Tonight~by Payal Sunandan

 

 

Tonight

 

The view from my window is carnal,
far somewhere many of us ensconced
in feathery quilts of man-made warmth,
It does not surprise me to see
sultry winds keeping awake as well
like a little thing waiting for her king
hypnotized by the twinkling stars.

Seated on cold concrete settled in climber’s step,
brown roasted shells encircled in lotion-ed palms,
I nibble on these pea like hotly nuts,
alliteration of rough crunch inside the cheeks,
cushioning a blank verse between the jaws,
lyrical interpretations of ineffable boredom
narrates a royal rhyme trickling down the gut.

Rancid reeks of smoke and ashes,
lit by a burnt corporate living one floor down,
who is determined to feel the charismatic wind
on the day his last breath exits with
carbon instigated ungrateful black syllables.

Tonight is no small treat,
it is the talisman of a sonorous lilt,
chooses to sing itself on nebulous
waters mocking Archimedes’ principle,
revolves on the axis of self-interest
ignited in Copernican proposition,
the chill hardens ingenuous bones
to lift my mass into the felicity of night
that refuses to practice the ritual of lullaby.