‘Making forays into the emotive landscape of the inarticulate’
For me, there is an imperative to transgress the recognizable; to make insistent forays into the emotive landscape of the inarticulate; to engrave on the tablet of being the experiential field which veils itself from communication within the customary semantic folds of expression. It is an unborn world, this palpitating world of the inarticulate, but a compelling one which yearns to be touched in order that we may inadvertently expand and enrich the meanings of our articulate world to weave in more seamlessly its profound ecstasies, its most inhuman horrors, its unedifying banalities, and its limpid enigmas. This landscape of the inarticulate — more appositely, this space which continually emits an interface between the articulate and the inarticulate — is not a realm which resounds with the death of meaning. Far from it, it abounds in a frenetic condensation of meanings, creating a hyper-real locus of meanings so to speak, so as to rearrange their syntactical energies, and render them hermetic. And I must stress that this is not apathy towards absorbing within my experiential field the social and the political that, among other things, shape the poetic occurrence. In the landscape of the inarticulate, the concern with the social, the political, and the human condition resides like breath, occasionally palpable, habitually invisible, but always present. With this sensibility at the helm, it would be severely counter-intuitive to place my meager poems — gnomic outtakes — in the facile domains of the long-dead ethos of the surreal or the absurd…I am just trying to unfold a layered communicative ground in the chaotic slippage of language, but consciously, with a configured poetic deliberation. This consorting with the inarticulate may be encapsulated in Meer Taqi Meer’s words — a singular affirmation of the intervention of deliberate consciousness, a vindication of mediations of “craft” in the poetic process. So, let me end here with Meer’s sher, though you may find my quoting of his distich a tad oblique in the context of the vein of my above assertions:
Khush HeiN Deewangi-e-Meer se sab
kya junooN kar gayaa sha‘oor ke saath
kya junooN kar gayaa sha‘oor ke saath
(all are pleased at Meer’s lunacy;
with rational consciousness, what passion he executed!)
(Excerpt from “Sorcery of the Inarticulate”)
Touch
in the hazy hospices of slumber,
ages have transmuted to an atom;
ages have transmuted to an atom;
and moments have shaped their abode
from the wet clay of emotions
from the wet clay of emotions
from the frenetic sands of intensity
where waters converge
and make swirls of touch
and wreck ruins in droplets
the echoes of whose fluid stones
traverse through rending each body
flourish in their own extinction
die, prostrated in a civilization —
And your touch, a potent vortex
Attaining birth in its revolutions
spreading, ossifying in all directions
we now throb in your kisses
we await your vistas
But drop within drop
there is nothing here —
there is nothing here —
all ages have contracted to an atom
and each touch, each vortex — inert.
Whose soul-breath are we aligned with?
Across whose vision are we sprawled?
In whose eyes do we rove?
Across whose vision are we sprawled?
In whose eyes do we rove?
Final Call
sentinels of Being,
arise now!
arise now!
the narrow lanes of blood are being adorned —
you are being summoned from within your bodies today!
innumerable suns, stars, wayfaring
innumerable suns, stars, wayfaring
in the uncharted dimensions of fluid horizons
have wilted since long —
have wilted since long —
disappearing beyond nimble probabilities, all are gone —
your dreams, passions, trials,
have already regaled uprooted breaths!
sentinels of Being!
where is the absolute center of
the centers of all centers?
where is the panorama of our perpetual miracle?
where is the Armageddon rolled up in our soul?
in that intimate Armageddon,
your untold forebears sculpted on stone!
your untold lamentations quivering on the horizon —
your untold shadows
your untold shadows
wandering, drifting, wheezing
often in heart’s crevices
often in heart’s crevices
often in famished dust-storms
often in freezing embers;
often in freezing embers;
on cypher’s routes
often the solitariness of breath
often the whirl of the new
often the whirl of the new
all, often in the depths of surfaces, roving and gasping!
your untold forebears sculpted on stone
are fossilized in the hegemonic caress of raging ages!
sentinels of Being! in your closed eyes
faces of several births are being brightened
you are being summoned from within your bodies today!
sovereigns of the splendor — abodes of body’s wastelands!
skies slumbering in the earth of my expression!
sentinels of my forlorn Being!
arise now!
for all is being swept away in a rootless tempest
the leaf on the branch of blood quavers inexorably
look now, hues of the Armageddon are cast!
in this derelict moment
in some hushed inflection
someone, chanting a cryptic melody,
unravels sky’s tangled threads!
