a body carrying a body suggests fire carrying a body—dawn’s race-horse lies bled
uncollapsed the powers enter the gods-to-be each creature bound to their own only body
the begetting of children is debt to the upside down crow ancestors – all sages and gods and fathers are debts
funerary, o immolated horse, translate this ritual into winning a heaven. day changes form as light changes the tree-leaf. in the halogen of the chamber of the dead, the watch passes from the body in heaven to the child’s eye-light-
its spine straight, a velakku holds in its branches each minor god and serpent. even the hours long for you, for your flight. the child establishes the parent, stretching its thread backward through generations
the ship reaches each horizon in its turn, weathers each storm—even storms have their turns the child sits in her heart-line of time, a petal on the wide ocean water
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
poem-coimbatore pastoral !-
he shook his head for the warm tea did not stop the fever’s violent shaking.
outside the dark birds flew in the sky arranging themselves like the very alphabet of his thought
his auto idle, there had been no income for three days. He looked down at his lungi folded up to above his skinny hairy thinning legs. like an insect, his mother had often said-
he owed money for ten days worth of drinks. it will come it must come don’t make such a loud fuss.
his only daughter, squatting by the roadside, smoking ganja. she had stolen his bicycle. now on the back seat of her bicycle sat her quack doctor with her baby-killing pills.
Did you come to mock me? he stared long at his unshaven reflection in the mirror.
he thought he must go to a movie tomorrow.
When he had returned home early that day, his wife had said surely its going to rain!
He fingered the envelope with his name typed in english (and english inside everywhere too) calling him for the interview. His name in inglis filled him with pride as if he already had the job
Where are all my certificates?- getting a government job is not a joke. he must pray. he remembered his father. he must have to take the train from the central station. he looked at his certificates a long time.
You have so many certificates, his wife said proudly, dhanapal has nothing.
Only when he was drunk did he realize that he could not live without her, nobody could set up a house for him quite like her.
but when she abused him, the entire village gathered to listen and watch the joke--
outside the dark birds flew in the sky arranging themselves like the very alphabet of his thought
his auto idle, there had been no income for three days. He looked down at his lungi folded up to above his skinny hairy thinning legs. like an insect, his mother had often said-
he owed money for ten days worth of drinks. it will come it must come don’t make such a loud fuss.
his only daughter, squatting by the roadside, smoking ganja. she had stolen his bicycle. now on the back seat of her bicycle sat her quack doctor with her baby-killing pills.
Did you come to mock me? he stared long at his unshaven reflection in the mirror.
he thought he must go to a movie tomorrow.
When he had returned home early that day, his wife had said surely its going to rain!
He fingered the envelope with his name typed in english (and english inside everywhere too) calling him for the interview. His name in inglis filled him with pride as if he already had the job
Where are all my certificates?- getting a government job is not a joke. he must pray. he remembered his father. he must have to take the train from the central station. he looked at his certificates a long time.
You have so many certificates, his wife said proudly, dhanapal has nothing.
Only when he was drunk did he realize that he could not live without her, nobody could set up a house for him quite like her.
but when she abused him, the entire village gathered to listen and watch the joke--
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