Friday, August 19, 2011

The one where the nice guys finished first

Dear NRN and SRT,

If there was one word to describe you both, it would be this: exemplary. Thanks for all the hope.

Moares

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Patchwork

The skylight: fragments of cheap wood painted white,

In the light of the light that it lets through, a sight:

Gnarled hands, less wretched than the reflections of years ago,

Saving grace, maybe? There is no such thing, not even so-so.

The work-floor littered with fabric, sweat and thread,

Heads down, eyes squinting, compact like lead.

The hues are not their own, the patterns manufactured,

No satisfaction without ownership, sir, only a socialism fractured.

In this market: subsidized glue, empathy at cost,

What about sympathy? At a discount, sir, not all is lost.

Snip-snip with metal, chit-chat with mouth and heart,

Cut-piece, full-piece, factory design, organizational chart.

All this in a day. At the end of it, chup-chup.

Watch them wrap up, picking up the pieces, look-look!

They have cut, copied, pasted, but this is not Seattle,

This is India, sir, land of gods and cattle.

Supervisor saab, in dusty shoes, surveys, not short of uprightly,

When he looks away, they pick up the quilts, and walk out quietly.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Love-Bomb

Elsewhere, splits in the seam of sky,

To what pleasure do I owe your absence?

I see you are developing the love-bomb (sigh),

In the grammar of life, are we past tense?

From your hat-eyes, you pulled out a rabbit,

O Sorceress, your magic then became a habit,

Now there is that painting on your wall,

Down below, the city gnaws at its own tail,

From the wharfs of my ache (in the winter of my Fall),

A hundred thousand dinghies set sail,

Silos in my depths, stockpiles in my marrow,

Our mushroom clouds are substantially of sorrow,

"Nothing ends," Adrian said. There is no illusion of destination,

Because we, senora, have set out on separate expeditions.