A Reluctant Sayonara
for my long-suffering poetry-loving
doctor sister:
Thadshayani
« She must suffer to her last breath.
(…) They’ll all soon be as Dead as 0-Ren Ishii. »
« That woman deserves her Revenge.
And we deserve to die. »
From « Kill Bill Vol. 1 »
I
Two French girls in Paris
one aged thirteen
the other fourteen
together take wing.
The police bring them back home.
Then hand-in-hand they jump
from their seventeenth floor flat.
They leave behind a note :
« This life has nothing to offer.
What are we living for ? »
An Austrian socialist philosopher-journalist in Paris
in perfect physical health
lies down beside his terminally ailing English wife
never to wake again together
after bequeathing their papers and wealth
not to the Socialist Party
but to a Catholic charity.
He leaves behind a long love letter
his very last remember-me book.
Till death does not do us part.
A Stateless poet passes through Paris
with his putative Spanish spouse
and infant boy.
Paris casts a covetous eye on the mother.
She plans the poet’s murder
and maims her son for life.
The People’s protectors pressgang her
and daily pound the poet to pulp.
Vive ! la France ! Viva ! la Francia !
II
A lone coyote trumpets over the sakura strewn snow
A moanful flute tugs at nostalgic heartstrings
Meiko Kaji comes on with her plaintive lilt :
Urami yibushi
We’ve not long to go in this void
The still frozen air gasps through swishing slices
spurting Strüwel-Peter blood and bones
cherry blossoms on the snow-clad parapet
struck down by the lethally-chilled sheen
of the Hattori Hanzo steel
To kill there need be no will
The will to kill resides in the sill
of the vengeful white of the eye
III
Even if we can’t stand it any longer, Lady
We’d rather not leave just yet in a hurry
Would we see the likes of this world again
Ever know what’s better than this domain
Unknown to us the slow melodious dirge
Tugs at us : stay yet a while, it whispers !
Who knows who’d be there to receive us
Yes, yes, stay yet a while, little lady !
Hum a sentimental ditty
Recall even a fated memory
Revive some moments of levity :
A friend a face an outing
A little tenderness
A tiny moment of harmony
Together in this wilderness
© T. Wignesan – Paris November 14 2007 (Rev. 2012)
From: T. Wignesan
Copyright ©: T. Wignesan – Paris November 14, 2007 (Rev. 2012)
Siluroid
I am the prize catch
I live in an artificial lake
fed by a nappe phréatique
I was put there to keep
lesser fish: carp
from taking up too much space
I live to be caught
and caught again
and be let loose as rain
I protest only to attract attention
Twenty minutes to make things look good
for the fresh-water sportsman
I know now well how to play the game
My almost fanless tail
A slithering mermaid mass from my puffed-up head
where overcoat-button eyes
sunk on either side
of my gaping gasping mouth
shell-fish fins for hands
Seven beige whiskers under my gawking chin
make me the butt
of dare-devil diving click-clucking coots
Even the slender-necked darting grebe ignores me
I stay low when the wild geese gather
with their young :
duckling swan barnacle
I make no sound to call my own
Only the crunch of carp
between two rows of filed-down molars
It is not my duty to swagger around
even under my metallic raincoat camouflage
I hide where the yarrow stalks grow thick and deep
or where the weeping willows dip their loaded plaits
Every Sunday I await the sporting hameçon
The tear makes the wear more ludique
Only the side of my underlip looks like a harelip
It doesn’t much matter
for the fun-loving trotters and rovers
like to marvel with pride at my side
in the fishing-club picture of the week
Meantime I gorge myself with carp
That’s why I hardly ever wish to carp
© T. Wignesan – Paris - 2012
Note : The Siluroid , one of the largest fresh-water fishes, sometimes some two metres and a half in length and weighing anything between a 100 and a 150 kilos..
