Faces are hiding machines
bright faced and green
with youth of discovery
and a hide of memory
to rip off and tan -
the face of MAN
is a hiding-mechanism
whose medium is not
the words exactly
but the noise precisely -
the face can erupt in gold
and silver, brass on tabletops
brass on the floor
brass on the face
where gold was hidden before.
Nethan Valley Folk Song
Ol' Nic lived
at the top of the valley
and pissed in the water.
A fire went through it
and burnt all the ladies
who out-screamed "I caught her!"
Ol' Nicola Deil:
her valley-top living,
and her pissed fire-water.
at the top of the valley
and pissed in the water.
A fire went through it
and burnt all the ladies
who out-screamed "I caught her!"
Ol' Nicola Deil:
her valley-top living,
and her pissed fire-water.
Heron on a branch over the Avon
"Because I moat
the land and bridge
the river I sit
and take the trees
as horizons in a gorge.
"Because geometry
is made by axioms
I can flatten the shape
and see new axioms
arise like rising herons
from the water, straight
of neck to curled
and cosied 's' appealing.
"And because waiting
is a geometry and bridge
of its own - of its own
design and build
where the river is filled
with water of its own construction.
the land and bridge
the river I sit
and take the trees
as horizons in a gorge.
"Because geometry
is made by axioms
I can flatten the shape
and see new axioms
arise like rising herons
from the water, straight
of neck to curled
and cosied 's' appealing.
"And because waiting
is a geometry and bridge
of its own - of its own
design and build
where the river is filled
with water of its own construction.
Thirty One in August
Here I go again... posting a poem a day in August. Last September I did the same thing - one poem each day for 30 days. This year I need one extra - 31.
31 is a more interesting number than 30. Hopefully these 31 poems will be more interesting than last September's bundle. The thing to remember is this:
And remember it for all that you think it implies...
Day thirty-one - Leaving Ladakh
Here, at the passport check,
there's waiting and waiting
for the soldiering folks
to tick my name - goat name -
from their lists and lack
of imaginings...
... I spend time
photographing the socks
some woman has nailed
to this red wall outside
the Himalayan height
and air - what explanation
is there for its point
and reason there?
But what colours -
what dreams and spreads
of life and wonder -
what little wonder
growing in this light...
But what colours in this light!
Day thirty - Review: मोर/ मोरनी – Mōra /Mōranī (2010)
Monsoon threatened
and never arrived
‘til the final scene.
This movie shows love
in a post-colonial climate
where the sky blues and beiges
as the lovers prod violence.
An award winner? No…
A night spent well? Neither
love nor hate could keep you away
from the hands over eyes,
the shoulders wavering.
The leads are admirable,
the story considerable
in its leisure in finding
the drama in its telling.
Watch for the scene, midway,
where the streets erupt
and the skies, the skies threaten.
Day twenty-nine - There is always realisation
This will end in a day or in two
so accept the shadows
of home which grow to eat
the light that blocks the way.
the river flows somewhere
to the east and is never seen
but rumoured in the city.
an embrace before the taxi
that leads homewards
trailing thankyous and smiles.
Day twenty-eight – Foothill Crow:
cloud an’ hill
hill an’ mountain
water crawin’
down the cliff
craw an’ crawin’
owt there hidin’
behind the mountains
hills and cliffs
the clouds’re skyin’
and makin’ big
and makin’ wee
the things to look at
the vultures skimmin’
on the airside
like pebbles flyin’
across the wet
the tourists buyin’
food to kill them
looks to thrill them
nothin’ else
craw now craw
an’ hide the hidin’
off to nowt
and nothin’ else
Day twenty-seven – I am a boy in Alchi
I am a boy in Alchi;
my brother beside me;
my mother washes
the snowmelt canals
that hug the paths
and hug the children
who wash on beside me.
I’ve always known
and shown unknowingly
the land around me
the mountain snow;
the showbiz clamour
of rock on rock on this:
the Himalayan glamour
and style and chutzpah.
This world is odd…
… and God might be
a thing around me
singing a throat song,
an oompah;
but all I care about
is the carnival and fair
and the shout, boys,
SHOUT! of us
who sing our songs
through the thin, thin air.
Day twenty-six – Brother Peacock watches a Scotsman and prepares to stone the sky
“He’s a bright one there
on the road like a button
lost on college grounds.
So shining in his sweatiness
that if I were a magpie
I’d dash down to steal
his poet’s-eye, then blind
him from the orange rind
he feels the world is…
“But I’m no magpie –
nor should he be so lucky –
a peacock am I!
and my glitter tail-eyes see
no more than others
but more, but more,
than Scots and rivers.
“Now watch me fall –
a pebble to a rooftop
a tin can down a sheer drop
a peacock at a bus stop –
I’ll fall and let him watch me.”
Day twenty-five – The Indus Valley Explodes for Kiran
The first blast:
“Because, like air,
you justify my valley
as much as my rock –
so clear the air,
I look to fill it with
my unexpected
my mysteried
my first explosion.”
