Vendor speak

"How much is this for ?"
Eight dollars,
sells the old man with tied hair
I lift the auburn color stones
woven into a necklace, embrace it to my neck
look into the mirror, the old hand holds.

What are you learning here?
"World-Affairs-Economic Policy"
My foot! he yells, don't bullshit,
with a Gramsci and Marx adherent
I am not a babyboomer,
I sell the stones, the beads
I was the Anti-Vietnam war slogan
I want a state for Palestinians
Till then, will not step on the Israeli land,
yet I am a Jew.
"I like the necklace,
But aren't you an American?"
A different one, surely yes. I want war,
Iran to be bombed
"Oh, why the war?"
I am the Anti-Ahmadinejad protester
I am happy the Shias rule Iraq
"Oh, why no inclusiveness?"
That is true! the old man pauses
Hillary is my choice, not Obama
"Why not McCain, if war is what you want"
Republicans are outdated, the old man drifts
I never had this conversation ever before
No one asked me questions, the old man smiles

On the steps of Low Library
is a fair of sorts
with paradoxes galore
dont judge the man,
tells my friend not until
you know him some more.

Tall poppy Pope

Pope Benedict XVI
wears a pair of red shoes
just like I did
when I was a little girl.

Pope Benedict XVI
wears a fancy crown
just like I didn't
when I was a little girl.


PS: My friend Aparna questions :

Are you sure the wizard of oz didn't steal dorothy's ruby red slippers by mistake?

Sale

Sale, sale, sale

In the sale, was Wordsworth
and the violet Lucy in my scrapbook,
In the sale, were women in saree and kohl
sketched in my little notebook

In the sale, were the plastic toys
now dead, old grandpa bought
In the sale, were the comics
very unwillingly, my young uncle gave

In the sale, were the snap shots
of my tom boyish cropped hair and loose pants
In the sale, were the stones and marbles
collected from the kitchen garden in the backyard

In the sale, were the sea shells
I had earned in the last Shivratri gamble
In the sale, was a set of playing cards
two siblings marked with colors for cheating

In the sale, were the little frocks
that I sew for my pretty doll
In the sale, were the peacock feathers with some sugar
lying in the books to multiply next winter

In the sale, were all these heartaches
under the debris of a destroyed home.
In the sale, were stories of a lifetime
under the rubble of a burnt shelter.

All our memories of a lost dwelling,
my defeated father finally sold.


PS: The last time when I went to this ache called 'home', I tried hard to dig all my assets from the wreck with little sticks. For the new dwellers, it was such a spectacle and for the non-existent one, it was such an agonizing disappointment - my sticks were not strong enough to retrieve anything that we have lost!

A Lost Paint Brush

A camera and lenses from Nepal
died in the corner shelf of his color room.
Miniature black and white copies of
Leh deserts, Kashmir jungles
sighed in the black old albums,
with a bearded drunken man
sweating out to death.

The candle post cards from Japan
burnt in the cupboard on the deck.
The white bone china, the fine glass
that served the master's life style
paled quietly in the meshed showcase,
with a little girl's sculpture
withering out in the rain.

The oil paint tubes bought in poverty
dried up in the wooden box under the bed.
The colored canvass, the brown nudes
that poured out of the master's brush
aged with time and dust,
with a paint brush's bristle
shedding like a woman's hair.

This is what happened
and not the marauding loot
hopes the man.
....A paint brush was lost
and not vandalized,
hopes the man whose artistic soul
was murdered, back home.

PS: Dedicated to Dad

We Part Often

Some of me is gone, when he goes
Some of him is left, when he leaves
The echo of his dense voice,
fades in the silence
The smell of his chest,
vanishes in the cold air
I slip into the quilt, lie in the bed
Some of him is still there
Some of me, he has taken away.

Long & Short Options

.....someone is shorting stories,
someone is longing audience
Who are you, where were you born
When were you born,
to whom were you born to
is all that takes to
long your wishes and
short your name

...at the school church, the bride in her white dress,
with her blue escorts, longed her wishes too.
But why would I want to get married in the Church?
"It looks beautiful!" she shorts
....shrimp dumplings; Lamb Hunan style
turmeric gravy, hot red oil
white rice and soy sauce
"Some mustard prawns too," he longs

His is a white shirt, hers is a white shirt
the worry of curry stains hangs from the face
White paper sheets shall save them
and yet market strains has caved him in
In the Manhattan bar, the cleaner climbs the glass wall
Wipes the stains of the fading business
He shorts his sweat, we long the sight through the glass
Across the street, are the new greens of the Spring

"Pope and the Indian uncle"...where am I?
"Free trade and the lefties"...what is this talk
we ramble, we gamble...who is talking?
Sun was selling on the morningside,
after a long winter, some warmth today.
why did you short your wish,
why did you long your head...