yayy... i knew it... :D (thanks n'sheen.. :))
"What Disney Princess Are You?"

Ariel
You can swim, flip, dive and be one with fish...WHY DO YOU WANT MORE?

[ "we're slipping off the map." -Stoppard ]

this land is your land, this land is my land...

Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. ~John Locke, 1690

...i saw above me, an endless skyway...

But perhaps the deepest aspect of the common law text of possession lies in the attitude that this text strikes with respect to the relationship between human beings and nature. At least some Indians professed bewilderment at the concept of owning the land. Indeed they prided themselves on not marking the land but rather on moving lightly through it, living with the land and with its creatures as members of the same family rather than as strangers who visited only to conquer the objects of nature.
The doctrine of first possession, quite to the contrary, reflects the attitude that human beings are outsiders to nature. It gives the earth and its creatures over to those who mark them so clearly as to transform them, so that no one else will mistake them for unsubdued nature.We cannot have our fish both loose and fast, as Melville might have said, and the common law of first possession makes a choice. The common law gives preference to those who convince the world that they have caught the fish and hold it fast. This may be a reward to useful labor, but it is more precisely the articulation of a specific vocabulary within a structure of symbols approved and understood by a commercial people. ~Carol M. Rose, 1995

...this land was made for you and me...

"i'd like to do a song of great social and political import.."
she said, before starting... "oh lord, wont you buy me a mercedes benz..."

we dont know what its like to be there, banging on tin plates with spoons, screaming, chanting, waving flags. we dont know what its like to protest, not simply protest. music is entertainment, a drug, an escape and not a statement, a banner, an anthem. no one's really interested in "sticking it to the man". our music is love and depression and lonliness and all that good stuff... uniting us only in our isolation. post-mordenist, existencialist, nihilist... the world is at once too big and too small for us to handle. and im only talkign about pakistanis here- i dont squat about how people in other parts of the world feel. we seem to know nothing about ideals, challenges, even faith. sure, people all around the world know nothings going to happen during their lifetime- that doesnt stop the rallies. that doesnt stop the screaming, the dancing, the chanting. we're a nation of cowards, at the top. down below they still have some fight left in them... but everything middle class up is scared shitless.

and we shrug it off, talk it off, rationalise it out, smile indulgently and say "bhai what can we do?"

nothing. nothing until thats a "what-can-we-do".

Don't believe them
Don't believe them
Question everything you're told
Just take a look around you
At the bitterness and spite
Why can't we take over and try to put it right

We're a suspect device if we do what we are told
But a suspect device can score an own goal
I'm a suspect device the Army can't defuse
You're a suspect device they know they can't refuse
We're gonna blow up in their face

you gotta suss, suss, suss, suss, suss out...

-stiff little fingers

[ for you. him. and donnie darko. ]

all around me are familiar faces
worn out places
worn out faces
bright and early for the daily races
going no where
going no where
their tears are filling up their glasses
no expression
no expression
hide my head i wanna drown my sorrow
no tomorrow
no tomorrow
and i find i kind of funny
i find it kind of sad
the dreams in which i’m dying are the best i’ve ever had...

i find it hard to tell you
i find it hard to take
when people run in circles its a very very
mad world
mad world
children waiting for the day they feel good
happy birthday
happy birthday
and i feel the way that every child should
sit and listen
sit and listen
went to school and i was very nervous
no one knew me
no one new me
hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson
look right through me
look right through me
and i find i kind of funny
i find it kind of sad
the dreams in which i’m dying are the best i’ve ever had
i find it hard to tell you
i find it hard to take
when people run in circles its a very very
mad world
mad world
enlarging your world
mad world

-gary jules

[ finishing touches ]

cool, damp softly pressed into the air, on to your face.
your eyes in the rearview mirror.
end of week laundry, two neat rows of damp underwear on the bed.
muddy jeans. does wet sand-concrete squish?
im gonna learn to play like clapton, someday.
black, white and lime green poster paint. b&h lighter.
itscoldoutside...shouldtakeashawl...
blue beads. purple beads, shell beads.
long flat hair swinging down her shimmery pink back.

why does your blog go cosmic on me?

it doesnt. it just is. me sharing something i think is rather nice with you.

in-sane. inn-sane. sarahashim.com

really funky visuals. thanks, sara b :) 

December 22nd, 2003.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/



...it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...

