Delhi Buses

-Rajesh K. Jha

The sea of vibrations moves on a convoy of wheels
Over the flattened bodies of black pythons
Eternally sprawled against the blazing sun, incessant rain,
In the city of pickled hopes and unbridgeable distances.

Rainbows of flesh – black, brown, golden, white –
Pressed together in an unintended embrace,
Carry the saltiness of the sky sulking in the armpits,
To the mannequins travelling in the womb of ants.

The monstrous cage of tin and rubber
Prowls ceaselessly to mesmerize people
From the land where sun rises on the tip of a gun
To boom in the bellies that bleed
Uncouth, dirty, uncivilized reptiles in the sky.

It is a city where little mermaid come hypnotized
To carry the souls of the dead on their shoulders
meditating the love which floundered against
The high tide of rat’s Burroughs, on the horizon,
that had no grains in it.

It is the city where sardines bottled in the jar
Come alive – on payment – at a syndicated smile
And poets recline peacefully in the shadow of sympathy
Against the steep wall of a laughter.

The sensuous smell of the burning coal tar envelopes the body
That suckles at the breast of her mother
And follows the vexing pug marks of time in a slow replay
To erase the heresy of a smile that sleeps
With this road naked and 24 feet wide.