The second blast:
“Because, like dusk,
you threaten your absence
from me and one half
of me darkens while
the other stays alive for
fifteen bright minutes more –
I fill the dark with
my surprising
my prepared-for
my second late explosion.”
The third blast:
“Because, like the sound
of myself in silence,
I’ll light for you
and reveal independence
of bright and crash
of noise and flash
of you from me
by filling life with fireworks
with celebration
in my third
heart-thumping
ear-crushing
eye-blasting
mind-throttling
explosion for you.”
Day twenty-four – Photographs near Pang
A photoalbum, virtual
or otherwise, hides
nothing from the eyes
that they don’t want to see.
Here is the river valley–
googleearthed -
looking just as I want it
when my full heart of a memory
sets to work and digs
at the cave-in of my body.
Some joy trickles to shoulders
and I lift a smile – the puppet
master of the photograph
controlling as I scale the image
to the enormity we saw.
Day twenty-three – Prayer for rock balancing, heard in Likir Gompa
Buddha, think of me.
Glorious Buddha:
- dispelling the dark of gravity;
- revealing the balance of rocks;
- liberating from the ground the crash of fallen rocks;
- dispelling the pull of the poisoned floor.
Please bless me:
- to recall the angle, the depth of balance;
- to generate contentment within the rocks I place;
- to be alone as balance settles;
- to be free of any whisper to my act;
- to hold, to hold, to hold and release.
Please bless me very quickly.
Please bless me by this roadside.
Day twenty-two – Salesman, Manali
Hennaed hair – half red, half white –
sitting, selling, examining the air
and grabbing the emptiness
that contains the truth – just there! –
that what he sells, the product,
the item, the life and ideal,
these all are worth your mind –
stay, sit a while longer
as he bangs his teeth
with his small, silver hammer
and convinces you what’s absent
was always there in your thoughts,
and you thought it always there.
Day twenty-one – Plateau
The dust and the height
and the day all twisted –
I knew his hidden hands
were searching for pockets
on me, were searching for
something worth stealing.
My neck had extended
to the pass we had come from
and remained there struggling
in its mountain height
with dull, with shaded
pain and dismissal.
“Steal from me, boy,
try it, go and take
what you can and run
east or west to the dust
north or south to the sand
where we’ll find you.”
I had offered him
a few minutes before
a mango, a sandwich –
banality breeds banality
and dust gives way to dust
when people part.
Day twenty – Dogs of Leh
What d’you do at night
when you sleep through the day?
Some nightwalkers, alright…
you sleep the light away
and bark your eyes to folks
who try their life to dream
a dream so real, so not a hoax,
so like this life should seem.
What d’you do in the dark
except roam? when sleeping
in day’s opposing bark
and shut eye is in keeping
with the attitude that adores you
and the daylight that floors you.
Day nineteen - Leh Palace Ghost
Out the window, here,
spirea churns with marguerite
and clematis; lobelia
folds itself over pot rims –
all the summer flowers fade.
I once spent a year
staring from a window
to be nearer the world
that walked it and proved
itself outside of me.
***
Palace windows look out
over mountains and hills
and houses and Leh
and Scotland all together,
each is each other.
And out Leh Palace’s
windows – the ghost
wanders, eyes watering
the light and refracting
the snow and heat
Day eighteen – Harpo Marx: Lost in Amritsar
“Say, how’d you fit
that harp on that rickshaw?”
Ain’t no point askin’ –
there’ll be no reply
but a honk on a horn
drowned out by the horns
of the cars and the cars
that pass him all by.
Top hats might surprise
them folks in the Temple –
at least his head’s covered,
at least his head’s stewed
in the heat, the hum idiot, he
strokes his red hair
quite proud, awful proud
to be one mime in there.
Now off to the Gardens –
wells fuelled with ghosts,
shrunk by his raincoat
scatting in the heat,
flapping kneewards and out
from his arms past his feet
all akimbo and firing
a knife and a spoon
from his sleeve,
from his sleeve
a thousand dragoons.
No blondes on the road
leading off from the Temple
but a shop here and there
worth a theft and a rival
to leave stranded behind
as off he goes skating,
rickshawed and harping
some political man,
(Ambedkar (Doctor)),
gets a gookie, gets done in,
gets some Bharat Ratna
sold sadly next day
to one Gerald Ratner.
Now pause for the harp:
play an angel recurring
play almond eyes purring
a caramel skin;
play a deity sighing
play hazel lips crying
for the harp and the beauty
and the demon within.
Now ride on and on, pronto!,
chasing blondes again, surely,
past a rack of sacred cows
that block off the way -
with a vault and a tumble
he clears maps and the ground –
a man’s never lost
if he does not know
where he’s found.
