 28, 2004

turn away, it’s

all the same to he and she. he
won’t miss her fingers creeping into his
in the dark

she won’t

think of him when the moon is full

they won’t

talk beyond sleep, beyond schedules, beyond sanity, won’t wait
for each other at lunch. turn

away, it’s

all the same to them

she won’t
wear his t-shirts to bed he won’t

have her walk on thisside of the road why are

you sad; it's

all the same to them

Mina at 6:11 PM

3 comments

some stars you can see at night. they glitter and
sparkle for all they're worth

seeing is believing, you
can see enough twinkle to
wish on

you could see them every day, wish
every day and never know

if they're dead or not

because lots of stars die, but
leave behind their light, even if
just for a while

so in essence

your star is alive
as long as you don't know its truth.

this is something

to think about.

Mina at 5:54 PM

if you’re done using me
lets get onto you

(bloodsuckers that we are
your lovebites stay forever)

you’ll call me when you’re sick
i’ll call when i need a shoulder

you’ll find me in a crowd (you
could spot me from a hundred
feet without your glasses on)

but only when you need my notes

i’ll say hello (your voice
i could recognize
blindfold and deaf even)

but only when i feel like it

and eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth-

what a

wonderful world

leeches

Mina at 1:38 PM

Contrive a poem out of ears.
Tell it
so that its petals unchocolate
like a brain in a jar.
Wax, walnut, melting with thought.
Make it a poem almost
lewdly knowledgable
and make its knowledge
ooze, syrup from the punched trunk.
Make it snake up to the molecule whorey
and put its mouth
atomic against the mouth of its core.
Pull on its stem
to expose its feotus. Make it
have children with sleek ginger jaws,
make the dogs moan when it passes,
let it out of its jar,
make it hungry, evil, enemy of Death.
Put it on paper. Read it. Make surgery
its sigh, and of such sting
the scorpions call it Jehovah & Who.
Make it now before you crap out.
Contrive it, sperm it, stroke it,
make it efficient, make it fit,
make it more poem than Poem can survive.

Some Lamb
Stan Rice ~ 1975

this sexyyummy poem was brought to you by Our Sponsor, courtesy Munky-Man ;)

Mina at 9:29 AM

Sunday, June 27, 2004

well, vicky bhai, even though you're not my bhai, you just made my day. and the next few after that. and i think i just might take you up on your offer. *grin* what a cool bhai to have.

Mina at 12:11 PM

Thursday, June 24, 2004

the superstar herself

Mina at 9:31 PM

The magic tea-tree
Is small. It grows between
Other trees-bushes-reeds that
Are much taller than it. Also much leafier.
They arc down in a green bower and shower
Leafy kisses on people. The magic tea-tree,
However,
Has more dignity than that. It accepts offerings
With grace bordering on disdain -Faintly-. It
Had a specific something to say to the silly
shit that gave its wish-vehicle to one of the
mundane tree-bush-reeds, though.

The magic tea-tree likes being small.
It can look up people?s noses and into their
Minds. It stands with the compact comfortableness
Short things have, easiness of everything fitting
Together nicely.
The tea-tree could be magic. Tea magic, tree magic,
Secret dryad of the tree-bush-reed grove-
Will you wish?

Mina at 9:25 PM

'keh khoon bhi zindagi na chahey'

Mina at 8:50 AM

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

'and elf took x's cow and stuart took y's cow- but nobody took your cow.'

'yeah, i guess nobody did.'

small smiley cow, don't
worry,
someone will steal you
one day

Mina at 10:07 AM

Monday, June 21, 2004

tum ti tum :)

Mina at 9:39 PM

oddly bohemian feeling, this one...welcome to my loft :D

Mina at 9:37 PM

me and my rings, a.k.a the tools of my craft

Mina at 9:35 PM

bari ammi unplugged :)

Mina at 9:34 PM

everyone is doing their research paper. i am writing poems.

everyone is staring intently at their monitors. i am wiggling my toes and ring finger alternately. my toes are pretty and my ring finger is prettier. i think i should give amma her rings back. but then again...

everyone is making their keyboards go rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat like a machine gun with diahorrea. i am trying to see if i can read the pages of typing open on the guy-in-front-of-me's monitor (i can. something about the taiping and christianity.).

it occurs to me that this red kameez and white shalwar is the slit-wrist outfit. ('oh haan!')

my fingers are cold. gule's lips are pursed a little, her profile is making me smile.

even this could be a poem, you know.

