}} PLAGUE by Ranjit Hoskote |

Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










PLAGUE by Ranjit Hoskote

Those who ran to hide were stoned
and chased from their fields
The juniper was fragrant the vinegar how strong
but summer burned its way through the bricks
and the plague bell kept tolling

Today we feast tomorrow we die 
the drunks were neighing but no door opened
Every roof was heavy with crows
Calling for a rain of fire the sturdier peasants sang
above the swaying crowd above its dense nose-lock of sweat

When their backs bent at last and their voices fell
a monk cowled in fury
whipped their song with a carrying drone
Fields of sulphur to the right
fields of scorpions to the left

Those flames scourges those flames sharp
as flint twisted in our wounds
River of souls surging to the hell he painted
their bodies left nailed to the doors of heaven
Ash-heaps the houses past which their song rose again

and no one to wipe the blood from every word

 

 

← Ranjit Hoskote