bat poem

Not to make excuses, but I don't consider myself a poet. That being said, I've really started to appreciate writing poetry since I've arrived here. Even if I'm just jotting down images and adjectives and arranging them into some form that I think has some meaning derived from rhythm, it's been helping me understand my interactions with the energy that permeates everything here.

I spent some time in the last few days getting out a little bit. I walked to a vegetable market where I bought a vegetable called portal (the texture of which is probably best described as being similar to what you would imagine a mini-alien to be like). I also got some oranges and a large mango and some candy from a man who is known as Mr. Moonshine and is apparently from Tamil Nadu (so I got to stretch my Tamil skills a little bit). Then this evening I spent some time up on the roof with Denise and Eva. When we first got up to the roof it was still pretty light out and there were dozens of crows everywhere you looked (very reminiscent of some certain Hitchcock scenes), but as the sun dropped behind the trees on a hill near our building, the crows started to disappear and the bats started to emerge. So this is kind of coming from that. Again, I'm not a poet, but I've been thinking a lot about content versus conventions in writing (from the TESL standpoint) and at least the ideas get across in this, even if they aren't necessarily the most eloquent.


slow silent bat wings somehow manage
to dampen the chaos
pumping up from the streets below:
the quick sounds of
screeched breaks
hands on horns
bicycle chains gritting
and grinding
and crackling, metal
against oil
against metal.
unfed or underfed
babies, wives, workers, beggars.
clothing, mostly unwashed,
rattling on the line
monsoon wet and snapping
air against water
against fabric
against twine.
chicken and beef
sizzling from inches below
oil turning in its pan.
chicken and cows
cackling and clopping and
cleaning up everything that
we've left behind in the
streets,
too busy to notice our own
peels and papers and piles
as we step over them,
force our way into our refuge
through our silent rooms,
up our lonely staircases
up to the red roof
where we're met by bats, still higher,
enabling us to leave everything below.