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Best Poems From
RANI TURTON
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117.
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Obama Has A Strange Name They Say
Obama has a strange name they say
But then so do I
Strange for here but not for there
Stranger and stranger as the world becomes
Freer and freer, no frontiers
Depending for whom
Depending for where.
Travellers we are all: nomads in this world
That keeps contracting and still
Strangers remain strangers and worse
Foreignors remain strangers on
Shores that remain devoid of warmth.
What is foreign? Coming from which shores
And arriving where? Are foreignors strange because
They have strange names
Or they act strange? A strange kind of modernity dictates
That everyone looks and speaks alike
Devoid of accent, devoid of strange words
That's how it is and now Obama with his strange name
And mine with mine: we have associations to the past
To some far-off land; stranger I am still
My hair, like Obama's, says where I come from.
My eyes, like Obama's, say where I come from.
My skin, like Obama's speaks louder than words.
I am the sum of all that came before.
My strangeness is just that:
I brought a slice of the world with me when I came.
Copyright: Rani Turton
Rani Turton
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118.
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Ode to Vijay Vine
Vijay Vine, not Vijay Whine,
Was the life and soul of every do
While others whined, Vijay wined and dined
And to his flagon was true.
And wined again, until, until the wine
Almost became sublime; he knew
The big names in the who's who;
He had married into Delhi's cream
His life was a poor man's dream.
He could disclaim and proclaim
To almost universal acclaim.
He was really fine:
Vijay Vine and not Vijay Whine.
Then came one day as singing
Vijay jumped into his car and went winging
The Defence Colony flyover
Remembers till today
On a day that was particularly grey
That Vijay's money could not buy a makeover;
Vijay's car took off like a plane
Now, that really is a shame.
Vijay Vine, never Vijay Whine
Smiling, singing Vijay Vine.
Copyright: Rani Turton
Rani Turton
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119.
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Oh, Brittle Mind
Oh, brittle mind, leave all your worries behind.
Ripples in your hemispheres, whorls and whirls
Race through your fragile interior.
Strong you may be. Bountiful your life
But your mind, fragile, courses like the river
Onward, onward, sometimes flooding the banks.
Then when reflection ceases
And bliss is yet to come
The mind, coursing on like that swollen river
Wonders what yet it will become;
If daylight would break, and with it reason:
The corpus callosum has it's own season.
Copyright: Rani Turton
Rani Turton
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120.
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One Day Old Age Will Bend Me Down
One day age will bend me down
And I will walk slowly like my old father.
I will have left life's mysterious codes
Those codes that slowly left me, rather.
That day will come soon enough:
Old age has its own mystey and pain;
But wonder too at the singing bird, the trailing rose
The thunder and the rain.
My bones will be frail, my shoulders stooped.
I will recall the past, mirages and things;
Time will be measured by each new dawn, and
The wonders that each sunrise brings.
Copyright: Rani Turton
Rani Turton
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