Salad # 16 : Still Life

Still Life (1984)

Starry night
quiet
as the flow of a teardrop
down the laughter lines
of an aged face
That is the way it was meant
to be
but no, not here.
A night
that would be silent
broken
by the anguished howl
of a whelp in exquisite
torment;
by the monotonous
clang
of the watchman's baton
making contact with the weathered 
steel
of a telegraph pole;
by the abrupt wail
of a sleeping
child
writhing in the agony
of some meaningless
nightmare;
by the strident chirp
of a cricket, and
the sated burp
of a horned toad.
The clamour deafens me
I cannot sleep 
I am too alive.

Salad # 15 : Dire Straits

Like everyone in my generation, I was very taken with the music of Dire Straits in the '80s.......one favourite was the song "Where do you think you're going ?". I used to sing it to myself very often, until one day, an entirely different set of lyrics formed themselves, so I decided to put it down on paper.

Dire Straits (1986)

Where do you think you're going
Don't you know it's dark outside
Do you know what you are doing
or are you taking yourself for a ride ?

Do you understand the changes
that time has wrought upon your soul ?
Do you see your friends are all strangers
because your relationships were never whole ?

You think there is no reason
why you shouldn't go on as you are
You say this is the season
to hitch your wagon to a star

Where do you think you're going ?
You're living in the past
Your decadence is showing
Your indifference is vast

You're fast approaching the time when
your mind will start to rot
Your field of vision willl be blue, then
and the water will be hot

Where do you think you're bound now ?
You're almost ripe to be put on the shelf
There's still time - turn around now
Come back - and look into yourself

Salad # 14 : Camouflage

Camouflage (1984)

Characters
in a masquerade
Cowards
who hide behind masks
fashioned at
home
Facades
of blank indifference
harbouring appalling
complexities
Insecurity
Inadequacy
Inconfidence
Such things cannot be
revealed
since jeering laughter
is unpleasant to the
ear
No one bothers -
would you ?
Like a rusted guard-rail
that few care to
electroplate
these people slap on
another
coat of paint
and go about looking
bright
and new
and false
until it wears off

Salad # 13 : Poetry Redefined

In the ‘80’s, I wrote volumes of prose and verse on what I thought poetry was ! I put one in “ Candid Camera “ (Salad #1); here’s another sample…..

Message in a Bottle (1985)

Emotions
brewed by events uncertain
fermented by time
distilled in the depths of the soul
bottled within the heart
cased in a recess of the mind
displayed in the midnight of the eyes
sold to a senseless consumer……

That is poetry.

Raison D’etre (1986)

The urge to express….
The urge to depress….
The urge to impress ?

 Poetry – the urge
              - the surge
              - the purge
              - the dirge  

Salad # 12 : Elegy

Elegy (1985)

This is the tale of a woman who lived in sin
Walked the streets of town with a dissolute grin
Wearing rag-doll clothes and the scent of gin
Making pennies off the men she invited in

She was born at Christmas, on a cold, cold night
Came into a room that was devoid of light
Her father was a seaman whose ship had moved on
'Twas on the floor of a brothel that she was born

Her mother was careful to raise her child
Into a flaxen-haired temptress who'd drive men wild
When the girl came of age, she was turned out
Into the bold bad world, to see what men were about

No male she met felt anything but
the depth of emotion reserved for a slut
They didn't realise that she was just
a girl playing games with the force of lust

A decade went by, her hunger had grown
Fed by the indifference of the men she'd known
The only set of values that she'd ever seen
Rested snug in the pants of every man's gaberdine


Tired and old and ravaged by disease
Left to her by the men she had tried to please
She eventually turned over and fell asleep
In a hole in a churchyard, six feet deep

The men whose bodies that she had wed
Paid for a gravestone, the epitaph read
" Here lies a woman who spent life giving
Yet only in death has found the joy of living "

Salad # 9 : Love Song to a Stranger

I'm still looking for someone to put music to these words :-)

Whispers in the Wind / Love Song to a Stranger (1986)

Call, so that I may steal your voice
Write, so that I may feel it
Call, so that I may reveal my love
Write, so that I may conceal it

Come, so that I may hear my heart
Go, so that I may fear it
Come, so that I may revere the pain
Go, so that I may clear it

Awake, so that I may sight your wrong,
Sleep, so that I may right it
Awake, so that I may highlight my weakness
Sleep, so that I may fight it.

