Lullaby for whoever needs it (to the tune of ‘Greensleeves’)

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Anxiety, you do me wrong,
To task me so discourteously
For I have shunned you, oh so long
Undesiring of your company.

Deep sleep is all I want,
Deep sleep here in my bed
Deep sleep would be nice right now
So please get out of my head.

If you think you and I are friends,
I can’t say that I blame you
But this is where our friendship ends
Don’t make me up and shame you.

Anxiety, you’re meant to be
A sign of dysfunctionality
Anxiety, oh don’t you see
No fun is had in your society.

So Anxiety, farewell, adieu
There’s other words that I won’t use
But one begins with an F and you
Will hear it if you refuse.

Anxiety, if you were me
You’d find someone else to do
And I would find somewhere else to be
Anxiety, if I were you.

The Measure of Debt

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How sweetly sleep the tree-lined streets

That guide the city’s weary. Unbearably

Light their burden tonight, the thin-soled

Steps of the unchosen in flight. How sweetly 

Scented and cleanly airy the lone highways

Under the cool moon’s light, their painted lines

Barely marking the grime of thousands of

Footprints crossing the white. How sweetly 

Flows the river blue through the city as it used

To do, rippling our endless thirst for beauty

That is our civilizational right. Spilt milk shared

By animals and men who bend their mouths

To the dark asphalt, sunrise placing of hunger’s

Hope mark the tar six feet apart. It used to be

That the beauty of death was that all it asked

Was six feet of ground. It used to be we kept 

In sight the measure of debt owed to Beauty’s

Might.

 What do the Icelandic do without their pools?

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When things get tricky the Icelandic aren’t too picky

They stay indoors, line up at stores,

Do their chores and mop their floors,

Report their symptoms if they start feeling peaky

Work from home and stay out of schools but

What do the Icelandic do without their pools??

Rumour has it they can’t live without them

They’re essential for the locals to be able to

Keep their wits about them. Babies and mothers,

Athletes, newly wed brides, and nuns, among others,

Philosophers, doctors, farmers, and fools 

What do the Icelandic do without their pools?!

No soaking in the hot tubs, no water-jet back rubs,

No gossip with swimsuited friend, no kids splashing 

In the shallow end, no lobster-hued legs as you go

From the forty degree hot pot to sit in the snow

No cloud of steam on shoulders bare, no dipping

Underwater to melt the icicles in your hair. No 

Resolving your traumas by having a good soak,

Pandemics are one thing, but is this a joke?!

Do  they raise their arms to the skies and stare

Wildly about, smother a scream and stifle a shout?

Do they refuse to eat, put down their tools? I feel 

Their stress, their anguish and tension, and thus 

I seek an answer to this most pertinent question:

How do they stay Viking strong and keep their cools?

What do the Icelandic do without their pools?!

On reading that the water of the Ganga is clean enough to drink again

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They say the water of the holy river 

Is clean enough now for people to drink. They

Would have us believe that cleansing it

Is actually much more important than 

We think. That the blood in my veins runs

Thicker, that the life it gives burns quicker,

That the trail we leave is slicker than a burst

Oil tanker, more life-giving than the bloodless

Bodies that no longer feed the divine demands

Of the river. Maybe it is. Maybe tributaries

And streams collect our mortal remains, our

Little dirty dreams, immersed in our fossil-fueled

Caves, no unclogged channel that drains our

Over-flowing hearts. That holy river has its own

Source, it doesn’t need our bodies but it asks

Them of us that it may run its course. Death and the

River are reluctantly parted, the more we die, the

Less we understand how all this started. And we, 

Who knows where hope springs, who knows 

What tomorrow brings. All we can see is this 

Water and this blood run together unconsecrated 

In this unprecedented flood.

A Song for Venus

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She rises and sets with the sun, her brightness

Second only to the moon. The one 

Woman among the nine – or eight if you 

Consider size –  born to bear life, like Earth.

The wings of Icarus fell like the borrowed 

Feathers they were; the body of Venus tells 

The story of every woman who ventures

Too near the light, every blasted rock testament

To the fierce and fiery fight. Like every

Woman’s skin scorched and blighted, Venus’s

Face frights the timid-sighted. For pity

Of man’s eyes, a mantle drapes her livid scars

And so she blazes briefly in the skies, defying

Sun and moon, in a sisterhood of stars.

Mr Joe the Therapy Cat

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Generally concerned, but in particular, that

When a choice is offered of laptops

The troubled hoomans prefer to hold

The one that makes them frown and groan

And flail about and droop and drop. He wishes

They would simply do as they were told

And exercise their digits on his back and

Chin. One can see his patience is running 

Thin, in fact is almost gone. He would much

Prefer their laptops to the ones that

He is on.

My Art Will Go On

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“You know”, I say, as I tuck my fingers between hers,

“My teacher put balls of crumpled brown paper

Between mine.” She grimaces, part ai-ai part

Ew, but her fingers figure out what to do.

She fans them out, positions the bow,

And launches into the famous Titanic ballad. Slow,

Painful, amid much cracking and clattering,

I hear the music emerge. That is how I know

It goes on. This feel of the wood singing

Under the fingertips, forgotten so long

The urgings of the kid bringing the old 

Joy surging back into the veins. The art

Strains the wrist, but the heart 

Has little respect for middle age’s aches 

And pains. And goes on. 

For Ashley, Aswathy, and all those sending food to the unhoused on the long road home

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You can tell you’re home because they feed you.

Bowls and platters filled in love fried and sautéed and

Curried by hand each spice and grain and leaf 

Chosen with care because you’re home and they need you

To know how good it is to have you in the circle

Of their arms, out of harms way. You could say

That this recent splurge of breads and cakes

Exotic recipes, tender meats, and aromatic

Bakes is a circling of arms about ourselves, 

A reaching up into neglected cupboards to

Shake a little love from tins on our shelves.  Such

A strange thing, food. Hastily wrapped

Meals, made by strangers for nameless strangers

Trapped between the leaving and the returning

So many unhoused each one unknown. Such a

Strange thing, food, delivered in packets,  

Hundreds at a time, carrying the promise of home.

A Hundred and One Nights of the Falcon

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Where I come from, no gift comes in round numbers. No ten

Rupees is ever given, it is always eleven, a token

Of not finishing, not ending, the extra one a harbinger

An invitation, a wish, a granting of plenty, of more

To come. Auspicious, we call it. A bringing to the fore

Of a promise for the years before the young. Where

I come from there is a tale of a clever woman who staved

Off death with a thousand tales, each one saved

For another night won, a full thousand and one. Where

I come from, legend has it that women sat vigil not 

One night or two, not a couple, a handful, a dozen, a 

Few. Stories are told in hushed tones of a full hundred 

And one, every thrower of stones has heard it, every 

Wielder of guns. Songs are sung of the women of the night

Who spread their wings, became falcons, and took flight.

Flowers in One Sitting

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Pabbi would buy flowers whenever he could.
At home this was an expensive and not often
Done thing. Elsewhere the very streets beckoned
The colours were rich and the prices were good.
Mom could take anything green to her heart
And in her hands it would bloom just to please
Her, and on her table it would blossom into
Art. The kids, one summer, brought bunches
Of wild lupin, blue as ceramic jugs, home
From their wanderings. Their grandmother
Found bowls and vases and white watering
Cans in which they lounged, nonchalant
In their riotous glory. You could say
It’s a family story. My inept floundering
When it comes to things beautiful and bright.
It’s a good thing I get the shadows right.