Skip to main content

Mahim Bay from Rangsharda, Bandra

Bay encased in concrete,
the orange dying above,
and a silver sea turns grey;
the waves crash futilely
against the Mahim fortress -
a little outpost of the past
- where I suppose the crash
of waves might,
on careful listening,
recreate the clash of
steel versus steel;
the boats bobbing by the
fallen ramparts,
signs of life that
probably,
lives in another time-warp,
of an eternal poverty
dependent on
the wealth of the sea;
Out there the great sea-link,
a marvel of modern
engineering, its cranes
hastening to completion;
above thhe clouds thicken,
monsoon hangs tense in the
air - a forebear of
things to come when
nature shall triumph over
men again;
and in the shanties of Bandra,
in the towers of Worli, and
in the middle-classness of
Mahim,
the lights come on
one by one -
A Cezanne waiting to be
painted -
a dying day, a sleepless city.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

She's complicated

She's complicated. She'll charm you with charts, statistics and that corporate smile. But look into those eyes, they're fiercely bohemian. She's complicated. Her chatterings seem to resonate with happy sounds, but listen with the other ear, to an unhidden lament. She's complicated. Her silences agonise, her voice echoes in her absence. And yet there is a mild dread as her name flashes on the ringing phone. She's complicated. Sometimes she's a poetess, shallow, romantic, trying to hide a sardonic, world-weary wit. She's complicated. She could be a spiteful Fury, wrath unabated, but that's just to hide the lamb-hugging girl within. She's complicated. She's an enchantress, a fool, a tyrant, a nurse, an imp, a priestess, but she's generally a good friend. She's complicated. Published in Making Waves - A Poetry Anthology , ed. Pam & Bill Swyers; Swyers Publishing 2011. ISBN: 978-0-9843113-6-1.
8 comments
Read more

Mother

Mother has many names. Anak Krakatau might be one of them, Or Uttarkashi or Qinghai, Haiti certainly is. She's the mother that swallowed Maui into her womb, the mother that disarmed Karna, who led Oedipus to sin. She plays pranks too, in that cheerful way unique to her. We find strange names to give them - tsunami, hurricane. Kalki is another name we've given her, for when she will be an old woman looking for some kind of elixir of youth. Perhaps some quack will mislead her to find it in our blood. She has a heart of gold they say - pure, molten lava, that sometimes erupts on her skin like a ripe pimple. She loves nothing more than the sound of babies crying - orphaned, bloodied, hungry, dying their carcasses feeding hyaenas. But hyaenas are her children too. But she is the green mother who feeds us, clothes us, protects us from the sun's ionizing radiation, we came from her loins, which is where we go.
2 comments
Read more

Rat

I'm a rat, I'm a rat, I scurry and I bite, I eat what I get, And I fuck and I fight, I dodge the black crows, I run from your shoes, But I'm old or sick, you'll trample over me.
4 comments
Read more