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Soham Patel

Ceremony

Charming shape of a man, in white cotton
with ghostly dowries more hungry than sad
in him.  Two donkeys, a female camel, cotton and silk, stock of food.
We’ve been asked to meet
here.  Announce the auspicious event.
[but this is not my story to tell]
At the end of this evening our hands
will look for coins in vermilion
soaked water.  This determines who has the
upper hand; this is done after the faster one
throws the rose garland around the other’s
neck.  Will the one holding the money or
the one with the taller brothers win in this game?
[you wanted to hear this, but mine sounds more like…
                             We went into this bar on 4th Ave., see,
                                 me and O'Shay, this crazy Irishman.
                                  We had a few drinks, then I saw
                                       these two white women
                                            sitting all alone.]
Ghost shape of a mother throws rice in the fire
and dizziness comes from unbalanced breath,
drumbeat & glottal chants.

Italicised lines from Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko

Tagore’s green book

Who discovered the Blake-like delight
	in his kindred soul that holds a painter’s interest?

Before the Marathon Battle of Men
he drank water from a copper pot,
before sunrise made its camel switch smile.

He would not go,
stayed instead in his lonely house,
waited in his lonely corner
until another sunset.  He
will not go into this wind which is drunk with delight.

How would we measure the world before the battle?
when Homeric wealth was only peripheral
and all corners adolescent in wisdom

waiting in the canvas of pubescent pride.

Love Song for F—

      with reverence

Nod and wink at the young woman
with approving eyes.  See her
dreaming as you’ve done.  Take
her nervous admiration, the post-
conscious condition of all we
ones with the word conquered
in our blood.

To stare with no words
is not her wish at all.

The locals who watch you
all day, they don’t notice
the kindred ache under
your fast bicycle way
where you go,
there and back.
So composed & ready
beneath the body
aged-for-grace
every time you’re rolling away.

Kathakali stories
play out in
your head while you ride.
Arjun is finding
Siva dancing mad in
a forest only for him.

Maybe you should tell her
of the times
you too have had to crawl,
now that you know
she reads Derrida
in the same language-love
confusion
she reads you
and your muse dancing face,
the one that won’t let you
leave India.

Chalet Revathi

The keeper of the home left long ago,
left the ring finger stain on the threshold with the right hand
and the ridge dangling with fake plastic flowers in case of sunshine.  
She’s
painting the faces of elephants, wanting only
light, she will stand for the heat.  She’s left the sound
for some Cochin nights where I’ve heard a child
or adult or cat cry wails in the darkness between
rickshaw headlights & mean electricity at the crossroads.
Where her colorless green ideas do, indeed,
sleep furiously is where I lie awake tonight.  She’s left
a red star shining on the balcony facing the south west,
my evening balcony, the place where I sit in the harvest of the day
ending.

Sunlight down on any sidewalk

Sunlight on any sidewalk
is one part whoever is walking.

One part London fogging windows with the stew inside
of onions fried to red, drinking wine with my cousin.

The part  I cannot see is further east in the tobacco
that the workers have walked on to ruminate and wrap
in another leaf, then fasten with knots of thin pink string.
All by foot and hand.

Another part the salsa dance I danced in the
gymnasium with the football player and his
perfect pivot, his rhythm undefined his
hands encased on mine.

The sunlight down on any piece of ground
is one part the tiger cub knowing where the
river water is clean and can quench her thirst.

But what is the shadow
holding suspicion inside them all?

And what is the noise, stranded
in a lowland watershed?

Don’t forget the part the clouds bring.
Don’t forget the wind in the hollow places noise can live.
Like on road curbs where my mother’s voice says
this hope cannot bear trust and beginning.

The sunlight down on any piece of ground
is that hope my father kept when he left home.

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