Shells to protect us

Wide curious eyes of the new arrival
Searching looking blinking
Helplessly involved like a new born child
Dependent needy greedy for new experience
Lapping it up catlike tasting tropical delights
Sweltering steamy smells of sweet corruption
Drawing you in to life anew

The surface deepens and understanding
Grows with time - the softness hardens
Curiosity constricted by routines found to return
to familiar patterns from home, beer and chat
Gossiping and gadgets for the kitchen
A shell forms to shelter and inure us.

Under its self professed protection who are we?
The bright new world so recently explored and enjoyed
Is clouded behind its callous immunity
The child in us dying with each day of settling
Of each month complaining and proclaiming

How do we let this happen? and why?
Do we need to protect ourselves
from being drawn in and over committing?
Exhausting ourselves and burning up
Our spirit against a limitless wall
Leaving only ash and a soot-stained bricks
To show how we played our tiny part.

The AID Parade

Crossing the street
Now that is a feat

UN, UN, UN, UNDP
Tata, UN what do you see

A shiny white truck
Drivers don’t give a fuck

Not a drop of rust
They stir up the dust

The 4x4s go by
The fumes make you cry

Money tied up in wheels
How do the locals feel?

New cars for government
Are they heaven sent?

Students take to the streets
will MPs keep their personal treats

Who gains who loses?
Is it the people who choose?

Poverty and death at their door
In who’s interest is all this for?