Sanskrit

One : Indra

Over the border our enemy breeds.
He has stockpiled his weapons against us,
Anthrax and mustard gas.
But you were there at the calibration of the stars,
O Indra.

We shall not fear pre-emptive strike,
The bunker-piercing bomb,
Munitions made by millions,
For you have revealed your face in fractals,
O Indra.

No tabloid headlines in the morning,
No polymorphic virus,
No blips on radar
Trouble your temple,
For you are beyond the outage and the downtime,
O Indra.

We shall not suffer meltdown,
Gridlock and glitch,
The oil slick and the toxins,
For you have christened every chromosome
And dealt our genes like cards,
O Indra

In the house of our enemy the fuses shall blow,
Rodents gnaw the circuitry.
He shall have static on every channel.
In poisoned pastures radioactive
Let him be left without pharmaceuticals,
For you have given us mathematics of survival,
The logic and the purpose,
And your anger is an axiom,
O Indra.

Two : Krishna Among the Women

Woman is fire. The phallus is her fuel.
Her hair is smoke. Her vulva is a flame.
She is blue movie when she tongues the name
Of brazen gods, her clitoris a jewel.

Her perfume finds the gunner in the camp.
On swollen midnights when the body tenses
Along its aching length and thought's defences
Come down, he sprawls on blankets heaped and damp.

Far from the glory may no lover be.
The nub of life lies cradled in the zones
Erogenous and in the undefiled
Ejaculation. Krishna heard the moans
Of women wired to divinity
And touched their sudden nakedness and smiled.

Three : The Sacrificial GTi

Dawn is the headlights of the sacrificial GTi,
Sunset glows in his brake lights.

The day is spread on his dashboard
While night reclines on the leather upholstery.

Sun and moon rise in his mirrors,
The stars encompassed by wheel trims.

His battery holds the lightning,
His horn the thunder,
His exhaust is a torrent of minerals.

In his pride
He scorns the hatchback on the motorway,
In his anger he roars at traffic lights.

Let him be laden with treasures:
An old school tie,
A palmtop with added memory,
The National Geographic on CD-ROM,
Tapes, designer drugs, and travellers' cheques.

Centrefold girls in Versace gowns
Shall come with buckets to wash him down,
His bodywork waxed by the platinum blonde.

The chrome has to gleam on the sacrificial GTi.

Tonight the bravest of our tribe
Must mount behind the wheel
And drive off Tower Bridge.

K.M.Payne

If you've any comments on his work, K.M.Payne would be pleased to hear from you.

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