Mina at 2:27 PM

Saturday, June 19, 2004

bari ammi isnot
wearing her teeth.

she lisps, her mouth
puckers.
nursing the sour taste of
being old

bari ammi isnot
wearing her teeth

she sounds like an
old woman. i don’t
like this alien grandmother

her hair is too white, all
of a sudden, like
her diamonds on hands
loose and wrinkled

her eyes are too wide, tired
at the corners. bari
ammi isnot wearing her
teeth

and she is old,

suddenly.

Mina at 7:33 PM

Thursday, June 17, 2004

today started out as the shittiest, grumpiest, surliest morning there ever was. broker than a flea on a raggedy kitten, expression scarier than medusa, hands shoved deep inside my olive cargoes, the only thing cheerful about me was my cherry-red t-shirt.

the minute i got to campus i was working, after an uninspiring class i wandered about listlessly with ahmed, bless him. accidentally clocked hassan in the jaw with the diamonds i've been wearing of late while looking around in the dopehr ki dhoop for a car. skipped a little after dunking myself in the blessed cool of the SS wing, where i had protracted conversations on communism in China with Hasan K and Taimur R, both of which are brilliant, brilliant men. such a treat. plus met a friend after years,who gaped profusely. cue amused internal grin. poor soul remembered the braces, mad hair and dreadful uniform, as opposed to the funky chashma, wispy messy bun and cute little t-shirt of today.
went to a sadly slightly boring class alone, missed ayesha. zain pulled my hair and showed me ‘hasan in cinemascope! hahahaha!’ (he’s been taping lectures). wrote notes and dozed. sitting in a corner near the back of a rather large auditorium makes you feel like you’re on the periphery of the world. left class grumpy again. then met sydra my jaan, who shrieked 'miiiiiineeee!' across the PDC and almost fell out of her chair doing an elaborate swingy round-round wave. grumpies vanish in instant. then she vanishes as she is wont to do and huma calls! i speak to her for the firstest time before heading up to the lab to kill some time. and lo and behold, munkey-man has blue mooned my inbox. arrey wah! then huma calls again- ali's cooked up a social plan. three minutes (literally.) after i get home, the doorbell rings and i meet the humster for the firstest time! yeaay!
went for a walk in the sweetest evening hawa ever with amma, feeling beautifully energized and pleased. missed goldie; she and i walked about a lot in this kind of weather. then i find out that meesha's sister hira got engaged last night, is getting married in two weeks and is leaving for chicago, which is wonderful news (visions of ghararas instantly floating about in my head), albeit surprising and a little scary. but good news all the same. cue dholkis and spangly saris.

what a rollercoaster kind of day...and now that i think of it, so many adventures!

Mina at 9:23 PM

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

today she wrote
a poem

her hair fell straight down
like an arrow
wispy scented feelers
that tickled

today he laughed
and put his elbow in a puddle
almost

his blood rushed on and on
mouth smiled, fingernails grew an atom

today they
practiced being happy. nodding
like bamboo leaves
in the wind

her wrists are so thin and
his veins are so full

they could be

so destructive, together

them be, them become
sharp

and sudden streams flow

Mina at 9:49 PM

3 comments

sometimes i feel
exactly like a paste diamond

amidst my gold shine and flashing rainbow fire
nobody knows i’m not really there.

nobody knows i could
tumble from my shallow socket
at just a jolt.

if i cracked it wouldn’t be
a clean, sharp cut that
sliced glass

and i bleed
but it's always white

Mina at 9:28 PM

That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!

~ Calvin

as Hassan would say...iss main 'thori si trouble hai'...not only because euphoria is hard to find, but the crash is so much more destructive when it's over.

Mina at 8:35 AM

Monday, June 14, 2004

mina’s list of some things she will never forget

the sound of the phone ringing on the morning of 30 november, 1995

2 september, 2003

my eighteenth birthday surprise party

‘idhar dekh!’

the sound of nani laughing at the banana joke

the stars that night in gharyal

the silence that followed the first time i read ‘sonnet 17’ in public

park days

the first poem i ever wrote

that sunrise

the day ayesha and i 'stole' the white truck and drove it to the store

white silence inside your mind

the isloo trip :D

the first time i saw 'starry night'

the oxygen tanks and empty bed in sameera's drawing room

ahmed's carseat dance

'keechaaaaarrr'

blue park

goldie's houdini act at age eight weeks

rahat bakery icecream, every 14 august with nana

Mina at 9:09 PM

Sunday, June 13, 2004

smoky evenings

Mina at 3:10 AM

come dancin’ with me, sweetness
come on out under the stars
come dancin’ with me, sugar
lets walk barefoot in the park

come dancin’ with me, sweetness
lets swing away our blues
come dancin' with me, honey
i promise you we'll shine

come dancin' with me, sweetness
and time will stop her hands
come dancin' with me, baby
we're all we'll ever need

mina's folksy banjo song :)

Mina at 12:17 AM

Saturday, June 12, 2004

slicing cherries is just really sexy. meow.

