Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Remember the time
when we held dad’s finger
and walked
from the merry-go-round
to the ice cream place
or the candy-floss stall
at the little or grand fair?
Our cheeks were flushed
and we had a good time.
When we returned home
balloons in hand
(always yammering for more),
mom had a hot meal ready
and we gloated in her embrace
as we told all.
Next day
dad went to work
not just for self-fulfillment
but for us all
The faraway family outing
was missed
but we understood;
and waited.
Every breath we took
was like glue
we stuck with each other:
for us
in the family
gravity was true
In the coloniser’s domain
in the long shadows of the Renaissance
lit up by the Enlightenment
of stark rationality,
in the industrial revolution’s terrain
we learnt of nature’s legerdemain:
during two murderous wars
(over what were these wars?)
another onslaught
was on the rampage
like a monster with fire-spouting eyes
freed from a sinister cage:
disheveled by war, people had run amok;
a million babies out of wedlock
As dad dodged bullets
and became glassy-eyed
burying buddies in the trenches
numbed by peaceless stucco sounds
with built in echoes
we were desolated in Sartre’s lap
while making it with local wenches
the heart of hopelessness became an open sore
and God, the gluon of life,
was consigned to ancient lore
At home
the lure of soldier’s promise
and the glitter of his uniform
made starry-eyed girls
and hungering women
into single moms
We responded positively
to these new societal norms
and banished parental columns
from all official forms
In the citadel of life, liberty
And the pursuit of happiness
the war for life
hit hardest in the inner cities
as sex was unhinged
from mutation,
and making babies;
liberating intimacy
to a lark
like love ‘at your place or mine’
in the back seats of automobiles
as big as bedrooms
in two hour flaky hotels
or in the park.
Sex became a cherished monster,
the only face of love
Often dad left town
on his walkabouts
sometimes fighting purposeless wars
his skills became more and more portable
as he left Amerasians behind
to be raised bewildered Jills and Toms
by girl-children ravaged into adulthood at Subic Bay
and as teenage Mekong moms.
And sometimes he returned home
to a child not his own
Don’t say we did nothing.
We acted with bravado and cunning:
the ghastly word bastard was made mild,
we coined the word love-child
In the land of the rising sun
the commute killed the family.
Under the façade of harmony
cracks developed with impunity
and kids bonded only with mom.
Late nights, and Sundays with the caddy
made a stranger of daddy.
Lump-sum pensions at fifty-five
made retired dad redundant for life
Those with dads, everywhere
saw him bring in televisions.
He installed the third parent
to our applause.
Mother took a job
to supplement the success ethic
and sent us snivelling
to day-care centers;
for evenings
the babysitter was born.
So many of us had never suckled
under this trauma we later buckled;
man the only species that pillages other udders
in bovine revenge he shudders
Quick fix meal-makers
saw their business boom
in the wake of instant this and instant that
the love-ingredient went out of dinner;
glue went out of our lives
its solvents rose above the clouds
and made holes in the ozone layer
We were mostly alone
with the third parent.
It spoke our language
(or we spoke its)
and gyrated to its beat.
Mom became the occasional cook
whose career took unallocated energy
and we recognized dad
not from love in his eyes
but by his raised index finger.
(He was hardly around,
that’s the role mom assigned to him
and we believed mom)
We clued in more with the idiot box
it had many faces
which we could call up
at the flick of the switch
and later
via the power-wielding remote
over which we fought;
it set the pecking order of the family.
With this parent
we were in charge
we could silence it at will.
That experience we carried into life
With this never-responding parent
we first lost the art of dialogue
then with so much emotional noise around
in stereo-surround
we forgot how to talk to ourselves;
we flew free
like unbuckled astronauts in space
We were free
now tired even of the rat race.
Beatles, cantankerous drums
and volcanic debris
made us hopeless prisoners of being free
Imperceptibly but surely
the parent at home took over:
when we returned to our lodgings
overflowing
to tell of the day’s triumphs
or share the day’s pain
it heard nothing: it never hugged,
it had no skin.
Exasperated, we switched it off
and played moronic one-fingered computer games.
