I

Deaf window, 

       Swears the world has gone quiet

While the sun gorges on its human diet.

          II

Silence in the hot lane

        Sleepy, dying, or on the wane,

Hears the shrieks of a song:

There were vultures in the Sun, all along.

          III

Summer abhors the dying.

          See how its banner of Bougainvillea is furled

And the Koel sings of undying beauty

         Round the fever of the sick living.

          IV

A time to abandon good friends:

   Hands, limp, heavy hands, hang from branches of dreams 

In moon salons and star bazaars – 

   Is this the best hand I have got?

April, deal the cards!

          V

Ennui of lawless winds

   Rummaging through fossils of sighs

Dust has muddied the lover’s tear,

   He thinks it is death,

And life yet to be.

          VI

In Spring a body, prim as a flower,

   Shook the cold morning hands of a doctor of physic,

They were in a hospital ---

   Down the hall

In a quiet ambulance memory lay dead,

Its stench awful.

Doctor and the beautiful cadaver

Looked at each other,

No one knew why they had come there at all. 

26th April 2021