Day seventeen - Poem written in Amritsar beneath one reckless fan and one ruthless gecko when I was quite, quite quiet and quite, quite alone
I've got a heart
on proof - and see:
it beats like so;
and whatever even
then and though
it beats it breaks
has broken, is broke
and may not again
might not, p'raps not
beat a rattle
to households again -
but no, it's true...
my heart lives on proof
and does its thing
through and through.
Day sixteen - Shonagh demonstrates the centre of Wheel of Dharma to me...
“...but I’m not listening – or at least
I am in part, or thirdly, or so
I want to believe, whatever feast
this shape can vomit up so proudly
is a meal of three parts – three courses–
that yell their message at me loudly
and each dish explodes its taste at me
throwing out Buddha – Dharma – Sangha
in the food fight my mind throws at me...”
Day fifteen – The ex-colonialist picks up an Indian child’s Abecedary
A is for Pomegranate, ripe pellets and jewels.
B is for Mango, ripe mover of stools.
C is for Tamarind, hanging down from the tree.
D is for Bamboo, up – up – simplicity.
E is for Owl, scowling at the moon.
F is for Wool, never knitted in June.
G is for Guru, yellow robed and blue holy.
H is for Heel, the foot’s rabid folly.
I is for Glasses, piloted to the eyes.
J is for Grinder, grinding government spies.
K is for Woman, westernised but subservient.
L is for Grapes, juiced on the vine, quite succulent.
M is for Ranunculus, little turbans in the summer.
N is for Pigeon, drab grey – glum and glummer.
O is for Rabbit, kicking feet to the sky.
P is for Plant, roots potted and shy.
Q is for Watch, three seconds to eight.
R is Rose, ripped from the garden gate.
S is for Spoon, the spoon is the moon.
T is for Umbrella, opened too soon.
U is for Jug, overladened and underfilled.
V is for India, left alone and windowsilled.
W is for Hibiscus, internationally sound.
X is for Tomato, preternaturally found.
Y is for Worker, banging at his dabba.
Z is for Drum, drowning out the jibber-jabber.
The remainder are pointless, they fill up the books
with their aimless curlicues and laughable hooks.
Day fourteen - My first poem in Hindi
पानी - रानी
लेनी - वेणी
सुनी - बुनी
ठानी - तो
होम - काम
कम - हम
गेम - लेम
थमा - सो
पोला - ढोल
कला - चला
मेला - साला
घाल - धो
Phonetically:
Pānī - rānī
Lēnī - vēṇī
Sunī - bunī
Ṭhānī - tō
Hōma - kāma
Kama - hama
Gēma - lēma
Thamā - sō
Pōlā - ḍhōla
Kalā - calā
Mēlā - sālā
Ghāla - dhō
"Translation":
water - queen
take - braid
heard - woven
decided - then
home - work
low - we
game - claim
issued - sleep
void - drums -
art - gone -
fair - fuckin -
chow - wash
Day thirteen – “Ode to the Delhi Metro”
(after Neruda and Das)
Finding you
in the noise
between
the crowdsteps,
railway blarings,
taxi shrieks
and scrapings
I smiled.
You smile
in crowdedness
and a chaos
that is not;
in simplicity
that is not
what the makers
those poets
of travel
pretend you are
when you grin.
I found your grin
and head cool
air, I heard
the movement
of people –
a fifteen minute
exodus
on and on
and on again.
I left your sad
fading face
to a world
of wheels
and balance –
no track
for the rickshaw
who knows
the wrong way
home.
Day twelve – Road Worker Blues
From Tanglang La
way down to Pang
you can hear my hammer hitting
bang-bang, now-and-clang.
Bikes whip up
the high plains dust
and they flash by all silver
our tool shack of rust.
More money here
than I’d ever get
from the bastards in Jharkhand
but less cigarettes.
Susheel's my pal
he sits and he smokes
the weed given to him
by some B.R.O. folks.
At 4,000 metres
my heads gone all crazy
my legs have stopped moving
my hands gone all lazy.
Some tourist waves at me
I blow-kiss her back
then blow-kiss my ass
back to my sorry shack.
And when I get back home
I’m finding a girl
if she screams and won’t have me
I’ll give the roads another whirl.
Mountain road glory
and story around
I spend my day with a hammer
banging the ground.
Day eleven – Himalayan Lathynarn
“Suppose
[… he conjectured …]
these mountains low,
and the plains higher than ever;
ergo an abundance
of clover fields.
“Mountains
of farmed clover
of four leaves good, of three awful,
and low mist cloud steaming
the leaves in dew.
“Where else
should a knight be?
Good luck, good mountains cushioned soft
by clover, and bigness
reduced to low.
“Current
rock and pebble
conglomerations cannot work
in the Modern Knighthood
we are hunting.
“I spoke
to the mountains –
asking opinions from the heights
of Ladakh and Tibet
‘round hidden walls.
“They liked
rock, they liked stark,
they liked the sheer barren airlessness
of drops and of clifftops
and altitude.
