The way I sauté serious words
Though simple ones are tastier.
The way I stir my arguments
Though warming up is easier.
The way I grind my grumbling teeth
Instead of finely chopping stress.
The way I strain and strain my plans
Instead of soaking them at rest.
You teach me cures for ill-slept nights:
A flung-out fistful flattened rice
Into a pool of fighting fish.
You teach me tricks of restful taste:
To finger-wrap our pithful haste
From plantain stems of weekend wish.
You teach me plucking pleasures cheap:
To stop and smell the lemons heap,
Defying apes on temple stairs.
You teach me closing beauty’s doors:
To shut a gateway madman’s roars,
While picking peacock feather pairs.
You teach me choice to practice glee.
You teach me joys of being me.
Some books I read again-again
To gain them word for word by heart.
Some books I read again-again
To gain them part by part by part.
Some books I read again-again
To gain from them a single line.
Some books I read again-again
To gain the space they leave behind.
When roads are harsher than they are,
When every thistle leaves a scar,
When forks give ‘worse’ and ‘worse’ to choose,
Is poetry of any use?
When doctors countdown weeks I’ve got,
If all the thousands lines cannot
Remind me of remaining youth,
Is poetry of any use?
A little less of Hellish grays.
A little more of Heaven’s grace.
If neither it can introduce,
Is poetry of any use?
No, reading doesn’t give me skills
To market for a higher wage.
It gives me skills to find my mind
Unburdened by my present age.
No, reading doesn’t teach me how
To better talk to stranger things.
It teaches me the language of
Conversing with my inner beings.
You sit and try to overhear
The words you whisper to yourself
When you’re convinced that no one cares
Enough to overhear your self.
You sit composing not the lines,
But those anxieties of your self
That shiver into character
Against the cold you are yourself.
The pigmentation of my skin
Is proof I haven’t stayed within
On days it was convenient.
The absent arches of my feet
Are proof that even smoothened streets
Are barely any lenient.
I’ve walked the forest and the park,
I’ve walked with owls and the lark,
I’ve walked without a snide remark,
Though legs were disobedient.
You squish and pinch my Teddy whole
And think I’m made for Panda rolls?
You have to feel my calloused soles
To know my true ingredient.
I heard your sounds and saw your sights:
Your tak-tak of the heavy knife,
Your potted darlings sipping light,
Your out-of-nowhere heavy sigh,
Your windowed cotton candy sky,
Your irritated pigeon croon,
Your aeroplaning noodle spoon;
But did not feel your heart-beat hug,
Your dancing eyes that laugh and shrug.
Perhaps, tomorrow, when I sleep
I’ll feel your pach-pach petite feet
Immersed inside an azure lake
That ripples calmness when I wake.
The looking forward is the fest.
The days of buying little things:
The sesame, the cashew nuts,
The raisins (finished; bought again),
The tempting packs of powdered milk,
The ghee, and more of sesame,
The pair of freshly tailored clothes,
The fairy lights, the longer nights,
The who-will-get-the-idol fights.
The early morning “proper bath”,
The sun-dried hair that’s “proper combed”,
The not-till-pooja hunger pangs,
The always-falling brass’s bangs,
The flower lady (late again),
The fear of gaining weight again.
And then it’s over in an hour.
The ding-ding of the prayer bells,
The clap-clap of the cymbal pairs,
The blah-blah of the mantra-man,
The hee-hee of the kiddie gang.
And though it lingers for a day,
And sometimes longer than a day,
No more is it a festival.
The hopping to the next pandal
Provides diminishing returns,
Alongwith sudden need for rest.
The looking forward was the fest.
The innocent are guilty of
Unrealistic hopefulness.
The guilty ones are innocent
Of realistic boundedness.
The good are bad at making good
On promise of infinity.
The bad are good at breaking bad
Off everyday divinity.
The right are wrong to blindly trust
Their God of making tools of them.
The wrong are right to wary of
Their God of making fools of them.
No matter where our compass points,
Morality just disappoints.
Minakhi Misra 