Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
In the ageing gangster’s den,
where garish wallpapers stare sentinel-like,
Subbu asks Sappai:
“Rajini pidikkuma, Kamal pidikkuma[1]?”
How absurdly reductionist? How bereft of nuance
for the progeny of Sangam Age?
Questions critiques doubts
disappear into the mist
like hill roads, as epiphany strikes.
Parallel universes of time and space, infected
by the curse of the two heroes loom into view.
A loaded gun on the roulette table,
play the damn game!
Rajini or Kamal?
My daughter and I, browsing YouTube
for the evening movie, gape
at the shiny black metal winding to a stop
where good and evil do not
rendezvous—
She says: “Rajini, because I love it
when he sports a beard, but right now,
I would like to watch the movie where
Kamal plays a little man.”
You lose, I say, more out of a memory’s
sting than any real feeling,
as I climb into a spin of my own, arriving
to resolve disputes from my father’s era,
and having to decide between the two Sivajis,
one in the iron mask and the other without.
Elsewhere, MGR fumes, his glinting sword drawn,
ready to storm into a Dumas novel
about separated twins, conjoined at birth—
one dark and the other fair.
____________________
[1] whom do you like, Rajini or Kamal?