untitled 19

in may the city empties,
not my friend.
they have gaons with curls and
corners
safe-keeping shards of a growing up.
may my friend can bear.
long suns, short moons.
no ifs and mays in may.
alphonsos fly Gulf Air;
at the Press Club has a couple of beers.
ferreting futures from unclear foreheads,
trailing palms with magnifying glasses,
brews a short, cooling may storm.
footballs, without goalposts, take the park air;
bereft of stumps, cricket balls course gullies.
may reminds of the double-spread of a maidan
with hooghly, at the edges, tuning rabindra sangeet;
growing without women,
adrift on howrah bridge looking for exits, entries.
may is morning strolls with madhubala, smita patil on
marine drive.
in may my friend lost Tathiya in the middle of a
beedi puff, half a glass of rum;
a shady porch was his premise;
belonged to pensive streaks of creeks,
greens in distant suburbs;
a police constable tending gardens;
a lathi in a corner confirmed his profession;
chuckled over imagined chases of pickpockets
never having strained into a run;
pondered over crosswords in marathi eveningers.
Oliver became Oliver Iyer in May;
the sacred, white thread explaining the makeover;
the priest, costing $ 1,000, fried shlokas in a sacrificial fire;
a samskrit scholar gave the english version.
it went for a while as Oliver Iyer
took breaks for a smoke, a nip and a kiss with an
american girl friend.
fingers twirling the thread,
oliver iyer googled a query:
"what's in it for me?"
"brahminised brahman, a non-fiction,"
said the fiction maker.
may is like that.
ice-creamed passion.
blogging poems unvisited.
delicious hours.
delicious desires.    

untitled 18

tired of backpacking Lord Ganesha
across lands and rivers,
Lord Mouse pleaded for a breather;
a ride on Lord Ganesha's broad back
as a favour;
Lord Ganesha obliged.
a crow flew low,
forked Lord Mouse with sharp beaks,
leaving Lord Ganesha waddling
on arthritic legs;
Lord Ganesha is learning to drive;
application for a car loan has been
rejected as the applicant is asset-less. 

untitled 17

Pickled in edgy times
pratap shinde buried a long-sick
crow in the mangroves abutting a line
of shacks.
a senior citizen,
mans a housing society on nights
with a lathi;
rushes to the gates as tipsy executives
file in and out spouting american slang
at any slack;
sees no purchase in being still.
was a weaver in a textile mill
till mills became malls,
denied dues by millowners with
swiss accounts.
his wife packed up like textile trade unions.
two sons run autos in magic vengurla
where the sea throws folk-taled fish.
sparrows have taken over the roof his shack;
cats stroll in and out of a doorless home
containing a bareness.
nights do not sleep shinde.
stretched on a string cot
dozes the day to the churn of an
unprivate city.