I Want To Write A Happy Poem Poem by babitha marina justin

I want to write a happy poem
Maybe
about the pond in the backyard
still as Walden, changing colour
with the sun, orange at sunset
flashes of green-blue all day.
They say its haunted.
Once they found a dimwit
midget’s body there, three days
after he went missing.
People watched vacant
unhelpful, wrinkle-snouted
as his brother dug out
rotting flesh, the stench
of blood and brotherhood
pervades there even now.

Or do I write about
the playground, a plateau
on slopes, where I used to
go for a jog and morning air
where five men and a child were
shot dead unceremoniously
on a calm September morning?
Or about a student
shot on the spine
now confined to the wheels
reduced to a bag of bones
a wry smile on our memories?
He who was young and handsome once?

I can tell you about
the girls who meet their lovers
secretly by the graveyard
to steal a kiss or a touch
on their wet virgin dreams.
I have seen their eyes averted
brooding, when their men
search for more
in younger, buxom girls.

Or my gay friend
fresh as a morphed lily
powdered and rouged
with a dab of mascara
who receives threats from men
over the phone, in dark
unearthly hours.
he dares not take his makeup off
or his effete ways
he wears them for this world.

Or, finally, do I write about weather?
The sky shines blue now
blotched with clouds
but it was only yesterday
the cloud burst
and swept a family away
down the rocky stream
never to be found again! !