But we groped for an ear
And lots of touch
Touch came surely
from mom and dad
between work,
quarrels,
and outings only for grown-ups.
But this touch to us was a ritual,
it had an empty heart:
it hardly throbbed
or made us warm
Mom always looked in
even at 2 a.m.
when they returned
from this party or that
then scurried to dad
where they quarreled
and slept
facing their private blank walls.
We were awake through all this:
oh what wringing bleary-eyed abyss!
The quiverfull became a quiver
with preened arrows
as we huddled
each in our own rooms
each bubbling with loneliness
each arrow looking for its own mark
each ready to whimper like a dank grenade
each stifled with this freedom
whose unsocketed stilts
made the house collapse
Self-help books were the rage
they told us:
“now you can be what you want to be,
and be
your own woman or man.”
And we believed them.
When the unbonding bill was presented
we silently cried.
Torn or tearless, the family died
On the street
gays, lesbians,
gender-benders, impelled queens
finally freed from stereotyped extremes
tyrannised into closets for so long
each as different from the other
as cherry-blossoms from honey
bonsais from the sun peeking out of heavy-clouds.
With lip-sync on one point we’re allied
unwittingly we’ve all put dad to pasture:
in these brave new sexual preferences
dad was scuttled.
We went to auctions of human eggs and sperms
as dad lost his personification
Now,
a new song:
Lady Oestrogen, Lady Oestrogen
what have you got up your sleeve?
Migrating through chemicals, plastics and pesticides
with alchemy you peeve:
through chemical revenge unseemly
you make drinking waters queenly
and dad is feminised.
The male sperm count loses it spark,
dad’s last stronghold
goes the way of the matriarch!
Lady Ostrogen, Lady Ostrogen
what have you got up your sleeve.
With alchemy, with alchemy you peeve
dad’s last stronghold loses its spark
it goes the way of the matriarch!
Bonds between siblings
were unraveled too
and friends always moved away.
Single’s seats in cinemas
outsold drinks
in single’s bards
where each flouted glass
brought new thirst for touch
and made more single moms
Dad often went his way
and became a vagabond
knowing in his bones, in this new creed,
for a female and her young
he was only a provider of seed.
Little vestiges of fatherhood
were upstaged by sperm-banks.
There was disarray in the male ranks
Mom tried to flee too
but could not.
The unsnipped umbilical chord
kept her around.
She had nowhere to go
and persists, if she can,
like a wobbling domino
In the land of the pure
(a microcosm of the third world I’m sure)
where the mighty Indus flows
there are other body blows.
Male young are in languishment
as girl-students ride stallions to the fore.
The die is cast
this reversal is here to last.
What’s happened by future dads is not seen
men will surely belong to the ‘has been’.
The yearning for the idealised couple
has taken over,
living in a large nest
has lost its glue;
where the West was seventy years ago
we’re now with braggadocio.
First imposed, now there’s home-grown ennui
on young males it has unbridled domain:
their entire range
seems to be waiting for change
Born with arid breasts, now bypassed
caught off-guard and smart-arsed
how will dads pass their time?
Well! They can always sit and rhyme!
With new found independence
we are ridden
virused by the Renaissance.
To hollowed freedom
we are driven.
If only dreams could last
we wouldn’t be flying
at half-mast
These are modern man’s monster-faced gnomes
which place grandma’s and granddad’s priceless love
into old people’s homes.
Wrecking lawyers impel us to frays
in the wilderness a donkey brays
Days of loneliness
and night’s without end,
make-believe laughter
is all they portend.
Yes, we’ve landed on the moon
and harnessed cyber space.
Mechanical, electronic conveniences
make homes into houses full of gadgets
where people come in
to go to the bathroom
watch the telly
snap at each other
sometimes to sleep
or fill out the belly.
Kindred gravity deserts the stars:
dishevelled electrons leave forever scars
Everyone yells
pounding the knells
‘you’ve come a long way, baby,
a long, long way!’
we’ve taken the underpass, overpass
the short cut
the cyber route
to unnerve the dwindling brute
to beyond the valley of no return.
Man has a lapsing graph
over-harrowed dad is his own epitaph
Mom, baby,
we know you’re there somewhere,
waiting
Goodbye dad