And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life...

:)

You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure...but don't worry... you will, someday.

~American Beauty.

[ "and the thing is, bank windows- they're tinted, right? so you cant tell if its, like, just ok-weather out there or if its amazing..." ]

Until you've seen this trash can dream come true,
You stand at the edge, while people run you through.

And I thank the Lord, there's people out there like you
I thank the Lord there's people out there like you.

While Mona Lisas and mad hatters,
sons of bankers, sons of lawyers,
turn around and say, "good morning" to the night.
For unless they see the sky,
but they can't and that is why,
they know not if it's dark out side or light.

This Broadway's got, its got a lot of songs to sing,
if I knew the tunes I might join in.
I go my way alone, grow my own, my own seeds shall be sown, in New York city.
Subways no way , for a good man to go down,
Rich man can ride, and the hobo he can drown.

And I thank the Lord for the people I have found,
I thank the Lord for the people I have found.

~Elton John

http://www.sparkology.net

Overqualified:

Looking for work is an exercise in selling yourself. You write cover letter after cover letter, listing the parts of you that you respect the least, listing the selling points that make you valuable in a buyer's market. You leave out the little details that you tell yourself in the morning to make things okay. You don't mention the way your heart flutters when you meet your lover's eyes across the table, the way your feet felt like lead at your aunt's funeral. You write cover letter after cover letter, listing the same store bought traits in the same wording, day after day, hoping to find another job.

And then maybe one day you just snap a little.
You sit down to write a cover letter, and something entirely new comes out.

And you send it anyway.

http://asofterworld.com

some questions that occurred to me while recalling that the sea is the color of my shirt, ashen blue-grey and splitting at the seams.

does she write like this because?
or why?
or if she writes like, is she then
enormously
green, engulfingly
simply, humongously
grande,
and if her hair
dances with the leaves
and if her eyes
flirt with the wind
and if talking to her is like
visiting your saturday night
fever, can you come home?

do you eat with one hand, or both?
do you aim for the lips, or the mouth?
do you bleed with your veins or your heart?
and when it hurts, do the tips of your fingers
tingle?

do you do that out of habit?
or do you really mean to say?

i can warm my eyes by just staring at the stars. one night, alone, on a roof somewhere. the sky glows pink because of the city lights. i want to be spiked, cropped and the centre of the universe.
life is mine, mine, mine, mine.....

I threw your keys in the water, I looked back, Theyd frozen halfway down in the ice. They froze up so quickly, the keys and their owners, Even after the anger, it all turned silent, and Then everyday turned solitary, So we came to February. First we forgot where wed planted those bulbs last year, Then we forgot that wed planted at all, Then we forgot what plants are altogether, and I blamed you for my freezing and forgetting and the nights were long and cold and scary, can we live through February? You know I think Christmas was a long red glare, Shot up like a warning, we gave presents without cards, And then the snow, And then the snow came, we were always out shoveling, And wed drop to sleep exhausted, Then wed wake up, and its snowing. And February was so long that it lasted into March And found us walking a path alone together. You stopped and pointed and you said, "Thats a crocus," And I said, "Whats a crocus?" and you said, "Its a flower," I tried to remember, but I said, "Whats a flower?" You said, "I still love you." The leaves were turning as we drove to the hardware store, My new lover made me keys to the house, And when we got home, well we just started chopping wood, Because you never know how next year will be, And well gather all our arms can carry, I have lost to February.
 
