Poems

LOFTY MOUNTAIN

To what falcon did you give your grief

whose shrieks so pierced the skies

that the earth might stay quiet?

Which sun did you so scorch with sorrow

for whole galaxies to be set ablaze

that the earth might remain cool?

In what tempest did you drown your rage

for the ocean waves to surge and swell

that the earth might become calm?

What seal was stamped on that coin which

you exchanged for all the world’s wealth

that the earth might learn patience?

Ah, mountain of fortitude,

what simple swallow could ever soar

to the summit of your unseen heights?

THE VOLCANO

Ah, how fortunate is that mountain

whose furious fires hidden deep within

can roar and rage and fume at night,

soaring up in plumes of lava

to high heaven from its heart,

and whose scorching grief

can burst and flow and flood

the plains with molten sorrow,

spilling crimson flames

over vast immensities…

NEGATION

It’s not that we’ve never been in love -

Any more than the sea could ever

not love the wave, or the sun

not love its rays,

or God - humanity.

What other remedy is there against entropy,

and the negation of animals, people, plants,

the very earth, that’s grown as weary of us

as we are of the grand delusion of ourselves?

No, it’s not that we’ve never been in love -

But when the time for action came, the day of deeds -

we did not honour love and preferred self instead,

sowing seeds of hatred and division at a time of crisis.

That was when we cast love aside

called faith illusion, trust a lie,

chose negation over affirmation

and walked the path of shame - alas!

as though we never had been lovers!

THE RANSOM

I wasn’t seeing you

because I’d looked at you so often.

I wasn’t listening to you

because I’d heard your voice so much.

I didn’t even fear that you would leave me

because you’d always been there, always near -

Oh my compassionate beloved! Oh my dear!

Your absence proves too much for me to pay -

just to come back to my senses.

HIGH PRICE

It came to me open handed, this moment -

Imminent, free, and brimming with birth.

But when moments of hope prove so fleetingly brief -

the cost is too high for so weak a faith.

PRISON VISIT

It’s cold in here.

My jacket is too thin.

Come on, I tell myself brightly,

You’re just a traveler in this place;

keep smiling, keep your baggage light!

Then the line crackles and you ask:

How’s the temperature in there?

Do you need anything more to wear?

I see you lower your head, alone

on the other side of the glass partition.

We’re both silent, clinging to the phone.

The line cuts.

The merciful dirt of the double-glazing

blurs between us so we cannot

see each other’s tears.

NIGHT

Do not so willingly welcome night,

sinking deep into your pillow,

drowning beneath sound sleep.

For night usually brings oblivion

and the thief comes with intent.

The moon often leaves you on your own,

abandons you in search of her sun;

and when night skulks on the doorstep,

like a begger shrinking from dawn,

you’ll have no guarantees of safety,

None!

For night is in league with darkness

and always lies in wait - watching, tireless -

Do not forget, your treasure is priceless!

So do not so readily let your head

sink deep in your pillow. Do not so willingly

welcome that sound sleep of yours tonight …

THE CALL

It summons me,

calls me to rise:

for I’ve no patience left

to live life out this way,

laying my brow on the knee of sorrow,

surrendering to tsunamis.

It summons me,

calls me to rise:

for nothing’s lost in full,

if you can understand it well,

and see a hundred clearer paths

concealed in possibilities.

It summons me,

calls me to rise:

for a life of lamentation, long as Noah’s,

can’t compare to the moment you begin

to build with your bare hands

your own ark of salvation.

It summons me,

calls me to rise,

for deprivation’s only another way

of naming the infinity

of finer opportunities

awaiting my response.

UNDER MY PILLOW

Under my pillow a drum is beating,

Under my pillow a river flows,

and the canaries drink sweet water from its light.

But I don’t know when that branch began to grow

under my pillow, or when the woodpecker

began to knock against the dream tree

- rap rap, rap rap - from dawn to dusk

drumming its heavy beak upon the bark.

I only know that someone

fighting against her own sanity

would open her eyes each morning

beaming equal rays of acuity,

able to delve down deep

among the flowers,

or suddenly rise to contemplate

all heaven’s galaxies.

Under my pillow a drum is beating,

Under my pillow a river flows.

BROKEN WALL

We lean against the wall,

our minds darkened as we stand

under its towering shadow,

for we neither understand the world

nor ourselves, in that dim shade.

The sun consumes itself;

the eye can’t see itself;

and without light or mirror,

we are led astray in this unlit alley,

falling into old habits, dangerous ways.

We lean back, trusting and deluded,

placing the whole of our weight

against that teetering wall.

Beware!

It’s not a firm support -

That broken wall.

UNWRITTEN POEM

If you do not write me, will I be read? 

Will my cry ever be cradled in someone’s ear?

If words stay unspoken and never said,

do they cease to exist, and disappear? 

Is the unformed foetus in the womb

of a mother, dead?

And are screams

heard behind these bars of silence

nothing but delusion,

fake, mere fiction,

an illusion?

