Dirge and other poems

Arteriosclerosis: A condition of

The heart eventuated by too

Much vanity, too little love

For what we have caused to produce

Us; Insecurity of a few

Glands; Valiant attempts to choose

Between various failings, an

Effort to close in oneself the

Effortless secret of man.

Conditional upon the heart’s own

Involuntary needs is

This condition, sometimes known

As "Hardening": Hard Times, Hard Cheese

Are like phrases. Consequently this

Entangles the faculties

In perceiving it as a tonic

For jaded life; After all the

Fact remains that death is chronic.

Prognosis: Grave. Certain medicines

Have palliative effects which

Are salutary, reducing

Ante-mortem rigor mortis,

Ocular Jaundice (vide a Stitch

In Time) and pain. Accidental

Kindnesses are performed by the

Dying, but life remains fatal.

Dark cloaked the firmament

The rain came down.

There is a season known only to spiders

Which falls usually between June and September

(Though in some places it comes as early as April)

When they all have licence to crawl out of their own

Accredited crannies, and spin webs where they like.

This is a great offence to careful housewives

(Especially to those who are afraid of spiders)

— Suddenly to see a fat black bounty squatting

In a nook that was spotless an hour ago

Is enough to give anybody the hiccups.

There is a cure, however, as there is one

For all ills except those which breed in the heart

— Wait for the round white eggs of the gecko to hatch,

And carry off the hatchlings, as many as you need,

And secrete one in each violated corner,

And no spider will spin again there that season.

I was taught this by a truthful friend who has since

Transmuted himself. He was so devoted to spiders

That he decided to do the irrevocable,

Some time ago, and the last I heard from him was

Splatch!

The poets die like flies but I am lying slightly to one side,

Contented in my Spain or Siam, content too to keep my hide.

How well they wrote, those friends now fettered, how the Indo-

              Anglian tongue

Allowed them to be lovely-lettered, their lives lived when the

world was young.

I’ll live and hold my words in, for I am wearied of hypothesis;

And, in place of getting glory, kisses take from my missis.

Then the world shone, by their showing; then publishers seemed

to care;

Then calls for cheques of last year’s owing did not fall on empty air.

Then newspapers asked them for pieces; and printed them

unchanged; and paid;

But now there are so many wheezes which make the craft a thrifty

trade.

In a wilder whirl of weeklies, tabloids titting on page threes,

I will shirk my duty meekly and kisses take from my missis.

They did not care much what the world said: they taught it instead

how to speak.

They did not, when a poem pleaded, to meetings go in Mozambique.

But I will stay my poems, spending strength now with a shriller pen

My theme and language both defending, to live fourscore years

and ten.

And if it prove my prime is over, if I’ve no chance at wordly bliss

Why I will spurn so false a lover and kisses take from my missis.

This hand once penned those poems: never shall I find so true a

friend.

I’ve a thirst for all forever, but the lines come to an end.

So Arun and Dom and Nissim — I will shun their hard-earned grief

And much though I will always miss ’em, in softer shadows find relief.

And when I’m ninety and young writers ask why I wrote no more

than this

I will answer, "But, you blighters! I kisses took from my missis."

(on seeing a worm crawl out from my notebook)

This maggot from among my poems poked its head,

Its shiny head of bruised black, trembled stiffly,

Hesitating as I hesitated

To plunge the penpoint in and rid my rhyme

Of this reminder of its predestined time.

Do I know what insincere word I wrote

Caused this evil to hatch here, assuming

Property in the fabric of my thought?

Not exactly; but poets never can guess

What it is makes their magic to grow less.

The poetry’s not only in the form:

I know some aberration of my mind

Has taken root here and produced this worm.

One sick neuron will lay the sordid curse

Of unsuccess on all my meagre verse.

But — I explain why I hesitate —

Should I kill this misbegotten creature if

It really does reflect my creative state?

Truth is beauty, just like the man said,

So I must preserve truth if I'm to be read.

Therefore I will research each youthful page,

Undoing my folly. Yet take comfort, for

This apparition’s only in the larval stage

And if I work well, in my astonished eye

It will grow wings and appear a butterfly.

(Excerpted from First Infinities by Vijay Nambisan, with permission from Poetrywala. Book available on www.paperwall.in)