The Misanthrope

What is it going to make a difference to him if a drop falls from the sky or gallons? He has opened himself to the world, lying there under the canopy of the shop. He cares nothing about the world. It is all one and the same to him if streams flow around him or if he is deserted on an island floating amid all the flood. The question is whether this or that would make a difference to him. I saw a woman pass by, feeling sorry for him. She was out taking her dog for a stroll, she looked at him and she shook her head. She felt sorry for him and out came from her little purse a coin of €1? Is she better off or I am? Is it not a crime giving little to someone when giving much more could have made a vital difference? I am fundamentally indifferent, his life or not is one and the same thing to me, I avow my nonchalance. Is the matter with us that I think I am philosophically right? When a woman can give, and when she feels sorry for him, it is criminal to give only €1 which can make no difference to this man lying under a shopfront on a wet wintry night. If she feels sorry

for him, she must go all the way to assuage him, otherwise she is morally wrong. If she gives him a little alms, and is of on her way shaking her head and feeling sorry still glowing in pleasure almost from the volupté of hitting a child whom you wanted to correct. The fact of the matter is I could have given €1 but I did not, the woman could have given it and she did, I could have even given €10 had I wanted to, the woman could have given €10 as well, with some effort I could have gone on to €100, it would not have killed me, the way we were and the locality we live in, I do not think it would be any trouble to the Madame as well, then come to it, thinking very very hard about it and selling a few things, I would have been on to €1000, the Madame would not need to sell anything and she could give him the money and probably forget it in a few days, come to €10,000 there I would have to pawn myself, or think of an ingenious means, while the Madame she finally might need to sell something or break a deposit…beyond this we do not think. The point is clear: the Madame is guilty in giving him €1 when €1000 would have been no trouble to her, for me I am philosophically right, because his condition is of no interest to me, great curiosity perhaps, and I would like to see him do well for himself and bag more (and grander) aumônes from passersby, but there I repeat my point, philosophically I am in the right, I who had no rôle to play in the drama where as the Madame comes across as a self-aggrandising brat who needs to give to feel herself, whose only point of charity is not to be lost in the maze of accusations and critique she might feel herself downcast under.

The rain is oblivious, and I am oblivious, and that is the way of the world and there is nothing in it guilty or absolved. Darkness is oblivious too, in the tunnel as the rails hiss and the tiles clobber and two young girls call up to me their bottles of rosé wine in the hands. “Hey you your hair shines like my party dress, when I dress-up.” “See I did not use any cream, unlike you, it is just the rain.” “What are you saying?” “I said I do not need any substances, the rain is bad.” “Come join us, you seem to have nothing at hand.” “I’m not sure I want to spend my date with brats like you.” “Come join us, you fool. See two girls are calling you with their music, we even have wine for you.” We passed the whole night together. For five hours, I kept drinking with the girls with music

playing on their stereo and they kept asking me questions, one after the other. In the middle of the two of them, I would have been an elder brother, or probably a maître who shares the two. From time to time they played with my hair, somehow my dark hair had taken their fancy. I kept chiding them saying all the glues and glitters they use for the hair, while my hair was all natural, all good rain and old sun. They kept pinching me around the shoulders. Many times our legs brushed, I mean my knuckles brushed against their calves. That is when I proposed we go back to my house. I have a comfortable bed and I said one of the two of you at least can sleep on the canapé (that was just to elicit jealousy out of them). The girls agreed readily, and they kept on playing music and swerving as if we were a group of Bacchantes out on the parade. The only thing missing was ivy wreaths and staffs in our hands. Way into the night we walked, the rain having subsided a little bit though the streets still wet. It is then I realised how much we had drunk. They had three bottles at least, in the beginning, plus one huge bottle of rum that I got from my money and that I allowed one of the girls to go because I did not want to let go of the other (one of the two, at any rate). Finally we got another bottle of Get 27, and kept mixing it with soda. The girls were holding well, except now and then bumping into the shop fronts. It is then under the canopy of the chocolate shop, that I almost missed the beggar lying wide astride with his hands flying in every direction and his mouth opened up to the skies, one corner in which I saw a cheap €1 bottle of white wine. It is then I thought to myself the girls sure smell better than him.

Arjun Razdan was first published at the age of 20 (a poem called ‘Transformation’ in The Asian Age, New Delhi) for which he has still not received the montant of ₹2126 (minus taxes) due to him. Based mostly in Europe, especially France, this Kashmiri writer has been published in many countries including India, Pakistan, the United States, and Portugal, besides his home country. In collaboration with his friend and mentor, Farzdan, he has also written a food mémoire (L’Aau à la Zouche), a book of dialogues (Lettres à Mon Elève) and a long travelogue in the wild (An Everlasting Night).

