Even the Rain
|
What will suffice for a true-love
knot? Even the rain?
But he has bought grief's lottery, bought even the rain. "our glosses / wanting in this world" "Can you remember?" Anyone! "when we thought / the poets taught" even the rain? After we died--That was it!--God left us in the dark. And as we forgot the dark, we forgot even the rain. Drought was over. Where was I? Drinks were on the house. For mixers, my love, you'd poured--what?--even the rain. Of this pear-shaped orange's perfumed twist, I will say: Extract Vermouth from the bergamot, even the rain. How did the Enemy love you--with earth? air? and fire? He held just one thing back till he got even: the rain. This is God's site for a new house of executions? You swear by the Bible, Despot, even the rain? After the bones--those flowers--this was found in the urn: The lost river, ashes from the ghat, even the rain. What was I to prophesy if not the end of the world? A salt pillar for the lonely lot, even the rain. |
The Wolf's Postcript to 'Little
Red Riding Hood'
|
First, grant me my sense of
history:
I did it for posterity, for kindergarten teachers and a clear moral: Little girls shouldn't wander off in search of strange flowers, and they mustn't speak to strangers. And then grant me my generous sense of plot: Couldn't I have gobbled her up right there in the jungle? Why did I ask her where her grandma lived? As if I, a forest-dweller, didn't know of the cottage under the three oak trees and the old woman lived there all alone? As if I couldn't have swallowed her years before? And you may call me the Big Bad Wolf, now my only reputation. But I was no child-molester though you'll agree she was pretty. And the huntsman: Was I sleeping while he snipped my thick black fur and filled me with garbage and stones? I ran with that weight and fell down, simply so children could laugh at the noise of the stones cutting through my belly, at the garbage spilling out with a perfect sense of timing, just when the tale should have come to an end.
Farewell
At a certain point I lost track of
you.
They
make a desolation and call it peace.
When you left even the stones were
buried:
The defenceless would have no
weapons.
When the ibex rubs itself against
the rocks, who collects
its fallen fleece from the slopes?
O Weaver whose seams perfectly
vanished, who weighs the
hairs on the jeweler's balance?
They make a desolation and call it
peace.
Who is the guardian tonight of the
Gates of Paradise?
My memory is again in the way of
your history.
Army convoys all night like desert
caravans:
In the smoking oil of dimmed
headlights, time dissolved — all
winter — its crushed fennel.
We can't ask them: Are you
done with the world?
In the lake the arms of temples
and mosques are locked
in each other's reflections.
Have you soaked saffron to pour on
them when they are
found like this centuries later in this country I have stitched to your shadow?
In this country we step out with
doors in our arms.
Children run out with windows in
their arms.
You drag it behind you in lit
corridors.
If the switch is pulled you will
be torn from everything.
At a certain point I lost track of
you.
You needed me. You needed to
perfect me:
In your absence you polished me
into the Enemy.
Your history gets in the way of my
memory.
I am everything you lost. You
can't forgive me.
I am everything you lost. Your
perfect enemy.
Your memory gets in the way of my
memory:
I am being rowed through Paradise
on a river of Hell:
Exquisite ghost, it is night.
The paddle is a heart; it breaks
the porcelain waves:
It is still night. The paddle is a
lotus:
I am rowed — as it withers —
toward the breeze which is soft as
if it had pity on me.
If only somehow you could have
been mine, what wouldn't
have happened in this world?
I'm everything you lost. You won't
forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way
of your history.
There is nothing to forgive. You
won't forgive me.
I hid my pain even from myself; I
revealed my pain only to
myself.
There is everything to forgive.
You can't forgive me.
If only somehow you could have
been mine,
what would not have been possible
in the world?
(for Patricia O'Neill) |
This poem is about the loss of kashmir in the early 90's and the situation was such that there was not even a single , where in there was harmony and peace. The reporters were ordered by the army not to print the truth and on otherside , the terriorits or fighters , rebels were doing the same to order them to print , this created the situation even worse and the truth was buried. There so many operation , infact strategic operations by the army `` Catch and kill , operation eagle , operation tiger etc. this went on and on and my home was the centre of srinagar where in , we have to keep vacating our house almost 6 times a year. so this poem reflects on the kashmir and it speaks about , how that harmony from ages gets converted into violence due to misunderstanding between our leaders who control , rather represent us in the society.there is so much to write but I think it is enough here to give an slight idea.
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