Just back from the Writers’ Chain Translation Workshop in idyllic Kovalam (on which some random musings here) followed by readings at Hay-Kerala, all of which had the effect of making me hugely nostalgic for Adishakti. It’s almost exactly a year since the Losers met. To celebrate that event, here is the poem (with apologies for the double-spacings which I know not how to banish) I wrote as my own desi-riff on Raphael Urweider’s ‘Self-experiments’ – the result of a self-experiment of my own – the poem I read at the Manchester event, and wish I had taken with me to Kerala. Cheers, dear dubious saints!
FENI
Jan 5th 2011, night
feni you rockrhythm slyheaven acrid frill of foam
around the sea that laps and licks my throat
you narrow boat you slow barge you silting sand
you cashew nut grown in a green shade smooth
as you slide into the centre of my chest you liquid
rope fickle as you burn you small sickle you large
measure of sun you tongue drum you gathering calm
you hint of rut of rot precursor to a sudden drunkenness
you warm my gut i smell of you weak-kneed lockjawed i float
Jan 6th 2011, morning
feni you racing undercurrent in my mind
clear glass malady rockbottom searching
for roots that rise in the air i swear i don’t like you
but i drink you i think you you stink to high heaven
it’s like drinking jackfruit then don’t but i will i do
i do like you feni even when i sometimes hate
the sour edge you bring to my day feni go away
Jan 6th 2011, afternoon
feni first cousin to cazulo second to urak
child of the three-eyed golem totemic
on the hill i could bend my head and pray
to this little clay god which feels like it may
speak put this geni back in the bottle aunty
and thank my stars for the hardboiled eggs
and the dullred light that hides the tremor
in my hand as i raise you to my lips and sing
Sampurna Chattarji
liking! you must now do a set of ‘bewda’ poems. Raphael will be so proud :-D))))
Arjun, bewda poems is precisely what this is the beginning of! 🙂 I’ve got one on ‘umeshu’ and another on ‘sake’ and now to other more desi delights!