Lines under a street lamp

The shadows are long in unknown streets
the insects hovering over sick neon lights
like strangers from faraway lands,
they look beautiful under shadows
and die in the sun, each day.

A small boy sits in its jaundiced light,
sick and yellow with hunger?
Somewhere from a remote gali
Pakeeza comes alive-

I climb a rock and read a poem,
I scream I shout and enact,
at my nonexistent audience.
They clap in their busy songs,
in callousness strewn over each other.
A black moth approves-

People fill the roads like rats,
milling over-
careless, faceless,
hurry in every crease.
Lovers pause for life,
behind a lamp, a shrub?
Life lives for a while.

A phone rings,
my shadows come home-
On the road back,
in pieces I become my role
and play it.

 © 2013 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Image from http://www.google.co.in/imgres?start=353&sa=X&biw=1024&bih=653&tbm=isch&tbnid=8L_NUUlUKQ9ctM:&imgrefurl=http://www.colourbox.com/image/medieval-deserted-alley-at-night-with-yellow-street-lamps-image-2226054&docid=1SfwfSpqpLGqgM&imgurl=http://www.colourbox.com/preview/2226054-706585-medieval-deserted-alley-at-night-with-yellow-street-lamps.jpg&w=417&h=480&ei=OwSBUrDUD4TBrAewgIGICw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:71,s:300,i:217&iact=rc&page=19&tbnh=175&tbnw=145&ndsp=19&tx=78&ty=78 )