My Sparkling Eyes! Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

I can't see anything
without spectacles.
Luring eyes get vexed
not being responded by my eyes.
The child-carrying anaemic mother
or the shivering octogenarian
travelling in buses as standees,
eyeing me up to receive my seat,
are not looked at all by my eyes.
Specks of dust cover my glasses
when chain-snatchers or those
who scare public peace bustle around.
As my eyes fail to greet
Known people on the road
They think of me as being proud.

But a fifty rupee note on the walk way
before the busy market
made a clear image in my shifting eyes.
I looked around and picked it up.
I liked to hand it over to a shopkeeper
for to be return to that loser later.
But the business people are sharks
giving bogus bills in bits of papers,
evading tax and exchanging fake notes.
And so I waited there for ten minutes,
with my eyes feigning search for the philanthropist.
Alas! Fifty rupee has gone down to the value of fifty paise.
Nobody turned up to claim it.

I am not brought up in a way to give it to charity,
or to a beggar and to donate it to the temple.
Is it a thousand rupee note
to pass it on to the police?
So I pushed it into my pocket
looking around if anybody watching.
Very good eyes I have
which I won't donate even after my death.
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