I bite my nails
as the peripheries
of creation
hold me like
a hypnotist,
the next big idea
dazzled
by the minutiae:
a blue-nosed chopper
flying in the airwaves,
a child dangling on a football goal’s upper arm,
fashioning it
as his day school’s
ubiquitous
monkey ladder
and a tennis class
distracts me
from a cricket match
being conducted
on the next field.
Not that I understand
or have much patience
for the games.
But like almost everyone
I’ve seen,
they have an uncanny knack
for making others look
in joy and awe,
just like the bricklayer
and painters
take intermissions
of observation
from their brimming work-days
in the apartment complex next door
and look,
their labour’s
ubiquity
suspended
in those
modest seconds.
All of it
makes each of them
(and I, too)
creatures of habit.
***
I bite my middle finger’s chipped nails,
notifying my smiling demeanour
of the satire of that
situation
and how every peel
of pinkish-white
tossed to the floor
is like ideas
and lifetimes
lost
and gained.
It’s always our
habits
that make us creative
or simply
curious.
***
As the first halogen lamp
lights up
in the apartment block,
Evening
toys
with the bewildering
ecstasies
of the sun
going away
to welcome
its marbled
partner’s
upcoming
chiffon shades.
As for I,
this poem
has
practically
written itself
now.
On this day,
the bric-a-bracs
of the world
around me
have been
my greatest inspirations.
***
Madras Courier originally ran as a broadsheet with a poetry section. It was a time when readers felt comfortable sharing glimpses of their lives through verse. If you have a poem you’d like to submit, do email us at [email protected].
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