(AA) Canto 73: Childe India
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The poet is like the prince of the clouds,
Who haunts the tempest & mocks the archer;
Exiled on the earth in the midst of derision
His giant wings keep him from walking
Baudelaire
Second Wind
the blackbird sings to him, brother, brother,
if this be the last song you shall sing
sing well, for you may not sing another
Julian Grenfell
I had assumed my quillerie was done…
My soul exhumes th’electric, triptych train
& in a half-light Nostradamian
Projects through time, I shall to thee again,
Muse of my life
When wedded with all this
Thou art the waspen knife embedded in my bliss.
I took a walk round Whittinghame
On an early summer’s day,
When bees about wild garlic hum
Gorse engolden in god’s sway,
Hearing a faerie kettledrum
Beat yonder house crow-grey,
Where Balfour read Plato before Israel,
Sensing I had to finish yet my tale.
I clambour thro’ thick thornbush throng,
Veins pierc’d by splinter-pin,
Not sucking tongue, nor needle long,
Could pluck it from within,
That itch, y’know, that can’t be scratch’d that’s just beneath the skin.
East Lothian
August
2008
Departures
Oh, I got tired of the northern sun,
Of white anxious ghost-like faces,
Of crouching over heatless fires
Abioseh Nicol
Accompanied by Apollonians,
O mystic ladies of these sentences!
Gallivanting from the Europeans
& these coetanian acquaintances;
For India,
In silence, did I fly,
Musing poesia beneath a breathless sky.
About us atmospherics wailed
Of a gamesome energy,
& I, a Wellesley, as we sail’d
Startling barques of destiny
Beyond Iraq… beneath me paled
The Sea of Araby,
As Byron rode to Ali Pasha’s feast,
Yes! Yes! I was a poet in the East.
As Wellington stood at Assaye
I stept out of the plane
& met Bombay, a cloudless day
Far sultrier than Spain,
Raj fanning all before me like the wisdom of the Jain.
Mumbai
September
2008
Bombay
I’ll never change myself to gold.
Other fools that want can make
themselves into big-chested bulls
Bassus
We stand at the gateway to India,
Grand sentinel arch of Britannia’s stream
About us the swirl of Bon Bohia,
Thou seven-islanded mercantile dream;
All senses drown’d
In native hue & cry,
We swathe thro’ sight & sound sweat-streaming, lips parch’d dry.
In tortured droves the Hindu pours
From Pakistan’s cruel Koran,
Where VT’s gothic gargoyles rose
Oer many a fam’ly man,
No rooms, no work, no peace, no laws,
No pity & no plan –
Would all those men who plying Empire’s vision
Could see the suff’rance at its partition.
Squalid, one-room’d, tarpaulin lives
Smile at me thro’ the glass,
Human beehives; men, spawn & wives
E’er buzzing as we pass
Identical, dark shanty streets choked with the underclass.
Dharavi
September
2008
Nandi Hills
Tell me, sir.
Have you ever heard
A peacock sing?
Suzy Kassem
The plateaux of the Deccan beckons me,
Pepper’d with arcane & boldering hills,
Balance acts defying rock gravity,
Where, checking the architectural skills
Of Cornwallis,
Ascend, I, heap’d up mound
Of earth to find there is Heaven on this high ground.
When Tipoo Sultan cameto stay
The trees flock’d full of bunting.
With fat-fac’d guests, by light of day,
Would trawl the slopes a-hunting,
Where pheasants soon no longer gay
&, as boars ceas’d grunting,
Abundant India kick’d into gear
& slopes would be restock’d within the year!
The Horticulture Minister,
Hands clutching pad & pens,
Descends by the brown banister,
A gaggle of men-hens
Around him, fussy following, all of his whys & whens.
Karnataka
September
2008
Madras
So Gods eternall bounty ever shin’d
The beames of beeing, moving, life, sence, minde,
& to all things him selfe communicated
William Alabaster
My driver sure don’t know the highway code,
Thro vast, suburban, lawless sprawl haring,
Thirty kilometres of ribbon road,
Shops, neon signs & chi stalls commingling;
A diff’rent class
Of Indian City,
Formally Queen Madras, maid of an English sea.