~Dar Williams

and i said that i know who i am. and laughed, self conciously i said people may think im crazy but i know im ok. and i said people arent autists.. i dont take that back, theyre not, theyre just... silly, naive, selfish and if we knew exactly how each of our butterfly kisses caused every tornado we wouldnt have a single nights sleep. i think. but these arent butterfly kisses. theyre so much more.

woke up curled up on the floor, comfortable between a blanket and a bedsheet except that the blanket was under me, and the bedsheet over my head. soft whispers of female voices talking nearby. the room bright with streaming sunlight, cool with the humming AC. fluffy pink green yellow blue huddles all around, breathing softly. groped around for the cell... 9:25am. sighed happily, pulled the sheet back over my head and went back to sleep.

took me back... all the way to autumn quarter, when all of us used to troop up to the common room to sleep. somewhere in the back of my head, before i left khi for college, i was afraid that i'd have trouble sleeping in a new place for the first few days, because i usually do. never had trouble sleeping here... always tired, always comfortable between good ol' blanket and bedsheet.

hahahahaha.... fresshhiieee :)

as we were talking outside it was cold we were shivering yet warmed by the subject matter my wife is in the next room
we've been having troubles you know
please don't tell her or anyone but i need to talk to somebody

you said "wouldn't it be a shame if i knew how great i was five minutes before i died i'd be filled with such regret before i took my last breath" and i said "you're willing to tell me this now and
you're not going to die anytime soon"
and i said i haven't been eating chicken or meat or anything and you said yes
but you've been wearing leather and laughed and said we're at the top of the food chain and yes you're still a fine woman and i cringed

i was hoping we could heal each other
i was hoping we could be raw together

we left the restaurant where the head waiter (in his 60's) said "good-bye sir thank you for your business sir you're successful and established sir and we like the frequency with which you dine here sir and your money"
and when i walked by they said "thank you too dear" i was all pigtails and cords and there was a day when i would've said something like "hey dude i could buy and sell this place so kiss it"
i too once though i was owed something

i was hoping i was hoping we could challenge each other
i was hoping i was hoping we could crack each other up

i too thought that when proved wrong i lost somehow
i too once thought life was cruel
it's a cycle really you think i'm withdrawing and guilt tripping you i think you're insensitive
and i don't feel heard and i said do you believe we are
fundamentally judgmental? fundamentally evil?
and you said yes i said i don't believe in revenge in right or wrong good or bad you said
"well what about the man that i saw handcuffed in the emergency room bleeding after beating his kid and she threw a shoe at his head. i think what he did was wrong and i would've had a hard time feeling compassion for him"
i had to watch my tone for fear of having you feel judged

i was hoping i was hoping we could dance together
i was hoping i was hoping we could be creamy together

i hate you, blank sheet.
youre going to mock me again, arent you? you and those insane black figures on you. youre going to sit there, and mock me.
and i can see my fingers pressing buttons on teh plasctic tablet, like it were the most ordinary thing in the world. and i can see them scratch lead out of wood, as if that too was no big deal. and i can see my eyes...funny thing, to see ones eyes, but i see my eyes looking at a blinking vertical line on a white screen, following its path leaving a bunch of black igures in its wake. and i see my mind comprehend these characters. and so on. we love doing this. like a ugly threesome we play each other this way. se, dancing on her plastic platform, him, feeling the world press down on his eyes and i, lapping up words like a hingry kitten.

she wears a silver ring. she's beautfiful. we shut her in a box the other day, all five feet nine inches of her. coiled up in a little fetal position, her scruffy jeans riding low on her ass, flashing her canary yellow undees, her crumpled whit t shirt bulging around the stomach and the flabby upper arms, her hair breaking free of the neat, compact little bun behing her head. we packed her in, her toes stubby and dry and dirty, in the same old unpretty, unlovely black sandals. we told her we loved her very very much and that she was an amazing person and shut the lid down.

she must have sat there for hours, huging her legs, her arms sanwiched under the crook of her knee, rocking gently back and forth on her behind. she wont cry. she cant. she says she cant, and i belive her. she's different from the other girls because she doesnt run to her mummy and tell. she pretends that she enjoys it. she says it gives her strenght.

