SELF

 

 

 

My mother didn’t believe
when, in 1945, I appeared to her
in a dream and told her
I would be born to her the following year.

My father recognised me
as soon as he saw
the mole below my left thumb.
But mother believed to the very end
that someone else had been born to her
masquerading as me.

Father and I pleaded with her,
but dreams are not reliable witnesses.
She went on waiting for that
promised son till she died

Only when she was reborn as my daughter
did she admit it had really been me.

But by then I had begun to doubt:
it was someone else’s heart
beating within my body.

One day I will retrieve my heart;
my language too.

 

 

 

 

- K Satchidanandan

From: While I Write: New And Selected Poems

Poetry week

has just been declared.
After all why not give in whole heartedly to the stereotype of what people do after having their heart broken. Cry, eat chips, drink heavily even on weekdays, turn your Twitter feed into a graveyard for songs about lost love and revenge, read poetry and force it on other people.


To the Welsh Critic who does not find me Identifiably Indian

You believe you know me,
wide-eyed Eng Lit type
from a sun-scalded colony,
reading my Keats - or is it yours -
while my country detonates
on your television screen.
You imagine you’ve cracked
my deepest fantasy -
oh, to be in an Edwardian vicarage,
living out my dharma
with every sip of dandelion tea
and dreams of the weekend jumble sale…
You may have a point.
I know nothing about silly mid-offs,
I stammer through my Tamil,
and I long for a nirvana
that is hermetic,
odour-free,
bottled in Switzerland,
money-back-guaranteed.

This business about language,
how much of it is mine,
how much yours,
how much from the mind,
how much from the gut,
how much is too little,
how much too much,
how much from the salon,
how much from the slum,
how I say verisimilitude,
how I say Brihadaranyaka,
how I say vaazhapazham -
it’s all yours to measure,
the pathology of my breath,
the halitosis of gender,
my homogenised plosives
about as rustic
as a mouth-freshened global village.
Arbiter of identity,
remake me as you will.
Write me a new alphabet of danger,
a new patois to match
the Chola bronze of my skin.
Teach me how to come of age
in a literature you’ve bark-scratched
into scripture.
Smear my consonants
with cow-dung and turmeric and godhuli.
Pity me, sweating,
rancid, on the other side of the counter.
Stamp my papers,
lease me a new anxiety,
grant me a visa
to the country of my birth.
Teach me how to belong,
the way you do,
on every page of world history.

-Arundhathi Subramaniam

from http://cercopethicidae.tumblr.com/

Warsan Shire

is my discovery of the week. Here are four excerpts from different poems. 


“later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”


------------------------------


“i gut fruit with my mouth
push tongue into black belly of papaya
peel lychee with teeth
bite into ripe pear
suck on stone of mango
all of this, over the kitchen sink
barefoot
middle of winter
sticky hands pushing hair away from face
moaning into sweet flesh
the whole time
your name flat against the roof of my mouth.”


------------------------------------------------


"how far have you walked for men who’ve never held your feet in their laps?
how often have you bartered with bone, only to sell yourself short?
why do you find the unavailable so alluring?
where did it begin? what went wrong? and who made you feel so worthless?
if they wanted you, wouldn’t they have chosen you?
all this time, you were begging for love silently, thinking they couldn’t hear you, but they smelt it on you, you must have known that they could taste the desperation on your skin?
and what about the others that would do anything for you, why did you make them love you until you could not stand it?
how are you both of these women, both flighty and needful?
where did you learn this, to want what does not want you?
where did you learn this, to leave those that want to stay?"

------------------------


"and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.”

Argh

I am going to keep a log of the first thing that makes me mad enough to climb the walls each day.

Today it was the news that the ILO might be signing a partnership agreement with Monsanto. I understand that no company is free of some questionable practice but nothing about Monsanto is acceptable. If ever the term evil corporation was to be assigned to an entity (other than the American government I suppose) this would be it no?

And all I have in response is some inarticulate snarling.

Argh

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201332813553729250.html

Age

Anna Karenina

I watched Anna Karenina this evening.

Keira Knightley was beautiful, but as always, I have trouble believing that someone that thin can have any real depth or richness of feeling. I'm sure there is a name for this prejudice. But I can't help it. Anna in my head was generous in her feelings and in her proportions. The movie didn't have this. I think the real problem was that all the bits that explained Anna's madness and insecurity, her intelligence but restlessness were left out, and this made me less sympathetic to her on screen than in the book.

I thought it was quite clever of Joe whatsit to make the whole movie like the staging of a play, so he could just cut wherever he liked, and not have to make any logical explanations. Also it would be the only way to get through all the to ing and fro ing from Moscow and St Petersburg.

My Levin was not ginger.

Vronsky was perfect. As was Jude Law, but not quite as cold as Karenin in the novel. He seemed so nice. And despite lacking the richness of the novel they managed to make him irritating. The combination of the knuckle cracking and the routine of removing that foul little prophylactic device from its filigreed box would have driven me into Vronsky's arms as well.

Rant

Today at the ILO we have been asked to wear red, or pin red ribbons to our lapels. We have been given flyers to remind us that at lunch time people will be forming a human ribbon, holding hands to raise awareness about living with AIDS. 

Holding hands to make a chain and ribbon together for AIDS seems just a step away from dancing around a fire and mumbling incantations over huge pots of frothing potions. Which as we know is a remedy against AIDS that has failed in Africa. They're both based on superstition, led by quacks and equally distant from a real solution. Just in case my red pants make a difference though I have worn them today. I wonder how many people I have saved with the good points they are ratcheting up with the universe on this most special of days as decreed by the UN. 

I do think though that holding hands will achieve nothing more than spreading colds and flus faster. If holding hands had helped the 60' would have ended differently.