SS Prasad


À Lady Poet

Lady poet, you don't carry
your husband's name after yours,
alright; but does he

carry you on his back
like Vetal?
I found a note

inside a book of poems
in Tamil,
on cleaning bookshelves.

The note was
in French, though;
strange:

Elle est une belle francaise;
oui, elle a
un grand trou dans le bas.

The Tamil world will give you
nose, ears and eyes,
term you avant-garde

if you don't wear your madisaar
just as the Hindi world will mistake
a milkmaid for a woman at the bar.

“I couldn’t have imagined life
with a computer engineer”,
Lady poet tells the media,

“No computer, only Kapadia”.
Groins smell the same,
a computer’s or Kapadia’s.

Sweetheart, the jacket of your book
tears, and you creep on me
like Vetal on Vikram.




Tribute to Papa

Qui est Gandhi?
Gandhi est une grande personne.
Mais il parait tres petit!

We grew up listening
to jokes on Gandhi,
and reading Eunice.

One went shirtless,
the other braless
before English

(with and without
the article,
respectfully).

In our country,
legacies are passed down
like pet parrots to cats:

Kiliya valathu poonaikku koduthamadhiri.
Rajaji would have liked it,
were the script in Devanagiri

Why do you write in English?
I owe my freedom
to Gandhi and Eunice.

Walnuts may or may not have
anything to do with walls,
but surely with Walcott.

Touch one of my two
balls: Who’s shitty,
de Souza/Daruwalla?

Grab me by my testicles!
Daruwallas and de Souzas
inside, not Intel.

The Emperor seldom wears clothes.
Princely wastrels of lost kingdoms,
qui est Eunice?



SS Prasad writes from Bangalore, India. His poems have appeared in Otoliths before.
 
 
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