Law,
All ye termites hacking ants are you without sin?
Twisting the law to your greed thus dethroning justice
Thou that dis-virgins the law to suit your selfish taste,
Did not equity say that none is above the law?
Money-thirsty vultures seeking positions to occupy.
Law hackers depriving justice and equity of her rights
Equity and justice now lives in shame of her virginity,
Almighty termite, do not your deeds speak evil of your sins?
I weep blood for justice and equity whose daughters you *****.
Is there none whose conscience still breathe or lives?
Power-driven termites making uncountable promises
Yet accomplishing none but your calculated interests.

Equity,
All ye leaders that preach peace, are you not corrupt minded?
En-slaving accounts meant for public welfare
Yet you claim to have the peoples interest in mind,
Did not the law command you to let equity and justice smile?
Parasitic predators hi-jacking the country's economy
Filthy termites proclaiming injustice upon powerless ants,
Justice hackers, do not your conscience judge your judgments?
I wish that you allow justice and equity have her way.
Law benders at whose feet equity and justice bow
Rippers of the law, at your hands justice is twisted,
Is your nature as humans so inhumane?
Little wonder the earth lives in fear of your tyranny.

Justice,
All ye slanders of the law, why not sheath your swords of corruption?
Your unchecked power has broken the wings of justice
Thereby making equity a widow without a husband,
Remember your oaths to serve with justice and equity;
Did you deceive the ants that voted you in to serve them?
Chameleons occupying seats of filtered ambitions
Woe betide your conscience for refusing to judge you,
Are you not guilty of molesting the law?
I mourn for the shameful death of equity and justice.
You that crafts the law to fit your suit of corruption
Remember a day comes when justice will laugh again,
And you being powerful cannot escape the law of Karma.

Karma,
Murderers of the law, will you also bribe karma?
I doubt if you can buy the law of karma with money.
Thou whose gluttony corrupts justice and equity,
Don't you feel guilty that you disvirgined the law?
Equity and justice now roams about in nakedness,
You that preach the law, are you true to yourself?
Heartless spiders cob-webbing the law to entangle poor ants
Did not equity bid you come to justice with clean hands?
Yet with filthy garments you condemn innocent ants;
Mind you that someday the law will rise again.
All ye scavengers of justice and hackers of the law,
Do you think you can **** the law of Karma?

here comes the fishhead singing
here comes the baked potato in drag
here comes nothing to do all day long
here comes another night of no sleep
here comes the phone wringing the wrong tone
here comes a termite with a banjo
here comes a flagpole with blank eyes
here comes a a cat and a dog wearing nylons
here comes a machine gun saying
here comes bacon burning in the pan
here comes a voice saying something dull
here comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds
with flat brown beaks
here comes a **** carrying a torch
a grenade
a deathly love
here comes a victory carrying
one bucket of blood
and stumbling over the berry bush
and the sheets hang out the windows
and the bombers head east west north south
get lost
get tossed like salad
as all the fish in the sea line up and form
one line
one long line
one very long thin line
the longest line you could ever imagine
and we get lost
walking past purple mountains
we walk lost
bare at last like the knife
having given
having spit it out like an unexpected olive seed
as the girl at the call service
screams over the phone:
"don't call back! you sound like a ****!"

the hundred year old stairs
wakes up from its dreamless slumber
to find the world has spun
for an infinity too long

it once roamed
and ruled
the household of Chathanathodi
making way to the rooms
upstairs
that conspired a thousand
whispered secrets

simultaneously
sprawling its termite-infested legs
to make way
downstairs
that injected an aura of
omnipotence

its laddery body was now a little chipped
and its creaky joints, a little shaky
but it didn't matter
as it was still conspicuous
and strong
like Hercules
leading unsuspecting mortals
upstairs and downstairs
to its universe of Gods

Shalini Nayar
© 2001

Termites, those invisible, destroyers
eating away, eating away
bit by bit, I can hear
slow and steady
gnawing away
so determined to hurt me
destroy the bit I have, only
this time its not wood
its flesh and soul
they eat away
bent on finishing me
my whole being.

Have you seen these termites:
that eat the inner being?

