To the non Wonder

In our days of learning the slum-alphabets

we craved of sugar-topped coconut balls

served in a silver dish.

That never came about.

With a pistol in my hand and a raging

youth in my loins, I had given in

to the picture of wonder, and

meekly submitted, like a damaged

Dorian Gray, plunging inside

the dark pollens of rhododendrons.

Love to me was stories

that rich people told their kids

at bedtime. The wagon-breakers,

the mongrels born out of

streetside fucks didn’t get

a Christmas present.

The gentle greenery was swaying with

moist, complaining river wind that evening.

When I saw my son thrusting himself

into a woman, teeth and nails bare,

burning his wonders into

a hot vicious brand, I was sitting with

my share of bullets, counting stars that

never shone on people who grew up

under homes made of plastic shades.

A piece of the forgotten

On the other side of the wall

that moons can see on earth, lies

a river with five faces. The suburban

myth led people to jump to their

death here, thinking that under

the gray abyss of water

was Atlantis.

On mornings laced with fumes

of roasted ducks and fried

catfish, blind hawkers made

their way to the bigger

spectacle of a city with

skyscrapers. Little bougainvilleas

coming out from the creaks

of the wall are fed by

bone-wishes of people buried there.

It is a strange curio-shop of old

people and even older wishes,

wrapped hastily by

banana-leaves, yellowing

every second.