Glistening in the sun like an actress
colouring her skin caramel,
the water slithers down
the hills and follows paths
that never end, the
shuffling beads of her necklace falling
off her bosom, hand in hand,
skirting around riverine islands
in a dance of nature that we control with our jukebox:
we pull at the strings sewn into her shoulders;
we ignore the flailing silk of her arm,
sending stagnant air into currents of exasperation.
Hanging like a disemboweled cadaver
on a tree,
the air lies silently,
a wreckage of flesh and muscle,
blood dripping from his hands like a leaky tap,
his chest branded with seals of money and luxury–
comfort in cabs when the streets
are paved with crushed bones;
if he were still allowed to toil staleness between
his yellow, decaying teeth,
he’d feel the heat
from the fires we left behind to burn our memories.
Swaying like a kathakali danseuse in a tale
of revenge,
the fire extends her arms to the night;
muscle striking out:
pushing against its surroundings;
pushing away the stale air
from the path of her green skin,
hidden away under silk
blood dripping to her wrists;
they were brought here
to perform the history she had learnt
from her father in a thatched cottage–
thatched with straw grown from the
trodden-over earth rained over
by kicks from clouds of desperation.
Leaning against the wall
rusted under pools of urine,
the earth swings his arms about, inebriated,
under the influence of cheap beer
brewed in mold-attacked barrels,
he teeters to the edge of the pavement,
hanging on the precipice,
held back from falling face-first by an invisible string
spun from fibers of dedication and cognisance,
but every second sees the wasps buzzing by it
and it appears his nose might have already bled.
In an elemental chaos, the entire world
floods, gushes, burns and shakes:
perhaps now we look to heal the wounds?
Mihir Rajamane 
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