Over which Cat's Shoulders is raised the Lintel
To be left alone
to be a cat
a porcelain memento on the mantelshelf
unnoticed un-thought-of even un-heeded
till a hand accidentally stretches
to caress the China paw of a line
all tucked in
out of a Federer need to be willingly unobtrusive
knowing the place of the homely cat
that’s fed as a pet
for the well-being of the spectator
in polite chaste drawing-room court
To take him à rebrousse-poil
and the pretty picture is shattered
canine claws unfurl drawn in offence
the conquering hargne of a Djokovic
the pounce leap and tumble
on the millimetre of the angular line
of brazen self-righteous discomfort
and desire becomes a clay cat
baking in the womb of the mantelpiece
under a creaking crumbling lintel
Revised from a 1986 poem : « Cat on the Mantelshelf »
© T.Wignesan 1986/2012
Curse of Caste
I
They came on bullock-carts
loaded with gods
Indra
Agni
Varuna
Rudra
traversed sinuous mountain ranges
rivers
gurgling outlandish tongues
their children caged as poultry
their priests chanting weird mantras
spells
charms
curses
hymns
drank the soma juice
choking with the sacrificial bleating
of rams
II
Agreed, all societies structure themselves
Out of scant need to function sans bother
Just as individuals must come together
In order better to protect themselves
All men are born equal, so say the Wise
But the Elders do not know how to stem
Rishis who would seek to mock them
By claiming they were twice-born to rise
Above all mankind for wasn’t it the decreed omen
For the Primaeval Being that the self-chosen few
Should forever speak for the Brahman in lieu
Of Purusha’s helpless eyes, brain, heart and abdomen
The only difference between the Brahmin
And the rest of the menial human race
Is that they were born with Brahma’s grace
So that they could spurn the rest as vermin
Yet India’s underside boasts of invisible millions
Who have no place in sacred Hymns of Man
They weren’t created by Rig-Veda: only as Harijan
May they hang out in limbo as Gandhi’s minions.
Resources
Roughly, the Hindu caste system is broadly divided into four sacrosanct strata ; yet there are literally tens of sub-castes in each category :
1. Brahmin (the priesthood caste, supposedly on top of the social hierarchy), followed by :
2. Kshatriya (the princely hereditary and/or ruling warrior caste) ;
3. Vashya (the commercial trading, professional and land-owning agricultural castes) ;
4. Sudra (the menial serving and peasant castes),
followed by the Out-caste :
5. The Untouchable or scavenging caste ( which has not found authority in the above Vedic hymn. )
« brahmano ‘sya mukham asid,
bahu rajaniah krtah ;
uru tad asya yad vaisya ;
padbhyam sudro ajayata. »
Rigveda, X, 90, 12 (sans signes diacritiques)
His mouth was the Brahman, his two arms were made the warrior,
his two thighs the Vaisya ; from his two feet the Sudra was born.
Transl. & translit. by Arthur A. MacDonnell (1854 – 1930), 1917
© T. Wignesan - Paris, 1998 - (from the sequence/collection: "Words for a Lost Sub-Continent", 1999.)
Is the Exile a traditional un-simplified Chinese Pictogram hanging on an unrolled-up Bamboo Scroll on the Wall
first
left downstroke
start from the top
plane out
let the long anchor tip roof-line curve sharply upwards
at the stern down-end
pile it in stuffed in the centre
leave the bottom open
that’s where the studded boot rightly fits
Over billowing transmuted waters
the haze lifts
now and then
winds amber green waft and skim
with the late light caught shimmering
no albatross circles the mast
guilt is pure guilt without wanton arrows
there are no signs of land
but the proffered hand
the Wanderer knows no words of his own
Reach - disgorge with your nails
Walls that concuss entrails
Can he yet placate asylum
echo the cluck of a poaching North American coot
nestling amidst Eurasian breeding reeds
taut bunching yarrow rushes
an embattled haven
against majestic swan ships
sleek velvety rich drake
peacockish barnacle goose
come in early from the cold
Let the dards of Orion spell syllables of ease
through the congested smudge of yore
contorted fantizi ideograms
cursory calligraphic long dripping brush strokes
pale to pinyin
Simplified
the exile gasps for instant phonemic breath
under choppy waves of stuttering tongues
racy blades
extirpate langue crucify parole
mix meaning into heady synaesthesiac brew
loss of face is a loss of noodles
develop equals hair
Could René Char’s Zeit Geist
have diagnosed the myna’s Kâla-Purusha
Reach – disgorge with your nails
Walls that concuss entrails
Resources
1. This poem has to do with a Bengali translator’s first encounter with René Char at his residence The French poet questioned his translator on the meaning of “le dard d’Orion” in his poem: “Jeu muet”. The translator interpreted the phrase as having to do with astronomy and thus rendered it as “kâla Purusha” (Zeit Geist or literally as in
Hindu mythology: the Primal Being at the beginning of time). René Char then
picked a certain variety of the cactus flower in his garden and said that the
French “phrase” applied to that particular flower.