“But still…
the soft clover
was hated by the land and hills
and the desert rockness
never knighted.”
Day ten – A letter to Captain Haddock
there, standing there, flat.
Day nine – The ex-colonialist to his long-lost native lover
“Oh yes, my dear, oh yes, dare I
have you as my foreigner’s treat?
Oh yes, my dear, oh yes, I may –
sweet yesterday is only sweet
when it’s yesterday – so, so long
to our love, our peacocked language,
days under trees in bamboo huts
with pot firing a dinner
I never loved as I loved you…
… but I eat it here, memoried
with thoughts of you, salaried
with thoughts of you, and in case
the seasoning affects me, dear,
I take a medicine to clear
all thoughts of you…”
Day eight – An Anglo Saxon Song: “White Button from Indraprastha College for Women”
Lying on the stair, staring at the light
I shone on its shadow… shaped as a circle
it invited interest, insincerity certain
when I whiled it and whisked it
pocketwards and poetried:
“I’ll write you and rate you
sing you and song your
buttonness boldly
outwardly openly…”
Whoever thought I would?
Lying before me, moulded by light
button all whitely, whiling all bright.
Day seven – Antediluvian Leh
Some Better Time from Creation
to the Day the Water Came…
I swam the rivers of Leh when the dust
flowed beige, soaked bikes, slept dogs
on streets with aged, winded and rattling rust.
I trod water where the plastic bags
sang rustles to the air and concrete slabs
gathered footprints from all the manky rags.
I floated on the people who floated in their tubs
that ran on wheels down dry roads, faster
than the red-jacketed horses chasing down fox cubs.
I lounged by the pool while the waters a-fluster
scrambled for the hills forcing gravity to pull
and gather up the speed and the will to muster.
I dried myself on my unnecessary towel
that spelled out LEH in blue letters on the back
and spelled out on the front, in blue letters, HEL.
… some Better Time from Creation
to the Day the Water Came.
Some Other Day from Then
to the Time We’re Watching Now.
Day six – Skimming stones
More than four-fifths fail me –
a plop, a splash,
some bullet to the bed
killing the excitement
of the victory I claimed
and had said…
But less than one-fifth… oh!
words can’t fail the skip,
skip and more of the stone
that brings a smile to the eye
and a tear to one rising
wide and smiling lip!
And in total, the act
serves one rock to rock
one ripple to shore
one shore to me and the stone
from my hand now back
in my hand and skipped
to beat again…
Day five – The ice rink in Leh
At the ice rink in Leh
they play hockey – the puck
whacks blurred between
the mountain men of Ladakh –
they are the Highlands
that stand in the sky.
Then the Himalayas of Scotland
come for the challenge,
for the play, the team
is a team of Scotsman
who rise higher in the world
this once, this once, one day.
They came, said Phandey,
and beat us – much bigger,
much better, but we__
he laughed__ so wee,
we shot right through
their kilted legs!
An ice rink in the desert
watered by snow from mountains
that sinks to the Indus
and feeds Pakistan below
with water, all that puckish
water flowing down below.
Day four – Looking for a copy of “Indian Hill Birds” (OUP, 1949) by Sálim Ali
If only Sálim were here to help me…
Himalayan Magpies are good enough in name
but the blue shoulder, tail and loneliness
are all that remain
when I move past…
what’s left? what’s lost?
He'd help me, Sálim, to find how it acts,
stating the facts and eating habits of the bird
but all that’s left is an image on the brain
and now just a word
when I think back…
ticktock ticktock…
Day three - The ex-colonialist examines a pile of Ladakhi stones
“It’s quite natural, oh yes – forever,
stones piled build themselves through the nature
of air round here – so thin! – plus the river
tumbles its way, constructing these features.
“And all the physics and geology
take up and conspire with natural forms
to make these stone and rock piled elegies
upon the conglomerate and goat horns.
“No man of these parts could build up these stones –
he would fall to the air as a feather
that dusts at the rocks and his own dull bones.
No, no man here could be quite that clever.”
Day two - Ladakhi Stones
A hideous conglomeration
a mess a-round of stones and sand
to make a ground to crumble on.
to form Himalayan mountaintops
and bring the snow to water them.
so high and set to fall aground
from the high-high sea and waves-a-cloud?
Day one - Phyang Festival, 9th July 2010
We could call it
music - the cymbal
crash and rattle, drum
beat BOOM and thud
the gravel and air
the listeners in-between
who hear a noise
and call it as needed.
We could hang it
on the dance that stamps
both feet through air
to gravel and step
a jump in-between
and scratch the feet
to ground as arms
and shoulders match it.
We could hang that
on the story that sings
through it all - protectors
set out to applaud
in-between the good
who stamp, the bad
who stamp, and stamp
the story on.
And then hang it all
on the idea - ideal
in all ways to appetise
itself as real, not just
a fairytale of tale
on dance on music on
air and gravel - it is
all in-between as known.
