When it was the fashion
I too measured out my life in coffee spoons
It was not only to you
that some things made no sense
but to me too
For you it was ‘blue sashes
snowflakes that melt on the nose and eyelashes
silver-white winters that melt into springs’
For me it was the North and its tongues and images
For while the former made me long to experience them
The latter awoke nothing, no desire, in me
As my own land was better, in my perception
I am only as wrong as you are, brown berry
There were no patients etherized on a table, either
in my evening skies
but palaces
and faces
rollicking elephants
galloping horses
ice cream dollops
with no princesses or girls in any kinds of dresses
white, or ethnic
I do not think you will understand me
My words will fall on your ears
like music from a farther, further room
and the sound of receding footsteps
with a dying fall
I am the merman who did not sing to you
or for you
I found my woman who wanted to become a mermaid
a little girl with a matchstick, her last one
I keep trying to make her not light and fail at doing so each time
in faraway Flemish-speaking Belgium*
Now when the rain is falling
raining on you and me, instead of tears lining our eyes
What do you think of these gifts I bring and bear
Nothing you will recognise, I swear
A cold kiss, and the absence of any love
For you have nothing to offer and I want to buy from you none of your wares
I am the untouchable who rides a buffalo and am proud of my own fare
*fact twisted for my own poetic fancy
Dr. Koshy AV does poems in different voices. He has published three collections of poetry so far titled Figs, Allusions to Simplicity and Birds of Different Feathers. He was nominated for the Pushcart Poetry Prize in 2012 and has been in places like Madswirl, Wagon, Spillwards, Oddball Magazine, etc. He won best poem award at Destiny Poets thrice and was editor’s pick twice at the now defunct Camel Saloon.
