Shallow moonlight streams strangle afoot the crunch of gravel bone low
the row, beast, beat by the time triangles weave blue crisp affinity
splintered nerve endings of autumn placate the leathery sky
the lie, what of cold cotton cereal when you find froth with tea
Umbrella pops yellow raindrops in my ear in a wash of dry bristles
fills the story of your life in a page, the rage, you need flames on the side
You hide, sincerely it seems afternoon cries not spear nor fight
the light in your room burns but my eyes alight a window nearby
I, Picturesque
Late August surfing at San Clemente
Sea chases blue shadows in sand
from castled shore to ruddying clouds
Setting sun sparkles off parked cars
on a golden eastern hill
Surfers bob like black beach birds
tasting the salt in sweeping curves
Wind catches yellow dream shapes
battling my hair out of my eyes
and a beautiful man shifts his board
looks back once more and smiles.
Snake
The whitewashed
walls sparkled in the late evening sun, kitchen exhaust fans announced dinners
in progress and the shrill voices of young cricketers echoed through the
tenement.
They did not always infest the corridors, but ran for cover when their feet disturbed the careful rangoli at that Srinivas’s fearsome mother’s doorstep, or when their flailing arms brought down clothes drying on Upstairs-auntie’s line and she threw her dough covered rolling pin at them, or worse when the ball bounced loudly off Sathya-auntie’s plexiglass front door and she told their parents she had caught them using her progressively browning wall as wickets.
This evening they had abandoned their game and were gathered in a circle on the bald summer parched playground next to the garbage dump.
As the sun set behind the water-tank, the boys and their cricket bats cast pitchfork shadows on Watchman uncle’s gray uniform. They watched with awe and morbid fascination, a mist of red sand rising in their faces, as it danced under Watchman uncle’s dog-beating stick.
It was a cobra, a king cobra, even, Shashank said, and Murali reported that it had apparently hided in the D-complex staircase mailbox and attacked Sneha-aunty when she was taking out her mails. One of RJ’s older brothers whispered that she had died off and that everyone was keeping quiet about it and that if any of them blabbed about it a cobra would jump out from under their bed at night and kill them off too. My brother grew sickened at the beating and left before the very very poisonous venom in the carcass reportedly turned the fire purple and green.
I and my sister and Shanthi and her annoying younger sister, who always played with us even when we didn’t want her to but couldn’t say anything because we liked Shanthi, were high up in Rani-paati’s gooseberry tree pocketing handfuls of her not-yet-ripe berries. Killing swollen mosquitoes against each other’s legs and careful to stay just out of sight of paati’s bathroom window, we watched the spectacle from a distance. As the street lamps flickered noisily on, we momentarily forgot to keep a sharp eye and ear out for her to hope that the snake was fully dead before it burned.
They did not always infest the corridors, but ran for cover when their feet disturbed the careful rangoli at that Srinivas’s fearsome mother’s doorstep, or when their flailing arms brought down clothes drying on Upstairs-auntie’s line and she threw her dough covered rolling pin at them, or worse when the ball bounced loudly off Sathya-auntie’s plexiglass front door and she told their parents she had caught them using her progressively browning wall as wickets.
This evening they had abandoned their game and were gathered in a circle on the bald summer parched playground next to the garbage dump.
As the sun set behind the water-tank, the boys and their cricket bats cast pitchfork shadows on Watchman uncle’s gray uniform. They watched with awe and morbid fascination, a mist of red sand rising in their faces, as it danced under Watchman uncle’s dog-beating stick.
It was a cobra, a king cobra, even, Shashank said, and Murali reported that it had apparently hided in the D-complex staircase mailbox and attacked Sneha-aunty when she was taking out her mails. One of RJ’s older brothers whispered that she had died off and that everyone was keeping quiet about it and that if any of them blabbed about it a cobra would jump out from under their bed at night and kill them off too. My brother grew sickened at the beating and left before the very very poisonous venom in the carcass reportedly turned the fire purple and green.
I and my sister and Shanthi and her annoying younger sister, who always played with us even when we didn’t want her to but couldn’t say anything because we liked Shanthi, were high up in Rani-paati’s gooseberry tree pocketing handfuls of her not-yet-ripe berries. Killing swollen mosquitoes against each other’s legs and careful to stay just out of sight of paati’s bathroom window, we watched the spectacle from a distance. As the street lamps flickered noisily on, we momentarily forgot to keep a sharp eye and ear out for her to hope that the snake was fully dead before it burned.
Memory
That day
The curtains were sunflower and white checks against the dark grain of the bed and the sun came in through a yellow window and blinded the freshly mopped floors a river of light
Before I noticed her foot held up to me like a helpless water bird her toes curled in around the ball with pain, or the growing ring of red around a blue pimple, I heard her wail and the pigeons just outside take flight in alarm
On that glorious afternoon
That day my sister stepped on a push-pin.
The curtains were sunflower and white checks against the dark grain of the bed and the sun came in through a yellow window and blinded the freshly mopped floors a river of light
Before I noticed her foot held up to me like a helpless water bird her toes curled in around the ball with pain, or the growing ring of red around a blue pimple, I heard her wail and the pigeons just outside take flight in alarm
On that glorious afternoon
That day my sister stepped on a push-pin.
Pooja Room
The gods smile down at me
Fixed benevolent molded forgiving painted divine printed loving
The dry caked bloody copper kum kum disfiguring Lakshmi the Goddess of Wealth and Prosperity
The fragile brown spider suspension of old jasmine strings worn proudly around Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles
the dispersed ash and unburied stumps of deceased incense sticks burying the veena of Saraswathi the goddess of Art and Learning
And still
The gods smile.
Fixed benevolent molded forgiving painted divine printed loving
The dry caked bloody copper kum kum disfiguring Lakshmi the Goddess of Wealth and Prosperity
The fragile brown spider suspension of old jasmine strings worn proudly around Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles
the dispersed ash and unburied stumps of deceased incense sticks burying the veena of Saraswathi the goddess of Art and Learning
And still
The gods smile.
Rain Song
I fell in love that afternoon
When the monsoon touched the earth so powerful in its passion
that the stone compound wall keeping vagrants out
came under siege by an exiled lake returning to the drained bed of our houses
and rolled like a prolonged crash of thunder into a drowning grey rubble
We held hands under the umbrella,
marveling at newspaper imaginings and TV hearsay
the high excitement of a modest flood in our neighbourhood
with the inclement wind in our faces
slate water, up to ankles, that washed the human dung from the shelters in with our flower beds and bicycles
and the Raag Megh unnecessarily keeping tune in my head
When the monsoon touched the earth so powerful in its passion
that the stone compound wall keeping vagrants out
came under siege by an exiled lake returning to the drained bed of our houses
and rolled like a prolonged crash of thunder into a drowning grey rubble
We held hands under the umbrella,
marveling at newspaper imaginings and TV hearsay
the high excitement of a modest flood in our neighbourhood
with the inclement wind in our faces
slate water, up to ankles, that washed the human dung from the shelters in with our flower beds and bicycles
and the Raag Megh unnecessarily keeping tune in my head
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