31 is a more interesting number than 30. Hopefully these 31 poems will be more interesting than last September's bundle. The thing to remember is this:
31 = 1+2(1+2(1+2(1+2)))
And remember it for all that you think it implies...
***
Day thirty-one - Leaving Ladakh
Here, at the passport check,
there's waiting and waiting
for the soldiering folks
to tick my name - goat name -
from their lists and lack
of imaginings...
... I spend time
photographing the socks
some woman has nailed
to this red wall outside
the Himalayan height
and air - what explanation
is there for its point
and reason there?
But what colours -
what dreams and spreads
of life and wonder -
what little wonder
growing in this light...
But what colours in this light!
Day thirty - Review: मोर/ मोरनी – Mōra /Mōranī (2010)
Monsoon threatened
and never arrived
‘til the final scene.
This movie shows love
in a post-colonial climate
where the sky blues and beiges
as the lovers prod violence.
An award winner? No…
A night spent well? Neither
love nor hate could keep you away
from the hands over eyes,
the shoulders wavering.
The leads are admirable,
the story considerable
in its leisure in finding
the drama in its telling.
Watch for the scene, midway,
where the streets erupt
and the skies, the skies threaten.
Day twenty-nine - There is always realisation
This will end in a day or in two
so accept the shadows
of home which grow to eat
the light that blocks the way.
I spent this timeThis will end soon, but no__
in a green room
in a blue room
and Delhi, hungry, fed me.
the river flows somewhere
to the east and is never seen
but rumoured in the city.
I spent this timeThis ends now – a wave,
in college grounds
in market grounds
and Delhi, manic, held me.
an embrace before the taxi
that leads homewards
trailing thankyous and smiles.
I spent this time
regretting
forgetting
and Delhi, darkly, sped me on.
Day twenty-eight – Foothill Crow:
cloud an’ hill
hill an’ mountain
water crawin’
down the cliff
craw an’ crawin’
owt there hidin’
behind the mountains
hills and cliffs
the clouds’re skyin’
and makin’ big
and makin’ wee
the things to look at
the vultures skimmin’
on the airside
like pebbles flyin’
across the wet
the tourists buyin’
food to kill them
looks to thrill them
nothin’ else
craw now craw
an’ hide the hidin’
off to nowt
and nothin’ else
Day twenty-seven – I am a boy in Alchi
I am a boy in Alchi;
my brother beside me;
my mother washes
the snowmelt canals
that hug the paths
and hug the children
who wash on beside me.
I’ve always known
and shown unknowingly
the land around me
the mountain snow;
the showbiz clamour
of rock on rock on this:
the Himalayan glamour
and style and chutzpah.
This world is odd…
… and God might be
a thing around me
singing a throat song,
an oompah;
but all I care about
is the carnival and fair
and the shout, boys,
SHOUT! of us
who sing our songs
through the thin, thin air.
Day twenty-six – Brother Peacock watches a Scotsman and prepares to stone the sky
“He’s a bright one there
on the road like a button
lost on college grounds.
So shining in his sweatiness
that if I were a magpie
I’d dash down to steal
his poet’s-eye, then blind
him from the orange rind
he feels the world is…
“But I’m no magpie –
nor should he be so lucky –
a peacock am I!
and my glitter tail-eyes see
no more than others
but more, but more,
than Scots and rivers.
“Now watch me fall –
a pebble to a rooftop
a tin can down a sheer drop
a peacock at a bus stop –
I’ll fall and let him watch me.”
Day twenty-five – The Indus Valley Explodes for Kiran
The first blast:
“Because, like air,
you justify my valley
as much as my rock –
so clear the air,
I look to fill it with
my unexpected
my mysteried
my first explosion.”
The second blast:
“Because, like dusk,
you threaten your absence
from me and one half
of me darkens while
the other stays alive for
fifteen bright minutes more –
I fill the dark with
my surprising
my prepared-for
my second late explosion.”
The third blast:
“Because, like the sound
of myself in silence,
I’ll light for you
and reveal independence
of bright and crash
of noise and flash
of you from me
by filling life with fireworks
with celebration
in my third
heart-thumping
ear-crushing
eye-blasting
mind-throttling
explosion for you.”
Day twenty-four – Photographs near Pang
A photoalbum, virtual
or otherwise, hides
nothing from the eyes
that they don’t want to see.
Here is the river valley–
googleearthed -
looking just as I want it
when my full heart of a memory
sets to work and digs
at the cave-in of my body.
Some joy trickles to shoulders
and I lift a smile – the puppet
master of the photograph
controlling as I scale the image
to the enormity we saw.
Day twenty-three – Prayer for rock balancing, heard in Likir Gompa
Buddha, think of me.
Glorious Buddha:
- dispelling the dark of gravity;
- revealing the balance of rocks;
- liberating from the ground the crash of fallen rocks;
- dispelling the pull of the poisoned floor.
