Dann Thomas

At Khalighat, in the temple of the house for the dying
When the night has slept through its darkening.
And the tired watchman's watch wane.
At that ungodly hour she again kneels in pain.
...

I feel rain
I see a rainbow.
To me a butterfly is pretty too.
But I don't see it the way you do.
...

Lips smeared red, dark and swollen
Eyes shining black and bordered
Her hair held loosely by a pointed pin
A large red dot darkens her forehead
...

Knotted, gnarled, bruised and cut
Fingers missing and hands no better
Bandaged where raw, torn and sore,
These then are the hands of a leper.
...

No greater temple desecrated
No greater god mocked
When we in silence watched
A little life bled in the dust
...

It ruffles proudly when filled with the breeze
Darting into clouds or just spinning around.
The little kite mischievously pulls and tease
At the long string that's holding it down.
...

The first step was in purple,
Robed by the soldiers, condemned at Pilate's seat.
Mocked by the Pharisees, crowned by the people.
Then pride took a fall, and into the dust conceit,
...

A lady cried out ‘Souls'
At the gate of the Mayo Hall
With neither begging bowls
Or open palm for coin to fall.
...

A touch of light green on dry wood is sawn
Slowly stretching herself from a veined bundle
This story begins cocooned in chlorophyll.
A little heart is born
...

When in school I was sent to a prayer gathering once,
They thought it would change some of my ways hence.
And around me, each Bible had page and pages inked in red
My lines of black on white, well, looked kind of dull and dead.
...

In a small crowded room filled with hay
Surrounded by donkeys, sheep and cows.
Troubled and afraid the mid wife knelt to pray
Accompanied by a couple of cooing doves.
...

He hears the house quietly plotting
Fire doused fuming an acrid smell
The heat and smoke are choking
His job is to seek the living in hell
...

An intuition twitches as she walks down the platform
Then turns around to look as another will soon roll in
Along the day hundreds of this incessant passing storm,
Tiny puffs of smoke transform into mighty beasts of tin.
...

Children happily skipping round a tree,
Playing the age when innocence is free.
Time has not grabbed its share of smiles.
Shadows have not stretched doubts on the line.
...

'Kahlil, Kahlil, come here. Where have you been'?
He stands proud, hands folded, laughing through
Little eyes like his father's, who he has never seen.
...

Dripping wet from the cold bath in the morning rain
The tickly excited chill of a new day to be served hence
Atishoo sneezed the Brahmin poojary onto the lane
Atishoo sneezed the mountains in recompense
...

...

This Church built on the Temple of Solomon's lines,
Where Papal smoke announces the crowned Holiness.
Simple straight lines that encloses grandiose designs.
High pointed roof reaching up to heavenly finesse.
...

When I realized life existed, I was old
Maybe about three, or that's when I was told
I was alive, why that's what it's called; a life
Life to you, to me, was a soul resting on a knife.
...

The priest stood by the grave of the great thinker and said
'Oh wise man why do you gloat in your wisdom, if this is your end? '
Will your knowledge carry you past the dark's eventual embrace,
For the foolish and the wise the grave accepts without a name.
...