iridescent wings
along with orange bellies . . .
sky sweepers soaring
the sharp warning cry
when a nest of birds I spy . . .
barn swallows dive-bomb
Offside the tree row
Plank the nuts and autumn leaves
As sweepers keep them.
The road sweepers
Giggled happily
While collecting and carrying rubbish
With a one wheel cart
The construction workers
Sweated heavily
While collecting and carrying bricks
With a one wheel cart
As children
We played secretly
With the one wheel cart
Carrying inside a little girl as a bride
And the cart rolled and rolled
Until it disappeared from our eyes
Together with our child brides
Maybe with only some heartbroken memories left
To this progressive world
Jeepers creepers can’t believe your peepers
Sweepers keepers jumping josey leapers.
Gleepers fleepers dallying with sneepers.
Reapers heapers willful wonder kneepers
Sleepers greepers foremost firstly weepers
Deepers sheepers giving golden fleepers
Cheepers zeepers living with grim reapers
Jeepers creepers can’t believe your peepers
Jasper is the ultimate peddler man
Has all the supplies and says “I can”
He is the quintessential help you with it man.
He has things to wash your windows,
Sweepers for your floor.
He’s got polish for your shoes, your sheets and more.
No matter what the problem he has a solution.
Jasper can get rid of mongrel dogs, mites, germs, and pollution
His braggadocio ways are well known around here.
We call him when we need him. He is always near.
The old tree
Too wither for the sun
Too thick for the rain
Too big for the wind
Too old for the oldies to tell stories
Too bristle for the youngsters to climb upon
Too shady and blocking for the view of the road
Too many leaves for the sweepers
Too dangerous for the lightning
Too big for the children to embrace
Have to give way to safety and developments
An old stump is left
A soothing greenery is lost
But the laughters it once brought
Remain in the mind of the children
Twenty long desert years
sweeping scorpions into their pits
over and over and over again
Now the sweepers are leaving in haste
not enough blood money to be made.
Scorpions are pouring back out of their pits
Stingers held high above the heads of Biden's Bedouins-
The electric jolt of the city stops
It bows like a sapling in a February storm
The thirsty windows collect the drops
The heart, the pulse of the place— still warm
Still whispering behind doors, under grates
Beyond the snowy garrison of the city, Spring swarms
Over the yawning, gushing streams the melt creates
Near the child with the mud covered sneakers
The icy mist that lingered dissipates
Blooming from trees, fresh buds are sweepers
Brushing off the flecks of dirt and snow
They become the season’s youngest keepers
A wind to break the back does blow!
A new era is but a stone’s throw!
~For Regina McIntosh’s contest “Heart Universes”
Tuesday, February 9th, 2021
Today April 06,2020 in my city
In the time of return home from my office
In GEC circle I am advised by a duty police to stay safe from nCoV-19
'To wear face mask and wash hands'
I was laughing at the advice with my inside mind
I do not know actually
If wearing mask and washing hands can save a life
Then no need to live with overall neat and clean body,
Then who will wash the most used and poisonous taka, every seat of buses
Then who will save thousands of homeless street beggars,
Then who will save the poor sweepers, blacksmiths, potters, burga farmers
those who live always with filthy dust, dustbin, rubbish, mud....
06.04.2020 (Chattogram City)
To some, there is a “good side”
When you’re posing for a pic
And people show their “good sides”
Sometimes trying to be slick.
But if somewhere in Manhattan
Is the place from whence you hark
Then you know the “good side” means one thing –
The side where you can park.
For streets are cleaned 6 days a week
On alternating sides
With posted signs reminding us
To move away our rides.
So for an hour and a half
One side of every street
Is free of cars so sweep machines
Can make their work complete.
Most drivers sit inside their cars
Until the sweepers pass
Then quickly move back to their spots
So fines they won’t amass.
You’re lucky, though, if when you park
You snag a “good side” spot
For then a small reprieve, worth more than gold,
Is what you’ve got.
