| SEASHORE
the earth stops shuddering
the prattle of wind and frogs and crickets resumes
a torrid inflated night
fetid with saltwater and palmtrees and fishingnets
an opaque miasma
where all directions dematerialize
and time is measured by counterfeit miles
Sleep couldn't be further away
KALI
Egrets haranguing in shallow water
kingfishers nesting in forest reeds
a seagull's shrill note lost over fields in a dreamlike swoon
Soon the scarlet and orange
silver and gold
now setting fires to the heaven
will change to quiet twilight hues
In its aftermath
the screech of cicadas echoes in my head
when reptilian dark gnarles the brain
A black idol entwined with garlands of skull
gleams malignantly in the dim light
seeking to quench her thirst
for the blood of sacrifice
SOIL
The hideous earth
broad bare
dark quills gaping out from little black pores
the human scalp at close quarters
Tug weeds by their roots
Scrap them out with fingernails
Exfoliate the soil
Scour
Burnish without bristles
Bruise with flat hands
Scrunch it clean
Scratch it loose
Nothing else matters but this fixing dirt
SEVERANCE
the corpse-cold slice of moon
midnight drizzle patterning the earth
stars quiz like eyes in reverie on the lampless uphill path
where two waifs join hands
wandering like ghosts consumed with the rhymes of love
in that formless fear
the despair of severance was not mine alone
the lesson has to be learnt
between dusk and morning
when dewdrops form
THE ENDURING LAND
An ephemeral throbbing sensation
in the heartland of my heritage
from unbelonging
I move to belonging
The temple's dazzling gopurams glitter
Shiva Vishnu Muruga Ganesha
are displayed in harlequin silken robes
gesturing me to kneel in obeisance
a bare-chested priest intones mantras
kindling the golden sacrificial Agni
an angelus to his rites
Outside
the gnarled dense arterial streets
are clotted with gaudy bazaars
boasting their stench of bilious manure
a waxen woman seeks the shade of a trishaw
her bulk emaciating the Alzheimer-struck slave
toiling rustics stagger with their bane of blighted harvests
bewailing their decrepitude
consumptive mothers crawl out of their cramped mud-huts
their withered breasts
unbeckoning to the parched throats of dehydrated infants
the seared jaundiced skin of a naked child festering with pustules
burns under the sun's despotic rays
distempered boars and rabid dogs
ungainly in their distended abdomens
partake in the revelry
leprous syphilitic
cads vagabond roughnecks hoods delinquents
all bear the angst of destitution
their hearts carved out of gall
these then are the deranged faces
of the Land's inglorious philistines
the heart-wrenching sights
through which my blood flows |