by Philip John
[box]The second child is a mélange, an ambivalent mixture – one who wants to raise gooseflesh. Philip John writes a poem.[/box]I am the second child, the obvious child
I am not listening to you; my river runs a little wild
I am not a solid block of colour like my older sister
I am a mélange, a salad bowl, an ambivalent mixture
A part of me walks the line, stays the course, dances to the tune
Another part of me wants to be your lover under the lambent moon
There goes the older child, the wiser child; she wants to be a lawyer
Here comes the second child, the obvious child; he wants to be a painter
She knows what she wants, she rarely complains, she pays the bills
He floats like a bubble; he serenades broken rainbows in gasoline spills
How did two apples from the same tree fall so many miles apart, Mama says
How will the obvious child survive, when will he exorcise his dreamy ways
Mother, I’ve got no plans to raise a child or sway to the beat of sanitized duets
I want to raise gooseflesh; I want to waltz into the dreams of dangerous poets
I wish I was the rooted, weathered rock that our culture expects a man to be
But I’m a travelling circus of many moods, a deviant branch of the family tree
I am the second child, the obvious child
I am not listening to you; my river runs a little wild
I’m no steady man, no solid block of colour, no clockwork orange
I’m a salad bowl, a sort of ambivalent mixture, a nervous mélange.
Philip John is currently a marketing executive with a consulting firm. His passions include literary fiction, jazz, movies, vintage art, comics, poetry and twentieth century American culture. Writers he admires include Michael Ondaatje, Philip Roth, George Orwell and J M Coetzee. Philip lives and writes in Bangalore.
Philip attended the Bangalore Writers Workshop, an interactive method of bringing a group of writers together and allowing them to study the craft of writing while receiving constructive feedback on their own work. More details are available at http://bangalorewriters.com/
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