THE SAME RIVER, DEEPER

This river this time is too deep to cross

The boatman too is not to be seen

The currents  are stronger against my toe

In it flows many rivers

Hiding their heads in shrouds of sorrow

And I am one

And I don’t know how to row

And how to swim

And it starts somewhere behind my eye

And I know that many clear heads have conspired

Against the flow

I stand at the shore and watch it flow

Glowing and glistening as rivers do

The water is bad from the bad breath

Of uncultivated fields

And the mixing is never complete

And at the other shore

There is more grief

And so also on this

The fronds that talk to the river

Sigh in disbelief

This too was for naught

The flow of many years

The blooming of the absent flower

The floating carcass turns the bend

With it the flies and little fishes

And the flows that may have scalded it

Also are no more to be seen

The flow of the deep flaws in life

Has no ebb

And the tide is in

Should I cross the river?

The river is deeper

And I don’t know how to swim

The wood pecker has carved a hole

In its heart

And the river flows on

With a gorged out eye

The sparrows from their nest

No more see the cross

Or the crosser, and are all too cross

Why then the same river

And why then so many times?

The water is bitter

And the heart too weak to pump

The veins are too full

And arteries empty

And the passage is blocked

Because the time has passed

The boat has disappeared

And the carcass

Bloated and too full of rotten time

Will it reach some shore

And do it have someone

To go back to?

Or some place?

Or even a memory

That doesn’t scald?

The sky is a deep deep blue

And a seagull or green bee-eater

May still have been there

The ants are rising up with wings

For the bird of waiting death to cease.

And the carcass

Is it the boat that I was waiting for?

Does it have a third bank, this stream-

Or a fourth

Or is it a flow

In a flawless ocean

Without a shore?

I set out

On this journey

That never begins or ends

Though it is not clear

Whether it is noon or dusk.

THE REGIME OF SLIGHTS

Caste is a regime of slights and pride

Distributed unevenly over the whole terrain

One is slighted for being what she is

And what she does

And what she speaks

And what she eats

And what she wears

And how she looks

The colour of her skin

Not feminine enough

Masculine enough

Aggressive/docile

Where she lives

The part of the city that she comes from

With whom she associates

For the pitch of her dialect

For her 'ignorance'

For being not upto the mark

For not being politically correct

For being insensitive

For speaking to other insignificant beings

For having not read the classics

For having not seen the masters

For not listening to the morning raga

For being tainted by birth

For not enjoying the brahmin’s jokes

Or the madam’s vitriol

For listening to fools, frogs and donkeys

For not being ‘progressive’ enough

For not being sufficiently ‘nationalist’

For her moral laxity

For crowing like a crow

For having been born to her not so ‘respectable’ parents

And for being/ not being offended if she is slighted.

And caste is about pride

For having known all through the ages

That some people are shit

And disposable

And should carry your shit

Because you are knowledgeable

And your knowledge is in your shit

And your ‘merit’ in as to whom you shit on

And your vegetarianism

And your Smritis

And your profound belief in inequality

And hate and fear for the other

That you hide well

Behind universalist jargon.

BYSTANDER, AT AN INSURANCE MEETING

BENOY.P.J

Almost half an hour had passed

Before the meeting started

Half an hour while the neckties were being tied

Looking at it from my seat outside

The act looked familiar

When a friend helped someone with it

It looked as if the executioner

Was helping him with the knot.

But the setting here was different

The company was selling insurance

A  safe life (and death!)

It assured

Somebody from the podium

Addressed the crowd

(They were no more a crowd,

Agents, they were called.)

“Can you sell me a life

For I don’t have one!”

I heard someone moaning

“No, no! You can’t have a good life

With us

What we sell

Is only the assurance

For those who have none

One that is postponed no end

So that one grasps out for it

And never reaches.

Now I know

That the knot has been tied.

DO NOT FORGIVE ME THIS EXCESS, FOR I AM IN LOVE!

It  is sometimes said of love that  it exists between two people

Who are mad about each other

And are dead against all the rest

With the proper channel running through the family

When you love your wife, husband or children

‘Protecting’ them against the whole world

Always and in all things.

But is love just that thing that runs in and through the family

Soliciting it for the service of property?

If it is love and compassion

Would it not embrace the world in a broad gesture?

Well, what of this possible excess?

Can there be love for another,

Someone beyond the proper frame?

What then is this proper frame?

When all of it is garnered to property

And made to serve it everywhere

What do we make of love?

Is it still love

If it still lingers

In the corners of the household

Attached to all the objects

With which it was embellished?

Are we to protect it from the broad outside

To defend it from intrusions

To make sure of its still- birth?

Is it to be hidden if it exists else-where?

And if it is too rich to be hidden

In triangles, rectangles , pentagons or heptagons

Is the Pentagon to tell us where it should exist

Or should we ask Raw to keep it from being raw?

Is it tender everywhere and open

Or should tenders be called for its sake?

Is it to be stopped at all costs

With a khap or a rope

So that it keeps to the kennel

And is a dog’s love?

If we love the family

And hate the whole world

Is it still worth it

That we love this love.

 Is it wrong, after all, my lord

That one loves the world?

And how can one hide it

A love that has grown so bold?

WITH ONE KISS

S.JOSEPH


          1
Since the world is in darkness
Even during the day
Can't see a thing.

For what are these eyes?
Gave the eyes to a fellow
Without eyes.
He embraced me
Shouted
And left
As if in half light.

Bored sitting in the doubled darkness
Went out
While searching in the air
And moving
Hit something and fell
A girl came and
Helped me up.

My hands and nostrils search for her
With a kiss for reply
She became my eye and vision.
          2
I asked her:
Can i give you a kiss?
Since the differences made one suspect
Moved hidden from the crowd.
In their inattention, forgetting, sleep
And lack of sight
Our love.
The clandestine love contends with any theatre
There is not so much poetry in any poem
It is younger than young betel leaves
Harder than a forest rock
Sweeter than sweet toddy
It is an occassion in life
For some in the childhood
To some in youth
For some at middle age
For a few in their old age
They may have to pass through this.

We drank water in a coconut shell
Ate soil
Slept on rocks
And when the rain came with sunshine
We became
Jackal and wife.*

            3

Any love that is not acceptable
To the world gets caught
Get pulled about
Nobody to aid
We came before God
There is no place for us to live on earth.

Crying, we told each other
I cannot save you.

Anyway love gave vision
I don't know the meaning of love
I am neither man nor woman
Maybe it was because of me
That you were hated more
What shall I do?

         4

On the journey back she said
We don't have a life together.

However deeply we love
We may still have to move apart
From now on I am dead for you
Me with borrowed time
I was standing on the street

It was then that you came
The truth that we found
In the prison of time
Is there in this poem.

I have to go


I said:
Will I not turn blind when you go?

She said:
No, your eyesight will not go with me
Since my memory will always be with you
Take away my eye and sight with a kiss when you go.
I will prefer to be blind from now on

That is what is right

In a kiss we become one
Become salt and saliva
Now she is not there: neither am I.



Translation: Benoy.P.J

* A local belief in Kerala - when rain falls while the sun shines, it is then that the jackals marry.