Walk down a street in Delhi
-it depends which street-
And either there's no one for miles
Except some swanky car swooshing past,
Or every passer, in his hurry, shoves you.
I wonder if I will have to learn
This push around or leave alone
Philosophy to live here,
Or whether it will come naturally.

confused, confused, angry, angry.confused and angry.confusedly angry.but what is there to be angry for?why angry ?you need a therapist.no, i don't need a therapist.therapists are for borderline nutcases.i am not a borderline nutcase.i am a borderline angry person.i am a person teetering on the edge of yelling.of telling everybody to go jump in a well.of just yelling.like they said on Sheep in the Big City,-not Mad Scientist, Angry, Angry Scientist.I'm a sheep in the big city.but which big city ?all big cities. and small towns and everywhere at all.but do sheep get angry ?sure, why shouldn't sheep get angry.admittedly, they never look angry,but then.but then, neither do i, right ?apart from the flat expressionlessness of the face-which could be anything-and the positive-ish inflexionlessness of the voice -which means nothing in particular-it doesn't show. angry doesn't show. like a pressure cooker. but even that's got to go whee sometimes, right ? that's got to let off the hot, spewing, vicious steam.
"so i'll go 'round to the corner store, mate, and if i see a bloody indian, i'll beat 'im up."

their world, in their words.

Mad, mad, mad.

It's all mad.

The weather is mad.

One minute it shrieks in fury and sweeps across the sky.

The next minute it is still and watching. Glowering.

There is a mad noise inside my head.

A grey noise.

A fey noise.

A sound that isn't a sound, but it's taking up the space.

It's eating up the space with its greyness, and leaving everything muddled up inside.

And the people outside are all mad.

They are charging up and down the road with

Applications, supplications,

Held like battering-rams.

They are massing in crowds on the street

Massing like flies in grey-black circles

Sullenly threatening,

Buzzing about nothing

Under the hot sun,

Under the trickling, prickling hot.

And I am here,

Watching them from the barred window

And I am angry at them and angry for them.

My mind twitching, buzzing,

and I want to sweep this angering clutter away

Sweep it off the table to bash, crash, smash it.

I wanted to, before the buzzing, their buzzing

Grew louder and grew

Out of a drone and into a hum,

And fashionably crossed arms

And leaning to one side with straight black hair hanging,

And the mouths forming words and the circles forming lines,

And glazed eyes fading into bright.

And then I just cared nothing for them,

And did nothing.

Who is mad here ? Me ? Them ?

Who knows ?

Who cares ?

moon and girl

The little girl looks up with wide, sorrowing eyes.
“Moon, I…”
Pauses, looks down.
Nervously pokes the earth with a shoe-tip.
Anguish overpowers all else,
Pours out, with hot spilling tears,
Into the night air,
Words stumbling over each other in the rush.
Moon above, glowing white,
Cocks his head to one side
And looks on, with a slight frown.
Voice hoarse from talking and crying,
Peters out.
Pleading, “Well ?”
Implacable, cool, with a level gaze,
He looks down-
-Briefly, then at a poet languishing
In a garden three miles away,
Exchanges a knowing glance with a solitary palm tree,
And then looks further away.

She smiles softly up at him.
“Moon, you are my only friend.”
And goes in, satisfied.