Written in Stratford-Upon-Avon
You say you never expected it to be
like this, the foot on your head and the camera
scratching your marble. Why should it be
any less dramatic, when even now your tongue
washes with words the streets of Stratford?
I watch them flow with the Avon and feel it
freeze into a wilderness of books;
I watch them spread with the sun
till sunlight seals with alphabet
the inconsistencies of our skins;
I watch them flog my foreign brain
like so much black meat on the stone.
Not “wise enough to be a fool,” yet still
a “corruptor of words,” I sketch my shadow
on the cobbles of your city and compose the lies
that would correct the revenue.
Rascal even in the tomb, sexless now but
disturbing our sex, tell me—how much
did you earn from the flagship of your human
stage? Enough to decorate your memory,
you say, and buy a plot in the decent section
of town. But your text, the script
that enwraps your body’s verges, inhabits
our waking hours to subvert their sanity. So
I embrace the illusion of this place,
the liquid of this river that runs through
the secret chambers of my poems, the fertile
ghosts that fix the garments in my Cambridge lodge,
only in deference to your rest. Foreclosed,
your bankroom swells with madrigals; retired,
you rule this kingdom with a butterknife.
My speech grows roots, flying from your voice,
searching for silence to slash the thickness
of my disbelief. I dislocate my ancestry
in obeisance to yours—my art is fraught
with danger at every turn. But I will not
have you burn my blood, no, I did
my dying long ago, some twenty years
in a foreigh cul-de-sac, though as for that
my skeleton still can rattle verses
to scare the unware. A catalogue of charity
will not restore the firelight in your eyes
nor the flood that flaunted ink
on your foolscap, but skulls will, and goblins,
and a bloody dagger. To paralyze
tradition you traded pomp for a poetry
which exhorts the living to die in the eternal life
of your make-believe. Your discrouse pulls the water
from the sea and drowns the moon in Abu Dhabi,
the same moon that holds the walls of Illyria in your office
at Stratford or gilds the silver bells in Manila:
the sky in London drips with sugar from
your breath, while bread impressed with your teeth marks
adorns the houss in Bulgaria: Language flexing
its muscles, no doubt, locking in antique
boxes our singing thoughts. The wood
and nails warm our hope for hope,
because in this captivity light is only
a metaphor to prevent decay. The dark
solidifies our resolve to cut a door
through your heart, crawl in the void, and dissolve
in language’s disguises, until the verbal silence
propels our faces to Asia. Oh, Asia, Asia,
Asia! Asia loads my mind with grief,
tears me to pieves, here in this English
masquerade. For this serenade
thousands eat porridge on the run
in my country, fleeing from the turmoil
of nationhood. There time is the thief
where subreption stains the bank vaults
and cathedral choirs. You do not make me
forget them, no, the mouths in want of rice
and voice in need of grammar, the fire
and pestilence and decline that wear
democracy’s clothes, though you beguile me
with castellated paradoxes and seachests
filled with sunsets. Oh, I must die again
to deny your magic, I have no gesture to break
the fact that we must feed on your flesh
for salvation. I walk your streets
with strings pulling my bones, my sadness
floundering in the festival of your death.
CARAVAN OF THE WATCH BEARERS
We will not forget the evil eye
of the storm they raised,
gutting the grounds we defended.
We have been trained
to look away too often
when man’s flesh, muscle, bone,
knifed woman, to protect
the child’s eye from the dust
of the lord’s sin against
our kind, pretending
our tears are daughters of the wind
blowing across no-woman’s- land.
We have had to seek the center
of the storm in the land we claim
is ours, too. Faces keening towards
the full force of winds
once blinding us, we see
the blur of broken earth,
blasted wastes, damned seas.
Our vision clears in our weeping
We have joined the trek
of desert women, humped over
from carrying our own oases
in the claypots of our lives,
gathering broken shards we find
in memory of those who went
ahead of us, alone.
When we seize the watersource
our ranks will complete the circle
we used to mark around our tents,
making homes, villages, temples,
schools, our healing places.
And we will bear witness for
our daughters and sons,
telling them true stories
of the caravan.
Singapore River
The operation was massive;
designed to give new life
to the old lady.
We cleaned out
her arteries, removed
detritus and silt,
created a by-pass
for the old blood.
Now you can hardly tell
her history.
We have become
so health-conscious
the heart
can sometimes be troublesome.
TOYS "R" US
You finally think for yourself in the urn,
where choices survive burning. You want
to be a carnal Barbie & stroll over sun-dappled
greens. You promise not to pee
with a leg dangling. Sit. Roll
up your slim silhouette costume, elegance
glitters at your risk. Want to be a phony toy
Porsche washed by velocity? Caution:
Batteries are replaced by adults & adults
by skin, clothing. Not for playing. Now —
fetch & paw options, ashen-leashed. The fun will find
itself. Don't explore humanity, it isn't a planet.
If dolls & cars aren't your pick, pick
paper. Be a book about how to put up
with humans after they put you down.
Be one, at least, to keep your spine, running.
For Henry
Leftovers
The Chinese understand leftovers.
How food can be made over into other food.
How whatever’s left in the pot can be reused,
cooked into something random, humble.
That women still unmarried
in their early thirties or beyond
are called sheng nu—
literally the ‘left-over ladies’.
And why 61 million children
have been left over, left behind in villages
by parents seeking work in cities,
living in cramped spaces, eating leftovers.
