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| Yogesh Patel |
Ahoy! The avulsion
When
I parachute into
Grey
and cold backdrop of lone canvas
An
autumn leaf of a photo'd fire
Do
not find it as my fall
I
may not create any choreographed
3d
gyro fluff
In
a dreaming blue sky
Or
buzz like a whirligig beetle
Or
zigzag like a balloon
Rudely
passing its wind mid-air
-to
laugh at me as you do-
I
do not have any fuss to make
With
any baggage left
Time
is a disjointed game
Just
as I wake up past midnight and think
It’s
time for the after-dinner evening walk
A
reality to nowhere
Until
a gentle hand finds me
I
will gently settle down
With
my leaf miners for you to read
Hiding
the unseen stars in its tangles
With
love dreamt and lost
Covering
any path
As
a blackening passage
Waiting
for the terpsichorean downpour
To
wash me away for another day
***
A
park-bench plaque
Why
must it revere or pine for
someone I don't know? Who was he?
Bring
a brolly. Meet droppings…
I
used to sit here: now a name
plaque.
Watching
comings and goings.
It’s
a wait
for the next
unknown bum.
***
Deafness
Did you hear me in the trees
clapping with leaves
flapping my wings & desperate
to escape from the swarming moths?
We both have endured the induced autumns!
Did you hear me heave in the trees
whistling to soothe my wounds
in witch-finger branches stretching out
for help that never came?
Did I miss the sound of drums in the hills?
Did you hear me crackle in the fire-
Tree-felling with no warnings?
Logs now, tree and I are bright as firewood.
But you don’t feel any warmth.
I’ve always known; you’re cold!
Did you hear me in the hot tea
you pour into a mug? The gurgling water
should remind you of the first rain
that fell to lock us in its endless
prison of bars I can’t escape!
Did you hear me on the canopy
as we walk like strangers in silence
under an umbrella still with us
that we argue over now?
You're still there! I’ve caught a taxi home!
Can you hear me now
in a letter getting folded
that never reached you?
The homing pigeon died waiting
at the window always closed...
***
Undertakers
Tagore’s
Kabuliwala
sings, ‘mere
pyare vatan’
from a
black-and-white movie
as a reminder that
out there
somewhere
there is a place
I can return to
and throw all
names given to me
in a fireplace
to keep warm
It is when ambers
crack jokes
to fool the
undertakers
who followed me
home…
***
myth
mongers
when
you find—the— God
-
aham brahm─Бsmi (рдЕрд╣рдо् рдм्рд░рд╣्рдоाрд╕्рдоि)
- "i am divine"
doesn’t
matter which cast
—the
untouchables or Pasmandas of the Ajlaf—
as
a zombie lurking in the shadows
no
face no soma
no
light no
darkness
lost
and lonely
reconnecting
broken time in dementia
deep
in a morgue cabinet as a John Doe
still
reigning as a supreme Lord
with
no myths to follow
you’ll
also discover words that play tricks
-it’s
a good business for the brokers
then
you find gods who roam as rascals and bastards
telling
you a great yarn
exploits
like yours and mine
allowing
you to laugh at them
fuck piss and
dance
with
them making them one of us
-for
laughing at yourself makes you happy-
yes,
i like such happy scoundrels
they
can also be cowards like us
though
they don’t suffer pain as we do
hence when you see a roof looming as a charcoal sky
holes
in coitus with light
the
ejection of shooting stars you have no time for
gods
emerging from them an omnipresence
in
their flaming silk sarong
indifferent
to human sacrifices creaming in a yagnakunda
ready
to accept their souls as offerings
you
believe an old man /…
who
sings myth at the bone-fire
a
long time ago when tigers were smoking…
you
should have seen gods’ faces
when
the souls rose in an inferno as Gloriosa Superba
fanning their
flame-petals as cobras
with grace but betrayal
obvious
in their darting spooky eyes
readying for a poisonous
strike
gods
above in their golden Pushpak
tumbled
and rolled in shame
swearing
and cursing
they
jostled to save themselves
Garuda
a humble servant
watching
from above
swept them back to heaven
the
old man sighs
the
God in the mortuary cabinets
in
whose name it happens
has
nothing to lose
embalmed
in an eternal sleep
for
His case file is not closed yet
by
the myth mongers
Bio: Yogesh Patel received an MBE for literature by the Late Queen. Patel’s last collection of poems, The Rapids, was published by The London Magazine in 2021. Internationally celebrated, he edits Skylark and runs Skylark Publications UK, as well as a non-profit Word Masala project to promote literature. Honoured with the Freedom of the City of London, he has LP records, films, radio, a children’s book, fiction and non-fiction books, and three poetry collections to his credit. A recipient of many awards, Patel was Poet-of-Honor at New York University in April 2019. Among the many venues he has read in, are the House of Lords and the National Poetry Library. Patel’s poem is also scheduled for the moon aboard a NASA/SpaceX rocket to be archived in a time capsule.
I welcome these poems for their originality. Undertakers, Deafness & The Park-bench Plaque all have very satisfying endings. My favourite is the plaque 's monologue ending with a great pun on the word 'bum'! Kudos to Yogesh Patel!
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