The hibiscus

A.J.Rao

The hibiscus

A poem a day written in June 2003

A.J.Rao

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Contents

Who is this hooded man? 1

Scraping the night 2

Money 3

White clouds 4

The god of the hills 5

Stages 6

The super-moon 7

The jungle flower 8

Well being 9

Sleep 10

Agape 11

Own 12

Lines 13

Smile 14

Inchoate 15

The wild elephant 16

Cats in the clouds 17

Closure 18

The hibiscus 19

Password 20

The silver mountain 21

Voice 22

Conversation 23

Unread 24

Enema 25

Phone gossip 26

The reluctant old man 27

The driver’s mustache 29

Derelict 30

1

Who is this hooded man?

The women are at their frivolous pursuitsAt lake, with a shameless crow on the tree.Soon the crow will be black in wistful airWith a princess’ jewel, to women’s shouts,Their delicate fingers pointing to the sky.There is a Krishna- flippancy to the crowThat flies away with a jewel hiding shame.The women walk on their hushed whispers.

The hooded man seems a crow running awayWith the princess’ beauty on rising bosomThat went up and down on the golden jewel.He is in fact a self-redeeming black soulA bored painter of languid women of myth.These women are figures from his canvasBored with pointing fingers at crows in sky.

(Raja Ravi Verma’s painting:

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2

Scraping the night

I have to be a cat scraping the nightConfusing between idea and thing.You may call me a soft landing catOn night’s tin roof with no hot feet.Its corrugations collect windy leavesHaving lost the previous day’s sun.The cat is missing and since gone .Rain snakes overflow corrugationsWith blowing yellow leaves to floor.

But the cat is messing and not goneWith a kitten held by a loose scruff.Mom cat is searching for other nightOn another hot roof, in scalded feet.Kitten turns small night’s scraping.The scraping of the night is a soundIn the inner lobe of an ear’s poems.Cats are poems on your hot tin roofThey sky-drop and flow as rain watersSnaking through night’s corrugations.

(A gentle recall of Raja Rao’s novel The Cat and Shakespeare)

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3

Money

Times we feel warm and upbeat in pantsWith money ,as with pebbles from beachNear a sand castle built on our child foot.We bring home pockets of cash to forgetHot flushes, our years hot with knowing.

We know oldies with their gleam in eyesAbout certain money schemes hatchingGold ducks , the gold from duck stomachsDropping as Sunday’s eggs in bare fundas.And later, on four shoulders towards dust,The gleam would go home to their sunsetsBeyond rocks, their children smiles gone.

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4

White clouds

In that sky, like preternatural birds ,Lay soft white clouds, full of rainDrops for red roses by the lakesideLying in wait for somebody ‘s carBoot to pick up so as to lie in waitWith the wet clothes on balconies.

The white clouds are wet clothesHung by the sky gods for drying.As they drip-drop they will turn rainDrops on lake roses lying in waitFor cars to pick up, to lie in waitOn balconies with drying clothes.Meanwhile , soft white clouds willTurn temporary cat’s eyes peeringDown in our camera’s pure viewTo lie in wait permanently in eyes.

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5

The god of the hills

All the machinery is there ,a siren’s blowA blade, a voice to the right, some words.The blade cuts through ice, mud and liesSaying it is words from the night, a sleep.It is bodies in their own words from spaceA chopper on its way down , men stoppingShort, other people living and some deadFor a hill visibility that is missing from life.

Silence is all ,a stone phallus in the hillsSnug in the cave ,a light from earth lampA blue and dusted god with a river in hairAnd a moon no longer super, far from us.Words are his dreams, a god in snow hills,A god submerged in the stream of his wife.

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6

Stages

It turned out their world was not a stageBut many stages as players looked downTheir eyes popping out in disbelief aboutThe growing years of mustache and gloryTurning to mud , in cloud dust and rumble.

A handful was the rat-slime about a templeThat turned eyes to pearls, passing stages.And nothing of them that doth change butDoth suffer a river change, a rat that cameCrawling from the trapped valley of a glacier.