The 7 wonders of the world
Is quite a sight to see
But it don't compare to what we have
In the hills of Tennessee

Uncle Zebs cow is a big ole thing
Quite a sight to behold
That cow's so big that when they milk her
Her udders even have to unfold

Cousin Zeke has a six-legged mule
And man that thing is fast
One time he raced a bobcat
And the bobcat finished last

My granny's teeth are made of wood
Of course, they were bought from a store
But ever since that termite season
She don't use them much no more

Aunt Imojean has a twine collection
That she started when she was three
I guess if we unwound that thing
It'd reach clear 'cross Tennessee

Cousin Jake has a rattlesnake
He pickled and stuffed in a jar
He caught that thing a year ago
Trying to run off with his car

Uncle Randolph has this chicken
Who howls and barks at the moon
That poor chicken is so dadgum old
That she has to be fed with a spoon

Uncle Sam has the seventh wonder
An invisible moonshine still
We ain't seen it since he made it
But it's somewhere on that hill

So, after you think you've seen it all
You haven't seen anything yet
Come to the hills of Tennessee
And see things you'll never forget

American city, your roads make me gasp,
Hold my breath with cancerous anxiety.

Your sidewalks,
Ancient ruins of time passed: A failed optimism for Utopian desire:
A house, a yard, a car for every person.

Now derelict, termite infested, but rented.
Chlorinated chemical water runs through rusted, moldy spickets to
Rinse pesticide seasoned vegetables.
And yet they remain so tasteless.

But who cares?
Suburban middle class zombies?
Created with media placed propaganda.
Born and inoculated with DisneypepsiMccocacola ideologies.

Oh Wal-Mart,
how we love your homogenized Chinese products.
Oh America,
how we love your multi-million dollar cathartic films,
They bring my mind to no place and inspire nothing.

Your theme park inspired retail caters to any identity I desire:
I am a professional,
My wallet lined with the best credit cards,
SUV, Hummer, Super boat, designer label, mall bought,
bleached teeth smile, with slick greasy hair style.

I'm cool, I pay for the gas.
Beep your horn, and rev your engine.
We are at war with each other.
Everyone get out of my way: road rage lifestyle: compete or die.

Big screen television dream.
Bought it at Target.

Open my cupboard: Macaroni and Cheese, delicious.
Ambian, Prozac, antibiotic, Listerine.

Collagen bovine beauty:
Manicure, pedicure, dye and wax

Acrylic nails, hair extensions
And silicone sacs.

Oh, American city
How we want to steal your money and **** your blood.
Chop your trees and cement your grass.
American city you are dead.

Brown yellow rusted pages
None read
None would for ages
Lying on the pave

Blurred is the title and name
Lost dream and never born fame
Wisdom of long bearded sages
Dumped in the grave

Dusty old forgotten write
Feasted upon by termite
What to author full of sense
Fetch not any pence

Should I buy take home to read
Not treat it like just **** ****
Spend some time in smelling old
See if bring some gains?

I'm a little funny looking
I must confess,
all chunky boxy & truck-like
with 2 big old horns
that look quite deadly
but really we just
use them for show mostly,
oh & digging around
in termite hills,

I do hear though
that you humans
really cherish them
for folk cures &
help with your
***** & such,
you know
important
scientific stuff,

but then again
we can make a fearsome
fearsome charge
at a land-rover
full of folks
all with their
cameras & such,

at least we used to
till we became
fucken extinct!

There are colors yet unknown in my finite view of Earth , artistic wonders undiscovered , to this day quite alone .. Geometric shapes where Sweetgum trees silhouette the majestic Dawn .. Enchantment with every turn go I , to study my religion by day , collect my thoughts and observations by night .. To interplay among life undiscovered  , to revel someday in its happenstance ... The weathered profiles of a million botanicals unknown or forgotten . An ocean whose riddles remain unsolved , seventy percent of our precious world where exploration has barely scratched the surface .. Dark , rainy afternoons reconfigured with burst of light , the surface of oceans ever mysterious , highlighted by the Moon on hazy nights .. I flew over Moccasin Creek to sample fresh water and take in mountain greenery ..Walked the treetops of the Oconee Forest to witness the floor of the woodlands as a squirrel , crow or eagle ..Slithered along the Georgia clay like a Black Racer , cautiously studied each image before me with the curiosity of a Red fox .. Enthralled with the Savannah Dancers of Tybee Island , precious gulls , blue ***** and brown pelicans .. Welcome every change of season , Dark pine thickets tell of death and renewal ...

