ELANGOVAN
Hand Grenade
on a full-moon night
he left the pedestal
to seek enlightenment again
his military boots kicked
our boltless door down
jungle green camouflage
wiped off his raised eyebrows
father’s lips muzzled
in the rifle-butted face
cementing some armed god’s name
for a cinematic dénouement
brothers eyeballing the ravishing
morphing into who goes first
skirmishes
ten gun-toting soldiers
browsing a mother of three
and I under the visitor’s
non-saffron robe
he counted boots crushing father’s
fingers clasped in prayer
two little boys stamped
on the wall with daggers
he watched hands rip me
from his nirvana-stomping lotus feet
to kill cigarettes on my bum
and dipstick into me for fun
mother’s shrieks were pile-driven
into moans by militant organs
wetting her wedding dress
worn for the anniversary
there was red streamlining her
spread-eagled legs on the table
graffitied with I love you ma
have seen her speedy legs
carrying us to cover during shellings
there was red bubbling from her teats
chewed off by stained teeth
I recall her laughter sublimating
my biting during breastfeeding
her clawing hands clamped between
greasy thighs flagged us to run
he watched their manhood thaw into:
How are you? Do you have a stick?
Do you have a bottle?
Want a screw to wipe them off?
Hey! Where is your gun?
they raised his robe and registered
the absence of the sceptre
they bowed and sanctified an offering
and parted whispering in my ears
we shall meet when you start
to menstruate
he picked up the alm and focalized
the bhodisattvaas cocooned in it
pulled the pin and posted it into
mother’s birth canal and closed her legs
he walked away in peace in a flash
lips sealed with pubic flesh to meditate
on a grenade’s role in a woman’s hole
I often hear the sutra of boots
marching over my unknown grave
to pull the pin and shove it into
my sauna for nirvana
Buttham saranam katchaami
Dharmam saranam katchaami
Sangam saranam katchaami