Chilly farms

The village post master has passions
Smelling of red chillies drying in sun.
His body’s blood has ancestor smells
Vague in blood,with inbuilt difficulty
To pinpoint dads to their grand dads.

Women  run their own chilly farms
In bodies ,with passions hot as spice
Such as European ancestors braved
Rough seas to discover,a white flesh
In preservation of the stomach meat.

On many moonless nights on his roof
The man dries chillies into the nights.
He keeps all the secrets of the villagers
About everyone’s farms, quid pro quo
That makes him a hot village darling.

NOTA is no choice

 

Ink prevents twice of a voting
Hardly the matter for a NOTA,
Only spoils pretty fluorescent
Nail polish below, finger show
By females better at a choice
When a Hobson rules politics.

The horse is closest to a door
Or none at all, the final NOTA
To press the machine is relief.
And a horse might bolt again
Into dark nights of old times.

India’s General Elections have for the first time incorporated a new NOTA (none of the above) option in the voting machines for the electors puzzled by paucity of good candidates.

Hoopoe

 

No one knew hud hud would come
By the sea, from Northern islands,
A floating hoopoe,with wing span
That covered our black mountains.

Our dolphin here turns up its nose
Against looming ships in high seas.
It is our black mountain with nose.
It could not stop big black hoopoe
From entering our huts at midnight.

(Cyclone hud hud a year ago caused untold destruction to the port city of Visakhapatnam and to numerous hamlets of local fishermen on the Andhra coast)

Mother

A sun arose usual on our eyes.
A glint brought back memory
Buried in the snow hills when
We  offered  rice to a memory.
The lord of our deaths dances
His classical dance in bronze.
His ash falls off bodies on fog
Into October’s dirty holy river.
We burn elements on a shore
Mingle the ashes in its waters.

The seventies movies

 

In the sepia days the pants traveled
Far and flung in bell shaped bottoms
And the sides burned on hairy faces.
The star’s hands swept an air or two
And at his every bizarre star gesture
Women would swoon in high drama
Eyes fluttering like fresh butterflies.

The pants went yellow and jacket red
In  tinsel romance to dark-lined eyes
That drooped in pretended modesty.
Movies flowed sweetly  to weddings
With no foretaste of  the black gowns.
Motor cycle sputters with chug train
Singing  the brevity of a life in sepia.

#Dying of debt

 

The cloud is castrated ram
With a bell around its neck.
Trending is towards no rain
With no cotton our farmers
Could bring out,only death.

Deaths are fine bell weather
In electric fans and rail track,
Weather’s trending in twitter
With hashtag #dying of debt.

Striking a match

We meet at the green hotel lounge
Over cups of coffee and small talk.
We throw around perfect postures
Like a match struck and candle lit.

Our postures are vague in daylight,
Silhouttes standing out as in dusk.
There is moisture in the air, a cave.
Will a match strike a phosphorous
And a candle  lit for man and wife?

No culture for us

 

Heaven’s accountant there
Keeps tally of small credits
Adding up to a big balance
For our place in dance hall.

We have to build our credits
And save karma for a place
Where classical girls dance.

We have big bills in pockets,
No small change for beggars
To build our afterlife credits.
We have no afterlife culture.

Our books

 

We have differences with mites.
We don’t like them in our books,
Or in geography maps on skins.

Books are old with Alzheimer’s.
Their minds are Einstein- sharp .

But books forget who they are.
We worry they unbolt the door
And walk away from their sleep.

Horseshoe for luck

 

Back when there were horses
Before their carts, there were
Horseshoes for luck in school
With no homework on backs .

The horses have since bolted
To the Himalayas where they
Now climb us to phallic gods.
We are spared the ignominy
Of putting cart before horse.

Our wishes have not stopped
The equine run even for a day.