(SR) 14: Nostoi
NOSTOI
A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment
Jane Austen
INDIA
Everyone has his own idea of India
JM Haynes
Nation of nations, hot & happy land!
With spicy dishes morsell’d by the hand,
Being a valourous & graceful race,
The universal mullet firm in place,
Despite taking three men to stamp a form
& creative corruption Laksmi’s norm,
A fanatacism for the rupee
Cements this secular society
Of power-cuts & cripples & bazaars
Neath a pristine panapoly of stars,
Of swastikas & cricket in the streets,
Bounteous crops & oversugar’d sweets,
Ashrams soothing riot-torn religion
As always blaze the rays of Asia’s sun.
DEPARTING INDIA
Many days have pass’d since that piazza
Where first I flirted with the myrtle muse,
Now knoweth I a new peninsula,
Whose galaxy of monuments enthuse
The spiritus, where all earth’s wide aspects
Have form’d a microcosm of the sphere,
Firm foundation for when I travel next,
Days of endeavor drawing ever near.
I spend a moment musing on the wing,
As o’er the leagues of Araby we sail’d;
Around the Raj was flung a faerie ring
& all it’s best poesis have regal’d,
Having succeeded in my soldiering
Where Ghengiz Khan & Alexander fail’d.
MADE IT !
At last my gaze is cast oer English skies,
The thrills of one’s homecoming multiply,
Bursting through cloud we claim a poet’s prize;
Big Ben…Tower Bridge… & the London Eye.
I’m back at last, back from my epic tour,
Ten rupees all that furnishes my purse;
Scraggly & tann’d I call upon the door
Of compassion & an NHS nurse.
“It weren’t easy… I gush´d out dysentry,
Wee mozzy bites became massive bags of puss,
Salmonella, concussion, entwisted knee,
Neuropraxia… love, just look at us!”
“It’s lucky you survived”… I smil’d a smile,
“Dying,” said I, “It’s never been my style.”
KARMA SUTRA
The city streets were alive with neon,
I knock’d… Rosie answer’d there delighted,
My favourite more-than-friend down London,
Her stairs were excitedly alighted.
I cook’d up a couple of samosas,
Chappathis, biriyani & paneer,
Making out under stars & the Roses
Over charas & charlie & cold beer.
I show’d her books I’d bought in Madurai,
The Scented Sutra’s esoteric scene,
“So babe, do you wanna give it a try?”
We did, & at a later hour serene
My lover sleeping on my naked chest,
I felt that special bliss when East meets West.
MAJOR, FUCKING, TOP-LEVEL ART
im fucking rockin it mate – im having it
Back from mi travels with a reyt second epic
without a doubt im on the same level as homer
theres no denying it, im that fucking good
im also the best historian this planet’s ever seen
beacause homer didnt even write them two epics
theyre the work of many hands over many centuries,
as for me, bruv, ive even got a third one coming,
poetica britannica’s lord ollamh ballad cycle
turns out, in the end, i’m a massive, fucking genius
never rushing, indiff’rent to luxury or praise
never really push’d for publication, no need
i were too busy, there’s always work to be done,
but now, the silver rose is alive, better believe it
HUMANOLOGY DAWN
Meandering along the canal tow
To Gannow Tunnel, where the path departs,
Pontificating what the world should know
Of love, of health, of wealth, of war, of arts.
Pendle obscured by fog, toes & fingers numbing
Tranquil parkland hiking, Tamil texts in Towneley,
Baynan & Margosa, lamps lighting up mortality
Converting kural-quatrains, many miles from Madurai!
What ancyent texts my knapsack now contains!
The teachings of Saint Thiruvalluvar
& those collated by the ancyent Jains,
Then swath’d in fame, & named Nalatiyar,
Shall frame a grand sequanza, did you see
My centre-piece, my ‘Humanology?’
WEST YORKSHIRE
Ower t’ills up Northways,
Stormclouds thump on drain,
Trundling thro’ Todmorden’s
Narrow cobbl’d villages,
Totta’s ancient boundary
Between Red Rose & White;
Adore the hippy haven hills,
& mills of Hebden Bridge!
Heart of a rosehip valley!
Mytholmroyd: birthplace of laureate Hughes,
Halifax: catching busses for ‘Dirty’ Leeds;
Leaves scatter’d on the road at Odsal Top,
Oer Bradford’s wide bowl passing, conjuring
Conflicting reminiscences of squander’d days.
RYDAL MOUNT
There comes a time for mental reflection,
When a man enters his maturity,
Burning brazen youth to circumspection.
I wander’d as a cloud with wee Daisy,
Thro’ Grasmere, on a January morn,
Just me, my dog, & Dawn’s first fell-tops hazy.
Those moments saw a memory reborn
Of Wordsworth strolling gaily to Townend,
Dreaming of Mary & the Matterhorn.
As goes with time they would one day, ascend
Up steep-slop’d Rydal Mount, one heart enshrin’d,
Above the waters, soul-mates to the end.
Such love & loyalties I’ll hope to find
With Sally, dear, implanted in my mind!