Salad # 7 : Autopsy

I wrote this in 1984 shortly after witnessing an accident in Kolkata, in which a dog was run over and killed by a speeding truck, competing with another for road space.

Autopsy (1984)

Two trucks rumble
down a city street
pockmarked
with scars of the past.
Two trucks
and hardly enough space
between them
to slide in a
banana.
The bitch, in repose
some distance off
gets unsteadily to
her feet, her middle
heavy with the weight
of her litter.
She makes for the sidewalk….
what sidewalk ? This is Calcutta.
The trucks
pick up speed, each trying
to overtake the other
oblivious
to any other presence
before them.
A blare of horns
A screech of brakes
A minced oath
A muffled yelp
One trucker forges ahead
the other curses and resumes
pursuit.
The bitch lies a long time
mangled, like
wrung-out laundry.
Still, dead mother.
Still-born puppies.
It is evening; the carcass
has since been thrown into
an open drain
for carrion
to preside over it.
The Municipality, you see
is on strike today.
Soon, there is nothing left:a few bones maybe, as after
a chicken dinner.
What did you expect :
A procession ?
A burial ?
A period of mourning ?
There is no place here
for dogs
there are far too many already
most of them
on two legs.

Salad # 6 : Imagery

I was lucky with my English teachers.......they hammered home the point that the language was infinite in its variety, and that it was important, when describing something, to make the subject come to life through the use of appropriate and evocative words. I tried to do this all the time, and the results were sometimes offbeat.

Imagery (1985)

The growth of a tendril
towards a source of light;
that is the meaning of existence

A thread of cotton
on a sea of quicksand;
that is the power of flattery

The action of a flame

on a candlestick;

that is the price of degenerationa

The purposeful crawl of a black widow spider

across its web;

that is the folly of love

The frenzied flapping of a flamingo

adrift in a slick of oil;

that is the futility of hope

Salad # 4 : A Man & A Woman

A Man and a Woman (1986)

This is something I penned in 1986, a reflection on the complexity of  the man-woman relationships I had witnessed, been told about or personally experienced.....

The moth and the naked light
The river and the land
The firefly and the moonless night
The seashell and the sand

The stubble and the razor blade
The tempest and the skiff
Bright sunlight and adjacent shade
The climber and the cliff

The artist and the drawing board
The foetus and the womb
The tuna and the fishing rod
The mummy and the tomb

 

The puncture and the tyre
The water and the fire
The leaflet and the dew
Your reflection and you

The indifferent, the rejected
The untouched, the dejected
The sharpened, the blunted
The hunter, the hunted

They’re all hurting
They’re all flirting

Salad # 0 : Futility

Cynicism set in early - very early indeed. Take, for instance, this bit of free verse I wrote in 1984, on relationships: appropriately enough, I named it "Futility":

The burnt child sits

once again by the fire.

He sees her smile.

His heart leaps, thudding painfully against
the bars of its calcium cage.
And then it happens
all over again.

Tentative advances.Wisps of banal

conversation. More smiles. Cunning
compliments. And then the foundation
is laid. It moves on.
Hours of endless squawking
on the telephone. A throbbing hand

grips the belaboured instrument pressed

to a tortured ear.
There is, after all, little
better to do.
Whispered bittersweet nothings. Sincerity
is clearly on holiday: the obvious
needs never to be stated
even though
it is pleasing to hear.
In time, physical
overtures. Diffident at first, then
assertive. Soon, demanding.
Weeks pass. Four figures
in a savings account dribble
away into nothingness
showing little in return.
Boredom
sets in. Only two chameleons
may entertain each other
indefinitely.
Attentions wander. Jealousy

is let in through

a side door. On its heels

runs a hairline fracture

that spreads

the way you see thin ice cracking.

The pain is to come

later. It was good

while it lasted. But for now

it is done.

And the child retreats to

lick its wounds

and await, like

the moth

the coming of another

flame.