BROKEN PEN

They’ve broken my pen; it’s gone from my hand.

They’ve stolen my voice: oppression's price.

So I write with my tears on the waves of sound,

and I write with my nails on the page of air,

and I write with my eyes through a single glance.

My pen has gone but the poems still flow

from the curling locks of my tumbling thoughts;

the pen’s no more yet the poems still pour

from each breath that I take

and their rhythms shake

and their meters beat

in the murky corners of this cage.

I’ve hidden my love in this little verse:

a poem concealed in the mind’s purse.

THE CORD

Mutely I murmur them, silently sound them,

sometimes in solitude sing them out loud -

When no one’s about, I recite - even shout -

deliver them boldly to hear the brave beat

of living pulse in ear, in throat.

My poems are prison children,

born behind bars, tied by a cord.

For a while now I’ve been expecting -

for a while, there’ll be brief pain until,

un-aided, I can lay my burden down.

And for a while, I’ll secretly caress my babe,

kiss and trace my fingers round its face,

stroke its tender head, until at last,

wrapped in reluctant bands, I entrust it

to other hearts, to other hands.

That’s when I’ll have to cut the cord

and let it go. That’s where it ends.

No one sends me news about my child,

None offers me a single line or likeness. 

I never know if the little one survived,

or suffered neglect and did not thrive.

Prison children are unhappy creatures

orphaned, abandoned, easily harmed;

no matter which side of the bars they live,

they crave a mother’s arms.

WHOSE POEM IS THIS?

I ask why I should speak of sorrow,

why wash my face in tears of grief?

Isn’t it better for buds of laughter

to bloom and blossom in relief?

Yet when I write, I lose control

of who is sitting in my place,

who’s this that scribbles, who insists

on using words I can’t erase.

A stranger, who has no idea

whether she’s poet or the poem:

whose words weren’t what I meant to write;

whose poem shows merely who I am.

TWO THOUSAND SEVEN-HUNDRED AND TWENTY

Two thousand seven-hundred and twenty times

the sun has risen;

Two thousand seven-hundred and twenty times

the sun has set.

And each day in this cell of time, I’ve opened

wide my arms to embrace life with hope

and without any difference

between today and yesterday

beyond a bare half verse at the tip of my pen.

Each morning, I wake up with someone praying in my heart

and a hand inside me reaching out to God 

and I’ve relived these comings and these goings

two thousand seven-hundred and twenty times.

And so again today, as on all other days,

I die with the living and live among the dead,

with each attempt, both in the past and future,

shrunk within the confines of this alien space,

this strange, forlorn, and heart-sick place

That hems me in, wronged for so long.

POEM

They lament when they first come

and nothing can be done.

They adapt and get used to it

the longer they stay.

And when it’s time to go,

they do so full of joy…

And all this while—

you still sit here,

pen in hand,

writing a poem—perhaps

for no one at all.

THE SCALES

The scales
hung in perfect balance.
My joys were neither so many
as to show I had never known sorrow,
nor were my miseries so abyssmal
as to prove a total absence
of delight.
Until you
turned your gaze
towards my joys and then
the scales tipped down to the ground,
and all my miseries flipped high
in the air and appeared
to weigh nothing
at all!

LIGHT’S ENVOY

You pass through the fearful dark, unheard,

Walk between stained walls that reek of blood,

Tramp underfoot the fierce ones, the unsung,

Beside this mountain’s everlasting stones.

Pitch black ahead

Path strait

As pits draw near filled with the dead.

And the bloody lash tears through your flesh

And you lie silent, steeped in poisoned pity

Under the pall of this corpse-shrouded city.

How long will this wind-swept separation speed?

How far will we be driven by this deadly steed?

But even the blind sometimes arrive on far horizons,

Late perhaps but still eager for sweet dawn,

For the heart insists on waiting for each morning,

Treading this heart-sick way, step after step,

Carrying the burden, trusting the next day,

Recalling that old pledge, each breath a hope…

Though the blade cuts through the fibres of my being

Injustice will hear nothing from me but love's song.

I am light’s envoy and my only mystery’s this:

Cast me into the blazing fire -

I’ll not lie dead for long!

Cast me into the fire -

And l rise up again,

Rise to strive towards the burning sun

And reach for those shining rays despite my pain.

I am light’s envoy and my warning’s this:

Be wise when you would cast me in the fire,

For I’ll not die

But rise!

VISITATION

I can hear your footsteps coming! Joy opens my heart wide -

See how I rise in this dark cell to stand erect, with pride.

I always hunted secret treasures, sought up and down the land,

But found them all at your threshold, the place where you reside.

You are the word unparalleled, bewildering all who hear,

A sign of that destined prize just glimpsed when dust is cleared.

A living leader of the early band whose utterance shook the earth,

To what summons did your “Yea!” respond, affirming without fear?

Though cradled in the wine cup, you cast old bottles by the wall;

Although confined behind the veil, you released the pearl from its shell.

As you near the ancient city, I am more ravished at every step -

You never met your heart’s desire: where did you learn love so well?

