Seven Days Poem by Ishan Chaitanya

On Monday
You leave home in hungover stupor
With remnants of the past weekend
Humming wildly in your head
Like your belligerent street traffic.

On Tuesday
You grab your shopping bags
And make your way through a dense,
Sweaty loud forest
To your weekly subsistence
Your national
Abdominal
Tragedy.

Wednesday
Awaits with her questions.
A crossroad-sister among four brothers,
She reminds you to count your blessings
(Especially the larger green ones)
For the remnant of the week.
Her touch, rough or gentle,
Depends on her two elder brothers.

Thursday
Fits you back into the matrix -
'Welcome back to the machine, son.'
A hearty welcome and a kick for tomorrow:
Push me for my daily bread,
With or without perspective
We'll push on our optimism
With an enthusiastic stomach
And an emtpy head.

Friday
Is the gentle brother,
The keeper of the keys
To the house in the country,
The janitor that lets the jolly hordes
Out into the streets from the slaughterhouses.
He is the young brother unskilled
In the handling of heavy weapons
Like his predecessors.
Lucky for you.

Saturday
Has a sweet, mild voice
And soft hands,
Knows your intimate desires,
And fitting your heavy destiny
She heals your wounds
With an ointment of sleep and oblivion,
Though not even she can erase
All you would.

Sunday
Has many arms.
This goddess has a little of it all:
She's an antique shop,
A librarian
With plenty of do-it-yourself
And be-your-own-boss books
(But Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day.)
And a doctor with surgery scissors to cut the week,
Leaves you wondering,
But if there's any brain undead yet,
You'll spot incense sticks in her hands,
And if your nose hasn't been stuck up
With tobacco and the whiff of roasted carrion,
You can smell them too.
If your ears are not too deaf
Due to the deafening noise of general ignorance,
From her mouth you will hear sacred prayers
And beneficial advice
So you won't turn to your mean old ways.
Son, don't stick your head into the stoolpit.
There's nothing for you there.

Day eight.
This poem is for you,
Whether you like or not.
The wise man I met at the crossroad
Weeping watched you live
The way you do
And asked me to hand this poem
To you.