POWER LINES
The revolt will be an electric current
from a broken power line
A crouching wild animal in the bushes
ready to strike at the ones
who dare to love it with a touch
Its fury pent up
from being coated with insulation
for far too long
from trudging from post to post
lighting up twilights with its caged feats
When it snaps
it will follow its lightning lovers
leaving none alive on the ground
LEFT RIGHT LEFT
You wave. The street splits into two
The wrong turn is you
An obsessed nostril sniffs out intentions
Kisses are always political
I want to stop and breathe out the years without you.
The wind fleeing on a bird wing leaves me a feather
The left is a body with an unwashed feel to it; It reeks
of desire, of faded sheets and fenugreek
Its navel lint, slightly silky rubs against
my privileged indifference
Cross legged my defenses squat
juggling mischoices
Free air breathes me into its pockets
The green light waits. It is right but I am not convinced
It is not a leaf-shade-pond-shadow green
Your hand raised in anticipation of being clasped is clean
It is the spotless dream this careful city honks away
All that is left is not right
INDEPENDENCE DAY SAMBAR
I am making the simple sambar
simple to those who know how to
Like the Tamil cook from the vegetarian hotel near my home
who makes sambar in his sleep
The vegetables are a strange assortment
You must put in ones that won’t mind the presence
of the others or at least will tolerate it
The dal goes in at the bottom.
You know like the feeling of Indian-ness among Indians.
The yams, the religiously itchy tough ones
must be tossed in first
then the softer, easy-to-mash ones
like carrots, beans, eggplants, potatoes and onions
like unity, integrity, faith, brotherhood and beliefs
All must be cut into similar shapes, sizes
so that none can bully the others
and all get cooked evenly like in our nice schools
flavoured with salt and turmeric
that like patriotism must seep
and mollify the jarring, individual tones
Finally the softest ones, okra and tomatoes
go in at the top if you want them to
or die waiting in the refrigerator basket
pretty much like decency and self-respect
The tamarind paste, undoubtedly a hallmark feature
like the tanginess of bonglish, manglish, and others we relish
The asafetida, the curry leaves, the sambar powder
must be added as and when you please
like our impeccable manners
when asked to stand in queues and wait
Then you must boil the holy hell out of these wholesome greens
The humble sambar is now ready
Come, dunk in your dosas and idlis
and learn how to eat this country
THE FUTURE IS ANAEROBIC
Don’t dream of them growing up
Carpe diem
Your growing belly is a fort
Croon them that lullaby now
Outside, the battlefield of abject despair,
careless, unpaid bills and callous excuses
is polishing its boots
ready to march under the tricoloured excuse of an emotion
that demands blind obeisance
to celebrate its seventy years of fragile freedom
Your warrior kicks impatient to be born: to be gone
Pat that bump. Be gentle as only you can be
but resist the dilation
Tell the little one not to hurry
There are too many lifeless toys and vacant cribs
and none to take responsibility
Name the nine-month dream after another helpless god by all means
but it’s no guarantee for getting it a whiff of oxygen
CRATERS IN THE MOON
You haven’t seen me paint a sunset yet
on an abysmal canvas that keeps turning dark
my palms cupped below to keep the sun in it
as you diminish in installments
to become a ragged bird wing
It hurts to see you fall a little more every day
The blue is a spider bursting out from capillaries
crawling all over my thighs
A crater gapes where the sand was once
It is throwing up flowers with a vengeance
before salt overpowers the dusk
The moon is a silver snitch, your pale sidekick
The muezzin hollers, his voice is a worm
crawling through stricken passages into the sky
and reversing its path into tunnels
where laughing girls lean on walls
throwing their hair over their faces
Nudity isn’t allowed, you say. Only rape is.
Children play tippety-tap on keyboards
Their eyeballs ricochet off virtual walls
Auto settings have disintegrated through disuse
Vision sacrificed, they look through tinted windows
feeling just another night. Show them, won’t you?
The might of indifference
The power that comes with it
and how to chip away at the small stars
come out of the cloud covers
to play on the darkened beach
Sleep, sleep a little more
See a lot less
GENDER BIAS
Seated on the hill top you promise your sons
young and old
forty one days of health, of rest and of clean living
but neglect their
Each of the eighteen steps they climb
they have rehearsed gratefully
chanting your name
while having the bed to themselves
while their women lie someplace away covered
their fecundity seeping all over the floor
though they bleed every month
to keep your devotee throng stronger
“O’son of Hari and Haran
the invulnerability of the asura lives on
through her female offspring-
the daughters who rise before dawn
to scrub the lamps
their day beginning with the stench of rotten flowers
and cook the freshest of stuff for the Swamis
while their bellies hang in two folds-
one from carrying mortal love
and the other from eating stale leftovers
Bio note
Reena Prasad is a writer from India, currently living in Sharjah. Her poems have been published in several anthologies and journals e.g. The Copperfield Review, First Literary Review-East, Angle Journal, Poetry Quarterly, GloMag,York Literary Review, Lakeview International Journal, Duane’s PoeTree, etc. She is the Destiny Poets UK’s, Poet of the year, 2014 and co- editor of The Significant Anthology and Silhouette I & 2. She won the Reuel International Prize for poetry, 2018.
