Month: September 2021

It fell on a drop of dew
To fall on me and break through
The fog of rue I’d made home,
Within which I’d roam and roam.

The dew had dropped from a leaf
That now was jumping in relief,
Shrugging off the water weight,
Which had seemed its rooted fate.

They dropped their plastic bat and ball
And ran full-speed after the orphan kite
Penduluming down the January sky,
Threatening to fall into an open drain.
One was six years old. The other, nine.
Nine was naturally faster than Six,
So he reached the kite first and caught it.
He raised it above his head to one side
Like the World Cup picture of Kapil Dev
That his father had stuck to the mirror
All those years before he was born.
Six came panting and jumped up to grab,
But Nine kept lifting it out of his reach.
Then both stood still and laughed out
The laughter that only kids can laugh.

I caught it, said Nine. So, it’s mine.
I saw it, said Six, and so, it’s mine.
But I ran, Nine pointed out.
After I pointed, Six ran at him.
Okay-okay, said Nine. Half-half?
How half-half? It will tear, no?
I keep the kite. You keep the string.
What? Not fair at all. It’s all mine.
You get the string, or nothing at all.
What? What will I do with the string?
Here, let me show. Come come.
Okay. I will hold the kite meanwhile.
Nice try. Shut up and come with me.

Nine cut the string from the kite
And ran back to their bat and ball.
He wound the string around the ball:
Twice top-to-bottom, twice across,
Twice top-to-bottom, twice across,
And one last time, just to be safe.
Tying the loose end back to the string,
He hurled the ball over a branch
Of the guava tree in the yard,
And caught it again as it swung down.
Then he let it pendulum and smiled.

Cadet! Attention!
Left, right, left. At ease!
This is your training ball now.
Nine gave the string a bit more slack
Till the ball descended to Six’s waist,
And tied the other end of the string
Just once around the guava trunk.
Attention! Take arms!
Six took the plastic bat from Nine.
Cadet! Right Turn! And hit for six!
Cadet Six took his position,
Took in a sharp breath and swung.
Nine nodded at the arc made by the ball
And said Six had lived up to his name.
Cadet! Another Six! Higher this time!
Cadet Six took his position again,
Took in a sharp breath and swung.
The ball went higher than before
And came down faster than before
And Six turned at the last moment
So the ball crashed into his bum.
Then both stood still and laughed out
The laughter that only kids can laugh.

Half-half, fair? Half-half, fair.

Six is now Sixteen (plus GST)
And still hits a leather ball
Penduluming from the guava tree.
He almost made it to the State team.
Just miss. Or so he tells everyone.
Nine decided against double-digits.
He fell off the terrace flying his kite.

Pride

Where once I said, “Wow”,
I now say, “Gawdammit.”
Another virgin metaphor
Stolen from my future works.
Reading depresses me.

—

Power

She says I make her cry –
Louder than he ever managed –
With my tongue and long fingers
So used to reading aloud and writing.

—

Prayer

Thank God for Protection. It covers
The riskiness of digging someone
Else’s property without permit.

—

Penance

No longer do I part my hair.
A man with an axe is loose.

—

Peace

Poetry sucks like a fallen pornstar.

When I worked for a week
As a salesman at a bookstore,
I learned that it’s best to place
The stools in the poetry section.

One,
It’s the lower half of the corner
Between romances and cookbooks,
Between fiction and non-fiction:
A ‘tweener no one cares about.
So, if it’s hidden behind a bent back
No one really misses it.

Two,
This is the only way to get people
To pass their eyes over the poetry,
While they shift on the cushion
Looking for that perfect comfort
They know they won’t get here.

Three,
The product just doesn’t move.
So, you don’t worry about reshelving.
And you don’t stand awkwardly
Waiting for the arthritic lady to get up,
After her son comes, shakes his head,
Says they should’ve ordered online.

Four,
You don’t really mind the kids
Sticking their chewing gum
Between two poetry books
Where no one will find out.
Poems are supposed to stick, right?

Five,
The manager doesn’t notice
When you sit down to override
The barcode and slip the book
Into your bag and out of the shop.
You always have time to return
If your conscience is such a fattu.

Six,
You get to quote a verse or two
To the curly cutie with glasses.
And reach your arm across her
To gently pull on a slender spine
Just behind her right ear.

He was focussed so fully on
Zigzagging his aging Splendour,
Charting a minesweeper route
Through drying cow dung cakes,
That he was fully blindsided when
The black boar crashed into him.

He fell to the left, bike on leg,
And a crunch reached the rooftops
Between screams of a shocked engine.
The boar, lying, made no noise
Except a laboured wheezing.

They rushed to him, pulling him
From under his dying Splendour,
Lifting him to the side of the street,
Propping him on someone’s steps,
Wiping his unhelmeted, wetting hair,
And checking for a pulse, if any.
Someone ran a finger before his eyes,
Declared he was conscious and okay,
And proceeded to tap on the left leg
Till his shout reached the rooftops.

