What need of poets when pyres are lit
On sidewalks – shall I say ‘let us go then,
You and I, when the evening is spread out
Against the sky’ and patients no longer
Etherized are strewn in our way? What need
Of imagery for a people starved
Of oxygen? Will metaphor bridge the
Chasm between the living and those
Unable to breathe? Should I not, instead,
Stake out my ground, and as a signpost might,
Point and direct the onlooker to parks
Abloom with pyre-beds, and flames that feed
Oxygen-giving trees with their dead? When
The iron hearts of crematoriums surrender
The poet needs must accept defeat. No mere
Broken heart melting with pity that still
Beats in my wordless body can compete
Tag: covid poetry
Fanfare for all the helping hands
The lilies, like a brass band, march across
The living room, trumpeting their deliciousness
In brazen tones. This year the arch of
Seduction spans seas and souls, bringing
Love in pressurised litres, texts, and zoom – no
Lyrical love songs, no dulcet tones. I hear
The amaltas like a choir over a billion strong
Thundering in my heart, and in my ear
Blasts this unprecedented song, this
Unbridled declaration of the sweetness
That lies at the core. Louder than hate
And evil and maliciousness, prouder
Than the sentries guarding death’s door,
Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Corona
It isn’t just the my right eyelid twitches
Or that sleep is a rumour started by people
Who could probably be found snoring standing
Up or in the middle of lunch or by the roadside
In ditches. It isn’t even that I don’t enjoy
Making Nonograms fifteen by fifteen in bed
At 2am or 4 or somewhere in between. It’s also
Not a huge deal that that my eyes get heavy and
I sometimes collapse headfirst into a meal. It’s
Just that sleep is supposed to knit the raveled sleeve
Of care and maybe its twiddling the knitting needles
Over its thumbs because it can’t find the wool
Of the lamb that is worried threadbare.
Dearly Beloved
We are gathered here in spirit and in
Spirit only. The body of death eludes us
Now as it promises to do after the
Holding close denied the heart. This
Holding apart of love and death, this
Mourning denied the touch of breath,
This burying of presence, this closing
Of the eyes howsoever brief, this
Standing before the burning pyres
Of the cleaved body of grief is gathered
Here, in our empty hands, dearly beloved,
Gathered here. Our empty hands.
Twelve
– not a number you associate with
The age of the dead. Four hundred – not a
Measure of kilometres you think of as lying
Ahead. Hundreds of thousands – an amount
That exceeds the space in my mind, so many
Hearts beating that when one of them burst, even
Its silence seems impossible to find. How do we
Claim to think of ourselves as one, a number
So invisible that we may never know its kind.
How will we account for fares unrefunded,
Trains unboarded, homes unreached, the lives
Discounted, the peace unbreathed, the pity
Unspoken. One, a number divisible only by itself
On every step of every long march home
Lies broken.
The Measure of Debt
How sweetly sleep the tree-lined streets
That guide the city’s weary. Unbearably
Light their burden tonight, the thin-soled
Steps of the unchosen in flight. How sweetly
Scented and cleanly airy the lone highways
Under the cool moon’s light, their painted lines
Barely marking the grime of thousands of
Footprints crossing the white. How sweetly
Flows the river blue through the city as it used
To do, rippling our endless thirst for beauty
That is our civilizational right. Spilt milk shared
By animals and men who bend their mouths
To the dark asphalt, sunrise placing of hunger’s
Hope mark the tar six feet apart. It used to be
That the beauty of death was that all it asked
Was six feet of ground. It used to be we kept
In sight the measure of debt owed to Beauty’s
Might.
What do the Icelandic do without their pools?
When things get tricky the Icelandic aren’t too picky
They stay indoors, line up at stores,
Do their chores and mop their floors,
Report their symptoms if they start feeling peaky
Work from home and stay out of schools but
What do the Icelandic do without their pools??
Rumour has it they can’t live without them
They’re essential for the locals to be able to
Keep their wits about them. Babies and mothers,
Athletes, newly wed brides, and nuns, among others,
Philosophers, doctors, farmers, and fools
What do the Icelandic do without their pools?!
No soaking in the hot tubs, no water-jet back rubs,
No gossip with swimsuited friend, no kids splashing
In the shallow end, no lobster-hued legs as you go
From the forty degree hot pot to sit in the snow
No cloud of steam on shoulders bare, no dipping
Underwater to melt the icicles in your hair. No
Resolving your traumas by having a good soak,
Pandemics are one thing, but is this a joke?!
Do they raise their arms to the skies and stare
Wildly about, smother a scream and stifle a shout?
Do they refuse to eat, put down their tools? I feel
Their stress, their anguish and tension, and thus
I seek an answer to this most pertinent question:
How do they stay Viking strong and keep their cools?
What do the Icelandic do without their pools?!
On reading that the water of the Ganga is clean enough to drink again
They say the water of the holy river
Is clean enough now for people to drink. They
Would have us believe that cleansing it
Is actually much more important than
We think. That the blood in my veins runs
Thicker, that the life it gives burns quicker,
That the trail we leave is slicker than a burst
Oil tanker, more life-giving than the bloodless
Bodies that no longer feed the divine demands
Of the river. Maybe it is. Maybe tributaries
And streams collect our mortal remains, our
Little dirty dreams, immersed in our fossil-fueled
Caves, no unclogged channel that drains our
Over-flowing hearts. That holy river has its own
Source, it doesn’t need our bodies but it asks
Them of us that it may run its course. Death and the
River are reluctantly parted, the more we die, the
Less we understand how all this started. And we,
Who knows where hope springs, who knows
What tomorrow brings. All we can see is this
Water and this blood run together unconsecrated
In this unprecedented flood.
For Ashley, Aswathy, and all those sending food to the unhoused on the long road home
You can tell you’re home because they feed you.
Bowls and platters filled in love fried and sautéed and
Curried by hand each spice and grain and leaf
Chosen with care because you’re home and they need you
To know how good it is to have you in the circle
Of their arms, out of harms way. You could say
That this recent splurge of breads and cakes
Exotic recipes, tender meats, and aromatic
Bakes is a circling of arms about ourselves,
A reaching up into neglected cupboards to
Shake a little love from tins on our shelves. Such
A strange thing, food. Hastily wrapped
Meals, made by strangers for nameless strangers
Trapped between the leaving and the returning
So many unhoused each one unknown. Such a
Strange thing, food, delivered in packets,
Hundreds at a time, carrying the promise of home.
Courage #9 – Still Life: A lockdown poem
The trick lies in the highlights
You set them in strong. Pure
Dazzling bright whites. To shoulder
The weight of the darks. Take care
To register what you see only. Not
What you know is there. The shape
Of all seen through each, shapes
The sense of all.
Stillness lies in the eye of the beholder.
Things move apart to come together again.
The beauty is all in the transitions
The glow the shimmer the shine the glitter
The overlay of time on space. And when
Memory is all there is to work from
There is still life still colour still observance
Still courage in grace.
Giti Chandra 