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IV
It’s a plunge to the bottom of the
cliff - a fall with no respite
-falling - unnamed pain as flesh
scrapes against sharp edges
of darkness - rocks and broken
glass jutting out the walls
of my mind till I am at the bottom
of the pit. Where do I look
to crawl outside myself? Where
are the stronger poisons?
Where are the fanged asps to heal
my wrists? I crawl up- piecemeal
- fingernails broken to cuticles,
hands and knees bleeding, skin
sanded in a million places till I
get to the top to find one clean
metaphor that knows sometimes there
is no climb after the fall.
The curse of words - to always
be inside yourself - always
an open wound - a slave to their
wounds. Carefully, I pocket
this perfect metaphor and tip-toe
to our doorstep. I am drunk
again you say when I lift it up to
show you what I found this time
in the pit of my mind.
V
Yesterday was warm, a breeze with
no past. I felt so pampered.
The sun was lodged several inches
into my skin. I even started
thawing! My jaws unlocked. Laughter
once exiled traced
its way back as a song. It was a
lullaby. I was so close
to being home. Looking out the
window, today is so brutal,
so cold, without memory. The
trees are naked. The clouds
rain their acid. Today is lovable,
blessed only for yesterday.
Two cups of coffee and I find you
armed with brush, canvass
and paint. You pause to look
outside. "Sometimes
it’s easy
to create when you have something
to work against" you say
between two sips of coffee. Soon,
it too will be cold. Forgotten.
VI
Sharp tip of Shaka's assegai one
inch into the flesh above my
heart - there is madness and fury
in a river that does not know
its source - that destroys all that
lies in its way - even that which
it runs to feed. I never knew my
grandfather though he knew
his - so sunrise or sunset - I end
at the point where my eyes cease
to see. Forge assegai into a pen
and pen will write
itself into a gun.
Our children must have their
source.
VII
Needs, true courage comes in the
form of hunger. We must
brave the outside. Your shoes on
mush snow, my numb lips
tugging on a last cigarette. Middle
East Restaurant, Mass. Ave.,
Boston, MA. It's a quiet lunch
till you speak of your
dream -
paintings in blood. "Isn't that
always the case?” And then-
"Whose?" "Whose what?"
"The blood, whose was it?"
"I don't know, probably
yours" you say. Then you lean
and rescue one solitary curry
spiced cauliflower from
my perimeter-ed metal plate.
"This plate, it’s like a prison's"
I say. But I feel elated to have
probably been in
your dreams.
VIII
Any given word sometimes can be
good-bye. What is a poet's last
thought? Regret? Song? Must
I hurry? So I try not too
look
too deep into rivers so inviting in
their swift, wet and furious
madness or trains so heavily set in
their ways. Can we ever
truly own that which we cannot take
with us? Memories
too turn into ash, and a poem that
graceless urn. So what good
does it do that I refuse to bathe
my feet in fast moving rivers?
IX
Warmth. It starts with numb
hands rubbing numb hands
to kindle
a fire - paint peeling of your hands-
mine your canvass – I scream –send
the sun back to its hell. At
times like these, who needs the
world?
X
To your question I say reason has
been lost in rhyme - words skirting
of pavements like smooth pebbles
that delight in living of a lake's
surface for the stay of their
bounce- boxed sonnets that pretend
to a life but contain only dead
secrets of alliteration. The adventure
always begins, always begins,
always begins with the surprise of death.
And in New York, the torch with
bound feet is still at sea, a beacon
amongst savage rocks to wreck ships
for sweat, brain and blood
on board. You, see plantations
have mutated to coal
mines but named
after the same god. So I left for
New York again only to find it too had
mutated, spawned off-springs with
new names. What brought me here?
Like a dog, I was only following my
master home.
XI
It's Midnight. We were here
yesterday and yet today
has a new phrase. We walk back
to our beginning
flipping through memories as though
photo albums.
Who remembers the sigh of the days
when the sun
does not rise? We have died in
so many ways, our
urns graced so many homesteads and
many more
unmarked graves. Who will name the
world for us
if not me and you? You smile.
It's warm. The candle
throws flickers of light around our
room. In glimpses,
I see a portrait of my grandfather
in Burma, then
at home armed with history. Tonight,
I will dream
of my blood feeding your paint
brush.
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