Into the caves of Mylapore
Hot blood gusht from the doubter,
Dragging himself across the floor…
Savage loin-cladded hunter
Hath thrust a spear into his core…
Whispering last prayer
He saw the sweet beatific & he cried,
“Thou art fulfill’d…” the martyr smiled & died.
By Fort Saint George such church stands tall
As English as the Downs,
On sacred wall writ the roll call
Of heroes & of towns,
When London’s lackeys grappl’d with & toppl’d Hindu crowns.
Chennai
October
2008
Andaman
I asked for
this primitive afternoon
away from it all
Richard Allen Taylor
I dawdl’d four days on the Nancowry,
Small taster of the voyages of yore,
Fodder’d on a bland, suspicious thali,
My heart leapt up to see Hanuman’s shore;
Some deep & sheer
Mountain range submarine
Thrusting it’s summits clear in shades of leafy green.
The cellular jail built to last
Thro good ol’ British know how,
Where Freedom Fighters earn repast,
Some colonial Dachau,
Where bull whips crack’d & rough sticks flash’d
Guantanaman know-how
A place where proud blood flows for liberty…
How could my contree build Kalapani?
I took a boat to Ross island
Across clear water’d bay,
Wylde Banyans stand on buildings grand,
Imperious Pompeii,
Where now the White Man’s Burden is a ghost town in decay.
Port Blair
October
2008
Bengal Bay
I love, O, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon
Barry Cornwall
We sail’d from the comforts of Port Blair
Into the wide-wave level loveliness,
We men have conquer’d mountains, moats & air,
But never on deep ocean made impress;
We watch’d the fins
Of silver fish skimming
Where flipp’d slick-back Dolphins ribbon’d in star-swimming.
Empiric British ambition
Found a human pulse in Clive,
Whose self-righteous indignation
Blazed triumphant to arrive
& address the situation
Within this Nawab’s hive,
His tiny fleet transporting all his boys,
These royal redcoats & loyal sepoys.
We sighted land on the fourth day,
Sunder’d by a river,
Naiad gateway to the wide way
Of th’AryaVarta –
I have travers’d from South to North via the Nirvana!
Hugli
October
2008
Colonial
News from a forrein Country came,
As if my Treasure & my Wealth lay there;
So much it did my Heart Enflame !
Thomas Traherne
Akbar’s passengers rush from the harbour,
Haul’d by rickshaw thro’ wacky racer streets,
Power’d by pedal, petrol or runner,
Til once again the Western posse meets
Mid Sudder’s share
Of the Imperatrix
I felt without a care, bouy´d up by British bricks.
Magnificent Pax Mughala
Declines into decadence,
The Nawab, Siraj-ud-Daula
Grows in scope & confidence,
His army march’d to Kolkatta
& English arrogance –
Abandon’d, but for those too late to leave…
Slamm’d in the hole…dawn breaks…few left to breathe.
Grand ocean of humanity,
Sea of friendly faces,
From to native tea, & black taxi,
Betting down the races,
An excellent community garnished with English graces.
Calcutta
October
2008
Forgotten Fields
I see it as I leave the inn
The dark of night, an evil djinn
Pursues me close, each step I take
Fadhil Al-Azzawi
Life simple mid familiar surrounds,
But senses of adventure grow depress’d
So I set forth, a hunter with the hounds,
In pursuit of another interest;
Some battlefield
Lies died for to the North,
If feeling it shall yield a call may be of worth.
All in this monsoon of Indra’s
Growl the scowling guns of France,
By rhino shields & scimitars
Howdah’d behemoths advance…
Rudely halted by Clive’s soldiers!
Mir Jaffa sees the chance,
His mass of decision led from the field,
This treachery the Nawabcy must yield.
My cycle rickshaw gliding hies
From the glean of battle,
A poets prize…dark dragonflies
Dart oer the arable –
My guide plants me on northbound bus roaring at full throttle!
Plassey
October
2008
Mumble Words 