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An old anger glints with lust
This Earth in the void
They say is resting
On four elephants that are standing
On a turtle swimming
In the void
If you break the egg it will splinter
In space without a sound
And I want to go down
And slaughter those four elephants
And, smash the turtle's shell
Scattering its meat
Beyond Kuiper's edge
And, then I would like to return
To crush this earth
Between the two palms of my hands
That will take on mammoth shapes
Like the haunches of Atlas, and
Water will be squeezed out
From my knuckles
I feel like doing that today
Just like that day years ago
When I saw this bald baby
All blisters and sores on his head, and
His beggar mother cooing and clucking
All over him, and making such a sticky jam
Of her love
For that obscene monstrosity of a baby
That I just felt like pulling on a pair of gloves
And, crushing its bald monkey head between
The two palms of my hands
And the thought was so real
I puked all over
My white school uniform
And had to return home in disgrace.
I remember how it rained all night
water sloshing down -
grime washed and odorous from despair.
I remember listening to them late into the night
black with hysteria, the crows
had gathered on a damp tree. I heard
the soft, hopeless cheeping underneath, and
the desperate noise
of the birds. And, a young amateur flier that
was trapped between twigs and string.
A torn kite's relic, which the tree
gripped with a lethal stranglehold. And then, I
remember how their beaked voices rose up and up
pecking at my dreams. I
dreamed of crows that whole night long. I
did not think of the crows and the rain
the next morning. Remembering
instead, the saffron god of Sun. Seductive wet leaves
staying out with friends late, so it was dark when
I finally returned, and again
the sky had turned into a beggar's quilt of rain clouds,
Hanging low and ready to drop its load
any moment.
I remember that strange silence, quiet as death
Hanging from the tree, where they were, still
waiting quietly, brooding
a vigil of black feather dusters,
black eyes clustered and rallying alert
and just waiting. And,
the young crow swung suspended
below its prisoners the twigs and string
one claw rose
in supplication while the other curled in.
I remember turning in that night
my wooly blanket
a burden of black sleep among black, brooding sheep.
the blue black eyes of quietly boding crows
and the beacon
eyes of a million people, waiting in the night.
First the water came
Swarming in
Then the people went
Swarming out
Both were following
Their natural instincts.
In the process, people, not all
But enough to make headlines
Were stamped out.
Funny, that an incident
Of such tragic proportions
Should remind me of the baby frogs:
Every monsoon they appeared
Soft little beggars,
The size of half my pinky
Hop-hopping about with infectious energy.
The frog-let swarms overran
The basketball court in school ignoring
The squeals of school girls
And teachers alike.
Some of us were of the
Catapult type.
We rejoiced in the freedom
Of the frog-lets
And, we joined in.
Soon our shiny black shoes
Had flattened the lot
The court was silent again
Each half-my-pinky-size creature
Lay flat and still, but retained
It’s shape –
A quilt
Of patterns on a concrete sheet.
Rumjhum says, "My fiction and poetry have previously appeared in e-journals like Poems Niederngasse, Lily Literary Review, The Paumanok Review, Amarillo Bay and Gowanus. I currently live in Chennai, India."