Please bless me:
- to recall the angle, the depth of balance;
- to generate contentment within the rocks I place;
- to be alone as balance settles;
- to be free of any whisper to my act;
- to hold, to hold, to hold and release.
Please bless me very quickly.
Please bless me by this roadside.
Day twenty-two – Salesman, Manali
Hennaed hair – half red, half white –
sitting, selling, examining the air
and grabbing the emptiness
that contains the truth – just there! –
that what he sells, the product,
the item, the life and ideal,
these all are worth your mind –
stay, sit a while longer
as he bangs his teeth
with his small, silver hammer
and convinces you what’s absent
was always there in your thoughts,
and you thought it always there.
Day twenty-one – Plateau
The dust and the height
and the day all twisted –
I knew his hidden hands
were searching for pockets
on me, were searching for
something worth stealing.
My neck had extended
to the pass we had come from
and remained there struggling
in its mountain height
with dull, with shaded
pain and dismissal.
“Steal from me, boy,
try it, go and take
what you can and run
east or west to the dust
north or south to the sand
where we’ll find you.”
I had offered him
a few minutes before
a mango, a sandwich –
banality breeds banality
and dust gives way to dust
when people part.
Day twenty – Dogs of Leh
What d’you do at night
when you sleep through the day?
Some nightwalkers, alright…
you sleep the light away
and bark your eyes to folks
who try their life to dream
a dream so real, so not a hoax,
so like this life should seem.
What d’you do in the dark
except roam? when sleeping
in day’s opposing bark
and shut eye is in keeping
with the attitude that adores you
and the daylight that floors you.
Day nineteen - Leh Palace Ghost
Out the window, here,
spirea churns with marguerite
and clematis; lobelia
folds itself over pot rims –
all the summer flowers fade.
I once spent a year
staring from a window
to be nearer the world
that walked it and proved
itself outside of me.
***
Palace windows look out
over mountains and hills
and houses and Leh
and Scotland all together,
each is each other.
And out Leh Palace’s
windows – the ghost
wanders, eyes watering
the light and refracting
the snow and heat
Day eighteen – Harpo Marx: Lost in Amritsar
“Say, how’d you fit
that harp on that rickshaw?”
Ain’t no point askin’ –
there’ll be no reply
but a honk on a horn
drowned out by the horns
of the cars and the cars
that pass him all by.
Top hats might surprise
them folks in the Temple –
at least his head’s covered,
at least his head’s stewed
in the heat, the hum idiot, he
strokes his red hair
quite proud, awful proud
to be one mime in there.
Now off to the Gardens –
wells fuelled with ghosts,
shrunk by his raincoat
scatting in the heat,
flapping kneewards and out
from his arms past his feet
all akimbo and firing
a knife and a spoon
from his sleeve,
from his sleeve
a thousand dragoons.
No blondes on the road
leading off from the Temple
but a shop here and there
worth a theft and a rival
to leave stranded behind
as off he goes skating,
rickshawed and harping
some political man,
(Ambedkar (Doctor)),
gets a gookie, gets done in,
gets some Bharat Ratna
sold sadly next day
to one Gerald Ratner.
Now pause for the harp:
play an angel recurring
play almond eyes purring
a caramel skin;
play a deity sighing
play hazel lips crying
for the harp and the beauty
and the demon within.
Now ride on and on, pronto!,
chasing blondes again, surely,
past a rack of sacred cows
that block off the way -
with a vault and a tumble
he clears maps and the ground –
a man’s never lost
if he does not know
where he’s found.
Day seventeen - Poem written in Amritsar beneath one reckless fan and one ruthless gecko when I was quite, quite quiet and quite, quite alone
I've got a heart
on proof - and see:
it beats like so;
and whatever even
then and though
it beats it breaks
has broken, is broke
and may not again
might not, p'raps not
beat a rattle
to households again -
but no, it's true...
my heart lives on proof
and does its thing
through and through.
Day sixteen - Shonagh demonstrates the centre of Wheel of Dharma to me...
“...but I’m not listening – or at least
I am in part, or thirdly, or so
I want to believe, whatever feast
this shape can vomit up so proudly
is a meal of three parts – three courses–
that yell their message at me loudly
and each dish explodes its taste at me
throwing out Buddha – Dharma – Sangha
in the food fight my mind throws at me...”
Day fifteen – The ex-colonialist picks up an Indian child’s Abecedary
A is for Pomegranate, ripe pellets and jewels.
B is for Mango, ripe mover of stools.
C is for Tamarind, hanging down from the tree.
D is for Bamboo, up – up – simplicity.
E is for Owl, scowling at the moon.
F is for Wool, never knitted in June.
G is for Guru, yellow robed and blue holy.
H is for Heel, the foot’s rabid folly.
I is for Glasses, piloted to the eyes.
J is for Grinder, grinding government spies.
K is for Woman, westernised but subservient.
L is for Grapes, juiced on the vine, quite succulent.
