Why should we tire ourselves
Debating, arguing?
It’s easier to learn
To stay inert, agree.
For making points is pointless.
Winning points, supreme.
A contest. Finite Game.
The Nash Equilibrium:
Pyrrhus, Asoka.
Why should we tire ourselves?
The night is bored. It leaves.
The window blinds have cast
Their rungs upon the floor,
Connecting us,
Reminding us
That ladders can be bridges too.
I want someone to teach me how
To say the truth and be okay.
I want someone to teach me how
To be okay with being okay.
I want someone to teach me how
To be okay to say the truth.
I want someone to teach me how
To teach someone to say the truth.
He sits and nods and only asks.
He doesn’t answer anything.
I ask him why, get no reply,
Except a smile, a nod, a gaze.
I’ve booked him for eleven days
And two have passed on one-way-street.
His questions throw me off my feet.
They have been stuck in drying muck.
My head is splitting into halves
The size of thirds.
I’m sinking
In the books. I learn
I’ll earn. Such shame
I feel. Such worthlessness
I know is false, is just
Hormones.
Her moans
I miss. Her
Breathlessness,
Her need to surf-
Ace up
For air. Forayer, dive
Into the deep. End
All these hesitations. Suck
Her breath away.
Her breath – a way.
They call me to the Principal’s.
Which isn’t odd. I often win
Some scholarship or contest prize.
We had a few this Christmas Week.
I also am on Santa’s List
For full attendance round the year.
The English teacher’s stoic face
Is all the warning I receive
Before receiving to my face
The Christian hand of Sister B.,
Who holds the staff of Principal,
When Sister K. is out on leave.
I see the Nativity Star
Resplendent in my smarting eyes,
As smarting cheek receives again
The Christian touch of bamboo stick.
She points to where my essay lies,
To words she’s circled out in red:
“If Jesus is of virgin birth,
Is Jesus, then, the first to break
His Mother’s sacred Maidenhead?”
I point to where the title reads,
“What will you ask of Santa Claus?”
And picking up her Pilate pen,
I cross my name off Santa’s List.
Don’t assume
I don’t appreciate
Your little-little kindnesses
Are all that I can now endure
These growing piles of gratitude
Unsaid though not unfelt
Are lost
My deepest thoughts
Unclaimed though not unowned
Bird song plays ping-pong
Around the misty valley.
Wings miss the spring’s kiss
And snakeskins slither slowly.
Sir says, “Do surveys.”
And turbans turn to tally.
Dozer comes closer
Into the hardwoods holy.
God staffs His odd laughs
And tribals come to rally.
Hills fill with kill spill
Of stifled rifle volley.
So what if I am Patroclus
Pretending of Achilles’ strength?
Achilles lives through Patroclus.
Would else there be an Iliad?
And can an average person be
Enough to wear Achilles’ helm?
Does that not take an equal strength
Of mind, if not an equal skill?
Is it so wrong to ask for more
Than what I’m told I have in store?
The exile is what makes the man
In every hero’s epic myth.
I am the hero of my life.
There is no other narrative
As meaningful to me as this.
And so I must adhere to this.
I know I’m not Achilles born.
And yet I am Achilles-trained.
It’s arrogant to humble be
When I am not afraid of me.
This page I read is just a sky.
The words are simply stars of thought.
They may appear together “now”
But they are simply images
Of thoughts that sparked some time ago,
And never in a single “now”.
Some words are from the ‘pre-first draft’,
The one the author ‘jotted down’
But did not know it was a book.
Some words are from the ‘firstest draft’
The one the author risked to ‘write’.
Some words are from ‘revision draft(s)’.
Some words are from their editor(s).
Some words are simply ‘print mistakes’.
The words are “now” inside my mind
But all I see has been “before”
And may not be there “later” though
In some ‘edition(s)’ yet to come.
This starry now’s so beautiful,
I’d measure time in nows I turn.
The air is sweating! Air is…come!
It’s just the dew. I told you, na?
No, no. It’s sweating. Come, na, come!
Uffo! Put on your monkey cap!
No, no. No time! Come out, come out!
Uffo! Don’t crush my spinach plants.
No, look! The air is thur-thur cold!
Of course. It’s winter. Winter’s cold.
No, no. The air is sweating, see.
It’s just the dew, love. Vapours cond…
No! When you sweat, your body cools.
And not the other way around!
Minakhi Misra 