Garden of the strange, you’ve grown quite a crop.
I look up, feel my heart thrum, and dead stop.
Surrounded by a thousand eyes and feet,
I feel a prickle of nerves more than of heat.
It’s madness to halt before this army
who are armed with stance, and grins etched smarmy.
Fine. You say I’ve read too much King and Poe,
but I’m backing out of your horror show.
sitting in a Thai food joint,
couched in the atrium of a Bavarian-themed mall
in Bangalore, India
I smelt a scent —
obviously not fish sauce or coconut curry —
rather some kind of plastic, maybe in the menu lamination,
that transported me back to elementary school,
a parochial school in the Midwest in the 1970’s,
it was a plastic I’d have guessed had long ago ceased being made,
given the lack of such spontaneous dislocation,
I squeezed my eyes shut because travel is expensive,
but olfactory teleportation is free.
squinting,
trying to find a world
that’s neither blurred nor chaotic
for so long
i took picture perfect reality for granted,
but now nothing has an edge
is it my eyes
or
the world
or
the machinery in between?
I rode out to the land that lay beyond.
Past the forest of dense, dark canopy.
I saw a rippled reflection in the pond,
but knew the eyes below were not of me.
Impostor in the water peering back?
Maybe Nietzsche’s abyss seeking my mind?
But how? Those eyes were blind as they were black.
The abyss and I were somehow entwined.
I felt the lull as time began to fail.
Quiet panic rose deep within my soul,
but paralyzed panic allowed no wail.
How’d I find myself out beyond the shoal?
And, as I submerged into that abyss,
the final flicker was a spark of bliss.
the scream spiked into existence,
fully formed but unheard,
as from the victim of a slasher film
caught fresh out of the shower
but it couldn’t escape
not one chirp or squeak of it
it tried to ice pick its way out through the chest — “Alien” style
but just became a sharp pain
and a pulse heard in the head
Welcome to Panopticon
a billion routes to paranoia
a million to 1 odds you’re being watched
some crave invisibility
some crave exhibition
some will be caught
some will get away
cabin fever,
pent-up through a maddening winter
crated winter vegetables
in pantry and cellar,
staples in barrels
amber light filters through the trees
three hours either side of mid-day
a deer, nose down,
roots for nourishment
in the leaf litter between snow pack
the line between blissful solitude
and mania is thin and ghostly
jungle river undertow
eddy swirl lightly etched
on that glass sheet
where does that vortex pull,
beneath mirrored waters,
reflecting gray clouds?
what lies in the cleft
of the deep scoured channel
cut far below?
no one knows the undertow
know your strangeness
otherwise, it’s like a tattoo on the back of your neck
the world can enjoy it, but you never will
sure, it means tearing down a house
one that you built brick by brick,
the house of you,
but
no structure outlasts the mortar that binds it
Blue: The Tranquebar book of Erotic Fiction for Sri Lanka by Ameena Hussein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an anthology or erotically-themed short fiction and poetry of Sri Lanka.
Readers who are interested in cultural idiosyncrasies, particularly related to sexuality, will find the works included offer fascinating insights. That said, readers whose primary experience with erotic fiction is, for example, French erotica will probably find the stories tentative and occasionally creepy in a desperation-derived way (e.g. the hotel employee who sneaks into an admired guest’s room and – among other things — sniffs clothing.) For readers outside South Asia, one must read these works with a recognition that it is a culture that is less open about sexuality, in which the sexes don’t co-mingle as freely in youth, and where people have to take love when and where they can get it to a greater extent than readers from elsewhere may be used to. That said, the characters in these stories tend to be from a more open and progressive segment of society, but they are still operating within the constraints of the society. Some readers will find the tentativeness endearing and nostalgic, others may find it slow or tame.
Before describing each work in brief, the reader may wish to be made aware that – unlike many works of erotica – this book does not target a particular sex or sexual orientation. By that I mean, it bounces around between straight, lesbian, and gay male relationships in its stories.
– The Proposal: The first-person narrator has a friend who is on the outs with his girlfriend, and said narrator has an opportunity to bed said girlfriend. There isn’t much deliberation about whether a “bro” should be put first here
– Sex in the Hood: A poem about art and life in challenging environs.
– Undercover: A middle-aged woman whose marriage has gone lukewarm, gets groped at a movie theater, and returns the next day.
– Me and Ms. J: An ex-pat in Brussels looks back on a youthful lesbian dalliance with an older woman.
– The Lava Lamp: When girlfriends end up staying together overnight, the lava lamp becomes a representation of the couple’s flow with each other. A short piece.
– Bus Stop: A young man works up the courage to advance a relationship with a pretty girl he’s been seeing (wordlessly) at the bus stop for months. This is one of the longer and more developed pieces.
– A Courtyard: An imagery-intensive poem not only about a courtyard, but what is glimpsed across it. Probably my favorite of the poetry.
– Veysee: If you thought my mention of a hotel employee who sneaks into a guest’s room and sniffs her clothes was creepy, this story about a porn-addicted thirty-something carrying out a covert relationship with an under-aged girl takes creepiness to a new level. (Though there are hints of recognition on the part of the character of the error of his ways.)
– No: This is less erotic than a commentary on things that go unsaid in sexual relationships because the individuals involved don’t know how to broach the subject, or because they are operating on fundamentally different wave-lengths. I should say that it’s not that it lacks the sensuality of erotica, but it deals heavily with consent being mowed down.
– I’d Like to Hold Your Hand: A poem describing how the author would like to proceed from holding hands to ecstasy.
– Bi-Cycle: This is a very brief dreamy piece about the author’s personal dilemma.
– Bookworm: A bookish young man gets ushered into sexuality by the shopkeeper of his favorite bookstore.
– What Reminds Me of You: A sensual poem of nostalgia for a past love.
– Room 1716: A lobby manager at a hotel in Colombo develops a secret crush on Alicia, a tourist from an undesignated Western country. When Alicia makes a short overnight trip, the manager arranges for her to keep her room without charge. Said manager then sneaks into the room to investigate clues about her girl-crush.
– 76, Park Avenue: A Russian (or other undesignated Slavic) man has a relationship with a Sri Lankan woman.
– Flower Offering: A sensual poem about flowers – literal and symbolic.
– Hot Date: A guy ends up in drama through pursuit of the most sexually willing girl.
I found this book to be interesting. As I said, to relate to many of its characters and their motivations one has to be aware of setting and cultural norms. It has a mix of more and less developed stories and characters. (Though there are no isolated sex scenes, as sometimes occur in erotic works.) There’s a lot of power-dynamics playing out, but not at all in the explicitly sadomasochistic dominant / submissive way. There are many characters and actions that a reader might find unsavory (e.g. the grown man who acts like he’s fresh out of puberty and has no self control is a recurring theme) but loathsome characters can be as readable as likable ones. (Only indifferent characters are unreadable.)
I’d recommend this book for those who are interested in taking a world tour of erotica.
