In praise of gasmen I've never met

Credit

The streetlights come on in a single sweep,
anonymous hands have turned on a switch
or maybe they're not hands - a sensor keeps
tabs on lumen levels - a drop, a smidge
of twilight means it's time to turn things on,
then nip them closed when dark fades into dawn.


Fancy names I have often heard these called,
this dusting of lights at the waters' edge,
but that's not top of mind. Stories told, retold
- gasmen, another street, a different stretch
of water, and time, each light lit one by one,
turned off singly too, when their work was done.

Less grand. Less automated. More in tune
with the soft drapes of the dark, stars and moon.

Valentine II

I can still feel the drizzle of your fingers

soft as the sea-sand on my face and hair;

some things are gone, it’s now many winters

the fallen leaves are banked in many layers;

there’s half an empty eggshell in the pond

floating next to the water hyacinth;

some kind of plastic scum in faded blonde

choking the small concrete steps and the plinth,

the bricks crumble gently and grow their cracks

and lure in grass and a banyan sapling;

but I can still feel the rain on their backs -

your hands don’t change unlike the other things.

And yes, this is where I’ve chosen to stand

surrender again to rain and your hands.

Totally off-topic, for those interested in my safari pics - there's a video clip in the sidebar. And maybe it's not all that off-topic either, plenty grass at any rate.

Valentine

I can no longer breathe you in

or accidentally brush your skin.

Radio silence, an empty glove

strangles time. But I still choose love.

The smells of coffee and cologne

reconfigured to disaster zones –

blood orange and marmalade nerve.

But I’m choosing to stay in love.

Mushroom smoke and mother of pearled

guns pour from factories of the world.

War and peace on an unknown curve.

But I’m choosing to stay in love.

A lone bird sits on an antenna,

the skyline slow fades to henna.

This soft sea. The heavens above.

Yes, I'm choosing to stay in love.

Four quarters of the day

The newspaper collector comes around with his harsh call

shattering the humid Sunday morning beyond my wall
a couple of rickshaws lazily twirl their conjoint wheels
and a sudden squeeze on their lo-tech honker feels
like the televisual scream of dying birds that tumble and fall
plummeting from the sky in a strident cosmic drawl.

The noon comes veiled, in the guise of some evening

when the light turns murky well before it’s time to bring
each hour of the day together in neat pleats and tuck
them into the waistband of the sun, and to chuck
this neutral light over her left shoulder, splitting
the day from dark and the twilight’s final fling.

The traffic peaks by habit at the appointed hours

even during holidays, the hollow concrete towers
disgorge their inmates for the mandatory merry
making, a bigwig’s white car cruises, her red cherry
sits flush on her roof, the inmate sits flushed in flowers
torn and strewn around her even as her public sours.

The night is poor in stars and silence, to sleep and fade

is surely wasteful, when there is so much to be made?
A prescribed life must stay wide awake and urbanity
equals unblinking sodium eyes of a frantic sleepless city
and I too, urbane insomniac, lazily parade
my goblet held high on my terrace and arcade.