Questions for My Grandfather.
May 1, 2008 at 3:28 pm | In English Poetry | Leave a CommentTags: Chopra, colberg, eric, for, grandfather, jason, my, questions, Varun
The snow settled on the old pine trees like an x-ray,
searching out some kind of cancer,
and the best that I can do is wonder
just exactly what you’d say about it.
I was seven–almost eight, bouncing on a knee,
and if I’d known anything of war
not played with flimsy, dull-edged cards
around an old extendable kitchen table
every two Sundays, I might have asked.
I’ll bet it changes people, war, I mean.
Lead-tipped and trigger-operated
death, strafing all those mothers’ sons,
mortars like small-town fireworks,
and everything I’ve read about.
It’s cold here, and my footprints explode
into this inch or two, and then disappear,
lost with each gust of wind. And if I could,
I’d ask how a kid no older than me
can get sent to hell and live to talk about it.
My Better Half.
May 1, 2008 at 3:25 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentTags: Add new tag, better, Chopra, half, my, Poem, Poetry, Varun
As the rain falls on my thatched roof,
I panic, for there’ll be some leakage on the floor;
Helter skelter I run about,
Placing the calabashes on the usual spots.
Wrapped in the thread bone wrapper on the bamboo bed
you left behind,
I reminisce on the times we spent in the twilight,
Playing and dancing to the tunes of the drum beaters,
Coupled with the noise of the crickets.
At dawn, the cock will crow;
Then I recall your warm embrace,
Your confident and reassuring smile,
Revealing your gaped tooth,
And on your powerful shoulders,
You would want me,
Telling me, “No one else can replace your better half.”
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