Aareet Mahadevan

Here’s the rub: The line breaks work.

In quantum computing, a qubit exists in multiple states, at once without contradiction.

Mohan taught me how to drive.

तोड़ती पत्थर वह तोड़ती पत्थर; देखा उसे मैंने इलाहाबाद के पथ पर— वह तोड़ती पत्थर।

When I was a child I was terrified by the Bharatanatyam dancer.

बात करने से पहले, ये सोचो ज़रा क्या वो करेगी, किसी का भला ना ऐसा कभी, ज़बान पे तू ला तोड़ डाले जो दिल, किसी और का।

I like ugly words ogre and rickshaw brink and denude words you drop words you swap to beautify your rhyme maybe an ogre is a beast a rickshaw is a tuk tuk in a cooler clime What makes a word ugly?

The world looks like a billionaires’ playground wrought of sycophants and wannabes I’m tilted in my mesh backed ergonomic chair feeds feeding my brain the next great concern for the end of the world that comes with a conditional statement branching outcom…

Who will inherit the remnants of your life?

Have you seen those glass trophies?

मैं हूँ एक और हूँ मैं दो हमारी दो है ये और वो two sons to a mother two mothers to a son two fathers and a brother yet a father none

I remember when airports were filled with families.

Why does a plant as beautiful and fragrant as the jasmine shed its flowers?

How long did you spend Putting that outfit together?

Funny, how she never sleeps, Takes a long wink every now and then But always shows up Holding the bowls of popcorn Ready for the show.

“What’s the point?”

I am where dreamers go in search of fame and fortune.

I closed the gate and left the building that was, top to bottom, painted white.

The suction cups left a mark on my replacement windshield.

A pointed trail of aftersmoke, Pierced the deep serene, It thundered past the ears, belated, crashed into the evergreen.

Once I built a castle, a castle in the sand I used beachwater and brick-on-brick, I built it up by hand.

There are many kinds of beasts Not all who hiss and growl, I hope this helps you decide Which beasts are on the prowl - First is the beast within your mind, the one who holds your sleep, the one who lies under your bed crawls from the darkness and the deep

She skips the stone across the water, Aims as far as the eye can see, Mother, sister and a daughter, It skipped but only three.

The silver film spread, pulsing soft, The buoyant plastic held aloft, Bound by rock and rugged beach, Broke by paddles each by each.

I was born, not yesterday when snow fall on the pavement lay with phones of glass and stainless steel plastic cards swiped on winter’s day I was born, not long ago, when no structures held the winter snow no gargoyles watched the people feel their feelings

Why do we blink with our eyes closed Do our nervous circuits not tell our brain What’s black is black Blinking will not bring it back Nor blackness fill with light again.

Every night I come here To look out at the sky It’s a thousand miles around me It’s clouds and passers-by It’s mountains in the distance Like shadows on a wall It’s the sun’s and moon’s insistence It’s a pigeon and its call It’s street lamps burning yellow

Down by the water where the ramparts give way where the light gentle dances on a sunny summer day.

Seeking curious people Preferably endowed with large eyes Dark of hair, And unwavering stare - Must be curious about most things But preferably curious about everything.

It was odd, I admit to find myself a home amidst the shelving and rot amidst the battered old tomes.

i,m surrounded by a horde of mechanical sounds a melody of gears, click and clack a flurry of selfies then start to go round no pause to think, no slack. maybe they came prepared for their task maybe they,re the wondering type they adjust now the ribbon,…

I came to write an epic of our ordinary time I strived to make a magic of our duet in spoken rhyme I wrote a hundred rhythms sat staring through the trees I wet my toes in the water as I trembled at the knees I threw a rock in, playful as I skipped it off…

There’s a time for a book, so patiently in wait, a time for time, a time for life, a life inchoate.

Perhaps there’s a duality among us a pulling, tugging breadth of rope knotted and dyed in pastel hues a coloured darkness in which to grope Not held by walls or fences high nor by earthen plot on human map not hunkered down or standing by not waiting long…

There’s an unspoken peace about a mountainous place through valley and river and tree covered face - from summit to summit, laid by a sun in a grille, treading thin middle lines light to darkness, at will.

There is a fearless leader, Spoken oft in time, His ample swell of Rivendell, is written deep in rhyme.

What’s in a name - A turn of phrase, a brand of dubious value - What’s hot and what’s not - An endless chase, a sign of vague definition - What’s deeper than this - A pound of God, a pinch of creative ideation - And to what end - A wooden box, a river of…

There’s a room at my temple behind the idols and the arch past the fire, round the chariot the backstage of the gods.

And look at my words, lying plain on this page.

A train station in the middle of the ocean.

Pardon me, while I interject, Examine this - try to connect, Apply your penetrating stare, Make sense of this poet’s fare.

Now, trapped in this closing velvet cage the villi waving crimson rage the whispers streaming through the gaps lint in lungs set to collapse.

His stench greener than he was grey his dense demeanour here to stay a tuberculous line marked a forehead lined in time.

There’s something about people that makes them all unique how they see and how they think how they trust and how they speak - There’s a way about a friendship that has stood the test of time a hundred years of solitude for a year of yours and mine There’s…

One step back, a tenor before, Tread forward slightly, a little, some more.

Tempered voices, cult conundrum, and a pizza sliced in two rock climber, homely humdrum fungus and mildew crepe lamplight, lucky bamboo, and a frozen two by four water droplets, organic shampoo and a motorcycle roar blue demon, slatting slats, and sunlight

Three beans in a jar, and a red ribbon on top, Chrome-silver lid finish, and a piggy in the backdrop.

Dither and tither, helter-skelter rig the gig tether the heather.

If we met - at some potluck, and talked and laughed and walked.

“Preposterous!”