(Thousands of pilgrims to the Himalayan shrines of Kedarnath andBadrinath have perished ,caught in a flash flood triggered by a cloudburst :

Those are pearls that were his eyesNothing of him that doth changeBut doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange

The tempest : William shakespeare

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7

The super-moon

My super-moon drifted away to its sleepBehind rain-clouds ,while a super-momDanced away blues on the small screen.Big bright orb was ghost on another sky.

My purest view had to be near a guessBehind rain – cloud, a dastardly destroyerOf men in folded prayers on the snow hills.

A moon ghost became far from my truthWith men and trees across its luminosity,Ghosts of men and dark trees in a breezeViolently disagreeing with its astral views.

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8

The jungle flower

Near the lazy rock and its green skyA jungle flower would bloom whitelyLike whirring wheel of a firecracker,A toothed wheel of tiny locomotion.The breeze stirred its shape into many,With false feet of anthers , disheveledHair of dancing to a morning breeze.

Near its heart is a dash of soft orangeSet in a white crystal of perfect view,With contrapuntal note by brown beeHovering to a hesitant landing awayFrom prying camera for macro views.

The rock rose grandly to a summer skyLooking down on a single jungle flowerA white pride in its green rock bottom.The bee landed briefly on bee outlines,Many shapes vaguely embracing bee.

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9

Well being

Like the old poet we had a well to look inWith a bucket lowered gently to touch itsPerturbed waters in their broken moons.Midnight was fearsome with green snakesLurking in ghostly hibiscus trees standing.

A boy in knickers could not bend too lowFor fear in belly, with no Narcissus -love.Fear perked up like a piece of balcony skyAnd crawled in half-pants to feet below.

The bucket fell to it with deep dull thudAs its rope had slithered down a pulleyLike a vague water snake searching frogs.The waters came up to sprinkle moonsIn tiny puddles on the stone saucer rim.

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10

Sleep

Sleep is not doing nothing with bodyBut a possibility of switching offLike for instance in sleeping with.You have to sleep with a possibility,A metaphor for love that kills sleep.

Just when you turn a blind cornerAt the corner tree in a windy danceYou sleep off your wind in the hair.The wind gone the hair still standsAs piece of avant garde reporting.

You only have to sleep once withAnd not do anything with the wind.What we mean sleep we mean with.Or if you please, we may agree to off,And not alone in a midnight pillow.

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11

Agape

While at the stand we keep wonderingWith mouths agape, forgetting to close.All the time we ask immortality forgettingTo desire eternal youth to fading bodies.

The cicada keeps its mighty mouth openIts sounds a never ending stream of youth.We open our drawers only to keep themWide and agape as our mouths wonder.Wonder never ceases while youth is gone.

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12

Own

My own thing is this very empty spaceSince nobody has claimed this as ownLike the dog on a leash claiming his ,Shouting at tree’s silences in corners.

The cricket claims his own in the bushAnd around a forgot house on the lake,Now a grand view of buzz- mosquitoes.

Poems are buzz- mosquitoes owning allThis piece of unreal estate at midnight.Their shrill cries are documents of title.

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13

Lines

A few red spots turn lines as a sun dies.They are on a body flying southwards.Birds are white spots under fingernails.Fingers flutter wings to call birds down.Tiny red spots disappear from a dusk skyAnd the body turns to sky at a soft duskAnd azure, beyond a brown rock of lake.

The lake swirls around the birdless rockAnd the rock swirls around a birdless skyAs the birds turn fingers fluttering wingsCalling other birds down from a dusk sky.Birds are now white spots, v’s on canvasMay be lines from white spots in fingers.Sky is a line joining white spots of birds.The rock is a line living in the lake’s line .Sky is a fine line living above a lake’s line.

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14

Smile

Just this happiness wish at the street cornerWith no birthday in cakes and songs on lips,As you coast along on a floating noise of feet.A smile curves at lips corner near silver hair.Today is not even your birthday but could be.Who knows somebody is smiling in your back.I for one smile behind my back at your corner.

