We saw the rain coming
Brooding over us like a dowager
Little India seemed suddenly small
Under the umbrella of a tropical downpour
Fumes of cardamom and incense
Mingling with Asian insouciance
Amid the architecture of an uneasy truce
We found a back street restaurant
Changed our daughter’s diaper
On a rain soaked toilet seat
Then sat down exhausted, ready to eat
Mutton Rogan Josh, Garlic Naan, Palak Paneer
Waiters loitering, wraith-like, always near
While outside rain reduced all to rubble
Every aspiration this city ever had
Will be eaten away by the climate
For not even Malaysia can sustain
A Western capitalist ideal
In an Eastern tropical garden
Without sacrificing its soul
To a ravenous and unforgiving God
It shows in people’s faces
The look of having lost a fight before it begins
A fight they neither chose nor are interested in
Take KLIA, more shopping centre than airport
A huge festering fungal growth
Where the Roti Chanai is ironic
And buying a beer is like pulling teeth
There is a brutal postmodernity here
Chrome steel and concrete aspirations
Sunk in a mosquito infested swamp
Nevertheless swept and kept religiously clean
Leaving us to ponder the question:
What does a spotless bathroom
With no shelves mean?
© shaun patrick green 2014