                                                          II­
Jagged , blue grass approaches , green straw tops , quiet
cinnamon needle oceans connected by silver streak spider webbing ..
Warm winds divide earthen cover , lifeless termite ridden forefathers lay in testament to bitter destruction ... Our Noon star nourishes bold , sylvan seedlings , beneath her languishing February predicament however ... Grassy field roads lay locked in period of service , daylight path corrections , marble land buoy sentries within thistle , dandelion and Sawgrass .. Gold , knee high cover caresses , reaching skyward beside the field road , lying forgotten , left to the mercy of kudzu , marble and granite .. Scrags reclaim rusted encroachments , tin in battle with the tepid wail of afternoon wind as stick pines mimic the Appalachians , gently roll toward the awaiting lavender blue horizon ... As pasture returns to woodlands , blanketed in hues of brown with forest echoes , carry whispered voices into tomorrow ... Lively crows live to tell their wintry tale , resting among scuttled pulp wood entanglements , to be born again , covered in the pity of lingering broom sage ...                                                              ­                                                  

                                                        III    ­                                                                 ­Across the edge of twilight where soft lavender hues lay at
rest atop her riparian horizon .. Dandelion blooms pepper the
red clay embankments , lone bucks survey brown fields of harvested
corn ..Mourning doves cry for the end of day , wild hogs lay tracks at the rivers edge . Toms sing of their loneliness  , persimmons lay bitter along country lanes , the meat of Chestnut not harvested , the final years of tall , stately Pecans go shamefully unnoticed .. Barbed wire divisions etch Winter burned pasture , Morgans and Appaloosas graze the fertile , ambrosial green narrows .. Manmade pools dot the Crescent lady , cattle ditches appear along creeks and rivers holding Rock bass , Shell ******* , Yellowbellies and Bluegills ferociously hunting the waters surface , Alligator Snappers and Mudcats work the turbulent bottoms ... Hayfields , peach and muscadine arbors flourish , boiled peanuts and sorghum syrup , collards and sweet potatoes ...Blackberry , grape , watermelon and okra ..Water oaks have taken command of the front yard ,  moss and honeysuckle line fence rows , flowing patches of wild grass and snake berry , rocks from Cotton Indian Creeks line hand built flower beds and walkways .. Rhode Island Reds , Buff Orpington's and White Leghorns work these plantations . Sassafras and dewberry , wild plum and rabbit tobaccos . Gardenia , Crape Myrtle , Magnolia , Pine and Chestnut trees  flourish to this day .. The Old Bridge behind Millers Mill still visible , what stories this elder pass could tell before the confluence of the Indian Creeks .. Crayfish , Bream , Largemouth bass , Crappie , Yellow perch and Flathead catfish ! The tale of the Crescent lady lives forever and ever ..

There was a girl named Peg Leg Peg,
Called her that because of her wooden leg,
She was known as the best in town,
Guys would come from miles around,
You see, Peg’s leg could detach,
For better access to her ******,
And though it wasn’t ***** that bite,
There was the occasional termite,
But this did not seem to deter,
All the guys who called on her,
And though there were occasional cracks,
About how she held her stockings up with tacks,
All the guys would practically beg,
To put another notch in Peggy’s leg.

04-19-10.

It was a highway that brought me here
Stuffed into a expensive car with four adults and good music
We drove for what seemed hours
Arriving on the slick, black streets of the Emerald City
Down a rabbit hole of old cars and termite ridden stairs
Past an old couch and a stray cat
Into a cold room with heaters stacked and jumbled
Full of pianos and good and beer
People I've known for twelve years
And people I've met only once
People I don't know
Different skins, of their own, of animals
Frizzy and cropped hair, wine and mason jar glasses
Walls painted silver, gleaming under forty year old lamps
Mismatched furniture and occupants alike
Sirens singing in the background
Children running through the foreground
Old friends and a blind man with a big dog
Visual artists and IRS agents
Musicians and carpenters
Mechanical engineers
Cobbled together around and old fireplace and a rosewood piano
Sharing stories and songs, sons and daughters
Tales from the road, and wedding pictures
I sat on an orange pleather couch in the makeshift kitchen
Watching theses people's children play with bionicles and dolls
Reading books and drawing on walls
Playing drums and answering calls
Fighting for bathroom stall
These are my people
I know them all

