Unison

We don’t want to walk away from angels
It’s just that they operate a certain kind of deceit
Of a world created by one at a time
Where our dresses and bangles are sitting at their feet.

It may be dour for the Dao to exchange our dowry
For the floury scent of chapatis in the air,
Instead of Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday when our cook is having the day off
And our laundryman is not out drying our underwear.

But if we stay with them there will be trouble
The Shiva and Co. will be back from Bombay and charge double
For the spell check and floor decking to be balanced and fair
With the warbles and Christmas baubles still dangling dangerously in the air.

That is the condition of leaving it all too late
For a second chance for my Colonial mate
To get down from Colleges and back to Schools for arguments
About what old fashioned ripped jeans might have meant.

And then there is the Bubble Gum and Justin Bieber
Who knows Michael Buble and the monkey calls Bubbles?
That we have to keep awareness on show about so Bollywood can bill
The fructous support system to fruits for the diabetes support pill.

Down there far below the Pussy Farts
And all that dark art
Where you are aware
Of our heavenly heaving
And displeasure before your Official Receiving…
… on and on,
Like a corporately deconstructed song
Of an Elegy before His Grace
Of what he is well fed on for his disgrace,
In another country

For a flatulent cunt trying to have wonder
At the act that he is adept at
For the motion that he is not employed at,
By the fat cat
The company rat
The Porno tra[p of saying Splat]:

  • Describe it please by December
  • Ad: I will remember
  • You will feel the fire’s ember
  • There will be a tremble
  • ‘ing
    The angels sing to rejoice the New Age choice of speakers

Walking around in the ether for their nuances and splitters
So that the upper regions are more light and less fathomed
By the reaches of the ordinary and banal express streets
Where the message is one of compatibility
And not unison in sex with all that you could possibly meet.

AI Summary

The poem explores the tension between spiritual longing and worldly corruption, weaving together angels, dowries, colonial histories, Bollywood glamour, domestic rituals, and sexual frustration into a swirling critique of how desire, culture, and power intersect. It moves from Sindh to Spain, from Shiva to chapatis, from angels to corporate hierarchies, showing how every sacred symbol becomes entangled with commerce, exploitation, and human frailty. The speaker oscillates between humour and bitterness, invoking gods, lovers, colonial ghosts, and pop‑cultural figures to expose the absurdity of modern spiritual posturing and the commodification of intimacy. Beneath the irreverence lies a deeper ache: the longing for authenticity in a world where everything — sex, faith, art, even the self — risks becoming a transaction. The poem ends in a kind of cosmic shrug, acknowledging that this “Spirit of the Age” repeats itself endlessly, leaving the speaker adrift between myth and modernity, longing and critique, the sacred and the profane.

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