POETRY
Poems From My Travels Through India
A distant journey through a wild place
Beginning
Warming streets, shadowed by the rising sun meeting the paradoxical constructions below it.
The hungry dogs, rickshaws and hut shops, delivery boys and old sari-clad ladies working for the cleanliness of a dusty street.
Clothes hang in a window frame.
Below, pigeons, outnumbered, stick to higher ground.
Rusted iron bars, aloe vera and an unknown spice, fresh, planted in dense red dirt in pots at my feet.
I sit on a black stone windowsill, an empty cup of sweet coffee beside, my throat dry from the persistent fan as I slept.
Precarious men inspect and construct — a building half way that looks neither new nor old, a rice truck and a scent of hash drift under my nose.
The young and the old, hopeful and reserved as they walk by in each their own step.
My dreams fulfil my fears and hopes and I’m still not quite sure where I am.
But it’s beauty astounds me, quietens and humbles me.
Some part of it makes sense: it’s instinct in a naked freedom.
And everything makes sense in a world that shouldn’t, and I almost feel home.
A challenge, a love to chase,
To have a soft heart in a hard place,
Have love and love will follow.
My dry eyes have seen enough from up here; I must put my feet on the ground.
Middle
Broken sleep and a hard floor, stove hot coffee and half eaten bora, fruit suspicious of apple and over-ripe pears.
Timid new riders on the morning street move to the rhythm of the new moon beat.
The freedom of a two-wheel, symbols of the freedom of India.
The traffic moves with a magnetic assurance.
School kids eager and burdened by the bags that carry their future.
I must teach my lungs to remember this air, this thick and powerful air, owned and operated by a countless crew.
Shaky hands I own, that reach for a new understanding, I must control my high, control my hand.
Seeking control in a world of chaos.
A stone hits the bottom and I must sit back, seep into submission.
Blood sugar bounce and the hunger sets in.
A stall in sequence, a cultural crow.
The curtain hides me out and a privacy glow.
The men on the street and the women on show,
Burdened with life on no passage I know.
Symbols and gestures, of words to and fro,
A language of love on me to bestow.
End
I’m still not here, nothing has set in, I feel as though I’m waiting.
Still testing the waters but eager to dive in and find my mind again.
My subconscious seems pre-occupied, organising and categorising the last few years of my life.
No wonder my instincts are driving me to sleep.
I still feel trapped by the world I left behind.
This Indian man who talks of his indignation against mundane suburbia – the paradoxical epitome of his very hatred.
I need to leave, find those akin to my perspective, that hold their own and have an open love to share and learn.
I must leave this naïve arrogance.
I’m attracted to those places where I cannot hear the sound, the noise but my own beat.
Where I can hide and hold a riddle, solve and unfold the middle of my mind.
I’m beginning to resent
Every filth-filled street and begging thief,
Every dirty lie and hidden smile,
Every naked impulse and proud disgrace.
My patience has narrowed and my temper quick,
Yet I’m pushing on, I’m thinking thick.
But I can’t drown in this pool forever,
I have to come up to breathe,
It seems this world no better,
Through a breath a burden to heave.
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