Mumbai

Filled with natural and physical beauty
teeming with life, all varieties
cars constant honking like so many tropical birds
which sound all night (a kind of crow)
back and forth in jungle of hanging vines
foliage that blankets city streets
canopies of animals and trees.

My window a wealth of information
I can barely tear myself from my tea!
Men and women constantly selling me!
Strangeness to baffle any European city!

Cavernous buildings with pillars of rotting stone
countless beggars cripples bazaars sweaty
every article drenched with sunlit rain.
Bombarded with barracades, police with semi-automatics
aiming; You want Hash? You want Hash!
Complex as the city itself!

Systematic passengers ushered in on endless trains
the rush of busses passing either side so close
turn your head to save your nose!
The Phalanx of commuter street crossing!

Crowd of people inhale to make more room!
Still boarding even though there's 200 people on this bus
They still want their six rupees, arduously punch your ticket
A friendly hand reaches around to grab the rail!

They're all smiling! So happy!
Saris are rainbow sprays in the mist!
Amidst the smother of ruin, incomplete construction
are glowing rich stores pristine restaurants
filled to the brim with thousands of rupees!

At night so many homeless men, women, children
have collapsed on the sidewalk anywhere, or between
parked cars as if dead to sleep next to all the sellers.
By 12, the lights are off! All passed out on their wood
counters, under heavy stone ballastrades
awaiting the new day!