October 2013

for Maria and Logan...

you need two hands, one foot.
count my years.
each finger, worth a decade.
each toe, well, a century...

birthdays.

point of inflection,
point of opportunity,
presents itself,
to rewrite history.

a second coat of paint,
gift-wrapped in weak excuses.
how I lied, how I ain't,
grimm-fated fairy tales
somebody created.

invisible suits of gold-cloth
worn to my party of
past rewrit and
future foretold.

one single thought,
memory,
seizes my heart,
as I fall to my knees.
cracks my temperate ease,
renders open the
woof and weave
of recycled deceptions,
causing all to be revealed
and ask,

what if the poetry ceases?

you know prostrate?
you taste grief?

have you not but
one pain,
one act,
one deed,
one memorization,
act of cowardice,
act of desertion,
mistake maden, taken,
for which
forgiveness
can never
be given,
be taken,
attained?

do, does, did.

let me then
win the birthday lottery,
let floods of relief from
daily chores, not drown me,
chauffeurs to drive,
masseurs to massage,
cooks to cook,
les delicious treats,
keep theologians, logicians
on retainer, if need
explanations.

none know, can provide,
still and yet, a
priestly sacred chord,
grants relief,
absolution,
song of hallelujah
the ache of
perpetuity worry,
that ancient pain,
grows fresher daily,
the loss of one,
of my body,
my primal knot
unreasonable,
everything should be
permitted to be untied,
on my birthday, no?

this day, these days
breathe through words,
molecules of vowels,
stem cells of consonants,
the fabric, the tissues of life,
veins are a dictionary
of corpuscles,
red blood cells are
nouns of nutrients.

this day, these days,
the infection of my soul
is tempered, kept at bay,
tamped down from the
full flowering
of white blood cells
of rhyme, verse.

what if the poetry ceases?

Though the bones creak,
the body they carry. resurrect
for morning, afternoon
and evening prayers.

thrice daily poetry I recite,
roses red, violets blue,
my marrow transfused.

though my prayers refused,
the poetry act immolates
the fringes of my disease,
for which the common cure
is not currently invented....

what if the poetry ceases?

but be assured, told
scientists hard at work,
on the
forgive n' forget drug.

meantime,
take a bubble bath in
rosemary and mint
trap some words,
tap some words into
your cell phone bone,
the poetry heat that
provides aspirin relief.

through this poem,
on one day annual,
I am relieved, relived
the muse is feted, sated,

gone for few moments
concerns, worries of
exposure today,
agnostic's foxhole of hell
is dis-remembered,
the gloss returns,
the faux dispatched,

ain't birthdays grand?

what if the poetry ceases?

what rhymes with
Sorrow?
mmmmm,
could it be
Morrow?

bath drains, rosemary and mint
odors dismissed, the  Argentine disparu,
the Spanish Medievalists,
the Neo-Raphaelites,
all gone,
didn't they have birthdays too?

didn't know
the Renaissance come
and go,
and nobody
tole ya?

please recall t'is the day
after my sweet city recorded my
naissance in the
Hospital of the Flowers
on Fifth Avenue.

the 'crats put the datum
in the bureau with the
night creams and
the statistics
as follows:

on this day + a few,
six or twenty decades ago +
a few centuries,
a question was born,
and an ache that is
sometimes relieved,
by a poem song.

though do not celebrate,
t'is a day to calibrate,
review, edit, tinker,
rewrite, often a stinker.

always one thought recycles:

what if the poetry ceases?

(how will I breathe?)

MAI BAHV SUCHI UN BHAVO KI
JO BIKE SADDA HI BIN TOLE
TANHAI HU HAR US KHAT KI  JO
JO PADHA GYA HAI BIN KHOLE

HAR AANSU KO HAR PATTHAR TAK
PAHUNCHANE KI LACHAR HUK
MAI SAHAJ ARTH  UN SABDO KA
JO SUNE GYE HAI BIN BOLE

JO KABI NAHI BARSA KHUL KAR
HAR US BADA L KA PANI HU
LAV-KUSH KI TEER BINA GAYE
SITA KIA RAM KAHANI HU

MAI BHAV SUCHI UN BHAVO KI.
............

KI JINKE SAPNO KE TAJ MAHAL
BAN NE  SE PAHLE TUT GAYE
JI HAATHO ME DO HAATH KABHI
AANE  SE PAHLE CHUT GYE
DHARTI  PAR JINKE KHONE AUR
PAANE KI AJAB KAHANI HAI
KISHMAT KI DEVI MAAN GYE
PAR PRANAY DEVETA RUTH GYE

MAI MAILI CHADAR WALE US
KABIRA KI AMRIT VANI HU
LAV-KUSH KI TEER BINA GAYE
SITA KKI RAM KAHANI HU

KUCH KAHTE HAI MAI SEEKHA HU
APNE JAKHMO KO KHUDSEE KAR
KUCH JAAN GYE MAI HASHTA HU
BHEETAR BHEETAR ANSU PEEKAR

KUCH KAHTE HAI MAI HU VIRODH SE
UPJI EK KHUDAAR VIJAY
KUCH KAHTE HAI  MAI MARTA HU
KHUD ME JEEKAR  KHUD ME MARKAR
LEKIN MAI HAR CHATURI KI
SOCHI SAMJHI NADANI HU
LAV-KUSH KI TEER  BINA GAYE
SITA KI RAM KAHANI HU...

WRITTEN BY   ::::::  SHASHANK KUMAR DWIVEDI