Aboulia Poem by Shriram Iyengar

Past dusty streets and dusty streetlamps

Where bored shopkeepers stare at passersby lustily,

shoving capitalism down their innocent throats

Wrapped in neon lights and shiny tags;

While outside under a red sun

Kids draw eights on little bicycles

Between speeding cars and

An occasional handcart.



I wish I could go back there

Playing like I did as a kid

Chasing rubber balls across graveled pavements

Hiding behind paan stained walls

And cursing people for no reason

But I have grown up now;

That’s what they tell me.

And I do what they tell me to do.



The market has not yet begun

The shops pause with a hum on their lips,

That would soon turn to cracked cries;

Of prices and haggling customers

Till the darkness overcomes their desires,

And leads them home to troubled sleep.



Chocolate éclairs stare at me

From within round jars of plain glass.

Juicy apples in forbidden jars,

I remember the counting and waiting,

Turning over 5o paise coins again and again

Till there were no more chocolates;

And no more coins.



Young men wait on railway bridges

In search of that utopian feeling – love:

Something I’ll never know,

Till death itself brings me a peace of that feeling

Where, to attain it is to overcome its desire

But till then smoke rings fill the empty void

That surrounds a heavy air around the bridge.



Feet carry on their tiresome job of treading dust

That rise in small puffs and swirl away

Behind the exhausts of big cars

Driven by shoeless vagabonds with puffy red eyes

Till the petrol runs out in the air cooled tanks.



Something is bothering me

If I knew what it was it wouldn’t anymore

But the liquid keeps simmering in that deep place

Where feelings are hid like inside a dingy cupboard

Till they burst out like old clothes stinking of sweat

But till then I wait endlessly.



Then the sun goes down in a dirty red sky

The vultures come out of the hiding

And men hunt for prey

Behind dark alleys and brightly lit corridors

Where flesh is sold by butchers,

Hung up on hooks, while the wolves

Surround it and howl.



Sometimes I wonder if this is all there is..