The Focus Is On A Point

Donkey Kong

Octopus

the day is longer than the verandah

summer is hot

and I know

what it is to be sad

life I cannot fathom yet

but I see the buildings and the trees

I see the roads and the cars

and the faces of the people and I am happy

only now this summer I remember all this

sitting in my room

the laburnum outside is a yellow carpet on the trees

there is so much shit in the world

chemical warfare in Syria Kashmir is burning

an iron griddle falls on a little girl’s head in Bombay

a piece of her skull gets lodged in her brain

what horror I think lying down in bed

as the afternoon sun breathes like a dragon outside my window

and then the doors of my mind close

the words I read and write become water

I hold on to my life

I can barely recognise

to claim

this is not the person I am

this is not the world I know

I think

and this is what life is

I realise

as it slowly begins to get darker

and the birds start playfully wheeling around in the sky

while I sit alone at my window watching.

My Throat Is Trench Torn

wounded soldiers

try to run

with their guns

but fail

cannon blasts

rend all asunder

politics is the speech

of the day

should a girl talk

is she a doll

is her father dead

I don’t know

I say

and try to run

although I can’t

move an inch

and the buildings

all hoarded up

like forts

and mother and child

at the window

watching waiting

all their lives

what to do

where to go

at the railway station

the heads of the people

turn 360 degrees

in the streets

I drown in my own blood

eeeeh eeeeeh

I say

and scramble for safety

and when I rush to a garden

the merry go round

makes such a noise

the sea saws

hiss like snakes

and when I look up

at the sky

I see the sun bursting

into black ash

and now the world is gone.

The World Is A Picture

torn

the internal pipe in my bathroom burst

and water poured out of the walls

it cost me 5000

then my washing machine went

and I let it go

I said I will live in this broken world

amidst these walls

these buildings these people

these skies all over

these railway tracks

these houses these trains

these millions shuttling past

the mental energy

the noise and the silence

and soon the stars come alive here over my building

and start to sing

and then the moon sails in

like a dream and I am entranced

at the sheer scale of the light shining

dazzling my mind a mountain of song

and this is her voice the world’s

her millions singing choruses of wild harmony

and all those roads those planes in the sky

I think

the weapons the wars

what about all that

did they all just disappear

I ask myself

the boredom the madness

the complete loss of comprehension

what about becoming the wall

becoming stone concrete brick

or just nothing at all

emptiness in the sun

and then finding no answer

soon through the nights of my childhood

I set sail once again rowing through memories

through trees of flailing rain

pouring now once again so loud

so deafening falling from this same sky

these strips of shining water

rushing down all over

these castles these lakes these forests these roads

these motorcycles these horses these bandits

these guns these soldiers these wars

see there is no more place to go no peace

I tell myself

all is here all the sheer sad songs of mother moon

the unborn the living

the billion voices the dead the dying

the crying

I tell myself

you’re stuck here

you’re lost

you’re crazy

and when people ask you

how you’re doing

you say cool

like a fool.

 

The above poem is from my third collection The Branches (2015). You can download The Branches for free here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/dominic-alapat/the-branches/ebook/product-22413518.html