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

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!

The Couch

 

16x12 inches; Watercolour, pen and ink over graphite pencil on textured acid free paper (Click on image to enlarge)

The couch, like my mind, is a seat for many encounters; conversations, debates, drama, lazy afternoon siestas, teasing, loving, hating, staining, excitement, boredom, rejection and seduction.  The couch touches strangers and loved ones with the same intimate caress. It is a symbol of privilege and comfort. It is the halt between the entrance door and the bed. It is private and not so private at the same time. It allows us to just exist without being productive, becoming a couch potato. It also is the seat of power and power games as in the casting couch. But beyond all this, the couch is a receptacle for idle thoughts, day dreams, pleasure, pampering, relaxation, entertainment, eroticism, pain and sorrow. Couches are soft with memories without the lumps of judgement. They are cushioned for the depressed, plush with first kisses and frayed with troubled tears.  The couch takes the place of lost comforting embraces and companionship in solitary existence.

The Closet

 

16x12 inches; Watercolour, pen and ink over graphite pencil on textured acid free paper (Click on image to enlarge)

Do you have a skeleton in the closet? Or are there more than one? Are you in the closet yourself? Did you hide in the closet when you were young and scared? Did you have a Narnia of escape at the other end of the closet? Do you have a closet for your personal belongings and that of others you claim to be your own? Does your closet have a mirror? Is there a closet in your head like mine? A closet full of knickknacks, memorabilia, songs that are playback score of your life, places, whiffs of scents, sights and visions, feelings, traces of a touch, erotica, embarrassments, pain and anger, guilt and guilty pleasures; A closet that opens up like a puzzle and holds a mirror to myself.  I feel at home searching that closet, sniffing the lingering scent of moth balls, looking in the secret compartments, some so deep that they were almost forgotten! It feels like a labyrinth. It is a closet I do not have to come out of, because no one cares for what it hides, though everything it holds makes me who I am today and who I will be tomorrow.

Dhatura / Datura

 

29.0 x 9.5 inches; Watercolour, pen and ink over graphite pencil on handmade paper (Click on image to enlarge)

Your face caught in the moonlight

Becomes a moon to the moon,

Two starry eyes glint,

Like pieces of flint

Striking up a fire.

 

The beauty of heat burns my night

My Moonflower trumpets croon.

Your hypnotic gaze

Drags me in the maze,

Fanning my desire.

 

Shadows fold us into earthy delight

Of bodies finding touch, we swoon

Drugged by the nectar,

In each-other’s spectre

Of sensory mire.

 

Psychedelic dreams burn bright

Stinging like thorns of a boon.

Urgency of our need

Scatters the seed

Dousing the pyre.

 

In parting you retreat from sight

No promises of “see you soon”,

Just a lingering heat

Of a shared heartbeat,

Fading strains of a siren’s lyre!

Mandragora

 

29.0 x 9.5 inches; Watercolour, pen and ink over graphite pencil on handmade paper (Click on image to enlarge)

 

Twilight in the park

Awakens the fireflies,

Liminal magical beings

Discard their shadows,

Glowing with urgent eyes

Desires that seek the dark.

 

A bush lightly trembles

Growing into life, lazily,

Like a long drawn yawn

Leaving your bed of leaves,

Flipping tousled head hazily

A smile tickling me crumbles.

 

The scent of pleasure

Conjures a potent embrace,

With promises of resurrection

Flowing in our excited veins,

Needy kisses drunkenly trace

The elixir we warily treasure.

 

Cracks open the shell

Bursting boils of repression,

Sighs escape turning us deaf

To screams in our tortured heads,

Grasping this moment of elation

Before hiding, back in our hell.