Flag

It flutters proudly in the blue 

Our heart is full of happiness 

If we show it, it will bring joy 

Red, blue, green, white 

Flag 

The star and the moon are in harmony 

A symbol of independence and beauty 

Rich in independent freedom 

Red, blue, green, white 

Flag 

Red color is blood in a vein 

The Prophet is a clear sky 

Every moment is blessed 

Red, blue, green, white 

Flag 

Pride of nations 

Prospective and great happiness 

A beautiful tree of a country

Red, blue, green, white 

Flag!

Mamazoirova Rayhona, a student of the 8th grade of the creative school named after Erkin Vahidov, Marģilon

Halley’s Comet

born in a land of static to piano
the feeling of a discomforting ease

looking up at the ceiling

almost as if you are looking up at your mistake.

“i don’t want it.”

my fantasies make me appear more truthful

when in our reality,

i can not convince myself to appear in your life anymore.

the drums in my soul get louder

my foolish heart can’t help to love you.

halley’s comet soars across the night

you watched it glow

i remained a shadow lost in our time

you chased wonder and watched it flow

i was far behind, couldn’t climb.

i tried to stay away

your laughter floats like sunlight on my walls

my heartbeat whispered secrets i could not tell

a hope entwined with fears.

each stare, a spark

the flame in my heart i shall not feed

i built these walls

you slipped through the crack

now love is a risk

and i can’t turn my back.

my brain refuses to close its blinds

the thoughts of not seeing you remain.

i could feel the bliss of a desire for nothing

now the only desire that burns

is the unachievable actuality of having you

i wish it didn’t feel that way.

in this cycle of time,

no love like this has grasped my place in this world before

only now,

in this timeline,

in our timeline,

i feel as if we were placed in this moment in time

for each other.

the drums vanish, the piano intensifies

my float in consciousness concludes

this body won’t move.

waves of my odd hearts situation shower me in panic

drenched in the tears of guilt.

i’m laying down peacefully

at the hands of my bed

my family unaware

that my state of sleep has danced away.

what am i to do?

if i can’t help to love you.

             “The Gotta Keep on Feeling

             Even When it Leaves Me Reeling

             ‘Cause I Can’t Just Not feel Any More Blues”

A few months outta the incubator

this cooing preemie poet, supine in my crib,

couldn’t turn over as my bro’ grew irater,

belting me through the bars in his angry bib.

To strike a lyric impulse, born of joy,

may twist it into a worse little boy.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

If I turned mean early, I’d no chance to really live –

who showed new bro’s such perfidy –

but then lightened up when they appeared to forgive,

seeing me draw Dad’s fire, haplessly.

He sometimes whipped his sons in his drunken ire –

I liked to take ’em swimming through fancy’s fire.

My bro’s came down to the basement one day,

told me no more Flash Gordon would we play.

They’d let Dad talk ’em into studyin’ TECH –

he said imagination was imaginary dreck –

so for Sci-Fi novels alone in their room

my playmates left me in the basement gloom.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

My new costar was my friend from the street.

At improv’ play interpreting TV

our concerted inspirations fed hilarity,

so I naturally figured it’d be real neat

to have him meet my flame since kindergarten…

Why her liking him instead me so dishearten?

I started a fight in which he got beat.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

My Dad, mostly gone, moved us thrice in succession –

huge old houses, some ghetto neighborhood

where black or white bullies, at their discretion,

on the street or in class beat up stunned me good.

My kid brothers, though, didn’t take defeat so hard,

but fought them to a standstill in our front yard.

How could I have thought, if I’d become who I was born

and had folks who shared a spirit of lyrical romance,

to have merited so roundly all my peers’ epic scorn?

A brash pacificism was identity’s best chance,

won a sympathetic friend who’d help keep track

of bully maneuvers. I think he was black.

Since math test A’s, but not my essay ones

won my father’s praise, his tuition funds

went to shrewder bro’s when we left high school.

Dad made me, though, feel like a fool,

saying, “Good sons go to college, bullies never will.”

So I had to join the service for the G.I. Bill.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Recruiter promised language school out in Monterey.

I signed my enlistment papers that very day.

But down in basic training heard Drill Instructor say,

“Recruiting Sergeant’s promises you can just throw

into the shit-can – you’re mine now, you know?

Our two-week clerk school’s where you’re going to go!”

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

My Colonel math Prof’ from our isolated base

told his Airman ace-test student confidingly

my civilian English Prof was a queer disgrace –

though he’d lit up many a dark stanza for me.

