When the New World Order Blooms…
Jayan K. Cherian
O my dear girl
who hurled the flaming torch of love
into the penance grove of dreams,
remember, we are exiles.
Our capital is the seed of poverty
that sprouts and grows up running
roots deep in the flesh.
I am aware of
the fear that’s raised in you by
the roaring chilly wind
your dark cheeks creasing
and your brown lips shivering in the cold.
The blood-stained khadi* sheet that we inherited
is useless here.
The impact of my rough lips...
for you the colorless memory
of a heated mating.
We at liberty
on this street in the heart of the city
where flow the shadows of gigantic towers
Between our lips, the liberty to kiss
Between our groins, the liberty to fuck:
Yes, this is the sacred land of liberty.
A memorial to liberty
on the navel of the river
erected by the prisoners of bellies
swollen with the overeating of liberty.
After painting white happiness
on the statue which was sucking
at the sweat-drop on its black nose-tip
the black sorrows disappeared into
the Subway tunnel
Thus the heaven of liberty became white....
Towards the painted lips that mate
at the crossroads
stretches a street.
Death boils
in life’s flesh-cups.
The idol of a bull
in the middle of the street.
Eyes in which appear
sleeping cowboy
and the handgun.
A pair of shiny footwear
A glittering coat
A soft hat
A pied puppy
that pushes its muzzle
into the cleavage of its mistress.
A ‘genteel’ personage
walking towards
the ‘New World Order.’
The protest of one
whose weekend wage
is snatched away
is the sobbing of the booze bottle
smashed in the middle of the street.
The roar of the extortionist...
The ‘declaration of independence’
of the oppressed....
This is the heavenly land of liberty
In the secret hell in the heart of heaven
the fields of the third-world
where the seeds of hunger mature.
O my beloved...
when the ‘New World Order’ blooms
at the border between heaven and hell
your blindness becomes a blessing.
The shadow of gigantic towers
again lengthen towards us.
Let me kiss hard the dark pits on your face
from where eyes were washed away in tear-flow....
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*Khadi is the Indian homespun cotton fabric brought to prominence by Gandhi.
Copyright © 1998 Jayan K.Cherian