A Prayer Without End

Dangling on the edge of our October laughs
my mermaid feet loom over the foolish Seine
delicately.

****

The summer breeze is encouraging.
Convincing. It nudges my body gently.
The way you did onceuponatime
under those warm starless skies.
While I felt the grass on my naked back
and all was quiet, but for us. Inebriated as we were
by Youth.
My mother’s voice called out to me from the distance
It rippled through the Arabian sea
and died before I paid heed to it. Be careful, she would say.
And under the moonlight i let you dismantle the fortress she had built around me
Is it no wonder then, that we are so broken now, the youandi of we?
i lie scattered around the city. An explosion.
every day i tumble upon a new fragment of myself
and pocket it safely, in the hope of being whole again.
on the rue de la Bucherie, on a rainy day in May
i found my insides on display. For everyone to see;
and then where we had laid down our private thoughts
One distant forgotten day
in a secret corner of the cimitiere du montparnasse
Known only to You and Me.

****

i collect myself among the heavy rose blossoms
dripping red yellow pink white fire sweat
in the June heat
they have floated away from you
to faraway lands. Beyond the mountain and the sea
to the burning urgent sunset of orange Granada
that smothers them to forgetfulness
only the memory of the bubbling
Seine. Calling out to me.
The cosmos cracked open
at the break of spring.
when we turned away, each to each.
and i confronted the sea.
Winter kept us warm, covering earth in forgetful snow
Oh such deceit! April is the cruellest month
the birthing month that mocks at our infertility.
And so what if i refuse to look the other way now?
And so what if i throw away sunny dreams?

****

and so what if i reject remembrance?
and so what if i am cruel?
and so what if i sacrifice my body,
at the altar of some urban Lethe?
The rain will come wash it away-
and autumn will bury it under her rubbish golden leaves-
and summer will plaster it neatly with dust.
and everything will be as before-
You without Me.

Ophelia

I am the forgotten

Ophelia

Lay down to a muddy death

Fallen off a willow tree

Balance was never a forte

Of a falling woman like me.

The sound of my water stifled weeps

Cannot be heard through the hasty beeps

Of impatient machines

Of a world where there is no grief

And everyone moves on

Easily.

I am disregarded

For a soliloquy

Victim to Hamlet’s

To be or not to be?

Ponderings that should not concern

A hysterical woman like me.

What dreams had you, Ophelia?

What agonies?

As you felt the water seep

And swallow you deep.

Even as it ruined

Your stockings and high heels?

I consider this poem almost incomplete. Having worked extensively on the question of the representation of women in literature this year, and especially on the question of melancholia and women, this is something I have been thinking about obsessively. Traditionally, female grief has always been degraded to the level of hysteria and madness. While male sorrow is somewhat more dignified and intellectual, often termed “melancholia”, depression among women has been an issue that has not been dealt with very well by male writers. Tragic female figures are always doomed to silence; either by death or madness. One such figure is Ophelia, victim to Hamlet’s selfishness. I had planned on writing something more serious and sympathetic, but what came out was something with an almost-tongue in cheek tone to it. Nevertheless, I ask myself what Ophelia would have done if she hadn’t been killed off by Shakespeare. Perhaps a question we should all ask ourselves.
For those of you who know me personally, you will inevitably link what I write about to what has been going on in my life. And while I cannot really put an end to such interpretations, I would like to say that words come not only from within, but also without. 

Falling Women

(A quick note before you proceed to the poem- the title “Falling Women” comes from Margaret Atwood’s book Cat’s Eye. She uses it elsewhere too, but a quick google search might suffice to understand the notion of Falling Women. Lulu is a character from Beckett’s short story, First Love or Premier Amour in which the narrator leaves Lulu as she is giving birth to their child and is never able to forget her cries. This little explanation will hopefully make it easier to read the poem, given how tedious poetry can be!)
And as once before,
A monster grows inside me. A poet
Threatens to make itself be born.
What is happening inside me cannot be
Denied or put off much longer
Part your legs and push push push
He never forgot Lulu’s cries.

I prepare in calculated bursts
To paddle myself Lethe wards
The liquid obliteration of images and words
And faces and touches and lies–
Till I am shrouded in an unwitting white
The colour of a purged woman
Draped as a new born child.

Tightly ,in clean and crisp sheets
That bear no stink of vulgar love.
“Has she eaten? Has she slept?
What happened to her?”
Whispers die around me.
I am the site of death and rebirth
Another hysterical woman.

