By Bhaskharabhatla Rajeev
If my sorrows were bricks,
I’d have a house of my own
Shocked and amused I became to find,
my neighbour’s home twice as big has grown
A walk through the neighbourhood revealed
Inequality rampant, inflation steep
Big estates are difficult to maintain
Small huts make for easy upkeep
Then walked along the naked man
Homeless and naked, not a care in the world
He swayed, jiggled, dangled, and bounced
Shocked and disgusted, at the man I flounced
“Where lies your home, naked man?”, I cried
“Dissolved into nothingness, brick by brick”, he smiled
At once I knew ‘twas the truth that he spoke
A wretched pattern the wise man had broke
Neither self-made nor generational
His “wealth” amassed at nought
Detached from sorrow, not a brick to his name
He was secure against flood and drought
“Teach me to strip, oh naked man,
In this economy of shame”, I begged
With playful, untainted laughter like a child
He jiggled and bounced, weird and wild
“Do away with self-pity
Fear not, in solitude there is authenticity
Worry not, the opinions of a society sick
And this often seems to do the trick”
Line by line the less I cared
But for a cloth, my body bared
My home now to a barrel shrunk
As my baggage into nothingness sunk