M is for Ranunculus, little turbans in the summer.
N is for Pigeon, drab grey – glum and glummer.
O is for Rabbit, kicking feet to the sky.
P is for Plant, roots potted and shy.
Q is for Watch, three seconds to eight.
R is Rose, ripped from the garden gate.
S is for Spoon, the spoon is the moon.
T is for Umbrella, opened too soon.
U is for Jug, overladened and underfilled.
V is for India, left alone and windowsilled.
W is for Hibiscus, internationally sound.
X is for Tomato, preternaturally found.
Y is for Worker, banging at his dabba.
Z is for Drum, drowning out the jibber-jabber.
The remainder are pointless, they fill up the books
with their aimless curlicues and laughable hooks.
Day fourteen - My first poem in Hindi
पानी - रानी
लेनी - वेणी
सुनी - बुनी
ठानी - तो
होम - काम
कम - हम
गेम - लेम
थमा - सो
पोला - ढोल
कला - चला
मेला - साला
घाल - धो
Phonetically:
Pānī - rānī
Lēnī - vēṇī
Sunī - bunī
Ṭhānī - tō
Hōma - kāma
Kama - hama
Gēma - lēma
Thamā - sō
Pōlā - ḍhōla
Kalā - calā
Mēlā - sālā
Ghāla - dhō
"Translation":
water - queen
take - braid
heard - woven
decided - then
home - work
low - we
game - claim
issued - sleep
void - drums -
art - gone -
fair - fuckin -
chow - wash
Day thirteen – “Ode to the Delhi Metro”
(after Neruda and Das)
Finding you
in the noise
between
the crowdsteps,
railway blarings,
taxi shrieks
and scrapings
I smiled.
You smile
in crowdedness
and a chaos
that is not;
in simplicity
that is not
what the makers
those poets
of travel
pretend you are
when you grin.
I found your grin
and head cool
air, I heard
the movement
of people –
a fifteen minute
exodus
on and on
and on again.
I left your sad
fading face
to a world
of wheels
and balance –
no track
for the rickshaw
who knows
the wrong way
home.
Day twelve – Road Worker Blues
From Tanglang La
way down to Pang
you can hear my hammer hitting
bang-bang, now-and-clang.
Bikes whip up
the high plains dust
and they flash by all silver
our tool shack of rust.
More money here
than I’d ever get
from the bastards in Jharkhand
but less cigarettes.
Susheel's my pal
he sits and he smokes
the weed given to him
by some B.R.O. folks.
At 4,000 metres
my heads gone all crazy
my legs have stopped moving
my hands gone all lazy.
Some tourist waves at me
I blow-kiss her back
then blow-kiss my ass
back to my sorry shack.
And when I get back home
I’m finding a girl
if she screams and won’t have me
I’ll give the roads another whirl.
Mountain road glory
and story around
I spend my day with a hammer
banging the ground.
Day eleven – Himalayan Lathynarn
“Suppose
[… he conjectured …]
these mountains low,
and the plains higher than ever;
ergo an abundance
of clover fields.
“Mountains
of farmed clover
of four leaves good, of three awful,
and low mist cloud steaming
the leaves in dew.
“Where else
should a knight be?
Good luck, good mountains cushioned soft
by clover, and bigness
reduced to low.
“Current
rock and pebble
conglomerations cannot work
in the Modern Knighthood
we are hunting.
“I spoke
to the mountains –
asking opinions from the heights
of Ladakh and Tibet
‘round hidden walls.
“They liked
rock, they liked stark,
they liked the sheer barren airlessness
of drops and of clifftops
and altitude.
“But still…
the soft clover
was hated by the land and hills
and the desert rockness
never knighted.”
Day ten – A letter to Captain Haddock
“Sacred cow, Sahib… Do not disturb… You wait till she move.”Dear Captain,- Helpful man, New Delhi
you were right!Regards, a boy like Tintin,
The complications
of blocked paths
of bovine bollards
are worth thundering
over and around –
a useful suggestion
worth fooling around on.
Your stereotype
(more monotype
if truth be told)
could hold the nation
hostage in court
were the judge to gun
himself to the rafters.
And for afters: an easy rhyme
as obvious as its cow-ness
on the road ahead.
You were right...
but wrong to step over:
I sidestepped thousands
with no anger like you
but just your face a danger
sign for me to feed
a sense of self with.
And my steps, flatly,
kept me apart from the city
and the street and the feet
I walked on were only rarely
from the ground.
So yes, and yes, I await,
in time, your unforced rage
and rant at the word
at the thousand pillocks
who scream back at you
as you scream back at them:
“One billion bovine bollocks!”
and walk away and over them.
there, standing there, flat.
Day nine – The ex-colonialist to his long-lost native lover
“Oh yes, my dear, oh yes, dare I
have you as my foreigner’s treat?
