bliss station ~ poetry

prometheus & halahala

what if prometheus kept the fire for himself &
swallowed it - halahala. there are places in the
world where he hid the fire like the farsi chawl

under the bombay-poona, no, mumbai-pune highway.
the prime minister says we are 100% electrified.
we are, but he's unaware of our prometheus, & that

electricity was never thought of. the chawl prays
to him, but in other names, for fire, say everything happens
for a reason, thala ezhuthu, fate carved on foreheads -

karma carried over from a previous life, like long multi-
plications in cold math classes. reason, fate, karma are all
a fire we recede to get warm. but there is no fire, remember.

so you made one up & shiver in its coded warmth. the planets
have strings on you, they pull & drag your life like fishermen.
I believe this is a belief sparked by the sun to reduce us to fish

because he has no more fire to keep celestial bodies ellipsing
around him, to keep the moon loyal. it is much closer, after all
to earthly beings. to me, causing vulpine tides in blood &

cellular smiles. I see a body in the dark of a rickshaw parked
besides the unloaded vegetable truck, lighting a beedi
with a fire of his own, a prometheus who drinks cutting chai

on loan, bites vada pav with a promise, travels the trains
without tickets, like snakes that are bound to return, keeping
the fire to himself & darkling radially outwards.

~Ajay
21/9/2019