The Slum-dweller

Curled inside a concrete pipe

Under the bridge

They had lived

Their hearts thudding against ribs,

As each trained clattered

And faded into distance.

Where they slept once

There’s now shredded concrete:

Naked bricks and rubble,

Chewed by mighty machines

Of the city fathers

Who said, “Of outsiders we must be free,

To build roads and Metros.”

The children, they cried

And cried to sleep

Till their throats were hoarse

And tongues dry, parched

Their hunger insatiate

From food foraged in garbage.

They were awaiting a peaceful tomorrow,

When today’s hubbub didn’t end

And the dream of a future

Faded before their eyes
The place they sqatted and shat
Became the swimming pool of a tower
The open place they went to fuck, a car park.

Together they journeyed

To a piece of sodden land

By the nullah in which floated scum and plastic

To a new life

A new beginning,

A new place to defecate
A new place to procreate.

Poet in Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

Yes, it’s lonely in the ICU

These machines will cease

Once I stop exhaling,

So I should go on, exist,

At least, to keep their mechanics going.

No blip, blip of my heart

Will be heard ever again,

No words, no rhyme, no crude comment,

No fights, no threats,

On my forum, or on my blog

If I cease this struggle

To keep these machines alive.

These contraptions, they embrace me,

Their tentacles, tubes,

Pin me down

Enclose me,

Twine a tightly choking grip

As if they are scared of losing me.

If I were I to break out

And reach for pen and paper

To make a small note

Scribble a short Haiku

Perhaps, a Villanelle

No, a short Sonnet

About the summer’s passing

Outside the blinded ICU windows;

And if I do that

I will recover from afflictions

They would be bereft and orphaned.

I must exist, yes, I should,

For these machines they would die otherwise.