i knew her as my little sisters best friend. she used to come over to play all the time, with the clay pots and pans and little wooden rolling pins and rolling plates. and she loved the bunnies in our garden. and the big coconut trees. she didnt have trees, because they lived in an apartment, and we had the bigger house. and my mother used to give her a chocolate, every time she came. and she loved the cuckoo clock in our dining room. and when maliha and her werent playing they watched cartoons in the living room. and when malihas maulvi sahab came for teaching her the quran, i would get to play with her.

she called me bhai.

i told her her panty was crooked.

she asked me, how do you know.

and i said i dont, let me see.

and she did.

chocolate crumble
you're like cookie dough
small stubby toes and wide eyes.
everything so astonishingly
large from where you look
everything so bewilderingly
new from where you are.
i wish i were
you
when i see your tummy rise and
fall.
wouldnt it be wonderful to be back
home, rocked gently in your
deep quiet ocean
half-familiar voices a
faint mumble
away?

mood ring

silver ring
my silver moods
my silver silence like frost
on glass.
silver powder of a lover moth
darkened footprints on
silver grass.
streetlight fascinating
silver skin
moonlight watching your
silver sins
breathing deeply
shiver, grin
twirling muse my
metallic past.

A Poem on the Underground Wall- Paul Simon

The last train is nearly due,
The underground is closing soon,
And in the dark deserted station,
Restless in anticipation,
A man waits in the shadows...

His restless eyes leap and scratch,
At all that they can touch or catch,
And hidden deep within his pocket,
Safe within it’s silent socket,
He holds a colored crayon.

Now from the tunnel’s stony womb,
The carriage rides to meet the groom,
And opens wide and welcome doors,
But he hesitates, then withdraws
Deeper in the shadows.

And the train is gone suddenly
On wheels clicking silently
Like a gently tapping litany,
And he holds his crayon rosary
tighter in his hand...

Now from his pocket quick he flashes the crayon on the wall he slashes deep upon the advertising a single worded poem comprised of
four letters.

And his heart is laughing, screaming, pounding
The poem across the tracks rebounding
Shadowed by the exit light
His legs take their ascending flight

To seek the breast of darkness and be suckled by the night...

*sigh*... sheer poetry :)

i think we were all brought up thinking that one day somebody's going to come along and complete our empty, lost halves. and all the halves in the world will link up perfectly, because at some point in your life, even if it were for just a second, you've met the other half of your soul.
when i think about the half that wouldve completed me, i think about all the people ive crossed on the street, made brief eye contact with in elevators, buses, bazaars. maybe we reached for the same book at the same time. maybe we bumped into each other in school, apologised vaguely and went on, not knowing. because despite knowing all i know today, about myself; my restless, anxious, fidgety soul... prone to running away and drowning her sorrows in a swimming pool or paul simon's voice, prone to cigarette breaks behind the cafeteria, prone to staring out the window and wishing i could pick the loneliest spot in the world and let my heart inhale the huge, vast emptiness of everything.... despite knowing all this, a part of me still wonders if the half can ever be wholed.
its a myth, honestly. all people arent built that way. some of us will find our halves, some will find lesser substitutes, some of us will wonder why the hell we're still so lonely, despite everything. our hearts and our lives are filled by our families, our partners, our children, friends, work... it doesnt just have to be one person.
and for some people, being a wanderlust is such a big part of your personality, that if you were ever to be with somebody, that would mean you would have to change. and nobody, nobody should try to tame a wanderlust's spirit. its one of the most powerful, exciting, beautiful, lonely things in the world. if you love somebody...set them free.

Maria's Song, Sound of Music.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

When I'm with her I'm confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
Unpredictable as weather
She's as flighty as a feather
She's a darling, She's a demon, She's a lamb!

She'd outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
She is gentle, She is wild,
She's a riddle, She's a child,
She's a headache, She's an angel,

She's a girl

Girl. Respect. ;)



someone in the fishbowl is rolling his eyes and asking me to get the hell back in the car. abhi aaiee. zindagi ajeeb cheez hai, baccha....