A Hiatus of Hope

[Composed for the Bethnal Beatz Poetry Group performance based on "hope"]

There was a brief hiatus of hope.

Slavery victims stamped as smugglers.

Life’s juvenile jugglers

Labelled ‘junkies’

Looking for their next ‘fix’ -

A deprecating

Injected attitude

Inserted into the arteries of London’s ethnic mix

In Maida Vale,

Where architecture is viciously laced

In white veiled

Petalite facial pillars,

                And piers

Constructed 

Concurrently with Indian

Colonial cosmetics;

            A majestic matrix

    Of monarchist makeup -

Layering foundation over Mughal and Mewar

Amber sewn silk roads

In a quest to impose

                        Possibility.

Expansionism emanates proudly

Across Lake Pichola,

Whereby the heart

Of Chittorgarh Fort

Shakes.

Locals await

Her heart's yearning;

        Structural stirring

And

                The blurring

Of ancestral beliefs and molecular Bonds

At Udaipur’s “Milk Pond” -

Dudh Talai.

Meanwhile,

Octopussy projects displays of light

That ricochet into India’s illuminated night

                                                                Sky -

Enamelled with streaks of Egyptian malachite -

Creating a sail-spined

Streaked sunset

Adorned with kites

Running from Kabul;

The Taliban's cruel

Misrule

Of cosmological calm.

Calm crushed under the weight of women

Wearing high-heeled shoes

                    Hoping for a     r    u    n    w    a    y,

Yet forever found sitting

Stifled upon the highway

Of hopelessly honking Hondas

                                                In Herat.

A Life Peer

Perched upon Pichola’s pier,

Plated with gold-leaf

And aesthetic promise,

Disguises dissolution and dismemberment.

A Peer’s pier

Remains plagued with calluses from burnt and sun-bathing toes;

Callously

Commissioned craftsman,

Whose misery

Echoes silently

Between sculptures

Ornately engraved into the steeple

Of Jagdish Temple.

    The people

Of Rajasthan

    Speak

On the pages of poetry

And within whimsical whispers

Carried by Udaipur’s weeping wind.

Remnants of Agra’s’ mausoleum

Embellish Lake Pichola

With evanescent Brazilian emeralds

Soon to be exported to England.

Affection abandoned

After the incarceration of Shah Jahan.

The Imperial State Crown

Boasts the beauty

Of the “Black Prince’s Ruby”,

And the “Koh-I-Noor"

(The “Mountain of light” in Persian).

A geological emersion

Arises and sparkles in celebration

At every coronation -

Nodding a non-descript nod

Of acknowledgement

To the spectating Sikh empire.

Meanwhile, asylum seekers are ascertained

As the cause of cultural conflation

                                In the UK

Despite our former dictatorial directions

In the 60s for medical migration,

And the utilisation

Of Asia’s land in royal regalia.

Hope thus hides in the journey of jewels,

Rather than in the fanciful stories of fools

Exiting west.

A dust hurricane

Twirls above the highway

Between Chittorgarh Fort

And Horn OK Please -

Propelling vampiric dog fleas

Into India’s arsenic air.

Our climate catastrophe

            Alights

Into the flames

Of inflamed cow dung.

Radha and Krishna- themed songs are sung

And the Holi young

Learn to yearn for

Colours of orange and yellow;

A deity-determined composition

Outlined by black fungi-enduing ignition.

In Regent’s Park,

Raynes Lane,

And Rotherhithe,

Restless and recalcitrant revolts,

Led by consumers of red cabbage

And Romanesco broccoli

Articulate anti-E.coli sentiment

In favour of a sacred cow’s sentience;

An allegiance formed between Hindu India

And Europe’s extinction rebellion.

Defiance in difference

When dancing together

Through life.

Hokey Pokey – Cokey.

        Hope

Is harnessed in a music hall

With no border walls.

Protesters purposefully perform petulance

To protest

For ethical evolutionary eating.

A dietic utopia

Unravels

Aside Dante’s dystopia

Whereby dysphagia

Causes death by devilled eggs;

Souls scrambled in a sketched Italian dream.

A cuisine

Seasoned with the tranquillity of thyme

Consumed in soft time.

Heart-beating pendulums usher individuals

Into an international inferno -

A divine comedy

Scripted and spoken,

Not by Shakespeare,

But through a common person’s

Poetry

        Once again.   

Veins ripple

As though the “Rivers of Hell”

Ravished with rotten radishes,

And salted with untouchable sewage

    Sitting

    Side-by-side

To the pink city palace,

Release unwarranted red hues

From scorched-shredded skin

Into Chand Baori’s

Pristine pool of rainwater -

Reminiscent of the wondrous depths

Of a woman’s womb,

Forbidden to enter fort territory when menstruating.

