Poems composed in Dalapchand

1
Poverty sneaks
through her wet undergarment
on the terrace

she talks to herself cursing
the day she was born and left
to negotiate truths
of gender, sex and manhood

in the middle class
one room apartment
physical rigmarole
buries sick delight
hope of wellness
fast and Sunday Mass

her dispirited heart
sinks into dusk
and darkness eats
into her light

2

A black ant
pulling the broken wing
of a butterfly
in the portico
of Bodyguard House
on hilltop
the scattered cloud overhead
paying tribute

3

Behind the hill the drill goes on
the shooting unmindful of traffic
and children returning from school
for peace beyond quiet Sikkim
the politicians in-flight
with rhetoric of denial for freedom
to Gurkhalis living on the edge
I don't know how to cheer the mind of time
or walk in the stillness of land
shrouded in haze and struggling sun

4

No one knows
when the sun will be clouded
or when it will rain
in Ramdhura
women and weather match

the swagger in party
and the day long hangover
is no poetry:

I feel the foggy rise
from the hills below
and smile at my granddaughter
saying, "It's stormy
let's get in"

5

Helpless like a child
I cry but there's no mother--
my pain turns monstrous
on a hilly bed I lie
aged burden but who cares

6

How strange we always
seek to stay high above sky

mountains and rivers
obey rules of gravity
in sync with nature

I'm in awe of mysteries
too complex to understand

now back to Bangalore
again I suffer people
stuck, threatened by movement

and life evades as ever

--R K Singh