CANS OF WORMS

You and I drench in joy tears
To a cuckoo’s song with guileless ears
Even while expert musicians
Keep searching for discordant notes

You and I look with bleary eyes
At the holes in the sari of a poor lady
Even while a pair of lecherous eyes prey
On her bare flesh seeing through her poverty

Burning tears and blooming love
Find their language in poetry
And blurt out naked and hazy
You and I perceive that woe and feel
Even while grammatists shout foul, foul

There have been men from eons
Who ignore the right and embrace the wrong
Like pigs those that sidetrack from a royal lane
And jump into a stinking sewer line

They trumpet that Lord Ram did err
And that Udhishtira's virtue was a sham
But stops not my juggernaut that cares
For true human values; but not ugly stares
And tramples upon all those cans of worms

CHICANERY

He took her into his hands
Pressed close to his chest
Caressed her little head
With his firm fingers

She looked at him fondly
Shrunk further into his hands
And rubbed them with its beak
Must be her way of kissing

She thought, "I'm lucky
His looks are so kind
His touch so loving
His is so caring

Isn't it so fascinating?
A friendship between
A chicken and a human;
The superior being

Still holding her tight
The man walked straight
Into his kitchen