I respect my body.
The same way I respect my house.
My red brick skin
Blushed with flowing blood
From my space-heater heart
My air-conditioner lungs I have routinely maintained
With long drawn out breathes of cool wind
I have protected my house with toxic pockets
Of termite poison
To protect my wooden frame
And I hang up pictures of love ones with
Nails inside tattoo guns that spell out their names
And I paint my home’s walls with different shades
Of colors to bring out its ascetic value
Like how I use blue eye-shadow so my guests
Can better see my eyes, bright blue
I eat vitamins like I vacuum my carpet
Cleaning up and persevering its worth
The ting-tang sound of a working vacuum
Paralleling the pitter-patter of those circular pills
As they fall down my throat
I seasonally change out my couches and my chairs
When I go to my mirror and tie-up my hair
A different look for a different season
Because my house deserves a separate look too
For when it feels the wind changing
And like myself my house would rather not be bare
So I dress it in marigolds and poppy flowers
And ivy that I have to cut down when I notice it growing too fast
Because like my house I am too beautiful to be covered completely
Each shrub I trim another inch of skin I can share
And I respect  it when I get home
I say just a little bit
More skin at the top
To show off my brick house.

Little ant, so small and insignificant
Yet in numbers up an elephant’s snout
How easily you make him indisposed
Lesson to learn: strength in numbers
Maxim to remember: unity of purpose

Oh termite, thou destroyer of civilizations!
How mighty when surreptitiously you creep in
Such ingenious civil engineering feats everywhere
Orderly highways with neither jams nor congestion
And tall imposing castles kissing the air proudly
Result: new architectures plagiarizing your prototype!

And you wasp of constricted waist and mean toxin
You make no attempt to hide or disguise your dwelling
Yours is a house built upon a hill for all to see and tremble
They say when a man has no obvious protection keep away
Lest you trigger subtle forces that mesmerize and pulverize you
Lesson from this: commandos are modern day human wasps

Everybody owes the bee everything, from sweetness to health
The bees a-buzzing speak of persistence and how it breaks barriers
In the end you listen because the message is ceaseless and urgent
And oh sweet bee of the hot sting shot from your posterior
No cordon bleu chef anywhere can ever approximate your finesse
Your formula and patent are hedged with natural mystery
Lesson to learn: the bitter and the sweet in judicious mixture!

Now little man recently so puffed-up and conceited and ever so inadequate
Hear ye this and know it well lest you stumble and fall into dark precipices
You’re nothing and you’ve created nothing; there’s a prototype of everything
In nature’s wonder store of huge surprises and unassuming wisdom
Lesson from all this: one day the other world will rise up and assert it itself
So steer your course differently and beware of those who bide their time
Grim in their purpose and determined in their unshakable resolve

Walking in crowds ,it's like I'm walking through glue and half of them texting on mobiles,it's vexing.
Some solvent will solve it,dissolve them away,
I should have thought of it earlier
but it's been a hell of a day.

Where do they come from,why don't they go and why don't they move,that's what I want to know?they're in Primark and Tesco and eating alfresco,(MacDonalds of course)how coarse can one get?

I should be a reclusive find people elusive and that is my dream until then I shall scream at them,Ladies and Gentlemen clear me a path,I don't want to bath with you just want to pass by you,
just like I'm walking through glue.

Day debt
night wept
sleep crept
Attachment.
                       Where is my attachment?
                                evening out of balance
                                        The line of my life has broken
                                                  off into separate identities
Flower feather
Hollow weather
Moonlight Canyon
                                      Skylight childhood nostalgia
                                      Stolen star
Battered cheekbones
Of weary workers keeping to
The hornet's nest
                      Reality a constant terror
                     Of city structures                         swallowing
                                                      ­                             them whole.
Blackbird rests
on an Autumn branch of
hidden meadow
checking its wristwatch obsessively for the
             Hydrogen Volcano
                INEVITABLE.
                                         Termite Corporations
                                          Cavernous Hilltops
                                        All that green is gold
(A straw man in Byzantine robes approaches
            the frosty Manhattan
    to become a relic in it's Libraries)
                         People fall in Love with coincidence,
                 (The illusion of order beyond our field or reach)
        All that love is kept in a
                    Conservatory somewhere...
                          Glossy stems connected to palpitating blossoms.

