Craving

10 x 13.5 inches; Pen and ink over graphite pencil on tinted drawing paper (Click on image to enlarge)

The Vampire (From ‘Fleur Du Mal’ - Charles Baudelaire)

Thou, sharper than a dagger thrust
Sinking into my plaintive heart,
Thou, frenzied and arrayed in lust,
Strong as a demon host whose art

Possessed my humbled soul at last,
Made it thy bed and thy domain,
Strumpet, to whom I am bound fast
As is the convict to his chain,

The stubborn gambler to his dice,
The rabid drunkard to his bowl,
The carcass to its vermin lice —
O thrice-accursed be thy soul!

I called on the swift sword to smite
One blow to free my life of this,
I begged perfidious aconite
For succor in my cowardice.

But sword and poison in my need
Heaped scorn upon my craven mood,
Saying: "Unworthy to be freed,
From thine accursed servitude,

O fool, if through our efforts, Fate
Absolved thee from thy sorry plight,
Thy kisses would resuscitate
Thy vampire's corpse for thy delight."

— translated by Jacques LeClercq, Flowers of Evil

Immaterial

 

10x13.5 inches; Pen and ink over graphite pencil on tinted drawing paper (Click on image to enlarge)

We are at war with ourselves.
Fighting for life with ‘Self Destruct’ programmed into our motherboards.
Do and die. Kill and be killed. All guts, no glory!
It is a slow burn horror flick with no survivors!
This IS civilized; we are assured. This IS progress.
The world is an orange.
We have peeled off the rind, dug our nails deep into it for oil, and squeezed out all the juices from each one of its carpels, and dumped the rest in radioactive waste.
The corporates own the seeds; also the air, water and our freedom.
The filthy rich and powerful own the corporates.
We own nothing, not even our own selves!
All of that conceit, that greed, that deceit, that unbridled need to win, will come to nothing.
The genocide, the ecocide, the hate mongering and democide will not make us invincible!
We will perish, and rot, and so will the memory of our plot.
What will remain is speculation and dust, on our toxic dreams and lust, in between the layers of the earth’s lithosphere.

Snail Trail

 

10 x 13.5 inches; Pen and ink over graphite pencil on tinted drawing paper (Click on image to enlarge)

I trace the stray strands of coiled hair
Clinging to your forehead,
Damp with perspiration.
My fingertips slick with your saliva
Blends the cool wetness,
Absorbing your attention.
As my fingers travel on your bareness,
A creeper trailing a wall
In search for lubrication,
My parched mouth nibbles your ear,
Sucking out moist moans
From the well of satiation!
My face slips onto your broad shoulder
Held in the cup of your neck,
Inhaling the aroma of passion,
While my tongue licks your caramel skin
Moving south, leaving wet trails
On a map without a destination…
I am a nomad without a planned route,
In the wild landscape of your body
Discovering terrain for exploration.
My tongue lingers on mounds and valleys,
On downy fields and musky clefts,
Heady with a sensual revelation!
When your fingers plough through my hair
With an infectious hot urgency,

I sense ecstasy in dissolution!

Thorn In My Side

 

13.5x10 inches; Pen and ink over graphite pencil on tinted drawing paper (Click on image to enlarge)

It's not guilt or a tug of war

Between the heart and the head,

Neither a moral check mate!

But what it is, is a ticking reminder

Of my most intimate dread,

Of becoming like those I negate,

Enslaved by fame, greed and power

Throttling my humanity dead!

Better to suffer this thorn in my fate

Than to become a vicious gardener,

Growing thorns in every flower bed!

Inconvenient Truth

 

10x13.5 inches; Pen and ink over graphite pencil on tinted drawing paper (Click on image to enlarge)

NO!
I DON’T want to hear about it!
I DON’T want to know!
There is no
Singular universal truth,
NO!
There is nothing
You can do
To
Deceive my mind
Into giving up my faith
In the truth I know.
You claim it is delusion!
Yes!
You liar! You spawn of filth!
No.
Your truth is not mine!
YOU are the deluded one.
You make me
Feel SO
Unsafe!
I want to throw up!
Why are you doing this
To
ME?
Are you not ashamed
Of Such disgrace?
No.
I will not break out
Of my truth!
It protects me
From the likes of you.
No b-itch!
It’s NOT denial.
Your rationale
Hurts my belief.
Your knowledge
Pricks my sentiments.
Curiosity
Is the worst temptation,
And knowledge
Shall truly be
The downfall of
Me!

Gastropoda eroticum

 

20x30 inches; Pen and ink over graphite pencil on tinted drawing paper (Click on image to enlarge)

A fantastic creature has manifested; from the class of molluscs, scientifically named as Gastropoda which we commonly call slugs and snails, blurring the lines between reality and wishful thinking. Its body resembles a human tongue, without eyes and without mouth and its shell is bulbous with psychedelic patterns. It senses the surrounding through touch and taste; flicking, licking and slobbering its way over contoured surfaces leaving a snail trail in its path. It feeds on arousal and grows on providing pleasure. If annoyed it doesn’t hesitate to sting. Sadly not available in pet stores! Not all creatures exist in reality. They are not meant to either! They exist in the fertile world of our imagination. They are manifested in our dreams. They spirit us away into the realms of myths, folklores, stories and virtual reality! A space which distorts reality to preserve the illusion which is reality. Imagination has no rules, no logic and adheres to no scientific reasoning but without its fertile grounds even science can’t grow.

Emasculation

 

20.5x28.5 inches; Watercolour, pen and ink over graphite pencil on handmade paper (Click on image to enlarge)

I am not a masculine man.
I deny to fit into that notion of a man.
I recoil from what I must become
To prove that I am enough of a man.
 
Many tried to make a man
Of what they found in me of a man!
Between my legs lay, for some,
Proof enough to define me as a man.
 
Once I was told by a proud macho man,
“Either you grow into a manly man
Or you must a man’s victim become!”
I wilted and curled into a wimpy man.
 
Teased for being the sissy man,
Bullied for not being a tough man,
I grew up to remain, for some,
A complete disgrace to the name of man.
 
I don’t care to be accepted as a man
Because that which confines every man,
I defied; to breathe my freedom,
I embody the fear of emasculation in each man.