Angel

When kids sleep
I saw them smile
Frown
And speak
To someone we never met

I tried to fathom
The depth
They travel
Through the tunnels of
Their sleep
Decorated with dreams
Colors or anything
We never remember
From a childhood so distant

Many times, I wondered
Whether
God just borrow their
Souls to be his angels
When they sleep

Holy Pregnancy

I died of fear
And my neighbor too

He was born again, a stray cat
That ate a snake
That was I

I used my venom
He vomited, and died a second death

I was in his body
Not dead
But, etched on the cells
The soul never escaped
From the rotten body

In a Monsoon
Sharp raindrops shattered the putrid body
I ended down in a well
A pretty girl drank up the water
And got pregnant

A holy pregnancy

My Shark My Whale

It rains, darkness
From the pond
My fish, winged and thoughtful
Ran away with the light

A shark saw this
Through my eyes
And went along

It rains, darkness
And after, light
In the light
Hungry shark saw the fish

Stunning light
After a rainy year
A year of pain

The rain ended
And hung down in the sky
A word,
Declaring all fish
Winged and thoughtful
Are whales

My fish, now a whale
My shark died of hunger

From Old Testament

Bangalore

The mezzanine pub, Metro
yellow and blue
red strips on the wall
cool interior, low fast Rap
a pitcher of beer
silhouette of a couple kissing
- working day noon

Sharon and me
friends, politically apart
sat on a shady corner
talked in different accents

I listened to her, floating on the low Rap
Every word fusing images foreign

She came back today morning
from her country
wearing a gray T-shirt, still on,
stenciled across the breasts
- My Mind is My Own

At the bar counter, wine glasses
hanged like lucent mangoes, throbbed in a pain
her voice carried, and it clogged
with the corner shadows
I felt her dipression creep into me

She was drawing a Star of David
with beer spilled on the table
- Israel is a great country, I said, pointlessly
Sharon sat there in silence

- Let’s go out and conquer this city
for a change, I suggested, maybe
the travel, alcohol and me
made Sharon an Israeli again

She left me there, alone,
gone out to the busy MG Road, and
parted the traffic without a staff