When for pushing Air Force pencils my desire lost its clout

they gave me a court-martial and an early out.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Ya gotta grow sci-biz brains so smart,

ya really can’t grow a mind with heart,

so after discharge I buckled down

for A’s in math, made my brothers frown –

then I changed my courses to the English I espouse

and my bro’s and Ma kicked me out of the house.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Drove out west where tuition was cheap,

got waylaid into a ghetto hippie commune

where free love proved a vow you couldn’t keep,

though onto two non-jealous nymphs you glom, you’n

your artist pal. Mine starved to duck the draft –

and when I mentioned college the girls just laughed.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Footnote:

I’m the one who didn’t hold free love together

in a world of possessiveness and jealousy,

though my buddy and I couldn’t be sure whether

our girls, having ravished us thoroughly,

couldn’t just up and do the same for another;

and, when we asked ’em, heard ’em agree

that my buddy and I could be those other!

Ah, we four had commitment and variety….

‘Til the draft wrote my friend, and he grew quite thin.

So, since one of our girls had an Aunt who could cover

their expenses ’til his 4-F deferment came in,

they left. Four people, each with just one lover –

living as couples in estrangement’s sin.

I had to use the GI Bill – as protests swept through town –

I quit my drugs ‘n’ smokes to try another way.

With clerical and class work’s endless sitting down

I’d jog, skate or cycle miles ev’ry other day

after work hours of dummy-down ennui,

to revive me for lectures on creativity.

Snapshot of moi:

Here I am gliding downhill

toward an intersection,

making a sudden right turn

off the toe-stop of my left skate

to avoid slamming into a crossing semi.

Three years on, art student and guttersnipe,

in interesting times I found ’em seldom ripe

to take off work to meet with prof’s after class

(or have an affair with some accommodating lass) –

only work days, then study for honor roll,

nights full of sirens as the riots take their toll.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Some hooker’d take me home to meet her mother.

They’d treat me with warm deference and regard,

but frequently they had one absent brother

and son – to speak of him was always hard.

So how that summer could I check where he was at?

Just join the poor some night, fight back – that’s that.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Footnote:

Five wars ago I thought I might be big:

in solidarity with gangling guys

I’d seen through riots slouch, I hit a pig –

if you can’t fight, this may not prove too wise.

In jail, my first week there, a bunch of dudes

jumped on a young grass dealer late one night –

who, next day, called the guards and me includes

as one of his attackers! So then right

into the compound rolled the paddy-wagon.

When I therein with five rapists-accused

had sat half an hour, my spirits flaggin’,

the victim changed his mind – I was excused.

Could I my fellow inmates’ taunts survive?

One turned me on to pumpin’ iron – he,

a genie black, desired I stay alive –

who wonder why, still pumpin’ irony.

Girls at the office may suspect a college man,

like classmate girls who see that he must work.

Incredibly, though, either place a fellow can

probably get lucky who flirtation doesn’t shirk –

since, strapped for time and cash, with mere technique

I sometimes found a lover for an eve’ning or a week.

My black sheepskin was sent by snail mail.

They save the ceremonies for grads who don’t hit cops.

Times changing, school job prospects fail

but Civil Service wants you if your test score’s tops:

Humanities scholars toiling far afield,

so happy for a gig that makes us nothing but well-healed.

Snapshot of Moi:

These are the new class

of SSI Benefit Authorizers,

bachelors to doctors who couldn’t find

work in their fields, chairs in an oval.

Behind the desk at one end

stands the Head of the Western Division.

I now stand in my turn –

stating name, College, field of study,

“Creative Writing” – at which he laughs –

the only pursuit to get that reaction.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Out of desperation, but idyllically,

as I seemed to have tuition benefits left,

I took some manuscripts to the university,

onto a prof’s desk the stack of ’em to heft;

with my low GPA I didn’t think he’d give a damn,

but his letter was my ticket to the the Grad program.

I was two more years in full-time academe

with low-pay part-time desk work again

when the government cut off the money stream –

so I dropped out, shipped out with lonely men

on a twelve-month voyage in the Merchant Marine –

then I made it back to the campus scene.

My friend’s, our girls’ and my hippie menage

once lent this monkish scholar Casanova panache,

whose sporadic lovers now made such a sparse collage

that I took a logic course and impressed a babe, by gosh!

When I had somehow caught, though, a cute singer’s eye

and they ran into each other I was two girls shy.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

When your discharge and rapsheet trump also the M.A.

that another year of classes and some loans win you,

they’ll take you eight years at clerk’s wages to repay –

since Fed jobs aren’t PC enough now ever to pursue.

