Mendonca, Brian: Indian English poet from Goa; a publishing professional,
currently working with Oxford Unveristy Press, YMCA Library Building, 1 Jai
Singh Road, New Delhi 110001. email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mobile:
9818432507
INDIAN DELIGHTS
Where palm leaves
Cradle 'idlis' and 'uttapams'
Where castle confronts bishop
In fierce contention,
Where across the chowk
A young girl waits at dusk,
Red salwar preening lying eyes,
And a trumpet plays,
As 'rickshaas' idly stare
It's 'No tea "saar"
Only 'Kaphe'
('Indian Delights' restaurant Pondicherry, Sep.29,1998)
SLIPPERS IN THE SAND
Slippers in the sand
Like mackerals in a heap
Share the laughter
Of children at play.
The setting sun
Enclapses them in his warm embrace
As through the grey drizzle
Of fleeting clouds
Close enough to touch,
A rainbow arcs through the twilight.
Along the seashore of tomorrow
One more chance is all it asks for.
(Baina beach, Vasco Goa Oct 11, 1998)
FREEDOM SONG
On ancient papers
you spewed rebuke
>From a father to a son
the words tumble forth
'We had hoped', 'We had wished'
tumble out in unison
To a bard of the fragments
In a space that is now.
(Delhi, Jan 8, 1999)
NH 10
Evening shadows
lick the night
Of lovers,
drinking deep of Taliyar lake.
Through the 'chunedi'
like the 'burkha'
the gaze of ages
speaks silently
As the asphalt road
Slithers into the past.
(Hissar, Feb 25,1999)
THANATOS
The body may arch
in pain
or in pleasure.
Both fictive mendicants
of the coin of life.
(Delhi, April 17,1999)
DELIRIUM TREMENS
The earth heaved
in her sleep
Somewhere around 12.45 A.M.
As the pea-hen shrieked,
the bed swayed
As if to a snake-charmer's pipe
And a flowerpot pranced
before my eyes.
The Hindu priest thought it fit
to play devotional music
(advanced by 4 hours
in this case).
The little white Pomeranian dog
felt this was unusual,
to be called out to play
in an open street
where people huddled
and spoke of Khillari.
(Sheikh Sarai, New Delhi March 29,1999)
HARI-DWAR
The mongrelyelps
in a bylanein Vishnughat
Vassal to Yudhistir
This time a Pom.
The jackfruit sways
with the mango, the 'pipal'
the 'neem' and 'Asoka'
As Marigolds and Mayflowers
weave a hymn to life.
ornat DHARAMSHALAS spew out grimpils
as sadhus in saffron cycle with certainity.
At Mansa Devi
PHOTOGRAPHY
OF PLANT
PROHIBITED
As matted locks survey the Ganga
On a cycle-rickshaw
trundling in the noonday sun
I read Krishnamurti on the pacific cow
'To be vulnerable is to live, to withdraw is to die.'
(Haridwar, May 4,1999)
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