The news talks about
an Air India passenger
who urinated on an
elderly woman, and Twitter
is on fire, one propagandist
who churns out jingoistic
movies, replete with majoritarian
fanaticism, asks, what if it
was a Khan? Wouldn’t the
law be different? But this isn’t
about him or the woman
who had to endure sickening
humiliation while she waited
for a new seat for hours.
This is about the crazed
passenger, 34, and
a vice-president
of a multinational company.
Hold on, I don’t even think
this is about him, but more about
the idea of a 34-year-old man
in such a position of power.
I’ll camouflage the fact that this
is really about me, also 34, by
not boring you with the usual
mawkish, self-pity laced rant
about the differences in stature
between a poet writing
lugubrious odes transporting you
straight to funerals without roses
and someone with power over
such losers, power to snap his
fingers and alter the trajectory
of their lives. Both our lives occupy
the same place in time and space
because we’re both
passengers, one on an endless
chase for meaning that he justifies
with superfluous language because
he needs to say more to defend
doing less, the other
where he should be. But what
about beauty? Some might ask.
What about it? It isn’t worth living
or dying for beauty unless your
concept of it revolves around God.
If it is some abstract notion of
your mind, some subjective judgement
that you herald, you’re only
living for yourself. The great poets
were greater narcissists, masking
their soul’s search for admiration
with a Bauta of melancholy.
A golden false face of innocence.
Even Keats probably trashed in
agony when he apostrophised
Autumn. Oh seasons of fists
and manic fruitlessness indeed!
The romanticism that accompanies
art and depression (from which most
art ensues) is a cesspool that will
blind you to the world outside.
In its murky depths, you’ll sink
and sink, lamenting and
faux-prophesying, arguing
that you’re searching for
something within that will
make the trumpets sound,
the moon sing her ethereal
aria, the clowns cease their
trolling, and the kings bring
petals to wash your feet.
But there is nothing, no
seraphic purpose that guards
you with wings, and sets you
apart from the crowd.
No cherubic calling that
heightens your aesthetic sense,
gives you a bluish halo,
and Elven ears,
making you an otherworldly
messenger of love
or comfort. Bright star, I’ll never be
steadfast as thou art, and my
lover complains it hurts
when I lie on her breast. The world
will wake up one day without you,
and what you’ve endured and who
you are will drift in mishandled
recollections of those who
knew you best, or misunderstood
writings you’ve left behind
conveying the breeze susurrating,
but interpreted as an ode to
you masturbating, or better
yet depicting sweet psithurism
but understood as an
explosive orgasm.
Ordinary Person 
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