Our tired eyes are focused to the asphalt confluence
whether fever or handhold.

               Hymns ring throughout the forests of
                                                   Vancouver Island
               Dreamers hang from the Niagara Trestle caught in                
                                                   overwhelming sunlight
                                                        ­ Doused in spirit.

Holy Melancholic September
Sweeps away the dusty Summer,
                                                        e­verything seems renewed
                                                        I­n the rain..

7:43 AM - Period 1 - Symphonic Band
I hid behind a bank of instrument nooks, each beaten, worn and termite chewed to ruddy brown and grey colors. Doors of old supply cabinets with peeling, plastic, paper coverings squeaked in a draft that no one could find. I kept my backpack against the trumpet section, just around the corner from the door, where no one could see me. Class started eight minutes ago, but Mr. Rants was gone as usual, and our student substitute Nick, was not not here yet. I unhooked the metal clasp on my Fossil backpack, searching around in the front backpack for my gum. I popped it in my mouth and bit down. Crack! Stale.
In a side pocket I found a tube of mascara I had shoved haphazardly in due to my rush from the house this morning. I untwisted the cap and wiped the tip of the brush on the rim, looking for a reflective surface. In the cubby directly in front of me was a trumpet case and a harmon mute. A shiny harmon mute. I stared at my warped reflection in the surface and laughed at myself. I thought "Only a real musician would do her makeup using a trumpet mute." I stabbed myself in the face leaving a long streak of gooey black on my nose. "******" I whispered and licked my finger to wipe it off. I laughed again, my hand still at my face. "This is one of those significant moments" I realized. "I'm not sure why though."

2. 4:21 PM - After School  - Way Home From Orthodontist Appointment
She stroked my hand, which was flat against my leg. "Sorry honey, just because I am a little disappointed because of what happened doesn't mean that." I was silent, staring straight through the windsheild. She sighed and pulled her hand away. I fiddled with a rubberband, my legs crossed beneath me in the passenger seat. I was hurt; I thought we were done talking about this. Hadn't she forgiven me? Like it mattered. Telling her was the right thing and there's nothing more I can do. Light Gives Heat by Jars of Clay came on the radio and as I looked through the rain, repeatedly punching my window, I felt something well up inside me. The feeling that actors must get in dramatic movie scenes. Closing my eyes, I imagined I was in a movie. That it was about me, that I would win whatever I wanted in the end and that I was clever and beautiful. "This is a significant moment" I thought. "But not like this morning, not at all."
I looked over at her, she was expresionless, tapping her finger gently on the steering wheel.
"Maybe I'll post something about this on HelloPoetry later." I thought.

I am building a brace for the front porch
of my brother who is on the other side
of that door listening with headphones
to a recording of Chinese poetry
(in Mandarin, which he understands)
while he is dying, slowly,
brain cell by brilliant brain cell
in that rocking chair
whose joints are creaking,
coming undone.

He no longer remembers his phone number
or how to count change at the grocery store.
He is in denial of any problem
as he grows younger, ever younger
shedding years like snakeskins
while the crack in the porch grows wider, ever wider
so out here in the rain
I set four-by-fours upright as posts,
then I **** four-by-eights as beams
     lifting on my shoulder
     held by my hands
     pushing with my legs
     transferred through my spine
     anchored by my feet
as the useless joists of the deck
drop termite **** onto my eyebrows
like taunts of children:
nya nya you can’t fix this.
But I can brace it for a while.

Long enough, at least
for my brother to forget ten languages.
I will repair that rocking chair.
I will buy diapers, rubber sheets,
install grab bars in the shower.
I won’t let his porch collapse
out here in the rain.
I will cradle these boards
like a baby in my arms.

"Fuuuuuck!" groaned the Tortoise.
"****!" spat the Hare.

"Son of a *****!" barked the Fox.
"**** on a rooster!" cawed the Crow.

"***** of a bison!" growled the Wolf.
"***** of a llama!" brayed the ***.

"**** on a termite!" squealed the Ant.
"**** of a cricket!" grated the Grasshopper.

"THE HUMANS KNOW OUR STORIES!!"
cried the animals in unison despair.