All claim as young men the title of Master –

in keeping which art types court total disaster.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Snapshots without moi:

These photos are two

graduation ceremonies –

S.F. State seventy-five,

U.C.B. Eighty-four –

your poetry major couldn’t attend –

units delayed, a technicality –

no gown for him nor any hood,

no traipse across the stage with his peers.

Footnote:

In far the most humiliating scene

I’ve e’er endured, the real Living End,

young Laura, roomie, tutee, cutie – mean –

her then main squeeze, my guts-mad biker friend,

and I our way we wended toward the tall

encrusted town. We escalating up

from subway, toward Three Stooges festival,

Chicano cat who’d one too many cup

accosted me and wouldn’t let me pass.

I sidestepped, ran five paces, turned –

around ‘n’, like a fool, I called him “ass,”

but learned with what attacking rage he burned.

As soon as I began exchanging blows

with him, my motorcycle pal emerged,

who jumped him.  From the crowd there then arose

a further swarthy brawler. When I urged

my friend to let me have my fights, the new

hidalgo went at him. As their fists rained,

this Juan, Ill call him, (though I never knew),

resumed his work to keep me entertained.

As student, swimmer, skater, clerk may fight

I stood and fought him even, as he me.

‘Twas several minutes gone into the night

until I knew I’d not the winner be.

I made a bleak half-hearted lurch to flee,

he turned our battle into running one….

He tired. Again the odds weighed evenly.

Somewhere distant Jerry shared such fun,

while somewhere nearby Laura sweetly wept.

A quizzical surprise lit my foe’s grin –

it seemed as though I’d actually kept…

my end up. Then the blame Police stepped in,

attacking, as pigs will, in out-sized odds

while charging us, as pigs will, from behind.

One seized my belt in back. I cursed his gods,

his chains, his bars, his heart so young gone blind.

They sorted us by seeming sides, then bade

us sit on low concrete retaining-wall.

They checked ID’s, bestowed no accolade

to ask me whence I hailed, me winner call.

But balmy Jerry said, “Stop crying, Laura.”

I, hearing, said, “Stop crying, Laura” too;

but n’er were saying when she donned her aura,

(nor pressing charges), something we could do.

Except for Juan, the pigs let us all go.

except the hombre I’d been flailing at.

He wore no guns, no cages kept, and – oh –

he fought me clean, alone, up front – no rat.

But since he had a “prior” he got hauled

away, and all because of me! But she,

that biker’s imp, said I should not be called

a wimp, though, any more – and frowned at me,

a Kleenex patting gently on my brow.

Then Jer’, his lover Laura, and I resumed

our way. She led, a goddess from the prow

of some old ship. I trailed, soul-entombed.

The only right or privilege my Parchment confers

that isn’t cancelled out by my follies and crimes

is this Eternal Youth the credential ensures.

But you get that without school, using just the rhymes,

avoid the shame ‘n disrespect, years’ study gettin’ hornia

where hard dreams come true easy here in sunny California.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even though it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Political Coda

Most citizens acknowledge reparations are owed

to Native Americans by our old Uncle Sam,

and that poor home-owners under tax burden bowed

were due for relief – but our sold-out leaders’ scam

could grant the first wish only while they gambling

                                       legalize,

the second just with industry’s big tax-break prize.

Got the gotta keep on feeling

even when it leaves me reeling

’cause I can’t just not feel any more blues.

Envoy: “Drugs from Within”

When gray hill skaters learn to cheat

and motorize the ol’ two-wheeler

endorphin high they thought so neat

becomes adrenal thrill, much realer.

If you prefer drugs from within

you too might try adrenalin.

It floods you out upon a Honda –

of feelings few will you grow fonda.

Of course one wants, when one reflects,

hormonal joys that come with sex –

which thought makes workout fans most blush

who relish an endorphin rush.

Insolence

The morning begins with a remonstrance against tapers,  

which I am likely to kindle

in the event of imminent misfortune 

habitually induced by her well-executed schemes.  

I ignore all that demeans:

her lips become agitated with narratives 

of the ills of the present 

and all that is deceased!

The afternoon heats up with the lava of her eruptive moods,

which have nothing to do with the weather 

or her blood pressure, 

besides she is long past the menopause.

No siesta is possible in such an infernal abode.

I simmer over slow-burning coal

and bite my tongue before it protrudes.

The evening always puts the final touches to a day of gall.

She harvests her crops with a single panoramic look

at my eclipsed moon,

at my ill-zipped lips,

struggling to block the release of a few words,

which eventually find their way out per force.