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15

Inchoate

In the hours before a night crashesOur meanings are formed as wings.Wings are a shambles of flimsy artExquisite art of a silver filigree doneIn sleep and dreams between sleep,The mothwings left on a rainy night.

Marginal words are inchoate ideasA shambles of thought , a silver filgreeOf wings that pile up like fallen leavesTo be scooped up the next morningTo throw away behind a white wall.

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16

The wild elephant

The tribal guide would not not let us downInto the crunch of leaves and tiger pawprints.From such height you can see the mountains.

The secret is to hold on and not let it moveTo mountains over thorns , low-slung bushesWith blue clouds at the top presaging storm.

Witout ankush it takes us to the inner animalWth trees uprooted, mountains pulled nearerWithout the dusk shining from the rear flanks.

Muthu teaches us to wield ankush to it to goWhere we want to go, to the blue mountains.

(The mind is a rider on an elephant. ‘My own mind used to wanderwherever pleasure or desire or lust led it, but now I have it tamed, Iguide it, as the keeper guides the wild elephant-Buddha)

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17

Cats in the clouds

Rainless and cotton-white it had turnedA whiskered cat staring down from eyeOver the spiked antenna of the neighborA picture of a ghostly vision of a feline.

How can it disappear from my picture?It is as if cloud cats jump walls to disappearIn the bushes to the other side of tree.

The eye-hole stays but the rest of the catHas gone , cat-silent and rubber-footed .A cloud-eye is what remains of its ghost.Cats disappear from the virtual pictureThe same way as they do in the real sky.

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18

Closure

The dad’s absence hole is waiting closureOf a grief never felt, yet staying open inThe space between us and a body’s sleep.We live alongside a grief’s body staringAt the ceiling fan that has never buzzed.

The fan was never really meant to buzzFor the tiny blood flowing up and down,A bundle of baby flesh shrieking closure.The gaping mouth in its mother’s breastStays open for closure of grief never felt.

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19

The hibiscus

We have never looked deep in its heartIt carries at the top waving in the breezeLoving a bee and the colors of butterfly.

Cognition names it hibiscus for poemsBut poems are no hibiscus, with anther,At summit sprinkling pollen on breeze.

Airy creatures will land on the summit.They will make it a hibiscus pure viewFor a stamen to nod in excited whispersFor the breeze to carry a floral message.

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20

Password

You say it and shall pass likeChange of guard in Elsinore fort.But the lockbar does not slideLike half-open toothless mouth .You shall remember who momHad been before her marriage.

You remember mom all the wayBefore she was dead and goneFurther back to silly giggling girlBefore she had worn that fineryTo her new life, your new birth.

Her own lockbar opened to enterThe half-open toothless mouthWith a password open sesame.One always forgets it to return.The captcha is hard to decipher.

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21

The silver mountain

The silver mountain disclosed answersTo a meditating saint in its deep recessNow sky blue with priests intercedingFor us on behalf of a phallic stone god.

Then were no blue – red painted pillarsEnclosing people bathing phallus godsWith smooth gluey banana milk paste,Just a saint and his god in banyan treesSprouting from silver recesses for wind.

The saint would look for beauty in jungleAnd in silver mountains, on his cross-legsBlinded by a gold of sun , a child’s doubtsA flicker in the mind like a child’s smile.

We search beauty in blue stone pillarsClimbing kitschy colors engulfing men.Their beauty flows in white guey pasteAround phallus gods in silver mountain.The mountain is no more silver but blueWith white clouds about it as gluey paste.

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22

Voice

Thinking is a language’s voice stoppedWind in coconut leaves brieflystoppedWhile cock crowed a train in woman’s

Voice embalmed in sleep before coffee.Train will arrive soon on the sun’s backAnd find voice of woman on its clackety.

The milk van is on its feet finding voiceOn the slurp on kids’ lips as eyes bleared.Soon it will be the voice of school on back

Little girl giggles of memorising formulaeOn ponytails ding-dong on uniform backsAs buses blow ready horns in road corners.

