Light Banter With The Bulb

​In between a siesta

and a night slated for grammar,

I find a canyon

to banish the scripted emails, 

as punishment.

Many remain in obscurity there,

others return after sunset,

and remind the dwellers

of Nazareth,

words are immortal.

The subject lines who made it,

and ​the woefully inadequate boy,

dance on a wooden stage,

the rickety scaffolding,

creaking under the 

weight of expectation.

It is night now,

the light bulb says mockingly,

singing ​a ​glowing tribute to normalcy,

but ​a ​long shadow lurks

just beyond his narrow mind,

bolted like my front door.

It keeps the couriers out,

food slips in; 

thoughts and vision hardly do,

the essential commodities, desolately so.

-- Leslie Xavier

Ode to the Lost Rain

​These scents don't tickle,

I miss my sense of smell​,​

​numb to petrichor​,​ 

​I miss its taunt, its poetry.

Spoilt ​by ​​a big city in a slum​,

I hardly hear the Purple Rain.​

I watch the ​shower, still,

gauge the drops,

feel the whiff,

let the mist ​kiss my soul,

and my memoirs remind me

what it meant to ​dance in the rain.

It is but life,

laced in moisture,

from tears, both...

of those who are parched,

and those who are drenched in love.

Behold the duality... 

... In the scent of the rain,

in its scant disregard

of propriety​:​

A lout for many,

west and east coast,

​while I hear a faint, lost song.

-- Leslie Xavier

​​The Immunity ​Lie

If it rains tomorrow,

will there be reopening 

of schools,

and paper boats

to sail across shallow puddles?

But​,​ it is too early​,​ 

the summer burns,

and we are left with mangoes

mangled priorities,

a wee bit of sanity, 

parched rivers brim with tears

and a strange virus.

Let it rain​ though​,

for it washes away the

salt on our wounded pride​.​

​W​e still seek vaccine,

solace, air to breathe,

and a new parliament,

​​​as immunity ​becomes a ​lie...

The school bell too is a myth,

it rings no more​

in this cacophony...​

​And we sway to 

shrill ringtones and eerie sirens.

-- Leslie Xavier