Hidden in my skull are the caves where the endless
Reticular frescoes of my awesome childhood unroll.
Those are the spaces where the banyan trees of Vadodara
Vie with the neems and the mango gardens.
They were born ancient like me — those banyans
With their branch-like roots splayed in empty spaces,
With their huge population of ants and worms,
Bats hanging upside down.
And the public libraries where books printed
On what were once forests in Sweden
Gave me the world's unfathomable texts.
Baroda is what the British called Vadodara.
That's where my deaf and blind great-grandmother died
At the age of 101 — bald, wrinkled, and withered.
That's where we flew kites and learnt to finger
The pussies of eager and willing little girls
On summer afternoons and always upstairs.
That's where we secretly read manuals of black magic
And pornographic books in euphemistic Hindustani
In which it was invariably the dhobi's wife that got laid
After washing the whole town's dirty linen on the ghat.
Could I tell those stories now?
After sixty years of fermenting in my own vat?
Vadodara's vats are full of such sexy scent!
and learnt to finger The of eager and willing little girls A pedophile poet Shame to him and to those who praise this poem! Hidden in my skull are the caves Grossly unpoetic. born ancient like me Vernacular English.
Beautiful poem with touching depiction and nice collocation. There is justification for selecting this poem as the poem of the day.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
I feel that the poem does not qualify for the selection for the day. There are hundreds of others to choose from. Just explore.