Down through the greener woods of Uma,
Through the lions’ den to the green mamba’s palace,
Near the dik dik’s habitat,
As the antelope took off to escape the rage,
Of the approaching leopards whose paws protruded,
Upon the trees were vultures the street sweepers,
Freely interweaving chores with weaver bird choirs,
Whose melodious tuning meant zero to the jungle-
Whose circle a train man decided to cremate,
Elephants hitting their tusks clumsily-
To secure escape routes as rhinoceros tails wagged by,
On their bellies, precious pythons unwounded their rings,
To fit in the general jungle athletics
As the dark pan paper like smoke covered
Rapidly converting the small milieu into-
A small tentative night before a see through,
Thorough plights epitomized the sodomic tragedy
And the Gomorra wails.
As he moved down the valley to Naili Center
Nyama choma’s aroma spread in the setting
As occupants of a small matatizo City
Saw through to Lake Matatizo bounds-
Silence in Uma.
Pearls of sweat trickling down the cheeks
On the cup of warm tea
As the vendor sells his ice cream
It is a poetry
The fish seller from dawn to noon
Toils hard and earns little
Her smile always reveals poems
Her health is though brittle
Sunshine writes rhyme on the muscles
Of sweepers on the street
With heavy brooms they keep shining
Our roads in scorching heat
The little girl as she washes
Cups and plates in tea stall
Her dimples twinkle in bright light
From the tall shopping mall
Clouds feel the burning heat in which
The working class survives
They all gather above their heads
And welcome rain arrives
A car stops near the hospital
A patient is moved in
By that gate a corpse is moved out
Abrupt twitch in my chin
Words are restless in life and death
To bloom in poetry
I try to set them through my pen
When neurones are in glee
Even when a leaf falls at night
Under the apple tree
Whispers moonlight your job is done
Now you will come with me
The bubbling ripples in your brook
Are so charming in rain
That I cannot help carving out
Dark blue dream in my vein
September 5, 2017
In the month of July during whirlpool
A Legacy was born to challenge a fool
Who in sphere of market did money drool.
As all feast and dance and sing in yule
Many people like Vipul, Maulik and Sanket rule
Over minds of customers who remain very cool
In our D-Mart which served as a perfect tool,
Come and join the ever-widening D-Mart Whirlpool.
All - cashier, attendants, owners, sweepers - pull
Praise, sympathy, good words and have globule.
There are many wicked, old, shrewd ghoul
Who conspire against you O! D-Mart, My soul!
ACs, clean floor, smiling faces and nature cool ;
Bhaiya, didi, managers, workers, watchmen Spool
Are the real source of income than other tool,
Come and join the ever-widening D-Mart whirlpool.
Future is bright of D-Mart with such module,
It also includes good products, service Gruel.
No judge can verdict anything like rice overrule
Or China food item never finds in its pool;
Clean and healthy food items, fine variety gul
And great discount on many items that ridicule
Those who conspire despise it for its fame and tool,
Come and join the ever-winding D-Mart whirlpool.
The rules are posted on a sign –
The city’s made its mark –
Instructing drivers there are times
They’re not allowed to park.
The streets require cleaning
So at certain listed hours
The sweeper truck comes swishing through
And picks up trash and scours.
But certain selfish drivers
See those rules and just ignore ‘em,
Assuming that there’s little chance
A cop’ll come before ‘em.
And so the sweeper sweeps around
The cars that will not budge,
Thus leaving certain city streets
With detritus and sludge.
Of course, those drivers drive away
And leave within their wake
A dirty patch the sweepers missed
For someone’s selfish sake.
There is a sliver of the dawn
upon the earth and sky,
as escort to the sun that speeds the day
and will not let it die....that rushes forth
aggressively upon the penitence of night.
So is the love that travels on that constancy,
in haste to flood the nether earth
with light arriving as a grace,
that perquisite inborn in all humanity,
and dusty with neglect.
It falls upon us, sweepers of
this cosmic bridal path, to celebrate
a permanent retreat of shadow,
consecrate the razored liberation
of surrender to the dark.
It falls to morning as the benison of day.
Its racing touch upon the sluggish earth
is the pursuer, not the fugitive.
It is the fabled hound of heaven,
its brilliance a progenitor,
an aid to understand
the raging nebulosity of man.
~
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