The wave

the day has come

it came a long age ago

already

upon a wave of slate-coloured horses

crashing on the break of day

shafting through the tide

of upright and slender trees

upright and slender as pencils

the day has come

and we're marching on

marching on marching

on the back of elephants

through the savannah

of newly-built watchtowers

march–

for the day has come

with-out the wave

it might never have

come it did

how many of us ended

up gloating at the end

of a rope

swinging and squealing

in the wave

of slate-coloured manes

how many of us

to all intents and purposes

impregnable

now quieted

now sweeping past the sheds

the houses of calm

passed the Sleeping Peoples

grim, mud-covered,

follow we follow

trudging along we make a hell of a noise!

whilst the wave amidst

us pours and pours

ploughs forth

gathers momentum

and branches and coals

mélanged with corals

from distant shores

we are taken away

pinched by the mentum

like renegade schoolchildren

we cannot but follow

follow we follow

taken away

following

on the arch of the wave

of slate-coloured chargers

breaking through dawn

like there was no tomorrow

and pregnant women smile

through the contractions

the stampede is a good omen

always have, always will be

and our contraptions

waiting for us in the half-light

half-flight before time ends

waste of daylight

capering in convincing happiness

they weren't pregnant women

with hindsight

but someone had to smile

so we chose those whom the horses

chose to ignore

and bade them smile

not simper or smirk

but smile genuinely

and we bowed down and curtsied

scared mindless

while the wave wound past us

swashed our toes

in the pallid

morning when all unbroken dreams gone astray

are gathered

before the break of day

as of yore

to be swept away

to be swept away

as of yore

to be swept away

in a furore.

Spice

"There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man."

Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

Cascando (1936)

1

why not merely the despaired of

occasion of

wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden

they will always start dragging too soon

the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want

bringing up the bones the old loves

sockets filled once with eyes like yours

all always is it better too soon than never

the black want splashing their faces

saying again nine days never floated the loved

nor nine months

nor nine lives

2

saying again

if you do not teach me I shall not learn

saying again there is a last

even of last times

last times of begging

last times of loving

of knowing not knowing pretending

a last even of last times of saying

if you do not love me I shall not be loved

if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again

love love love thud of the old plunger

pestling the unalterable

whey of words

terrified again

of not loving

of loving and not you

of being loved and not by you

of knowing not knowing pretending

pretending

I and all the others that will love you

if they love you

3

unless they love you

Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989)

Arak

I raised my head on the rampart,

my gaze fell on a corpse drifting down the river, afloat on the water:

I too shall become like that, just so shall I be!

The heart feels pain.

Names are being written upon water

or are traced upon the sands.

Carvèd stones turn to dust

and the vainglories of old are but all forgotten.

Words befuddle memories,

dreams stupefy our impressions and make history.

Seldom rivers disgorge the interred kings of yore;

oftener men determine the rightful

in full fathom five of water.

the wronged are doomed to sail silently to the sea –

the laws of nature and of men equally distrustful.

He who watches rivers exposes himself to such doubt.

And all our visions are frustrated

bewildered

and we come to wander the wild

for we fear death.

The heart, must I remind thee, deals pain

to whoever listens to the beatings

at the dark of the dark of night,

when love has absconded for the day.

The shaking of my hands

stopped on the grip the rampart.

I need an istikan of arak.

HE MOURNS FOR THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED, AND LONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

"Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?

I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;

I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns,

For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear

Under my feet that they follow you night and day.

A man with a hazel wand came without sound;

He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way;

And now my calling is but the calling of a hound;

And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by.

I would that the Boar without bristles had come from the West

And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky

And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest."

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899).

The last

They're all that's left of my family,

The last remnants of a ragged house.

Tree bereft of branches and leaves.

Life passing by in fury or drowsily.

They're all that come at night and rouse

Me from slumber, the hours bundled in sheaves.

They're naught more than shadows.

They might be ghosts, roaming the meadows

Before my tired eyes, they might be.

They might be dead, for all I know.

They might be. They might be.

They come and stand at the threshold,

not undaring, not unimpatient.

As old as the world they are, as old,

and wroth they are, and uncomplaisant.

Yet only they remain of those I loved,

once, long ago, when I was young.

Oh, how many a lonely day has passed

since then! Beyond count and unsung

they are. Hours and shadows now glassed,

time having reclaimed them from the deep.

Time slowly through my pores seep

and all I can see are shadows, shadows

around me. They have come – in fact

they have never left. They tell me I owe

them my eyes, stipulated in some obscure contract.

There are talks now the debt to halve

For after this they said they'd leave

And those shades are all the family I have.

A talent of talent

"Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

Even truer now

"A man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting his living."

Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Child-ness

"Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play."

Heraclitus of Ephesus, philosopher (circa 535 - 475 BCE)

The long run

I am tired of looking for it / tired of waiting for it too / tired of analysing the whys / the wherefores / and the whatnots / tired of trying to please / trying to look the part / tired of having ideas / and strength for two / tired of carrying / of consoling / of listening / of playing roles I shouldn't play / tired of thinking / of thinking deep into the night / tired of dealing with others' Centipedes / of shepherding / of making mistakes / of being on my own / tired of trudging where others run / of lagging behind / of the days without aim / of solitude / tired of averting my eyes / of the long hours of contemplation, tea in hand, at the outside world / tired of waiting for hours for a phone call or a text message which I know full well won't come / tired of the silence even music I love cannot dissipate / of the long sunrises, the fiery sunsets, the howling of the wind, the loud thunderclaps I cannot share / I am tired of masturbating / tired of the emotivity which plagues my interactions / tired of it all / tired of the long stretches of sand rolling under my feet / tired of staying put here / tired of living in a stagnant, one-horse town / tired of running desultorily / tired of the rain / of being out of breath / of this long, drenching-to-the-bones run