Monday, December 31, 2007

A lyrical gift

On every New Year’s Eve, I would send a poem to my friends. Poems by Mallarme and Bukowski for bold, creative pals. Poems by Maya Angelou, Anna Akhmatova and Adrienne Rich for the few female friends on my mailing list. Poems by Kabir and Blake for the spiritually inclined. Wallace Stevens or Robert Frost (‘The Road not Taken’) for my boss. And for introducing a neophyte to the magic of poetry - ‘This is just to say’ by William Carlos Williams.

The response was tepid. No one replied. No one wrote in to say they were touched. Perhaps, they felt I was being too pretentious. Perhaps, I was. I stopped mailing poems.

But the habit has stuck and I still feverishly scour poetry books on New Year’s Eve (this is good, since I rarely dip into poetry for the rest of the year).

Right now, I am wading through a lot of stuff by Arthur Rimbaud, the boy genius. Here’s a simple one from his amazing oeuvre.

A Sleeper in the Valley

A green hole where a river sings;
Silver tatters tangling in the grass;
Sun shining down from a proud mountain:
A little valley bubbling with light.

A young soldier sleeps, lips apart, head bare,
Neck bathing in cool blue watercress,
Reclined in the grass beneath the clouds,
Pale in his green bed showered with light.

He sleeps with his feet in the gladiolas.
Smiling like a sick child, he naps:
Nature, cradle him in warmth: he's cold.

Sweet scents don't tickle his nose;
He sleeps in the sun, a hand on his motionless chest,
Two red holes on his right side.

3 comments:

Dreamy man walking said...

New year special but i do not yet your mail poems..because i am mot in your friends list...goodone SUNIL

Meenakshi said...

mmm...

i dont know of ur friends on ur mailing list, but this poem did manage to touch me.

no way in a new year kind of sense, but the deep agaony canopied by comparison to slumber.

Happy New Year!!!
May 2008 bring lots of good luck and success and goodness to u.
njoy!

ShEkHaR said...

Nice Gift Poetry on the day one 2008

"Sweet scents don't tickle his nose;
He sleeps in the sun, a hand on his motionless chest,
Two red holes on his right side. "

Deadly End,.
Reminds me "Lucky Man" Song by Rock grop-"Emerson Lake & Palmer"

Check it out

*Lucky Man* - ELP

He had white Horses
And ladies by the score
All dressed in satin
And waiting by the door

Ooooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooooh, what a lucky man he was

White lace and feathers
They made up his bed
A gold covered mattress
On which he was laid

Ooooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooooh, what a lucky man he was

He went to fight wars
For his country and his king
Of his honor and his glory
The people would sing

Ooooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooooh, what a lucky man he was

A bullet had found him
His blood ran as he cried
No money could save him
So he laid down and he died

Ooooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooooh, what a lucky man he was

All Time Favourite Books

  • Dracula (Bram Stoker)
  • Sophie's Choice (William Styron)
  • Portnoy's Complaint (Philip Roth)
  • Rabbit at Rest (John Updike)
  • The Postman Always Rings Twice (James M Cain)
  • A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)
  • Herzog (Saul Bellow)
  • Ham on Rye (Charles Bukowski)
  • The Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger)
  • The Secret History (Donna Tartt)