NOW THAT I AM THIRTY-THREE
Upon an evening’s ride I rode beside the Forth’s firth-spray
& glanc’d back on a time-lapse t’when I last made verse this way
Since then I’ve loved an angel & I loved her many years
But left her… for the bard inside still yearn’d to join the seers.
I have roam’d the rock at Afyon, haul’d my staff up Homer’s height
Had a naked, thermal bath upon a Samothracian night;
Along the way I transcreated Tamil Nad’s first saint,
& learn’d enough of woman’s ways to woo without complaint.
I have compos’d in Italian round Aegadian seas,
Broke bread with smart, young Indians – beers by Kadevi’s breeze,
I’ve ascended Mount Parnassas, like a Bacchus, with my lyre
& swapp’d my native terrace for a palace in the Shire,
Where I find the hearth still burning, where my woman waits for me,
& the world just keeps turning, now that I am thirty-three!
AN APOLOGY FOR LOVE
“No longer must I roam this planet wide,
Searching for perfect springs of nature’s art,
Thou art to me my fearless, nearly bride,
In whom shines all those things which charm my heart;
Babe, we fancy each other quite clearly,
Needing places, but never a reason,
To converse with eloquence freely,
To make love like wild foxes in season.
I miss’d you so, a vacant shade did haunt
Each moment of my half-life; when asleep
I dreamt of nothing, vapid, fail’d to vaunt
For anything, my heart a crumpl’d heap
Of sorrows… I’m so sorry… I love you…”
Smiles she, don’t worry babe, I love you too!”
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF LOVE
We talk’d last night
& after we made love
I read to you the Lao-Tse Tung;
In my voice rose ancyent chimes,
Funell’d thro’ the Jiayuguan Pass
In elegant simplicity –
Lass, after we made love, I cherish’d thee!
Night falls again,
The drift of day deserts us,
The dusk is all that matters now, my love,
The light is dimming, but thine eyes are bright,
As cradl’d in these arms
You smile to me once more,
Love, let us talk again.
THE BOYFRIEND’S ALPHABET
One should always give one’s woman;
Art, Adoration, Art, Bravery, Bliss
Caress, Conversation, Destiny, Desire,
Equality, Everything, Fidelity, Faith
Gratitude, Goodness, Happiness, Honesty
Illumination, Impeccability, Jewelry, Jaunts,
Kisses, Kindredship, Loyalty, Lust
Money, Magic, Novelty, Nobilty,
Orgasms, Obmutescence, Playfulness, Poetry
Quality, Quiescence, Reassurance, Romance
Security, Sensuality, Tenderness, Trust
Unity, Understanding, Variety, Voice
Wonderment, Wisdom, Xysti, Xanadu
Yearning, Yourself, Zygosis & Zest!
FOREVER CALLS
She came to me upon a wynge of fire,
The greatest creature I had ever known,
Who, with one, look would fill me with desire
Who, with one kiss, would set me on a throne.
Rare rugs of damask spreading at my feet,
How days of love & music fleeting fly.
But in out bed my world is made complete
& in her arms I can but swoon & sigh!
These sonnets are for her… Aye! Sally, thee!
& all those lovers yet to breath Earth’s air,
& most of all, these sonnets are for me
To read when I am old & in my chair!
When in you’d walk; with cakes, a cup of tea,
& silver splashing thro’ your messy hair.
DENOUMENT
As now I’ve make that tender step in time
Back to this heather’d hearth of happiness,
She stands, the essence of my will to rhyme,
Aloof, alone, in all her loveliness.
“My love,” I said, “back then I buck’d so blind,
But now I see you, Sally, soft & pure,
You are the only star that moves my mind,
For heart’s dull sickness are it’s only cure
Let us adore, once more, the white lily,
Those rows of dark-eyed poppies in the corn,
Let’s climb the long Lammermuirs, all hilly,
‘Gan hand-in-hand, love’s clemency reborn.”
Then… some mad magic, spontaneous, inside,
Demands, I Sally ask to be my bride.
THE PROPOSAL
Underneath this purple blossom,
The day on which we met the greatest of my life,
Since then the better man am I,
One of those rare & lucky souls
Who realises love & the nature of true love.
Our lovemakings are symphonies,
Our conversations art,
Therefore, my only darling,
It would become my immortal honour
If you could consent to be my wife.
We are two white swans, you & I,
‘Gan gliding in the skyways,
Above this mortal lullaby,
‘Til Heaven ends our days.
ADIEU
Well, its been such a hectic adventure,
Yet creamy with moments of calm;
Reconstruct them with poems I’ve sent ya,
From notebooks I’d perch’d on a palm.
From where, under silvery starlight
These verses I’ll serve up for thee,
These wee, inky squiggles on snow-white,
Notating my life symphony!
So, I’ll leave you an Odyssey’s odes’ worth,
& sonnets Shakespearean par,
With Milton, with Byron, with Wordsworth,
English epic shall prosper & spar,
For here, in this cursus of pages,
Lies a Grand Sequanza, for the ages.
Mumble Words 