THE LEPER'S LUNCH

{ Inspired from a personal experience }

Yonder was a Wednesday noon
The October sky, up high
Pastels of blue, pinks
And golden hues
She beamed up high,

A siren of the 50s.

Her jewel brewed brine from
A frail body of mine,
A body played by
Life and her wits
To bits of veil,
Bought for a better marriage.

The heat balmed my flesh
Melancholy marred by monotony
I saw the grey craters of a rising moon
She, a faded pearl of the night,
Masking her golden nemesis of the sky
In beauty, worth, poetry and more.

I've walked down this murky path alone
Several times before, several times after now.
A shack that was once a home,
No more yellow canaries
To tweet me a bye.

My mind rumbled along with
The stones on which I tumbled.
To balance my youthful body
I immure my soul of its own.

Oh! Longing for a downpour of rains
To wet my body, to whet my appetite.
To slip down the road
And dance away the pains,
To live on this earth
Over the moon!

As my brains knotted along the road
To twisted revelations,
Of this, friends, strangers and ghosts;
Trying to keep my left
Yet, to be reminded
by honks and bonks and the dust in my conks.
To enact a life
We chose to know
And chose to see,
I chanced upon this small brown man,
Frowned with age, bound with bondage
To a friend that loves
To slowly feast on his flesh!

I think he is a midget,
Seized at the corners by shun.
Pulled down by the grimaces
Of a thousand faces
Known, unknown,loved and disliked,
That saw not beyond
A receding man in a yellow rag.

He looked like a creature
Out of the huge yellow box
Fishing out a pack
Of unopened fried rice..

Rich man's waste, a leper's joy tonight.

And with the smile of a child
Whose eyes held delight
A novice to the fair,
He squat on the ground
Crazed by his joy,
Nimbly guarding his feast
With little nibbled fingers
Which once held, stroked and played
Every face of love!

No more in his world was
You anymore than I
Glutton gnawing in the glory.
The eyes that watched him
He uncalled for.

For he who woke up to a sunrise and
Roamed the streets under a sky,
Unclad feet, uncared for
In the heat and cold alike.
Senseless.
Baseless.
Comfortably numb.
No random thoughts, to hang on.
Nobody to own
And to be belonged.
A stone for a bed
And the shadows of night his cover.

I, a slave of my rants
A queen of supposed laughters
A loud woman who pitied none but me
Heavily kohled eyes
Woke up to a blinding light.

The sun finally rose in the daze of
An unsettling mind
to love, capture, give and shine!
As it sank into the sky
Dropping a kiss sublime..