}} Autocarol by Mona Zote |

Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










Autocarol by Mona Zote

Everybody’s writing poems these days, every one of them
Everybody sees sonnets everywhere and carols in their coffee
They are all going mad gloriously, and gloriously
All of their poems are writing them back too.

They are trying to describe the smell of petrol spilled,
Water on the steps spilled, booze spilled, melons cracked and spilled
And how the sun or the moon or stars spill their stanzas down
On an earth racing dog mad, cat crazy round the track.

The television is overflowing with such poems, the phone, and you
Flag a taxi, get on the bus and suddenly it’s all water and lyrics
We are drowning in a river that has no end of reeds and herons
Hitching our boats to the curve of a word, this or that word, no one can say.

The child’s first breath is the start of a poem, and when the pigeons
Crash to the ground, they are pecking poems scattered in the dust
Even the silverberry is burdened with heat and verses
Even the girls on roller skates are spinning out such poems.

It’s glorious and look – even the ice-cream man, when you ask,
Tilts a grin and hands you a stick of brittle yellow versicle
That you keep under your pillow with a clenched wish
That tomorrow too will be sweetness and flies and nothing but poetry.