I’ll take your sweetened holy ash
Prescribed to me by horoscope,
To swallow what is left of me
In bitter shots of espresso.
The horseshoe ring you put on me
I’ll make my fidget spinner toy
To turn throughout my highs and lows
Or punch with when my anger boils.
The calling cards of Hindu Gods
You slip into my wallet sleeves,
I’ll use to clean my dirty nails
Or scratch under my sweaty knees.
I’ll do the things you ask of me,
But seasoned in some blasphemy.
I feel a winter creep behind
To freeze over my idle mind.
The sense of complacency’s cold.
My fluid’s turned a fragile fold,
Deceptive in its solid state,
Adept at distributed weight,
But not at concentrated stress –
Emergencies that need address.
The winter swallows autumn heat:
A fire-eater on the street
Who makes me hold my breath in awe
To only spring a summer thaw
For burning out complacency
On logs cremating urgency.
The doodles made of coloured rice,
Which marked the day of Dashami,
Awoke to find they’d wet their beds
In drizzled drops of Dashami.
The girls, who spent the previous night
On haunches with their shadows bent,
Bewailed their coloured sarees soaked
In drizzled drops of Dashami.
The boys, who bet their cash and kind
On coloured cans of handia,
Went sleeping on in roadside beds
In drizzled drops of Dashami.
No flowers bloomed, no castles rose,
No flags unfurled to ribboned pulls.
No horses ran on cardboard trails,
No princess peeked through paper veils.
I pitied all the adults then.
No book in hundred different shelves
Could make the story pop at them
The way my Chinese volumes did.
No wonder Dad was always mad
In envy of my 3D spread.
No wonder after scolding Mom
He blamed her for my childishness.
No wonder looking at my books
He shrugged and scoffed, “A pampered prince.”
No wonder he didn’t read to me
Not even once: not then, not since.
No wonder when I had to grow,
I pillaged drawers for blade and glue.
With careful cuts and careless tapes,
I made improvements to my books.
No flowers bloomed, no castles rose,
No flags unfurled to ribboned pulls.
No horses ran on cardboard trails,
No princess peeked through paper veils.
We can, with evidence, assume
The Goddess in our pooja room
Accepted the prasad we served,
But did so when no one observed.
Ejecting seeds, rejecting peels
And nibbling through the plastic seals,
The Goddess munched upon her seat
A slice of fruit, a ball of sweet.
The chicken ran across the street
Away from scent of frying spice.
The cattle ruminated on
The water draining from the rice.
The kitten on the kitchen wall
Mistook some worms for errant mice.
The monkey stole a coconut
And dropped it after beating twice.
Recovering from urban dreams,
It always makes a morning nice
To walk along a village street
With grannies combing out the lice.
In flipping through some musty myths
You find enlightened lines of lore
Which lionize the fallen foes
Who part imparting wise advice.
You wrestle with their chestnut choice:
Between two rights, between two wrongs,
Two prongs too long to make out from
Their shadowed, silhouetted forms
Which one says, “Life!”, which one, “So long!”
Contextualizing myth to fact,
You strike the matchstick stack of stakes
You had been sitting silent on
In search of sparks of sage insight.
You peer into that piercing light
And blinded by the billion ways
Your day-to-day arrays and weighs
You spit again upon your choice
Extinguishing the only voice
Of reason, seasoned though with noise.
You fall upon your mattress foam,
See lazily the lizard roam,
Admit defeat, you’re not so strong
To choose between two rights, two wrongs.
The lizard clicks its judging tongue,
“No myth is writ, no song is sung,
For candles with uncarboned wicks.
A hero is someone who picks.”
They stared at her and whispered loud,
“So young. It must be hard on her.”
They shook their head and held their son
A little closer, far from her.
Who knows if she’s contagious now?
The son adjusts his plastic specs
Which make his eyes look wonderstruck.
He points at her and asks aloud,
“I want a earphone just like hers.”
His parents meet her parents’ eyes,
Apologize embarrassedly.
Then shift away and scold their son
“You shouldn’t make her feel so bad.
It’s not her fault she’s deaf so young.
See here, they have such pretty frames.”
I wonder at how blind we are.
She’s only wearing specs for ears.
I’ve learned to fear the quiet ones,
The peaceful ones, the bashful ones,
The ones who smile emoji smiles,
The ones who blink and nod despite
Their triggers pulled, their buttons pushed.
Their anger runs a deeper vein
Than pumping hearts can reach with love
Despite exhausting coffee mugs
And treadmill jogs and counter-shocks.
Their anger runs a sharper blade
Than focused consciousness can sheathe
Despite exhausting all its chants
And mindful breaths and straightened spines.
Their anger bleeds into the note
And stains currency’s either page.
Their anger drills into the coin
And punches holes on either face.
Perspective, Judgment, Rationale:
Their worshipped cattle, milked and fed,
Are simply sacrificial dice
Awaiting Chance to roll their heads.
At least, my anger’s in your face.
I feel Athena axing at
My temples in a rhythmic beat.
A clever girl, she understands
The wisest, sharpest, focused minds
Derail, derange, deteriorate,
No longer fit as House of God.
She’ll split my head before I sleep,
Emerging clothed in all my mettle,
In all my cunning, loud and subtle,
But till such time, I will endure
This labor so that she matures.
It’s good I borrowed Vishnu’s urn
Of soothing Amrutanjan burn.
Minakhi Misra 