Revolution
Spilling
from the soul’s horizon
meaningless: margins of life
I have no color
meaningless: margins of life
I have no color
I have no sound
I am where I am not.
A dweller of self-‐‑negation –
Countless ticks of time,
rays, milky ways, centuries
have been raised with me
dense forests, green leaves,
ruins, stones,
Countless ticks of time,
rays, milky ways, centuries
have been raised with me
dense forests, green leaves,
ruins, stones,
caves, springs…whirl
to my breath’s rhythm!
An ocean within an ocean
I reside
as agony of roiling waves,
raging, disintegrating on my own sands
on sand — houses
on lands
on Time
on Time
becoming ether in flights,
voice in cultures,
blood in veins
voice in cultures,
blood in veins
and expanse of eternities in emotions;
Becoming the barrier of breath
in the deserted ruins of past lives I exist;
traversing many annihilated worlds
breaking paths of nonexistence—far ahead...far
beyond Aum crooning in the primal waters;
beyond the heavenly hues implanted in the Vedas,
beyond oblivious hieroglyphs
beyond the heavenly hues implanted in the Vedas,
beyond oblivious hieroglyphs
engraved on the pyramids
Plato’s tongue, like zephyr,
salvaging each Greek column…
Plato’s tongue, like zephyr,
salvaging each Greek column…
Beyond the enchantment of Orpheus’ lyre!
beyond myriad civilizations
deracinated, dying, yet again blossoming;
beyond my ancestors, privy to secrets of nonbeing;
beyond every base of queries:
beyond every base of queries:
why does this earth revolve
around an unknown axis?
why is the sky blue?
around an unknown axis?
why is the sky blue?
shall the heavens quiver if atoms are split?
who fixed directions?
who fixed directions?
why doesn’t Time flow in reverse?
why does love disillusion?
can a computer cure melancholy?
why are all so lonely?
beyond every new plaint of blood
beyond every root
beyond every root
beyond every invention
beyond innumerable wars
I lie inert!
beyond innumerable wars
I lie inert!
at times, in Hitler’s breast,
the clamor of Jewish bones,
as Gandhi
the clamor of Jewish bones,
as Gandhi
I have slipped from dimwit tongues!
have writhed in African mouths
as hunger
beyond the crumbling axis
of a wrecked rotation
of a wrecked rotation
beyond the motions of a swinging shattering history
beyond every expression of times
way beyond…
I have reached far
but have no claim to voyage!
Flow is but my chimera
Flow is but my chimera
In the chimera of flowing
I churn
an ocean within an ocean
becoming the passion of roiling waves —
within some drifting surge
within some drifting surge
within the waters of snuffed creation,
within the fortress of mortal emotions —
in the chimera of flow…
but now I must revert
to the equal beginning
to the gates of the origin
to illuminate the cipher!
to make everything interminable!
I have to submerge again
into the lake of voids;
into the lake of voids;
I have to withdraw again
into the womb of my Nothingness!
Translations from Hindasa Be-Khwaab RaatoN Kaa
The Song of Suppositious Shapes
taking off impassioned visages of cipher from cipher
when shadow in shadow configurations abstract
are uncovered
then streams the song
in the circles of undying chimera
from all apertures of respiring circles —
From all apertures of chimera’s circles
we have to pass in that same moment
holding on to some expression of conical airs
in the territories of lines and dots —
Of the universes of lines and dots
a singularity we must efface
a singularity we must leave behind
Caravaggio’s Angels*
when
packing tempests of seven heavens
in the coquetry of tiny, soft, gentle forms
we have descended
we have descended
who has seen us fall into Time?
all bound in the embrace of four dimensions;
the trumpet, the fire;
lament of our wings;
the only ascending continuity with the derelict worlds of the
above…
above…
in the abundance of our graceful twirls
we are curved over histories of lands, of Time
stepping out of imagination; out of the meaning of hues;
in this arrested air
we herald arid messages voicing arrival of gods
we have come
squandering empires of grass and dew;
in our embrace
we have
brought itinerant skies of the eternal darkness of the heart
*Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610): Renowned Italian Baroque Painter
Translations from Adam Taraash
The essay and the poems are part of our Poetry Special Issue (January 2022), curated by Shireen Quadri. © The Punch Magazine. No part of this essay or the poems exclusively featured here should be reproduced anywhere without the prior permission of The Punch Magazine.
More from The Byword
Comments
*Comments will be moderated