Mina at 4:53 PM

one of the most hauntingly beautiful songs i have ever heard is grizella's aria from 'cats', the one musical i've always wanted to see and now prolly never will because it closed about three years ago after running for decades on broadway and all over. sadness. but the best part is- ah, lean in closer, i shall whisper now- is that i have had a fully grizella moment! lamplight and a misty drizzle at 3 a.m on an empty road and only the voice in my head for company...probably the loneliest moment in my entire life, and of all the things in my head, this woke up- rather aptly,at the time.

Midnight
Not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory
She is smiling alone
In the lamp light
The withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile like the old days
I was beautiful, then I remember
The time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

Every street lamp seems to beat
A fatalistic warning
Someone mutters and the street lamp gutters
And soon it will be morning

Daylight
I must wait for the sun rise
I must think for the new life
And I mustn't give in

When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And the new day will begin

Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale cold smell of morning
A street lamp dies
Another night is over
Another day is dawning

Touch me,
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with my memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is
Look, a new day has began

Mina at 12:21 PM

Friday, June 11, 2004

yeaay! my internet is finally working at a decent enough speed to let hello work- let the games begin :D

Mina at 3:07 PM

stalking her some more

Mina at 2:54 PM

stalking amma :D

Mina at 2:46 PM

4 comments

beautiful beeni

Mina at 2:26 PM

arrival

Mina at 2:21 PM

islamabad smells like pot.

the grass is damp,
springing up through my
minimal sandals. i
sit on the bench.

fashionably rebellious
strategically placed
precariously balanced between concern and insouciance

'the stars are very far away'

something inside me feels sad,
another small bleakness to spread
behind my eyes.

'happy birthday, man'

Mina at 3:37 AM

'i can't believe i'm eating a snickers. it's so...surreal!'

gule's third eye opened and speaking

Mina at 3:11 AM

3 comments

Thursday, June 10, 2004

i am irate.

my stomach aches, i'm so tired i'm cussing liberally and my hair is drooping in sad curls and i probably look like i'm chewing lemons. achi baat hai. so so cranky. ayesha and i went to the rec room and made a u-turn 'cause it was full of couples sitting in each other's laps...usually eik do regulars hotey hain, today there was a whole frickin' football team of them. uff. yay for your hormonal nirvana but disperse or whatever. baaaiiiin-son. phir pdc which was dingy and stupider than the rec room. the pdc is tediously akin to a prison cafeteria i am thinking. the only ray of hope in this entire stew of diahorrea-variety goo is gule and ayesha across the lab, laughing their heads off and tormenting ali with extremely fruity funnies. which i am summoned across the room to be told in complete fruity fanfare.

i feel my mood improving. time to be bought a lemonade.

Mina at 4:01 PM

'dil aye gadhi par to parri kya hai'

- bari ammi
(my dadi, the half-irani quoter of sheikh saadi(in farsi!)and font of all things wise)

Mina at 9:44 AM

is there such thing as coincidence, or is everything part of an elaborate, interconnected plan?

jo bhi reason, clicking on huma's site is one coincidence/twist of fate/magic finger initiative that proved to be the fullest fun, hail hail (and lots of falling snow) for my newest buddy :D you're the bestest too! yeeay! and we prolly were related last janam, which is why our karmic fates found each other *wise swami nod*

Mina at 9:36 AM

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

It was one of those days when everything is beautiful.

The sky was baby-blanket blue, a strangely pretty, unreal kind of bright, primary blue, tempered by the slowly dying light of a setting summer sun. It was the kind of sky you only see in the summertime, the deliciously slow, vibrant sky of a tropical twilight that throbs with the retained energy of the morning. The breeze was surprisingly cool; it had been like this all day. Carrying a breath of welcome cool from some faraway mountain, the breeze had been steady and strong enough to feel it on your scalp; it was a rare treat, a respite from the usual sweltering, suffocating heat of June. The sometimes golden, sometimes smoky blue light took away the lines from faces, giving them the smooth, chiseled contours of a Greek statue; turning ordinary buildings and trees into finely created objects of art. Twilight has a tendency to romanticize everything in the world, and its special kind of magic light turns even the ugliest pothole into a contemplative, dignified entity, something you might take a black and white photograph of.

