Skip to main content

Prime Numbers

One
Photographs of a birthday
I never knew

Two
A memory I want to visit
Blank state that it is


Three
Pram rolling downhill
In it an unwelcome sibling

Five
First friend across the balcony
First crush in the opposite flat

Seven
Bedtime extends past nine
into the world of adults

Eleven
Breasts seem to make sense
Half-ticket status despised

Thirteen
Hot flushes burn within
Red initials spatter my math book

Seventeen
School ends
as does adolescence

Nineteen
ambition crystallises
A hurrah the world can hear

Twenty-three
The dream goes sour
First thoughts of suicide

Twenty-nine
Salaries chase deadlines
As aspirations dehydrate

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

बर्फी की शादी - बालकविता

बर्फी के घर में शादी है, दुल्हा उसका लड्डू है, माला उसकी किशमिश है, चूडी उसकी काजू है, बादाम उसकी बाली है, चाँदी की उसकी चुनरी है! यह कृति उमर बहुभाषीय रूपांन्तरक की मदद से देवनागरी में टाइप की गई है|

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.

Sunday is...

...a late morning, a tumbler of degree coffee, a birthday greeting to a friend (thank God for Facebook), another tumbler of coffee... ...a hot water bath, catching up on weekly politics, rice and bitter-gourd curry with jeera rasam and pickle, a long unhad siesta... one murukku made from old rice, ground by hand and made in coconut oil, one piece of jangri - not too sweet - washed down with hot degree coffee... a walk with the dog drongo-spotting in the garden, and old family stories with mother under the jamun tree... ...a little poem, a bit of light reading, and an interesting online chat on the Dhammapada... ...and finally an ascent to heaven with curd rice and vadu-mangay, before the fall to the netherworld of Monday.