SAINT THOMAS, VERSES 135 - 141
Mark Traill
20 May 2008, 10:43Flight number 65
Delhi-Mumbai
(Internal Flight)
Optimistically peer at the clouds all around
Plastic food tasting pretty good now
Been losing count of apsaras speeding past
The airbus, I hear their chorus above
The whoosh of the turbine engines
“Sleep”, they urge
“Rest” they sing
And dream of her
Then dream of him?
And which to answer?
By what name?
And can you hide
Your mother’s shame?
My visas date
Returns to west
A pillow promise
To build a nest
But not just yet
I’m not quite done
And explanations
Will spoil my fun
Electronic letter I never did pen
Read: Darling; how is my bride?
I’m fine if you’re worried
And slept for the flight
I dreamt of our baby
Asleep by your side
So the journey here was the best yet
Arrived in Bombay in time for sunset
Crazy city, masses on masses
Of starlets and moguls and beggars and taxis
Ancestor’s remnants are splattered on bricks
But faded like empires forgotten edicts
Darling! I digress!
The food here makes perfect sense!
I had a Tali yesterday for under 50 pence!
I’m leaving Mumbai soon
I’m heading for the ghats
And when I’m there, I’ll mail you again
Love and kisses
Thomas
(Your rat)
xxx
“Gateway to India” is no so thing
Just an arch built by peasants
For a man they called King
Who’s dead in the soil
His diminished dominions
Had cast him aside
And drove him from kingdoms
Where sovereigns returned
To thrones made of ash
All Kings are the same
They’re desperate for cash
Even Brahma insists
We cascade from top down
Please show me a king –
A lord with three crowns
Colaba, an island surrounded by marsh
Filled in with concrete for boots of the Raj
Immersive brown seas, I swim to a cave
Paying my rupees as tourists make way
To gaze at the sculptures hewn in the rock
Defacement by Latin’s whose practice now shocks
They couldn’t bring down the king with six eyes
Trimurti Sadashiva, let’s start on the right:
An angel with lips that can kiss you with life
That offers me rosebuds and millions of wives
The left head looks through me in vehement drama
With flames and moustache it’s Aghora Bhairava
Thomas looked this way and Thomas looked that
He didn’t feel sensual, his anger was flat
Look on to the centre to the lord we attest
The calm and the peace is the king we like best
Man, this journeys gotten heavy
And I’m more stoned than Mumbadevi
Bouncing rickshaw drivers crazy
Shakes his fist and spits marathi
Blasts his horn and scores me drugs
I buy him food and he just shrugs
Then drives me through his seven lands
“No fare to pay! Just fun, understand?”
And what price “fun”, what is the deal?
“Your hotel floor and maybe a meal
My wife has kicked me out from home
And you’re Christian
You’re from Rome”
He’s curled on my floor; so I tell him my tale
He laughs through the smoke, then coughs and inhales
His English is splendid, and so are his ears
That listened to Thomas and gathered his tears
He offers me chillum and wefts me a story
That paints me a village on the banks of Godavari
Three families, a boy, a girl and a man
Mothers and Fathers and duty had banned
The boy and the girl from holding hands
So the man and the girl would go on as planned
A puja, a prayer and the fire of life
Lost the boy to the girl who was now the mans wife
The boy married later but still holds her hand
In his heart and his mind, his wife cannot stand
To be part of his life if he shares it with her
When dreaming believing it’s safe to be heard
“But enough of my woes, for you have your own
A journey to Mapusa is closer to Rome
And somewhere nearby, a saint you can see
His name is the same as the saint of Assisi”
