Page 29 - Poems
P. 29
CENTRAL LINE
SWAYING BETWEEN LEFT AND RIGHT
very single deity I have not running train so roomy ahead
Esought since turning adult all the empty handles like hand-
and reverently agnostic cuffs missing their prisoners
is with me now on the one-o-nine out on parole, all the solitaries
slow from the Maratha Warrior like me, missing broad swathes
to the Thane of Fife. At Masjid of yellow-blue-green on the
they blow the horns and all left where a couple catches a
stampedes end in prayer. private moment on a miraculously
Seven palm trees genuflect, empty platform. Deity of Miraculous
at Samuel Street the Juni Emptiness be praised.
Masjid, not mosque at all On board, the sari-clad
but synagogue, throws open gazelle-eyed beauty stares
its two-hundred-year-old Gate thoughtfully at me from an
of Mercy. At Sandhurst Road ARE YOU BEING HARASSED
the old Guv has not yet heard poster, winsomely winning me
the story of his imminent over to her gentle way of resisting
demolition and curls his toes every molester with a simple
appreciatively as the female phone-call. Deity of Self-
loudspeaker warns us to Mind Preservation, to you my kick-boxing
the Gap in three languages classes I dedicate, to you my karate
between the footboard and chops, fresh grilled light rare well-
the platform while alighting done, to you my taekwondo salaam.
from the train please do not I am trained, fit and able to take
leave your belongings on any and all the scum.
from here to way back when. But Chinchpokhli chinchpugli
Historic since 1921, the Deity you mad tamarind, you sweet child
of Preservation rides past of betel nut and tamarind,
the banyan tree on the left chinchpooghly you land-locked
and garlands of shiny sister to the Hooghly, you almost
packets that hang around pass me by, asbestos sheeted roofs,
the necks and arms of little shops ghar baithe kaam, recumbent
while on board the beggar-blind ladder on brown shroud, Deity
has been clinking his coins in tune of Honest Labour, to you
with his song since the very my laal salaam. At Parel puhrul
beginning of time, to the Deity I see surds everywhere, blue-black-
of Give-unto-others-as-you. yellow turbans adding up to an
At Byculla bhaikhulla once irrational number consonant with
owned by a Portuguese king this hour. Deity of Irrational Numbers,
please do not lean out of the see me through the roots of this day,
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