Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
I
Barefoot and naked
I roam the streets
My day of darkness
Ploughs the night in heat
A million lamps explode
I see only their embers
You, ever but a glimpse
Just missed, a whiff
Of air past my face
A sudden scent gone
Before I quite catch it
A trick of the eye
Rounding a corner
How fragrant the moon tonight
In its garden of tulips
That light for it their incense tapers
In votive cups
II
I am the dead man
From the wastes of desert sand
I worship the moon
And sing to the moonbird
My songs of longing
I will live forever
Without hunger or thirst
III
Flurries flicker and fall
In shadowy candescence
In these days of darkness
When wind folds on itself
And scuds away on its belly
Shattering skin-bags of freezing rain
Its mouth splattered with mud
A subdued snarl of images
But I taste snow crumbs in my mouth
Wind, rain and mud together
Hear their slow, foreboding detonations
As if still in the distance
IV
Through crowded bazars
And the chatter of public squares
Barefoot I go
Seeking neither kindness nor compassion
Invisible in my nakedness
These are the signs of our times
You hear perhaps my songs
This is all you will know
Of my longing
V
A desert of lighted streets
And I, wandering among shadows
I will live forever
Without hunger or thirst