Poetry

On Death, without Exaggeration

2006-09-26T06:25:00.000-07:00

It can't take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.

Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!

Sometimes it isn't strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.

All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.

Ill will won't help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'etat
is so far not enough.

Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies' skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.

Whoever claims that it's omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it's not.

There's no life
that couldn't be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you've come
can't be undone.

-- Wislawa Szymborska

A Style of Loving

2006-09-26T06:16:00.001-07:00

Light now restricts itself
To the top half of trees;
The angled sun
Slants honey-coloured rays
That lessen to the ground
As we bike through
The corridor of Palm Drive.
We two

Have reached a safety the years
Can claim to have created:
Unconsummated, therefore
Unjaded, unsated.
Picnic, movie, ice-cream;
Talk; to clear my head
Hot buttered rum -- coffee for you;
And so not to bed.

And so we have set the question
Aside, gently.
Were we to become lovers
Where would our best friends be?
You do not wish, nor I
To risk again
This savoured light for noon's
High joy or pain.

-- Vikram Seth

The Bee Box

2006-09-26T05:47:00.000-07:00

In this small box, my love,
you'll not find a ring,
but instead, a brave, little bee.
He'll be dead by morn, having given his life
defending his flowers against me.
I felt his sting
while picking the small, purple pansies
growing wild along the roadside,
in hopes of an afternoon bouquet for you.
And I grieved the sting,
more for him than me,
knowing full well the price he paid
for my small pain.
And I allowed him his victory,
leaving his flowers as a memory,
and brought you instead
this brave, little bee,
who proves there is love
even in the smallest
of things.

- Lowell Parker

Phyllis

2006-03-29T06:27:00.001-08:00

Phyllis is my only joy,
Faithless as the winds or seas;
Sometimes coming, sometimes coy,
Yet she never fails to please;
If with a frown
I am cast down,
Phyllis smiling,
And beguiling,
Makes me happier than before.
Though, alas! too late I find
Nothing can her fancy fix,
Yet the moment she is kind
I forgive her all her tricks;
Which, though I see,
I can't get free;
She deceiving,
I believing;
What need lovers wish for more?

Sir Charles Sedley
*****************************************************************************

I am yet to see a poem about love with a happy ending. Indeed, even when i attempt to write a poem, it always turns out to be sadly ended. Yet, why we all crave for it is something i can only explain in biological and evolutionary terms. And sometimes that whole rationalization makes me feel better about my own vulnerability. We're all bad dancers looking to blame the floor. I blame evolution. Evolution that doesn't really care, evolution that, at the moment, is making me bend to its every whim and fancy - a whim and fancy that it is unaware of.

Who do i pity more ? Phyllis or sir charles sedley? I think i'd have to pity phyllis. For sir charles sedley knows that phyllis will come and then she will go, and he will be left waiting again. He has long since accepted that it will not take much for him to forgive her her errors. The moment she is kind, the moment she smiles, the moment, i suppose, she flirts, he's lost his will to take the high road, and he succumbs. But he's done this about a million times, i am guessing. Its become a pattern and he's found ways to deal with her absence, while waiting for her fleeting presence. Its phyllis i pity, who's taken sir charles for granted. Its phyllis i pity, who's going to be left high and dry if sir charles for once decides that he's had enough. While phyllis is sir charles's wind, sir charles is phyllis's rock. And while all of us are never astonished when the wind moves as though it never existed, we'll have a pretty hard time dealing with a rock disappearing.

But its the perfect arrangement isn't it ?
She deceiving,
I believing.
What need lovers wish for more ?

:)

Funeral Blues

2006-03-29T06:27:00.000-08:00

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden

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Years and years of mandatory reading of poetry in school didn't cut it.
Years and years of trying to be erudite and trying to get a poem at first glance didn't cut it.
But then watching the movie "four weddings and a funeral" and the above poem being rendered, finally cut it. Funeral blues has simply got to be my favourite poem.

Funeral blues has a spontaineity and an urgency to it. I love the way the words used are commonplace, everyday and yet even the introduction of "telephones" and "aeroplanes" and other such arguably non romantic implements does not in the least bit suppress its beauty. Its harsh, its instant, there's a roughness to it, a determination to say the first thing that comes to one's mind, immediatly. I love the way the poet seems to have given up on everything. Pack up the moon he says, dismantle the sun he says. Just leave me "bloody" alone, he seems to be yelling.

The reason i love this poem is not because i have gone through anything similar, but because it tells me that i needn't be a great poet, or know loads of words, or anything at all about what is and what is not accepted in poetry. All i need is a deep rooted love and an urge to moan, and words will flow automatically. After all, the magnitude of my emotion is not in any way related to my vocabulary, and perhaps my ability to express a feeling is just dependant on the feeling alone and not how many words i know or my knowledge of poetic meter.

What i love about funeral blues is how commonplace it feels. How every word fits just so. A mourner is not looking to decorate his words. Its almost as if he still believe that his loved one is around, and will hear him, if only he speaks fast and quick and there's no time to think - only time to feel, and perhaps not even time to heal.