Mina smiled, and stepped into the grass.

It was thick and springy under her bare feet; the maali hadn’t been at it with his creaky, noisy manual lawnmower yet. Mina was looking for a four-leaf clover. She didn’t think she’d find on in maali’s generally well-kept lawn, but hope makes the world go ‘round. She dropped first onto her knees, then her hands, savouring the feel of the grass, its spicy-sweet scent, the insects busily bustling along, going up and down navigating their way through the green-brown carpet of grass stalk. Mina crawled around for a while before suddenly flumping down onto the grass as if she couldn’t resist its coarsely spongy, crunchy lure any more. The world was different when your eyes were at level with the ground. Rolling onto her back, the grass prickled through her thin lawn kameez and she smiled at the familiar itch. The sky was paler now, the setting sun slowly leaching the startling blue away into the pale gold that surrounded its diminishing orb. Mina was trying to catch that exact moment where all colour ended, that instant where the sky must be white before night took over with its midnight palette. The pine branches above her head waved their needles happily in the wind, nodding approvingly at the playful gusts that shook their pinecones with gentle laughter and blew Mina’s kameez awry.
The azaan wove its eerie echo into the air and birds began their ritual chatter, gathering in the trees to begin the flight home, swooping and arcing experimentally, dark against the still-light sky. Mina listened to the sound of her breath, the hum of the earth, the tingle of her nerves as she wiggled her toes deeper into the grass and debated staying there forever, a goddess of the grass if she could.

Mina at 9:49 AM

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

canal, car speeding along
crowd at corner

car slows

‘ki hoya?’

reply comes squinting in the sun,
arms on kameezed hips.

‘bacha marr gaya’

car speeds up again

life

Mina at 10:17 PM

4 comments

Monday, June 07, 2004

'hope is the thing with feathers'

which is the first line of a poem by emily dickinson called 'hope'. the poem's sappily goody-goody but i loved this line. hope is the thing with feathers. sweet, sends images of a fuzzy little baby birdchick waking up in a nest :)

Mina at 9:06 AM

i had the screwiest dream last night. which is odd, considering i fell asleep watching the eucalyptus shine, rain-wet in the aandhi and the sky light up with..um..lightning (cue austin powers moment *ding ding*) and feeling generally content. plus i slept the best i've slept in weeks, which says quite a lot. but psycho dream, as a friend would put it. :S .

Mina at 8:35 AM

Sunday, June 06, 2004

i just realised, in the middle of my creative writing assignment, that maami (the desification of 'mummy' made by my nani and her sibs, despite their english governess' best intentions)- my great-grandmother who lives in karachi, my completely not-senile, almost ninety year old grandmere who watches cable, drives the hardest bargain in karachi and has a head of snowy hair- is a princess, born and bred. she is a true-blue, 100% princess. the same woman who i kiss and make funny faces at to elicit a smile, the woman who gives me money in small brocade puriyas, the woman who carries so much grief in her soul and tries to get me to eat another roti is a princess. she grew up wearing jewel-encrusted sari blouses, she had, amongst other fairy-tale things, sixty villages in her jahez, her palki was mounted on an elephant. damn. maami is a princess; i've always known but for the first time i am seeing her in a life that is not karachi and her big lonesome house, and i wonder if she misses the life she used to have; lifetimes away from this world.

Mina at 3:03 PM

4 comments

Saturday, June 05, 2004

i wonder where the answers live.

Mina at 9:09 PM

Friday, June 04, 2004

mina's list of things she does not like so far in life

waiting

routine

fried eggs with solid yolks

people who wear ugly knickers and let them show

goodbyes

'not now'

economics

forgetting my towel outside the bathroom

people who bullshit for CP

stinky feet

the brownies sticking to the pan when you flip them

the way maali 'prunes' the hedges

being linked with buddies i would never hit on even if they were the last men on the planet

disappointment

'you can't'

no bookmarks

stomach aches

Mina at 9:16 AM

6 comments

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

ten minutes to glow,
ten minutes to say i love you,
ten minutes to press the world
into a ball and throw it out of
a window

ten minutes to watch the rain,
ten minutes to smile again
ten minutes to pick up the pieces
and put them back together

ten minutes to blow you a kiss
ten minutes to head out of the door
ten minutes to realise
it doesn't matter any more

ten minutes to breathe free
ten minutes to turn and smile
ten minutes that suddenly
made it worth your while-

ten minutes to escape

Mina at 9:21 AM