Oh yes, my dear, oh yes, I may –
sweet yesterday is only sweet
when it’s yesterday – so, so long
to our love, our peacocked language,
days under trees in bamboo huts
with pot firing a dinner
I never loved as I loved you…
… but I eat it here, memoried
with thoughts of you, salaried
with thoughts of you, and in case
the seasoning affects me, dear,
I take a medicine to clear
all thoughts of you…”
Day eight – An Anglo Saxon Song: “White Button from Indraprastha College for Women”
Lying on the stair, staring at the light
I shone on its shadow… shaped as a circle
it invited interest, insincerity certain
when I whiled it and whisked it
pocketwards and poetried:
“I’ll write you and rate you
sing you and song your
buttonness boldly
outwardly openly…”
Whoever thought I would?
Lying before me, moulded by light
button all whitely, whiling all bright.
Day seven – Antediluvian Leh
Some Better Time from Creation
to the Day the Water Came…
I swam the rivers of Leh when the dust
flowed beige, soaked bikes, slept dogs
on streets with aged, winded and rattling rust.
I trod water where the plastic bags
sang rustles to the air and concrete slabs
gathered footprints from all the manky rags.
I floated on the people who floated in their tubs
that ran on wheels down dry roads, faster
than the red-jacketed horses chasing down fox cubs.
I lounged by the pool while the waters a-fluster
scrambled for the hills forcing gravity to pull
and gather up the speed and the will to muster.
I dried myself on my unnecessary towel
that spelled out LEH in blue letters on the back
and spelled out on the front, in blue letters, HEL.
… some Better Time from Creation
to the Day the Water Came.
Some Other Day from Then
to the Time We’re Watching Now.
Day six – Skimming stones
More than four-fifths fail me –
a plop, a splash,
some bullet to the bed
killing the excitement
of the victory I claimed
and had said…
But less than one-fifth… oh!
words can’t fail the skip,
skip and more of the stone
that brings a smile to the eye
and a tear to one rising
wide and smiling lip!
And in total, the act
serves one rock to rock
one ripple to shore
one shore to me and the stone
from my hand now back
in my hand and skipped
to beat again…
Day five – The ice rink in Leh
At the ice rink in Leh
they play hockey – the puck
whacks blurred between
the mountain men of Ladakh –
they are the Highlands
that stand in the sky.
Then the Himalayas of Scotland
come for the challenge,
for the play, the team
is a team of Scotsman
who rise higher in the world
this once, this once, one day.
They came, said Phandey,
and beat us – much bigger,
much better, but we__
he laughed__ so wee,
we shot right through
their kilted legs!
An ice rink in the desert
watered by snow from mountains
that sinks to the Indus
and feeds Pakistan below
with water, all that puckish
water flowing down below.
Day four – Looking for a copy of “Indian Hill Birds” (OUP, 1949) by Sálim Ali
If only Sálim were here to help me…
Himalayan Magpies are good enough in name
but the blue shoulder, tail and loneliness
are all that remain
when I move past…
what’s left? what’s lost?
He'd help me, Sálim, to find how it acts,
stating the facts and eating habits of the bird
but all that’s left is an image on the brain
and now just a word
when I think back…
ticktock ticktock…
Day three - The ex-colonialist examines a pile of Ladakhi stones
“It’s quite natural, oh yes – forever,
stones piled build themselves through the nature
of air round here – so thin! – plus the river
tumbles its way, constructing these features.
“And all the physics and geology
take up and conspire with natural forms
to make these stone and rock piled elegies
upon the conglomerate and goat horns.
“No man of these parts could build up these stones –
he would fall to the air as a feather
that dusts at the rocks and his own dull bones.
No, no man here could be quite that clever.”
The Academy nods, sanctions the view
that the folk of Ladakh are not like you.
Day two - Ladakhi Stones
A hideous conglomeration
a mess a-round of stones and sand
to make a ground to crumble on.
I saw a man distant, flakingA stonefield crop all growing up
himself off the stones,
an erosion of a man
conglomerating environments
as best-a-man-can.
to form Himalayan mountaintops
and bring the snow to water them.
I saw him take headway, shoutingWhere do you stand when walking there
a voice out at the mountains,
a screamed-out to the snowmelt
mixing all the world-around in
as best as best-a-man-can be.
so high and set to fall aground
from the high-high sea and waves-a-cloud?
Day one - Phyang Festival, 9th July 2010
We could call it
music - the cymbal
crash and rattle, drum
beat BOOM and thud
the gravel and air
the listeners in-between
who hear a noise
and call it as needed.
We could hang it
on the dance that stamps
both feet through air
to gravel and step
a jump in-between
and scratch the feet
to ground as arms
and shoulders match it.
We could hang that
on the story that sings
through it all - protectors
set out to applaud
in-between the good
who stamp, the bad
who stamp, and stamp
the story on.
And then hang it all
on the idea - ideal
in all ways to appetise
itself as real, not just
a fairytale of tale
on dance on music on
air and gravel - it is
all in-between as known.
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