Prabodh Parikh

There's a legend about something
lost in the sky.
I gaze out of frozen eyes
at the yellow darkness,
my limbs torn apart by terror,
my mouth wide open in shock.

I see the ant
poised on the lump of sugar;
the clothes on the peg are dead,
the hands on the clock-tower's face
have hung their heads
but nothing happens

I burn from
the agonised cries of bats
thrashing between lamp-posts,
the threshing screams of animals crushed
below horrible edifices,
the phantom laughter of mad prisoners

I burn from
the spectres of my own lusts,
ghostly shapes of myself,
relics of myself
evaporating in the air
but nothing happens.

Kids go to school with satchels on their shoulders;
Ma sits making rotlis in the kitchen;
I kiss my beloved on the cheek at dusk
but nothing happens.
There's a legend about something
lost in the sky.

As I was birthing,
something died.



1964.
...

You gave us a pair of eyes
you also made them moist
you made the earth overflow with your giving
you taught us to walk through the jungle, to cross
the jungle.

You were the one who whispered the mantras in our ears
that knocked at the doors of the light within

You created a bridge spanning from here to there

You gave us a pair of eyes
and also made them moist.


1988.
...

The one who has returned after awakening
Awaking
Flying, drowning, taking leaps, scooping out water from sinking lifeboats
Returned to himself -
What of his awakening?
The one who has returned after awakening
Who has flown after flying, drowned after drowning, leapt after leaping, died after dying,
What of his awakening?
And what of PuPu's wretched Dada,
Mankind,
and Tiresias knocking his stick?
Who anchored his wisdom at the port of a gypsy town
and returned to himself
wearing knickers from the land of the moon
after digging wells
wearing Nixon's nose
leaving shops behind
Has flown, jumped, drowned -
What of his awakening?
Praise be to awakening
Praise be to peace
Peace
Let there be peace
Corpulent, bloody and
Fluttering there in a corner.
Peace.
What's done is done.
Upon all the planets in all the houses
Peace.
But do keep in mind,
The one who has
Returned
After awakening
Drowned after drowning
Leaped after leaping
Died after dying
Awakened after awakening -

What of his awakening?
...

It is possible this conversation will remain incomplete.
The rising hand,
The stepping foot,
The alerted ears,
The opened eyes.
It is possible, it will begin now.

Stunned
Suddenly stopping
At the edge
Waiting
For something -
The faces
Will speak up.
It is possible, their speech will echo.

The echo's form, colour and shape,
Its "one from the heart"
Its frozen gesture
In crevices of which
Twitch tiny, dew laden possibilities
It is possible, these will shine out very soon.

It is possible the conversation will be about us,
Carved in the midst of passing time.
Wings of birds
Resting or
Being flung about in the winds or
Eager for flight
It is possible, the wings will flutter.

Assume that this conversation will remain incomplete.
Colours of space will continue to spill
Lightly sketched faces will continue to be drawn
Terrified by wonder, they will continue to scatter.
Assume that we will bear
This conversation continuing within us.

It is possible.
In spite of that,
It is possible.
...

Such an evening
as in the stillness of which one hears landscapes
steaming from the trains of the spirit.

Flying out of the window, birds
become airplanes
that build a row of cities on my pointing finger.
Across the veil of this moment
the rooftop flies a kite.
Every vein sways drunk,
every limb's a swing.

Such an evening
as when I see the Buddha licking an ice-cream in my palm;
don't see
but become
the camaraderie of crickets that can only be heard
in the air of being
in my blood.

Such an evening
(it's nothing to me)
that I can hear the stillness.

Stillwater, 1974.
...

Grant me the strength to look at you, to bear the radiance
of the sun;
the strength to alert faraway ships by my drumbeats,
to be a pearl diver,
to drive a toy-train,
to survive a famine,
to extract the magic potion from the tresses
of the enfant femme.
Grant me, once more, an illusion.
And though I am no Socrates,
grant me the vision to hear, to swim
in the currents of the landscapes of French poets
which, half-open, float away in my blood.

Grant me an alphabet
of airplane and city,
which would let me sit by an ageing grandmother.
Grant me, once more, the illusion
of a ladder
to climb to You,
to me.


1974.
...

At this moment I proclaim myself a drummer-poet.
At this moment when history is a trance,
an epiphany of marijuana.
Perched on the carpet of this flying saucer,
this silo of piano-notes,
I proclaim myself a combatant in the field of words.

In the acid-rock world flowing by,
having drunk the summer of my hopelessness
here in the field, Shiva lies, after smoking hash
under the moon's soft glare: I hear winged echoes
of his sleep.
I hack through the gateways of my body and enter those echoes.

The shastras of stupor grow under the eyelids:
You send the Vedic slokas surging like electric current
through your every home
Stillwater, at last I have woken up today to sing your song.

I:
drummer-poet,
percussionist of the damru,
wailing voice of the navel:
in an African beat, I find myself today.

America, my foreign drumbeats
shall proclaim this today:
I sing here to immortalise
the tender trees of your highways,
the tender trees that hide
and play tennis
in the shadow of your giant chemical plants.



Stillwater, 1972.
...

There is a festival
of kites, too.
Even sorrow
has a home of its own.
There is a bridge
of understanding, too.
Even the eye
has a mind of its own.
If we are, that's how we are,
merry and soaped
by the ritual Ganga
There's even an illusion
of joy.

The game of words
The void
has a colour, too.
...

The captain of the game of dredging up
castaway words,
having weathered all the sea-storms,
having awoken,
having trawled among the blocks of printing presses,
and hauled back,
having found the golden pulse
of sunken galleons,
having waved the peace-flag of poetry
is returning
to port.

The poet
who reaches where no sun can reach
laughs, the blighter,
and says the fun was worth it.



Stillwater, 1974.
...

Someone's gone away without a sound
with a spasm of panic through the window of the atmosphere
flown the encampment of deafening silence.

Someone's come here wearing the mask of silence
and has balanced himself on my fingertip,
flowed in from a district across the border,
snapped awake, after crossing the boundary of dawn.

Here someone's descended the stairs of the step-well.
Here someone's crossed the desert province and come running,
uprooted by the blast of desolation.

Here travellers arrive with shoulder-loads of echoes:
gypsies who have camped together for generations,
part ways here.

Morning and evening, the hours here are festive.
Someone comes here without a sound.


1982
...