Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 10:57:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Lakshmi Gopinathan Nair <lnair-AT-uclink2.berkeley.edu>
Subject: dream



It took me a long time
to fall asleep 
last night.

Wearing a
knot of pain
for a pottu

my eyebrows
strain for 
the comfort
of each others
touch.

That rowdy crowd
of worries,
self-doubts
in my brain
may get violent.

What then?

Unbenownst to me,
exhaustion
conducts
a systematic
lathi-charge
on my nerves

Things going
round and round
in my head
slow down
to a 
soft hypnotic
rhythm

falling gently
over each other
like so many
colored-clothes
in a dryer.

I tumble-dry
with them
in the warmed air of sleep,
I watch myself
spinning 
in fragments
kaleidoscopic.

I awake suddenly
to the sound
of temple bells
clanging,
a heavy
garland, hummming
with bees
around my neck.

I am bathed with milk
and dried
with cool
fragrant sandal paste.

My body is dotted 
with red kunkumam
on all the 
vital points

A lovely breakfast
of bananas
and coconut
is spread out before me.

If this is a dream,
I hope I sleep long
tonight.

But then
I see the eyes.
Everywhere eyes.
Watching,
beseeching,
waiting
for me to accept
their bribe.

I listen
to their 
requests,
complaints
till my ears
bleed.

I try to give
but my hands
are made of 
stone.