Every Woman Looks So Beautiful Poem by Ravi Kopra

When In Varanasi, India
I drink milk with mashed leaves of bhang (marijuana)
I feel high, like flying in the air.
Everything I say is with a flair
Love verses flow from me,
Love glows all around me.
My friends think I am a Majnu
in search of my Laila.

Everybody seems to be laughing, smiling
as if it were a punjabi basanti mela -
gaities, festivities all around,
people singing, dancing bhangra,
every woman looks so beautiful
no matter how old or young
and I desire all of them.

I get none.
I go to sleep in the burning Indian mid-day summer sun.
And when I get up in the evening, I feel headachy
my temples throb, I see blurry, my body aches, memory fails.
I walk like a zombie.

People ask: Oi, Kavi Kotra ji
ki ho giya tuhani, raazi khusi taaN ho na!
(hey, poet Kotra, are you feeling OK?)
I say: fine, thank you.
I am suffering a little from flu.