Sapphirism

When I was a young lad, I used to frequent a shop of odds and ends by the corner of the street near our house. There were a myriad of strange and exciting things there—from marbles to fishhooks to old keyboards. The owner was a milky-eyed old man and he was always in a world no one was privy to. I would often buy chewing gum there, because the old man usually would toss in a few extra if you bought ten of them. As a child I was a gushing stream, and together with my friends we were a storm. The old man would smile when we were there, and then slip into his usual stoic expression. I grew taller, the man passed, and his shop closed. Nobody in his family was interested in maintaining a shop with nothing useful to sell. So the place that was the highlight of my childhood faded into the background of everyone’s conscious, dust and grime collecting on the metal shutters. After five years, I happened to be passing by the street near our house when I came to visit, it was just a sudde...

Dolly had a house with a porch but no stove. She was no stranger to feathers, coal smoke, and torn clothes. She had 3 chickens on whom she would dote. She stole into the rice fields after school And swung the old tyre swing up to the moon. Her bruised knees knew no multiplication tables. Dolly is swollen with burdens and a child. She has a house with no porch but a modern stove, And a man whose love changes like the moon. Serves him rice and chicken sharp at noon, No stranger to the knuckles, cigar smoke, and torn clothes. Bruised knees still don't know multiplication tables.