Hanging Straps Swing Poem by umashankar manthravadi

hanging straps swing
all across an empty bus
not always the same way
as it climbs

under the green shaded
wildly swinging lamps
in the black and yellow room
time tilted the table

and from one corner
rolled off the accretions

half blacked lights
turn yellow
as we turn and climb

away from the gates
a hung rail tolling into the night
of what could be
another yellow grass crusted hump

blood is now where it ought to be
the pain is only sensation returning
to legs that went to sleep

it is all dark and
where are we?
[we were returning home]
over unfamiliar anxious ground
panic descending
[and loneliness]
as you slept

it is all there
like blood on the street
waiting dark and frozen
for the rain to come
inevitably
after the accident

trivia mostly mostly pain
memorable flies that cling
to windshaken lampshades

two people in the rain
with nothing left to be said

I am trying to remember
where it was we were returning home

April 4,1974