With damn your insolence, the night is concluded.

The Moon

The moon is neither a goddess,

nor a harbinger of doom 

when heralded by the howls of wolves.

It plays no role in the malevolent rites

of Dracula’s resurrection lore.

It is not the necromancer who inflicts lunacy

or changes the substance of nocturnal thoughts. 

It is simply a marvelous piece of masonry,

a celestial, megalithic stone,

chiseled by the Architect of the World.

Departed

Departed is the fellowship of swallows from our skies,

the stately clouds that cling to its own trails like excited brides,

the allure of the sea that entices swimmers who are without

apprehension about any lurking sharks.

Fishermen report hearing strange noises

that make them collect their nets with fear-driven speed,

and People living on the coast 

dread at most 

a hurricane’s holocaust.

It sounds like the end of days,

but I do not believe it is.

Have you ever contemplated wrestling with a demon? 

Have you ever contemplated wrestling with a demon,

in a combat that flexes the muscles of your brain?

They reiterate that it is not a being

with a couple of horns 

and a hideous mien.

In a battle of intellects,

demons are adept in the lingual spheres, 

so one can have recourse to literary language

since they need not consult any dictionaries!

On Thomas Malory’s Morte d’arthur

Why does he have to be the fruit of lust,

of a ploy that involves the shedding of blood,

conceived by Merlin, 

the dream-reader with a high expertise in the occult?

For some this amounts to defamation of character

in the modern sense of the word,

since they believe no chivalry is begotten 

from evil deception or sexual misconduct.

A true king cannot be weaned by a thought-reading

and shape-shifting wizard!

(Previously published in Redrosethorns)

Force of Habit

“I didn’t even know his name,” she whispered softly. She looked at me. “Do you know it?” she asked. She had bright green eyes.

“Johnson,” I said gruffly.

She nodded.

“Can you tell me how it happened?” I asked.

“I met him on the bus. We talked. He seemed nice.”

I waited.

“He said, do you want to get a coffee, so we could talk some more.”

“You got off at the stop on Rogers?”

She nodded, but said no more.

“What happened next?”

“We got our coffees at the McDonalds and then strolled to the park. We talked for a while and then I looked around and we were suddenly in a woods. He…grabbed my arm and twisted it. I tried to yell but he put his hand over my mouth. He started to rip my clothes off me.”

“You’re doing good,” I told her. “How did it end?”

“He had me on the ground and was on top of me and I opened my purse with my free hand and pulled out my pistol and stuck it in his belly and pulled the trigger three times…”

I waited a minute. “And then?” I prompted.

“And then the police came. Someone in the park must have heard the shots and called them.”

I held up a transparent evidence bag with a Glock inside. “Is this your gun, Caroline?” I asked gently.

She nodded.

“You’re the legal owner of this weapon?” I asked. I had already checked the registration and the data bases. She was legal.

She nodded again.

“How did you happen to be carrying it?”

“Habit. I always carry it with me, everywhere, ever since the first time.”

How to paint a room purple and red before night takes you gone

Tears are a failure of

Despair and embarrassment

Hot vision, that hurts, that burns

of fire, the hurt is vivid swollen

the scratches, bite marks on my arm

Of craving blood and destruction 

To satiate my tears—

come. Take a brush made from

Bones twisted out my knuckles plop

Pour acid over and meat sloughs off

Bones glowing, oh, glowing for

hair at the tip, ripped from scalp down

Neck, AAHHH— take, huff

TAKE pleasure— MY pain

Gorge a knife through my vagina, gasp

up my belly, between breasts 

Grasp, then snap my neck, like a 

Chicken slaughtered–feathers and all

Chin and mouth one over the other

Rolling into the floor 

Now the floor is a color palette.

And the only color here is red.

Only a head and a headless body.

Now the world is quiet. My tears are frozen.

Ever so gently dip my brush of bones 

and hair over the ground,

Watch the fresh wet paint seep

Put it on your tongue — feel the salty burn

Grief, pain and all so that you too can cry

With me. Wet tears, snot and all.

Rise and grip that brush

Step over my naked body as swells purple

Paint hard that lonely room 

Bloody grief purple

Before the wind blows your heavy soul away,

Lift your head to look 

Up the headless room as night takes over 

Red and Purple– you plunge into the dark

(This poem is about self-hate. In moments of disappointment and embarrassment there is an intense urge to harm and destroy yourself.)

Far away, we fall

In the Far African seas

A thousand years 

Of waves have harvested the

The packed stones in the 

mountain way

The sunken stairs still twirl around where 

People used to climb

Now all we do is fall

(About: The change within periods of times)