TRUE MEMOIRS
-
P C K
Prem (India)
To execute a man was a playful music
a kind of nectar,
with an ethereal vanity
it makes people weak.
It finishes if wishes to govern,
I knew whoever is
if not, the coronet will be trampled
in a specious land,
as people whisper prayers in lexis hushed.
On a stinking white cloak
physicians on attendance,
throw winks around and laugh
and I still wanted to live
and see the conspirators, friends, sons
and women of the harem,
want shares in epitaphs after death.
Streets full praying for a long life,
a riddle like a Chinese nod I tried to unravel
to write a poem under strain
I felt, was awful.
I faintly articulated, lips tried
to make circles,
found words flowing out in gushes
like a seasonal rivulet of dirty water.
I observe a son closeted with the ministers
and relations in turn
all walk out putting up scared
and wishful faces as a son tells,
write suitable words to be inscribed
as an obituary on the gravestone.
Son thought I was unfit like Zafar
or like a spineless ruler I was forced
to sign papers,
to smother peoples voice
before a dark era of Indian history,
proved dictates of destiny
where men are just string-puppets.
Stunned, I feel burnt up
and the soul cries for relief,
in a crowd of cheats infinite
it is alleged as a world phenomenon
and before walking out
son tells not to write a poem,
but a befitting elegy for poetry.
He believes it an idle man’s fancy
correct I knew he is,
for frequent changes in poetic idiom disturb
he often tells.
A wad of notes bulges out of the pocket
as if buying an edit in papers,
and I find eyes dripping tears
as a nurse stretches me on the table.
I feel wrinkled face drenched
and hands wet,
as I listen to a limerick dead before birth,
a real verse is difficult I know,
in an age of cons and blogs
that invade fragilely plastic fingers,
while computing is filled with virus.
Words on the mobile read, I am dead
‘Long live the poet ruler, I hear words
on the table,
while nimble fingers remove diamond rings
and necklace,
and I hear within deafening sounds
as cons get up for the ensuing chaos,
quietly I return to present though anguished
to celebrate death.
I take tea silently and stand distressed
before a window,
with a paper in hand and a haiku for a grave,
the document slips out
and falls into a pot-hole,
near a citrus plant growing
in a black sandy soil,
almost a gutter with polythene
littered around.
And next second a long–tailed dog
from a distance appears, sniffs, snuffles
and with a lifted hind-leg pisses
and runs away.
Alas, a funeral song goes down the drain
with the tearful eyes,
a picture of death
….I had yet to see.
I heave a deep sigh and get up
as I scatter around,
and walk into the dark lanes
in little pieces
of memory in search of a man
of verse and distinction
of music and love who died
a moment ago.