Ode to Calcutta

I wish I weren't in this cold city
this city of coded bricks and listless roads
Ablaze under a brisk
Business like sun
Shiny without relief
Warm without succour

Energy devouring energy
Under melanin shields.

And I wish
I could dance dripping dreams,
Dazed in the rain,
Glistening in it's manna dew
When it comes.

But it pelts
Loud and arrogant
The drops downing no sorrow
But dousing acid regrets.
No nonsense, it slants
Sounding and pounding
Stab wounds of sarcasm.
No withheld melancholy
That cleanses grief
Gurgling down the drains...
No empty headed giggling
Girls skipping puddles
Irate maidens sidestepping
Splasher bys...
No placid grannies smiling like
Rainbows
No release of bitter sweet
Pungent dreams
Or breath taking beauty
In perceived calm...
After ablutions.

This city is an arrow to the
Next destination
Straight and narrow
A waiting room of
Suppressed narratives
And repressed desires.

I wish I were deeply embedded
In fertile soil
Black sweet fecundity
Kali's spell of mystery showers
Pouring off my tresses
My elbows hips and knees
Sinking
Under the weight
Of my desires
sweet soul's release
an escape
Of some morbidity
A few lies
and a little peace
Wrung out
in quiet aftermath
Of torrential
Downpour.
Unpretentious
Uninhibited
Brutally beautiful.

Eastwards ho
where the sun shines
Pink gold froth
And smiles benediction
On our purest supplication.

My birth place calls
my name on the lips
Of avian troubadours
serenade sweet heartbreak
And endlessly bill and coo
lovebirds of my loneliness
Upon soft sunlit windowpanes
urgent with longings.

(c) Amrita Valan 2016