Harriet Ponampulam and her English poodle

Harriet Ponampulam had an English poodle
which she kept in a little kennel
at the back of her garden
just beneath her jackfruit tree
every evening her maid and her would take
the english poodle for its walks
along the narrow streets of Seletar
streets where the flame trees
dropped their orange petals onto the gravel
making a swishing sound
as if dancing on tight ends
and tiptoing to a final graceful end
Her maid Melly Muthu
used to hold the English poodle
with a very thin narrow leash
ticking it with an ugly stick
each time it did not walk too straight
You English dog, you know English,
you walk straight,
you understand, dont show me
your evil crooked ways,
dont bark back to me in German,
with your silly barks of dissent
against caterwauling cats on
hot red roofs ...

one dark day, when the clouds were black
harriet had a fever and told the maid
to take the dog on a spin on her own
then she lay back on her bed and rested

Melly Muthu, for once the mistress.
dragged, pushed, barked orders
at the English poodle
more strict and stentorian
than Harriet herself ...

This way, you stupid dog!
Not so long to ease yourself, you black thing!
Then she giggled and became hysterical with delightt
as Harriet Ponampulam back home
had a hazy dream about a dog becoming a man
and taking over the whole world
like Hitler did in 1942 ...
making Mortal Man bow down like sheep
and run up hills and graze on meadows
silently, like dumb animals,
bred purely for their meat and wool ...

Oh, dear, said Harriet, waking up in a fit,
where is that silly maid of mine, she wondered,
gazing out as slowly the rains began to fall ...

Meanwhile, the maid had tied the English poodle
to a tall rain tree, and as the rain fell,
she went to a nearby minimart
to have some mango juice, and read a paper,
and call her friend in Trincomalee,
laughing in merry gaiety,
oblivious to the enslaved dog
beneath the old rain tree ...

Then she put on some knuckle dusters,
came back with her leash,
and with fiery rebuke dragged her English poodle home,
mocking it with rhetoric and brittle dialogue :
oh, how fine it is to be a human
in a very inhuman world
where i am always a bloody slave, she said ...

Oh, where have you been, Melly,
gasped Harriet Ponampulam
as she saw her at the gate with her English poodle,
which barked and growled so fiercely
that it seemed almost like a tiger ...

What is wrong with my English poodle,
why is it barking so ferociously, she asked ...
Did somebody knock into it or throw stones at it?
asked poor old Harriet Ponampulam,
seeing it slink into the garden,
more like a thief.

No, Madam, your English dog is okay,
it just thinks it is an English man,
so i had to make it understand
it was not a man
but just a silly, stupid dog, said Melly Muthu,
before releasing the dog into the garden
and running into the house
to prepare dinner for her mistress ...

And as the kwali was struck
and hot coconut oil thrown in,
the red raw sun suddenly appeared
as the dark ugly drizzle was silently exorcised
and slowly puffy whitish clouds began to fill
the blue sky where once
aliens used whips and guns
to deride and denounce native fowls
into an unholy silence
on No Clucking Day ...