2. The imagery in the poem also relates to the simplification of classical Chinese
characters (fantizi) by the Peoples Republic of China in the early fifties and the
alphabetisation of Chinese characters, known as “pinyin” as opposed to the Wade and Yale systems. The simplified characters produced certain semantic anomalies.
©T. Wignesan, Paris – May 3, 2009
To our dearly beloved son, now dead
for Mahathero Gunasena
In a makeshift vihara in the heart of London
Bikku then disclosed his parents long gone
Might one dare utter after all these years
Was it yesterday he would shed dry tears
Somewhere in the saffron folds of his faith
A lonely boy still lurked wanting his mother
Or brother sister and hope-dislocating father
Of how they could abandon even his wraith
Just a single line in the inner board of a book
Over dried blue ink his fingers caressed words
A life he might’ve had in who knows what worlds
He just wanted to say: ‘See, who so forsook!’
In an unwatched vihara in the heart of London
A forsaken boy dared break out of monkdom
Might one dare utter after all these years
Was it yesterday he would shed dry tears
Too late he had come to own up this truth:
‘If there’s a Supreme Being leave Him well be
He knows best what He’s doing forsooth
Mind your own business leave Him well be!’
Should one gauge the measure of a man’s humanity
From his ability to outgrow imposed attachments:
Such as confines of his community race or country
But most of all withstand the viral encroachments
Of his conditioned beliefs upon his own personality.
© T. Wignesan – Paris – September 8, 1983 (Rev. 2012)
From: T. Wignesan
Copyright ©: T. Wignesan - Paris, 1983 - (from the sequence/collection: "Words for a Lost Sub-Continent", 1999.)
Our Country/Earth which is of YOUR Size
Notre terre qui est à Votre taille
Forgive us please our enormous bilious hubris
The quasar-lit heavens smile only down upon us
For Our Master he presideth over the Universe
Our Architect-Father he beddeth down in the blackest holes
Our temple bells and lodges’ knell toll only for Thee
While Thou slippeth from one parallel universe to another
Yeah, notre terre qui est à Votre taille
The muezzin’s cry reaches far into the darkest cloud
From turret to galactic turret resounds the prophetic call
Colliding antennae make a murky Baghdad morass
The fallout heralds the bigcrunchy messianic massage
Our Master who art the shine on the Brahmin’s head
Which knows no limbs feet chest nor shivering loins
Forgive us our cowering at the spewing Purusha mouth
For Thine is the thunder exploding forever and ever
Did not a bodhi prince once keep a damning silence
He saw no need to undo Thy mighty male tie
Lest he’s forced to traverse this soil again in rags
Notre terre qui est à Votre taille
As for the other fully bearded nodding mates
They are those who first invoked Thy game
They’ve now bought the world over in Thy name
But prefer to run the banks ‘ere Thou cutteth the rates
Notre terre qui est à Votre taille
Is the epicentre of the roiling boiling might
Where domes echo for the right to languish at Thy side
And watch the Goya geek chew the heathen to shreds
Notre terre qui est à Votre taille
All the stars you see out there in the ever-ever
Are but the conjurer’s balls dancing up in the air
The illusory waking dream of the never-never
Notre terre qui est à Votre taille
Give us every day the fireworks in the sky
For Thine is the show and ours the joy
For ever and ever spinning a lie !
( ©: T. Wignesan, November 3, 1997/rev. 2012, Fresnes-Paris (from the collection: longhand notes (a binding of poems), 1999.)
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