Prone to sentimentality.
Whilst I suffer in my sick room,
I shall be handled and taken care of.
If only I were a regular Lady Lazarus
Splitting open veins habitually
And stitching them back up
Till what is unwanted flows and trickles away.

******

I am cursed with liberation
A modern woman, who knows better.
And like dinner, we will split the cost of this
And I shall be reimbursed for all expenses incurred
For I have my income, and you yours.
And I should know better, than to resort to words
Or worse still, feelings.

For a life is exterminable
And divisible. And always unwanted.
Syntheticity, the child of modern science
Was supposed to prevent natural growths.
Death can be bought
And they will clean up the mess
And that is all there is to it.

This is the lot of Falling Women
Trudging along treacherous men cliffs
Susceptible to loving.
Falling in love. Tumbling down it
Like a lost little Alice.
Swallowed whole by the downward vortex
Of gravity.

The falling must hit ground, sooner or later.
Wounds will be acquired.
Skin stitched back together like a jigsaw puzzle
A womb emptied.
All traces will be removed
This is what modern men and women do.
They move on.

White

                                                                Today the rain empties

                                                                  All has been silenced

                                                                     In this bareness

                                                                       All are nude

                                                                         Austere

                                                                    And susceptible

Let us hang our masks                                                                And begin again

By the door                                                                                 In a thousand ripples

Next to the wet umbrella                                                            On the mirror

Reveal ourselves                                                                        Broken

Under candelabra                                                                       Exploit

And will shadows                                                                      Forever
To merge                                                                 Our intermittent tenderness                                                                                                                               

Let us tread closer                                                                     On white sheets

And cross lines                                                                          Of Eden

And melt                                                                                There will be no betrayal

In phrases                                                                                  In the rain

In exhaustible                                                                           There are no apples

               long                                                                                             serpents

Never ending                                                                             Only us

The silverware                                                                          Let us prey 

Gleaming                                                                                  While

Reflecting                                                                         We are new and uncovered

Our unusual nakedness                                                            Shivering forms

Narcissus and Echo                                                                  Exposed

Chasing                                                                                     To the fangs of Time.

Let us end----

Let us put away

Caustic words

And open

To a nonsensical nothingness

Of flowery verses

And decorate

With vases

As White-Winged Gods

Populate the room,

Remember      Socrates

hung

bythe  tightnoose

Of Truth.

Once Upon A Time

                                 I might have loved once

Under the shadow of a chestnut tree

Like squirrels we would have

               nibbled at fruits

For a      period.

Made a nest of plastic and glass

     The dregs of man

From the wastes of a civilization

And exhausted our play-thing of a love

On the canvas of a sunset.

                                          I might have let pig Cupid

Aim for me--- Try his luck

As in a casino. While women came

And went

Talking of Michelangelo.

Once I might have loved    where a touch was enough.

Of Love Songs

Midnight empties my heart--- 

-              -We might have united,

In the moment of a heartbeat

When the sun was high

And even shadows had withdrawn.

Into newspaper print.

Fluids trickle in this heated summer

Of lazy passions

Where fat flies couple unhurriedly

And secrets spill in to each other

 digging deeper in to flesh

 bellowing in to graves.

No dark corners may be found

virginal, in this city.

    And we, ever faster in nothingness

An accidental sigh

    escapes

 is caught back hastily

the viscous white silence spreads again.

A form develops

Among white sheets

It is suspect. flickers---

  indecisively.

We must trust

In false fecundity.

Let this cerebral carnage

Destroy me.

Till I am no more. Emptiness.

Only a moth remains

Nibbling  your insides

   Blood     gushes

Charades

A golden arrow

Penetrates the darkness

Adolescent thighs of furry nights

Open to receive it.

 

                                    For we are good hosts. Welcome.

And I in my lamp

Deaf to the sun’s hollering

In my safe dignity and retreat

Refuse to awaken.

Lunar madness is familiar

The frenzy of words,

A consolation

Daylight a dream.

                                 You are here now, we will not let you go.

The sun moves to other skies

Monogamy is a charade.

Stars are prone to swindling.

And clouds to inter-mingling.

                             

                                   Incest is in the air. Infidelity is the highest law. There is no loyalty.

 The river rages

Against this sudden betrayal.

Protests, like in a democracy.

The solar system is a monarchy.

                                   In the kingdom of the sun, free will is not tolerated.

 Why should I be honest?

I will allow my words to deceive.

Hypocrite lecteur! mon semblable!

Believe what you may believe.

For words, like the sun, also mislead. 

But I, eternally, safe, and asleep.