Coconuts find dancing voice before dawnIn lost moons and wind gains,before eagles.Eagles will arrive to find voice before trains.

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23

Conversation

We did little to further the conversation.Our gestures would vanish in the wet air,Our gait formal and awkward in the sandAs cactii bloomed between legs of dogs.Stray dogs jumped and ran to other dogsBeyond the mound, to fishermen’s shacksThe shacks that sported colorful garmentsBefore the conversant sea of fishing nets.

The nets broke off ongoing converationBetween moluscs and hole drilling-crabsMaking drag-marks as if of formal nets,Nets broken like holes in mosquito netsLetting in mosquitoes to buzz near ears.The sky stretched like a drying garmentBroke in holes to let in sea-conversationWith a moon that would listen endlessly.

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24

Unread

I would better smell the unread growingTo a huge pile of golden straw at duskIn a read later’s vast continuum of sky.

The gold shall disappear at early dawnWhen a whole new pile appears to smellFresh dew-wet straw scraping the blue.

We always remain unread straw people.We are for demolishing our straw pilesTo wear their hats in our literary leisuresBut always put it off to tomorrow’s dusk.

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25

Enema

All this sadness is hers and not mineIt is her kneecap that is not workingTo climb the stairs powered by a liftNot working now , sadly, out of power.

This sadness is hers she refuses to ownAnd passes it to me nursing my own,My own sadness congealed in bloodAs the general sadness of humankind.Sadness is not hers but enema maker’sPain in the arse is mankind’s, not hers.

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26

Phone gossip

We call it the possibility of a happeningA language of thought, of a meditationA way of happening, not just an eventAs the phone unfurls on a pair of ears.

We construct life ,wall by wall ,corridorsIn empty spaces of language and speech.In the graybeards exist many possibilitiesTo hymns, God-invocations and silences.

The phone vibrates a silence of thoughtBy hand gestures, a pantomime on wall.The ears speak actions jumping on wall,As eyes remain screwed to their ghosts.

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27

The reluctant old man

In the beginning it would sound funnyLike the short squat cries of brown birdsThat have come back to a roost season.Any old man has got to look ridiculousAnd feel it so in short squat bird cries.

He did not feel that awkward before birthWhy now before a locomotive of a diseaseThat will carry him to the little black dotsOn starred skies’ map, like dots of townsOn a lazy map lying stretched to eternity.Disease takes him there chugging clacketyBut on foot the old man is rather reluctant.

(For my own part, I declare I know nothing whatever about it. But tolook at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dreamover the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why,I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessibleas the black dots on the map of France? If we take the train to get toTarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. One thingundoubtedly true in this reasoning is this: that while we are alive wecannot get to a star, any more than when we are dead we can takethe train.

So it doesn’t seem impossible to me that cholera, gravel, pleurisy &cancer are the means of celestial locomotion, just as steam-boats,omnibuses and railways are the terrestrial means. To die quietly ofold age would be to go there on foot.”)

28

Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh c. 9th July,1888

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29

The driver’s mustache

A wide and long handlebar mustacheTrembled with life and a car smoothlyFlowed as life, driving its bloody heartBut one morning as the sun would riseIts blood trickled down to its last sand.

Two plastic tubes could smooth its flowBut tubes are the commerce of medicineThat flows smoothly, on warm pockets.And the mustache had to stop quiveringWith all emotion as pockets went cold.

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30

Derelict

On the upper story is telltale remainderOf a fine smile of yesteryears , a directMessage from Christ, a new shiny starIn plastic paper in light, gently swayingTo December wind’s Christmas carols

A fine celebration over christmas cupcakeBy rubber man now south with daughterGrown and graceful, a fine Maria of angelA lily fragrant from a monsoon breaking.

Our heads are derelict , carrying ruinedWalls from yesteryears flaked off by rainAccumulated rain of bitter experiencesBut the remnants still sport a life-givingA green plant shooting from derelict space.

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