"Yeeeees," hoot'd the Owl
with an evil-wicked grin,
"but only the ones with a moral."

May morning cacophonies never quiet.
Doves coos, repetitive sharp whistles
rising and falling sounded by robins,
who seem to say, "cheer up, cheer up,
cheerily, cheer up." Jays shrieking
whatever warnings they shriek. Chirps,
tweets, titterings of so many more, combine
in crazy compilations of some
orchestra without their conductor
forever warming up days. I do not own
feathers but all my body hairs do stand
on end, flitting as if they were. Then,
woodpecker taps against hollow
termite ridden tree sounding like
the strike of a conductor's baton.

Nothing comes together. A symphony
never starts, at least not one of any
great composer's. Just the greatest.
I spring from my nest. I do not know music.
I hear it and am it. These mornings move
me to ditter about, find my way,
peck my morning niblings, feel dawn
dress me in sun, make me lust
life adorned with feathers. How
possibility wings bring.

From flock to flock, I dare to fit in.
Learn new mating dances.

Indigo is the gaunt damp face of the still-born messiah.
With crude-oil cappillary flush like mottled blush
On Treblinka cheek bones.
On cold steel autopsy table, It's topsy turvy shrine,
A halogen lamp halo hums and sways
Over It's holy rolling head.
Unsavory savior, the pundit spared It's pageant.
With blackhole pupils pierced and seeping
Vitreol fluid like the weeping ******'s tears,
Carving termite trails in their wake.
It trembles, gasps, and quakes
With the knowledge of futility.
All that was and all that will
Successively unsuccessfully.
A parade of steel tables on blood spattered conveyer belt,
Pulled to the symphony of six billion bellowed pleas for salvation,
Through tattered curtains to uncertainty.

.

Looking on
this expanse that encircles me,
closing in during open hours,
unlocking doors I can’t seem to walk through
Stairways of rotted, termite eaten steps
each with my name painted on them,
creaking underfoot,
losing to the weight of
long lines at self serve counters
wrapping around as if
nothing is free but here
for some reason it is

And I stand right in the middle
alone in this ocean of faces,
polo shirts and penny loafers
staring at cell phone screens,
calling someone,
talking with their hands,
hands free?
Paying it forward,
coffee for the next guy in line,
but not me

For I am just here, anywhere,
somewhere like this,
a thing plopped down,
fallen from the sky,
splattering on the earth,
consumed by the soil,
muddied footprints and all
trudging through the wilderness,
carving a path of existence
breaking branches and
scattering bread crumbs

Still I am me,
standing tall among the taller,
enjoying the shade,
sipping lemonade and eating apple dumplings,
pushing, not pulling forward,
dreaming, (of course)
regardless of tire tracks and scars
or pointed fingers,
Pounding the pavement,
laying a foundation,
driven beyond

Parking lot base,
asphalt themed destinations,
a checkerboard of last rites and dead batteries,
yellow lines on the horizon,
handicapped up front
Looking out over the valley,
watching the world go by,
admiring the beauty,
loving life,
rejoicing in the fact
that it is all so immensely
vast . . .

as am I

fireflies zigzag following pupils pin *****
light mayonaise layers dead flesh and dead seeds
shadows bleed through the cracks
a lone train howls its hastening arrival
Alarming call like an unseen wolf

Flashing lights overhead and a low rumble
a condensed storm
helicopter cradling its dying cargo
bringing a regurgitation for the baby bird
disguised as a hospital with a faltering business plan

mufflers and mosquitoes parry the blows
winded joggers step next to termite eaten trees
Channel surfing seen         a strobe lite
betraying the activities behind the neighboors
curtained windows            scene
rituals carve another day into the known
comfort is routines cage
a worn trail rut that hardly allows
a different direction      roll the stone uphill

This blood fat summer has swallowed me whole,
Gulped down my body in one swift inhale,
Living with this pair of fists battering my surface,
One resting on my jaw, another on my gut,
Sleeping under shingles and tin roves,
Waiting for night to settle itself in,
While the others dreamt in their beds,
I wandered twilight streets with a bottle and a question,
Saw my reflection in a puddle under streetlights,
Wondered who’s face stared back at me
An alien memory clawed its way out from beneath my skin
Left a scar for me to remember
The boy I once knew