Nirvana Moksha Paradise Peace

I live in my foul breath
I breathe in my fetid fumes
I walk on my stumbles
I bumble over my hidden treasures
I’m humbled by my wonders
I fall into my potholes
And break my bones
I deafen in my din
I’m enthralled by the intricacies
Of my soul’s ragas
I writhe in my aches
I ooze in my untended wounds

I rejoice in the gathering clouds
I drown in my monsoon tears
After I burn in my summer blaze
I shiver in my tattered winter blanket

While I warm my hands and feet
On the fires I build in my throbbing heart
I fling the colours of holi
Into the green leaves of my spring season

I pay obeisance to my Gods and Goddesses

Krishna Rama Durga Kali..too many to name

While I flow in the slime of my gutters
I choke in my clouds of dust
I wrap myself in my flies
My garbage my rags
My stray dogs my beggars
My famished children with
Their empty hands and empty eyes
Staring from my staring eyes
But I teach my children
To unshackle their hands and minds
I put wings on their feet to fly free
Even though my holy rivers flow with black refuse
Littered with leftovers from my venerating masses
Bits of flower petals mingling
With plastic bags industrial waste
And half burnt dead bobbing up and down
Refusing to leave my banks
Over which fat dogs snarl and snap
And yet my waters flow with life giving green
Where striving people dare to dream
My crowded streets are death traps
Yet flowing with smiling faces
Mixed with sweating people
Belching cars crapping crows pissing cows
Dogs trucks rats buses hovels
Brown bowel movements
Withered fornicating flesh
Left on broken sidewalks
Over which incessant
Unseeing feet walk by
Tossing me a few coins
Without even a sideways glance
Where I sit cross-legged
My eyes shut tight
My street crawling through
My grime encrusted eyelids
Into my gritty eyeballs
Erupting into leaking blisters
My crowded lanes swarming
All over my filth coated limbs
Festering with pus-filled sores
My flesh infested with
Living breathing biting things
Laying eggs in my knotted hair
Hatching out into tics lice worms
Maggots mosquitoes monkeys monks
Speaking the language of 

Sadhus saints corruption
Festivals funerals roadside
Cursings laughings bickerings
Squabbling human flotsam
Caressing killing kicking screaming
Whispering jostling gouging
Juggling shoving thrusting
Shopping malls street stalls
Their ware hanging out
To be fingered fondled fought over
Factories fortunetellers fundamentalists
Ecclesiasts eclectic non-conformists
Conforming conformists philosophers
Human traffickers women’s abusers and libbers
Rising concrete constructions

Lowly corrugated dwellings
Trading haggling buying selling
Human blood bank notes rice dal roti
Struggling stragglers warring waking dying
Me myself bursting
Into my gasping windows
In through my gagging doors
Right into my retching
Bleeding heaving room
The walls of which are painted
With the rainbow colours of
Hushed heavenly hibiscus hues
Burning incense wafting wispy perfumed smoke
Bird song papaya fruit jackfruit
The mangoes of my childhood
Narayana Allah Buddha Christ

All seeking --
Nirvana moksha paradise peace

-by Rita Putatunda