Araliya

Explorers long ago
— or brigands, conquistadors or spice-bandits —
brought Plumerian gifts
beads for the heathens 
or a little piece of home 

We have since lost the name
and re-named:
The family Frangipani of Italy 
supplanted  the botanical monk Plumier 
but here in tropical lyricism 
the slip, supple grace inspired:
Ara-Liya, ‘that lass’

That lass
upon the branches
peeping over a wall
breaking curfews 
perfuming in subtleties unrecorded 

A flower correctly named 

Barefoot Testament

They say there are nodes
pinpoints on sole
each to an organ linked

Therapeutic 
it must be
so the practitioner says
in the physiology of belief 

Feet see what eyes do not
their deep conversations
with sand-grain and universe
are gathered by grass
which deftly slices 
sorts into beatitudes 
and like so many petals 
Carefully upon pavements lays 

The barefoot heart is raw
un-frilled ad uncluttered 
reads scriptures in silence
holds fraternal hands

Loves.

The Declaration of Grass

In the divine chronicles 
so-called and so-believed
the faithful transcribers 
placed The Word 
in elemental maps —
mountain they marked
rivers and other boundaries in flux 
duly peopled with king and coronation —
hosanna for conqueror 
footnote for infidel 
the rise of splendid cities
the inevitable crumbling to dust —
and upon it, in a corner, 
with ’Holy’ seal, marked


So bent, quashed and uprooted
by the engines of war 
the prophets never saw the grass

Neglected thus they conferred 
under monsoonal skies 
and around collaterals 
broken arrows, stained bandages  
charred footwear and nostalgia-shards
and decided for them and always:

‘For lovers and poets 
there will always be
and for them, and for their repose
as muse or papyrus  
so shall we.’ 

Sky

Someone in the long ago
in ecclesiastical shorthand
put god in his place
and the devil too:
banished evil 
to the bowels of the earth 
and the divine let loose 
in the amorphous atmospherical  

Someone in the long ago
in canonical zeal forgot
true residences 
of names, namer and named 

But from here on earth
a sky-slice can be seen by all
or by one or two
defining a straight line 
or two sides of a triangle   
carrying heart to heart
for a rendezvous nondescript
but nevertheless out of this world 

Peace

The benign Other of war
immemorial fixation of our tribe:
I have seen it gloss
the lips of tyrant and butcher 
in the aftermath of conquest 
and as badge and flag of objector 

But what of the world’s conundrums
battles over gold, oil and markets 
what of the indignant victim and insistent invader
when we declare war in the name of peace 
or declare peace as a synonym of belligerence 

what of lexicons 
battles over meaning
the raising of flags
over desolate uninhabitable land

when a moment
a word or glance that stays 
is peace enough?

Adjarian Slides

 

The Batumi of chess is peaceful 
the swords crossed are sharp 
inflict pain, obtain victory 
wounds that heal soon enough

The Batumi of Adjarian history
I’ve not perused enough
and perhaps unobtainable
in the long history of civilisational discontent
where armies known and nondescript 
cultures and religions in flux 
stumbled in the dense mountains
drowned in the subtropical seas 
leaving remnants in language and custom 


And all the while the people 
encaptured but resistant 
watched over blood-letting time 
tended their mandarins, hazelnuts and vineyards 
while unblinking corn surreptitiously evaded invader
and identity stood its ground like potatoes 
unseen and yet unbowed

In the midnights and dawns
the Black Sea has broken 
grand planetary pieces 
crafts over aeons, and deposits 
polished pebbles large enough 
to etch poetry illegibly beautiful 
small enough to toss and lose 
in relentless tides

And I wonder what transcripts 
were made, left behind, torn and destroyed
by the Ottomans and Russians
in their brigandry and self-righteousness
what embraces where rejected or welcomed 
and where the progeny of Guria and Imeriti live today,

More than all this, the names of the land
commonly known and loved and sworn by 
before the Greeks shipwrecked them all 
in the deep harbour of time
and how amidst cataclysms 
there once was, still is and will be 
an Adjara of autonomies unscripted.

For now, I lock in on the 64 squares
geographies of the here and now 

To Adjara, I will return:
the study of histories and hysteria must wait.

Bringing the warriors home

Mark Knopfler’s long fingers have grown
to engulfs civilizational divide,
tenacious fingernails pick
at a puppeteer’s dangling strings
 
An outdoor chess table stumbles uprooted
abandons a sidewalk forbidden to feet
and take root in the Town Hall
where 'miniatured' politicians
are re-dressed as kings, queens, bishops and knights
and are moved to crazy-weep
because they can’t find antidotes for their blues
and they’ve run out of the water of love  
 
Organic fertilisers, meanwhile, have decided:
‘Squares shall we nourish!’
And so the chess board grew and grew
squares multiplied
fell off the table, climbed the curtains;
the blacks nudged whites out of slumber
to make room for knights in tired armour
to take unannounced naps
along deliberate ranks, files and diagonals
cramping the kings and queens
and pushing pawns to agitation
 
‘Guns in!’ roared the Uncivilised General,
but booty did not leave;
the river carried the water of love
to resurrect bombed hospitals and schools
while a neck of brine self-choked
to bequeath to a suffocating world
de-dollarized oxygen
 
And Mark Knopfler’s fingers softly strummed
bringing all warriors home
to their valleys and their hills
solder irreconcilable allergies
put out unnecessary fires
glide through all straits, dire or otherwise,
and turn themselves into dervishes
who cannot breathe again
but will nevertheless sing and dance.

 

[This poem was included in an article titled 'The noise in the channel will be silenced by song,' published in the 'Daily News']