What Head Of Hero That Did Not Roll
Times when the winds howl
and chase ships home to brood
there are no fish in the water
that did not tremble too.
In the nude of the dawn
and at the trembling of the day
a rapturous melancholic wonder
holds you at bay.
Then the meal that's stripped in form
is in remote mood sliced
and you did not know
if your hand you cut for cake
nor did you think it could…
In such times too
in the teeming thought of the town
think you:
with all eyes chasing you
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poem by T. Wignesan
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Career
Tether the cow to the post of your patience
and wait
First make ready the field in which you choose to let her loose
There where no lilacs grow
nor lotuses in the pond of your astrological gaze
If you haven't enough cut-grass in the loft
Make sure your sickle doesn't rake through touch-me-nots and lallang
You may only prepare the pasturing ground
You cannot make your cow browse in it
all her dogged years
her udder bitten
fangs sunk in stealth
milk mixed with venom
milched in terror
suckling in fear
You may not clear your fields
of
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Boy running in the rain...
His face swinging from ear to ear
A bemused smile lighting up
his gander gait
under the burlap mop
Who's looking at me
Why is everyone looking at my legs
His mother telling him to be back this summer
before the green peacocks turn to Indian blue
Droplets big as his nightshade eyes bursting at each
swan step
Boy on an errand
The stealthy guilt-ridden leaves of the linden
Motionless in the metallic green boiling flood
Boy still running in the rain
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You Said: Why Can't I have My Day
a cherished paper-cutting
for
those who forgot to care
and for you
too late
a cribbed account
in pale bold face
on some crowded backpage
which lapped up the soya stains on the takeaway counter
some faded picture of you
crammed in nubile twists of fronting elegance
in meagre-columned glossy pages
you said: why can't i have my day
why should a destitute Greek prince
lord it over the world
just by tying a knot with his regal cousin
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Block Fall from the Zyklon Door
When you have passed nonplussed
by rumours
of ovens
of being burned alive by the horde
calcinated bones in torrid ashes
teeth without a name
pebbles in the sands of hate waves
When between you and the other side
is the block-flesh thrust through to Himmelweg
too late
you smell the Zyklon trap
about to be sprung on your innocence
your children looking to you for a way out
not daring to believe
you have left home without an answer
You can only wonder at how they led you
each child's hand ensconced in its mother's
the old and the infirm weeded out
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On driving westward toward Versailles
I
wet cat impaled on telegraph poles
serrated ashbrown fur
tinged with flinting silver
a mirror blue
cut by guitar strings on a shining plate
bathed in molten evening shine
jet streaks through pylon barrage
windshield wipers' hemicircular swipe
dry cat's crusty baguette fur
ashen edges of rapidfire cirrus
pylons stalk the sky
and catch the wipers in the eye
II
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Bikku under the Bodhi Tree
yogi under the banyan tree
yogi under the bodhi tree
bikku under the banyan tree
waiting for release
bikku in blissful nibbhana
yogi in extinguishing moksha
Penniless poet under the tenement roof
Jazz organist under the pavement sky
Struggling novelist under the Riviera blue
Russian ballerina under the American umbrella
Apprentice painter under the Sistine Chapel
Sculptor Underground
waiting for the agent's call
burning Anne Frank manuscripts in an air-raid fire
singular melodies drowned in the descending drone
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To our dearly-beloved son, now dead
In a makeshift vihara in the heart of London
Bikku then disclosed his parents long gone
Might one dare utter after all these years
Was it yesterday he would shed dry tears
Somewhere in the saffron folds of his faith
A lonely boy still lurked wanting his mother
Or brother sister and hope-dislocating father
Of how they could abandon even his wraith
Just a single line in the inner board of a book
Over dried blue ink his fingers caressed words
A life he might've had in who knows what worlds
He just wanted to say: ‘See, who so forsook! '
In an unwatched vihara in the heart of London
A forsaken boy dared break out of monkdom
Might one dare utter after all these years
Was it yesterday he would shed dry tears
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Born to die at Stromboli
« Think, the world remembers only the poets. The name of a country depends on how its poets behave. »
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the Philosopher-President of India*
Whoever dies at his Stromboli
needs no excuse to be born
as those who sail their ships
to the farther regions of the mind
even if they lose their way
finding their way back to sanity
While those who invent the Soul
construct pyramids
cathedrals
stupas
to raise those royal patrons
who raised them
to the skies
or even
those who lived to soothe others
with televisions
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Komori
The komoris' eyes fix the camera
from around
and in the straining double bandoliers' hump
the babies shaven heads strain
The body dares not face the camera
The frontal posture is not for the servant
heads turned bent regards meek and in stress
hair hastily gathered in the dark
now straggly with their loads
and in the eked-out smiles
the years of sleeplessly fading pallid faces
the rough cotton kimono
drab thick resistant to baby-faeces and crachat
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