with a tube in my nose
trickling chalklike barium
into my guts
my thoughts wandered
and roamed through
the chalk seller streets of ambala
and their white stained roads
and barium makes its way
through my small intestine
into the large one
as I remember how
my stomach
hungry since yesterday night
keeps clutching at the plastic tube
as if it were food
and I suddenly understand
desperation of hungry people
in all its dimensions
barium has now been led
into my large intestine
as I am ordered around
with a hungry stomach
still tugging at the tube
in a vain hope
as a robotic arm descends
and presses my stomach around
I strain not to remember
the poor on the streets
being pushed around
but the stomach still doesn’t give up
being hungry
as the doctors walk around
my stained roads of ambala
looking for troubled sections
he found one long street
to be strictured and narrow
while the hunger on the street gets me
and I vomit
empty vomit from an empty reservoir
a vomit of nothing
but the tube
as stomach wants it out
my throat wants it out
my nose wants it out
my brain wants it out
how does one care for the hungry?
my stomach is now really upset
with me
- written on 4 November, after going through a few tests being conducted on my body including the barium test (small bowel enema), which ended in a rare one day holiday, since I took help of enema to get the lumps of chalk out of my stressed up guts. No offence to the docs as this is a personal hallucination of a poet.