A vivid witness of the present, yet you see our farthest horizon;

A blazing candle at the banquet spread, you illumine all creation,

O pure one named, renowned and famed consolation of the eyes,

Tell us tales of love that enrapture heart and head with passion!

Crowned in queenly gold you come to cast night’s veil away;

You break our bonds with tidings that usher in the day.

O follower of the fiery meteor which pierced the midnight skies,

Glance at the dark path I tread, walk beside me on this way.

THE FEATHER AND THE CRUTCH

The bird

was hopping up the steps,

one by one; it wasn’t even flying.

The man with the broken leg

was hobbling on his crutch,

weary and unwell; he was thinking,

If I had that bird’s feathers,

I would fly.

DEATH AND THE DOG

The horizon softly sleeps

on a white bed of latticed snow; 

over the land’s chill shoulders

the fog clouds come and go.

And a wet dog wanders by

starving, limping, lost —

not seeing the dead sparrow

lying unburied in the frost.

A lingering lace of snow, 

a night thick with freezing fog, 

a dead sparrow just lying there —  

all waiting for the dog.

The sparrow dreads no dog;

birds are brave — once gone.

When you lose your fear of dying 

you’re the courageous one.

The lamp blows off the ledge;

the horizon sleeps, snow ravished.

The sparrow lies bravely dead,

but the wet dog limps on — famished.

PINE

Don’t always blame

the blow of an axe

when a pine tree falls.

An axe is not

the only threat

to trees that are tall.

Alas! for the pine

that rots from within

for then how easily

it can be felled

to the earth

by the gentlest breeze!

COMPREHENSION

To capture the memory of clouds

Study the gentle blue waters,

And look to the waves.

To grasp the meaning of tears,

Gauge the passions

And look to love.

To understand me,

Look at yourself.

IF ONLY YOU KNEW

It was not with enmity that I arose at dawn

to wash, with tears, your dagger clean,

and wipe away the stains.

Nor did I with resentment lie awake at night

embittered through those stony hours

by swallowing grief’s pain.

Each of us is entrusted to God, but tell me first:

What enmity is it that still drives you

to pulverise and tread me down

into a lifetime’s dust?

And what kind of conscience can survive

committing crime so easily without

growing weary of injustice?

Ah, if only you knew

that nothing has been ever said

or done in enmity of you.

nor has it been for hatred or revenge

that I’ve risen up again and yet again

to do as I still do.

OUT

Don’t bother looking for me at night,

I’m out.

At the end of each day,

as soon as evening falls

– treading lightly, stepping softly –

I head for the high heavens

to knock, again and again,

on each of the doors of the angels.

Maybe one night, one of them

might open for me, just one

might grant me a wish -

to end this grief.

So there’s no point in looking for me at night,

no point in visiting me at home.

Don’t bother.

I’m out.

THE CRY

Lights out and the slope of night

slides into the darkness of our hearts.

Someone who resembles me

lies on the top bunk, near the ceiling.

Face to the window, back to the door,

and in the aisle behind me, sleeping women

lined up like books along the floor,

with Rosita – the cell prefect – rod in hand

pacing between the weary rows,

while the light above our heads keeps winking

on and off and on again, and off it goes.

Lights out but oblivion does not come

because the foul-tempered warden

suddenly marches in, like a broad black box,

and the whole ward holds its breath,

and the curtain quivers with shadows

before my face as I lie flat on the bed

next to the ceiling, on the frontier,

between the women on the floor

and the men in the military cells outside.

For on the other side of the impassive window

a man has begun to shout, to scream out aloud,

to cry and pound at the door with all his might.

How can these doors endure such blows!

How can they remain so blank, so pitiless,

staring impassively into the blood-shot eyes

of this man crying screaming shouting,

howling – God! God! – he howls

until the darkness swallows up his voice.

And then, imperceptibly, dressed in its night shirt,

the darkness starts to quake around me,

as all the men howl back in unison

as they roar back in response and cry

with that dreadful awful terrible cry -

the cry of men, trapped in prison,

calling out together and each other.

And as it rings in my ears, shattering the night

the whole prison turns into that cry

the silence and the dark become that cry

and I too am that cry

I shout and cry with them

and become that shout,

that cry.

White Torture

When time freezes at the pole of power,

when the blurred one behind your blindfold

abandons you alone before this lowering horizon

to be punished by death, despair, darkness and humiliation,

torture, threat, anxiety and deception—

that’s when you find you may no longer be

the subtle, complex human being you once were—

no longer resolute, upright, unreachable,

alert, awake and utterly untouchable,

no longer steadfast, firm, prepared to stand your ground—

but a caged creature, reduced to zero, bound,

a mere cipher, nothing behind other numbers,

believing what is not and never could be true,

confessing things you did not and could never do—

And then,

that is precisely when—

this wretched place loses its power, lets go of you,

and you discover that in spite of everything

you’re still that subtle, complex human being,

still exigent and problematic, after all—

for your days are scorched by anguish

and your nights are stung by gall!