A frustrating

And male-manicured frustration

For women

Who menstruate

To carry a man’s child.

A woeful womb.

An unadorned tomb.

A timelessly tyrannical

Botanical

Garden

Filled with crying chrysanthemums.

Mums mourn

And grief graces

Every morning.

Such is the hiatus of hope.

Thus, a barren body

Boarded Boeing -

From a hopeless Heathrow lounge

To “BOM” Terminal 2.

Life in lieu

Of successive strife;

Starved and stressed,

Depressed,

Waiting for the cremation

Of fleshless foundations.

Phantom females foxtrot

Into Agra’s weighty wonder;

Mughat’s marbled microcosm

Of earthly splendour -

Structured with gemstone beams;

Howlite hopes and diamond dreams -

The structural seams

Of lost love.

Hope didn’t just arrive at Jaipur airport,

But came painted upon

The poetically pointillist face

Of an aspiring acne-attuned

Academic,

Spotted by Seurat,

Driving a Tuk-Tuk

In the pink city,

Unashamedly swerving

To the cinematic sounds

Of Margot Robbie

Playing Barbie

‘In pink’.

Such is the harmonised link

Between Rajasthan’s erstwhile women

Whom peeped through jharokhas

At Hawa Mahal,

And modern online-enhanced morale;

A perpetual present realm

Where women snap selfies

From non-discreet vantage points

And actively archive the practice

Of Purdah

(Gender

        Partition)

In India;

An accredited cultural craft -

In body caressing curtains.

Strength

Strengthens

Behind the black drapery of

A tragic effigy;

Formless fashion,

Secluded suffrage,

Coverage of the female form

Forced to perform

“Housewife”

Upon sepia-stained stages -

With a steady supply of panipuri

For returning husbands covered in the luxury

Of tomato puree

Pasted upon pizza-stained lips -

Leaking the news of a double life led.

One fled

For a Diavola-duvet crumb-covered bed.

Such is the hidden hope for

Debauched desire -

The life of a lonely liar.

The cacophonous culture of Jaipur

Is carried in the countenances

Of fractured faces

Etched,

Embossed,

Embellished

With hardship.

Faces weaved

In weariness,

Are woven from fissured thread;

Colours composed of

Widowed wonders

Waltz

Calmly

Through the calamitous

Chaos of Johari Bazar -

Swaying in the brilliant breeze

Of eventide,

Aside a singing sparrow.

“Dead Beauty” radiates

From portraits

Of the Indian Rufous Treepie

At Ranthambore -

Recognised by the raucous roar

Of a Bengal tiger.

Endangered fibre

Fashioned into austere attire

Roam upon Russell Viper skinned sand surfaces,

And sit upon stripped sofas.

Dangerous decor

For a dazzling debonair

Hopeful for a fanciful financial affair.

Such vanity

Serves a sentence of eternal want and chaos

Confirmed by Vritra -

Serpent saliva

Casting spells.

The obstruction of human hope

Crafted by a danava of demonic-induced drought

In this pink salmon-trout

City.

Hope hides in this illusive lexical

Portrait of “dead beauty”,

As Nandi’s art sings the song

Of discriminative death

To resurrect

Purgatory’s wondering women -

Dressed in Saris

Scorched during Sati.

Suicide

Decided

Upon by a hu-MAN

Manifesting the misery

That meanders through our milieu

When there is a hiatus of hope.

The hum of city life.

The honking of horns,

The clicking of cameras,

The clacking of shoes,

The summoning of sojourners

Slowly fall into the ancient stairwell

That lies nestled below

A water-washed world.

Mosquitos muse

And make love to skin saturated

In cocoa-cream -

A delightful desert.

Rather fitting to feast on King Bertie's

British-made

Bodies.

They swarm and dream to swim

Whilst they wait patiently

For prosperity.

The mosquito never loses hope,

Even without the immediate,

Appetising

Opportunity

To ephemerally elope -

To intricate and internally protected

Rivers

Of foreign blood.

Colours caress colonial

Curations

At Umaid Bhawan Palace.

Crimson handprints

Imprinted upon the walls of warriors

At Mehrangarh Fort

Fight for freedom

After death.

Meanwhile, pigeons pirouette

Under perfectly designed elephant ears

Stained with serenity -

An identity

Tied to the trinity of

The maiden,

The mother,

And the crone.

Thus, the sewn

Eyes of India’s intrepid women

Who sleep daubed in indelible

Darkness,

Conquer.

A mosaic made.

A pashmina pieced together.

A bell branded by burnt hands.

A sari once worn by a victim of Sati.

These are the sounds of strife.

Yet, these are the melodies

Of a miraculous life

Filled with hope.