Short In The Doldrums Poems

Clouds
of grey
winter gloom-
days meld into
one....

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My solitude is
like drifting in the doldrums
waiting for a breeze....

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BEFORE   AND   AFTER


For long years then
My days were lifeless
Dark and dry then 
Like a boat adrift 
In the doldrums then



Now I feel like a sail, 
That was  in the attic 
And now is taken to the sea 
Where real ocean winds 
Now are blowing into it....

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It wasn’t monsoon 
but toxic rain. 
Diya drenched
in the doldrums.
Her head bloated,
brain turned barren. 
Her body curved 
as a cashew nut.
Her legs and arms
dried. 


Aches and anxieties
grow up 
in the cashew farm.
Sad sap oozes
out of her mouth.
Her doll lies dead.
Now she isn’t a girl 
but a remnant
on an empty mat.


[Endosulfan is a 
deadly insecticide.]...

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The self 
is but a wicked dream 
that lifts you high 
to let you fall.

"Inflatable", men call such boast 
that stretches the imagine 
so to propel the I 
to heights unknown to none save "me".

A bloated thrill is I 
whose bubble bursts too soon, 
fading into the insignificance 
of a splat of spit.

Why do we flatter ourselves 
by raising pompous sails 
to catch the wind that blows 
in the doldrums of our self-esteem?...

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From cradle to grave the sun baked
the skin leather, un-oiled
and rain did not fall
for Isis with held her tears.
From the bloody care of womb
children popped like bread from
the oven of women, the urns of life, 
earthen were their colors
ocher, saffron, and 
some as black as basalt, rich…
with a Nubian glow.
How the small ones squeal
at the wadi’s edge.
How the toes of man and beast
dance at the skirt of mother Nile, 
sensuous, rippling with the wind,
or placid in the doldrums of summer sun....

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