The Tools of a Drunkard

The drunkard takes his tea

from the cop named Bharat

who releases him every

morning without bothering

to fill in the forms and papers.

The man has a long river

to cross, a short walk to toddle.

The man has to face

his cursing woman,

not the one he married once,

the one who lives with him.

The man has to gather

his handyman tools and sit

at the crossing near

the old and humid bazaar.

If the evening inn is lucky

he will get a job and some doughs,

otherwise he will home dry, early,

and face his cursing woman

in the dim light instead of listening

to her under the harsh sun.

What We Want

On Thursday asleep,

as I feel being, in the humid

afternoon, while waiting

for what we all wait for since

we begin this form of ours, this life,

and on this twenty-seventh day

since the neighborhood rape

and murder, fourteen hours since

the latest classroom shooting

in the US of A, sixty seconds

after the last bomb blasted

in the kingdom of the ruined things

I realise what we want -

the clarity of tiny vials, sorted

from the most white to the darkest

black on a shelf to study.

An eagle, sick, almost extinct,

circles to highlight its shriek

above my house, our houses,

and we wake up, feel

the pressure to urinate as one.