An old woman and her sons
Rushed to the boar, pulling it
To the other side of the street,
Propping it on someone’s slide,
Wiping away the foaming mouth
And checking for a breath, if any.
She ran her fingers on its hide,
Declared it was conscious but not okay,
And proceeded to shoot a finger out
Till her shout reached the rooftops.

“He killed my boar, my precious boar.
He killed my means of livelihood.
He might as well have killed me.
He is a killer, good people. Killer.”

Her elder son held her close to heart
And shot his own finger at the crowd.
“Don’t let him go till he pays for this.
Don’t let him get away with this.”

Too many shouts in too many tongues
Then reached the rooftops on the street.
Some this side, some that side,
Some in the middle crying Reason.
“It’s an accident,” said they.
“He accidented it,” said a side.
“It accidented him,” said the other.
Broomsticks came to stomp on steps,
Hempen ropes to slap the slides,
And someone in their senses still
Told the semi-senseless man
To leave some cash on the steps
And leave with him through a door
To the back side of this street.
“My bike?” he asked.
“Your life?” he asked.
“But…”
“No time, no time.”
So, while the broomsticks stomped
And the hempen ropes slapped,
The men slipped through a door
And cash slipped through the crowd
To the hands of the old woman.

Now, when you stand on the rooftops
You see the woman train her boars.
“Good boy. Good boy. Run. Run.”
And you see them butting straight
Into the side of a dead Splendour.

It worried me that day
When he quoted again
Something from my book
And I asked, after nodding,

“Who wrote that?”

No, I wasn’t embarrassed
That I’d forgotten my words.
I was ashamed I had lost
Touch with a beautiful me.

Sweeping through the dust
With a one-wheel open tray,
O’er the streets she goes
Coughing all the way.

The bells on anklets ring
Between her hollow strides
Oh what drag it is to pick
The garbage on the sides.

Stinky smells, stinky smells
Stinky all the way,
Oh what fun it is for us:
She takes them all away.

After a full night of silent sobs
And an hour of pillowed bawling
I pick myself up, pick up a tea,
And climb up to our water tank,
To sit and wait for the sun to rise.

She stumbles out of her door,
Her two-year-oldness bursting
Out of her use-and-reuse diaper,
And crackers a chain of farts.

I almost roll down laughing,
But stay arrested in the moment,
When I see her beaming at me
The best sunrise I’ve seen this year.

The very cousins who coo
To a still-unwedded me
How a man is cursed for life
Without a “proper lady”

Also caw some hours later
To my still-wedded brother
How marriage is a full-time
Occupational hazard

They’re lucky I’m vegan now

It’s easy to sit in hospitals
When no one you know is lying
Inside a ward on an adjustable bed.
It’s easier still to sit there still
When no one you know is sitting
Outside a ward, leaning against despair.

You look at the slip in your hand,
The seven-segment display above,
And wait for the numbers to match.
You thank God this isn’t a casino.
Your number does come up.
You do get to get up and go
Towards that plexiglass counter
Shielding a bored face from you
And your Sunday-morning gloom.

Case number, he asks. You slip him
An orange sticky note under the glass.
He doesn’t thank your thoughtfulness.
He feels snubbed, robbed of power.
No fun reading details from paper
When he can ask you the numbers,
Stop typing midway to crack a joke
For the female colleague beside him,
Laugh alone, look at you with regret
And say, Sorry, could you repeat that?
And you sigh and repeat the numbers
And he repeats his jokes and laughs.
Sorry, sorry. Very sorry. Nine, you said?

You wonder, if surrounded by grief,
This is his way to carpe diem.
You sigh at your c’est la vie
And wait while he complains
About slow Wifi and fast food.
He still does all this with the note,
But at least you don’t keep repeating.
Onions are eighty again, he says.
You blink. Potatoes, fifty too.
Family to feed, you know? You blink.
He nods, sticks the note to his table,
Drums his fingers next to it, frowns,
Looks at you with regret. Sorry, sorry.
Wifi’s down. System can’t process.
Maybe you should come after lunch?
No chai-breakfast for me anyway.
With such prices. You understand, no?
I mean, if insurance doesn’t process,
You also have to deal with the reality.
Even without. Even without. Sorry.

He presses a button on his table.
The number above doesn’t match
The number on your slip anymore.
You sigh and fish out your wallet.
He raises a warning hand to stop
The next person filing behind you.
You pull a blue one-hundred note.
He looks at you with regret. Sorry.
You pull an orange two-hundred.
He looks at you and nods. Laughs.
You look at that laughter,
Look at all the people around,
Look at them leaning against despair,
Look at your wallet’s inner lining,
Look at your sticky note on his table,
Look at the ink of an idea growing on it,
Look at the two-hundred in your hand,
Lower your mask, and lick the paper, full.
You slip the new orange sticky note,
Under the old transparent plexiglass,
And offer your mobile’s 4G hotspot.