Dark River

I walked down the old steps

Last night

Into the city

Waiting.

Past the old houses that were before I was

Past tall buildings where trees once grew,

I walked down into the city.

The buildings crowded around me

Towering,

Fancy cars parked outside,

Skin of brick and mortar,

Bones of concrete and steel,

Opaque to view, hiding the things within –

The wires overhead crossed the streets

Bringing light and heat, bringing stories

Of what lies politicians told,

Of which celebrity slept with whom

And who just began another war,

And the people sat watching soap operas

Cricket games,

And clucked to each other about the state of the world.

Down into the city

Past the buildings where fathers came to their daughters’ rooms at night

And stifled their soft cries with hard hands

Past alleys where women dragged by their hair

Had knives held to their throats. Call the police?

Only if they want to make things a thousand times worse.

So, avert your eyes and move on.

I walked down into the city.

Something wrapped in a tattered blanket whined at me, held out a hand

Man, woman, old or child – impossible to understand

Faceless, eyeless, yet alive, yet burning with

The yearning to carry on.

What can I do? Give it a coin? What good will my coin do?

What good can I do? Can I give it a life? A home?

“Go away, I have no change.”

Avert my eyes and carry on.

Here the bright lights, the restaurants leak music,

Boy and girl kissing under a tree, romantically

Dressed in clothes made by slaves in sweatshops

In a town not unlike this

Not far away in this world.

Skeleton kissing skeleton

Each thinking their own thoughts,

A flicker of love, perhaps, perhaps not

To be snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

Down I walked into the city.

Down to the marketplace, where chickens and fish gasp out their lives on blocks

Blood spraying to prove how fresh they are;

Avid customers watch

And haggle, while the world goes by

And someone scrapes for food in a dustbin

Someone’s mother, someone’s son.

Down I walked into the city, to the dark river

The poisoned dark river

Strangled with the poisons of the world;

I slipped gratefully into the dark river

Welcoming with its cold, wet embrace

To carry me away

Far away.

And I woke –

Arms reaching out,

Crying calling

To emptiness and silence.

Perhaps the river

Was too much happiness

To hope for.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2015