Unravelling The Rainbow

(with thanks to William Blake)

 

1

The rose-tinted glasses

Smashed into my eyes

And I was blind;

 

For a living I took

To the "chartered" streets

And began unraveling

The rainbow

 

Starting with cool violet

Till the undoing

Of leonine orange

 

2

I listen to the colors in my hand pulling off

Row by arched row

 

(My blind eyes can only hear

The "chartered" rivers flow...

You know how those lines go:

"Marks of weakness, marks of woe.")

 

Blake's harlot has stood still

Cursing at the marriage hearse..

High-class escort or two-bit whore

She thinks of her torn purse…

 

A beggar on the other side

Recites a verse spawned

By hunger (the one for food...

Not for love and when in the mood)

 

3

My fingers seek, and cannot find

The other end of the rainbow…

 

Every newborn on the road

Opens its crusted eyes slow…

(looks at mother with olive hair

Scavenging for rice)

 

And then utters

A goaded cry of fear…

 

In every voice

In every ban

The mind-forged manacles I hear