by Gwee Li Sui
Spirit breaks, without you
WOMAN: Seven days ago, relentless forces dreadful shocks traumatic jolts broke Body of land into seven parts separated eternally by impregnable dark waters. The seven parts, orphaned, bastards, unruly, stray warred against each other. Seven days later, they had forgotten why when what whatever apart from isolation and fear.
Singing:
Without you closer closer
Eyes shut
Ears stop
Mouth cries
Heart dies
Lungs choke
Feet slide
Without you closer closer
Spirit breaks, spirit breaks without you
5
LOVE CHILD and LITTLE GIRL are in the mountains.
LOVE CHILD: We are at the very top of the mountain.
LITTLE GIRL: Yes.
They look into the heavens.
LOVE CHILD: We can’t go any further.
LITTLE GIRL: Not yet. Look down. What do you see?
LOVE CHILD: I see people. There are millions of people. They don’t know where they are going. They are just going. They are just going but not getting anywhere. I wish they would stop. I wish everyone would just stop and lie down. Lie on the ground and turn to each other and lean in their faces and kiss each other. Kiss and enter each other.
LOVE CHILD: Little girl?
Am I beautiful?
Is my hair beautiful?
Are my eyes my mouth my skin beautiful?
LITTLE GIRL covers her eyes.
LITTLE GIRL: There was a boy, a beautiful blue boy. The boy was in the desert playing with his friends. They were flying kites. The sky was so blue. The bluest blue that they had ever seen… their kites were so high in the blue sky. All of a sudden, they saw it… pink… the most beautiful… haunting shade of pink. It kept moving closer to them… reaching… reaching out to them. The beautiful blue boy wasn’t afraid. He just reached out his hand and touched it… pink. They all touched it. Once they touched it, they started to laugh and dance and jump. Like a drug. They danced and jumped higher and higher laughing and laughing. Then other children came… even children from the other side. All the children came… from all sides came… enemies and friends… near and far… all came. It was very special, like a party where only children were invited… there were hundreds of them… dancing and jumping and laughing… like a drug… higher and higher… for hours and hours… dancing, jumping, laughing… dancing, jumping, laughing… until the pink ghost floated away. After that, they all looked at each other, very silent, they looked at each other, some friends, most enemies, for the first time looking at each other.
The next day, there was great mourning and weeping. The beautiful blue boy was dead. All the children were dead. All the children… from all sides… enemies and friends… near and far… all dead. Murdered. It was a ploy. The pink mist was poison. The crocodiles put the pink poison into the air. One moment, the children were playing. The next –
TWO MEN with crocodile heads enter.
LOVE CHILD: I am a young woman. No dependants. No obligations. Free. I can do anything. Everyday, I see butterflies mangled, fractured, shattered, dismembered, crumbled, crushed, severed, split. And I wonder. How are they going to make it to paradise? All broken. No one to help them. I feel love. I feel love for the broken butterflies.
LITTLE GIRL: You are strong.
LOVE CHILD: I need strength but not the strength of crocodiles. A different strength. [Sounds of explosions begin, distant, repeated, growing in intensity.] The only strength I know. This. What is this? Just skin. This. What is this? Just flesh. This. What is this? Just hair? This. What is this? Nothing. It eats, it excretes, it expires. I can transcend this. I can give this purpose. Sacrifice.
The CROCODILE MEN turn toward her.
LITTLE GIRL: You don’t have to be afraid.
LOVE CHILD: I’m afraid. If I… [Sound of explosion, clear, defined.] What will happen to me? My body?
LITTLE GIRL: You are a butterfly. You have wings. You can fly.
LITTLE GIRL turns and jumps off the mountain.
6
SISTER: You can be anything brother
Don’t be like us
We who live in glass houses
We who throw stones
Don’t be like us
We who are bitter and miserable and small
We who are content with paltry handouts
Don’t be like us
We who are so cruel
We who are so despised
We who refuse to dance
Don’t be like us
We who look out of small windows
We who devour headlines
We who buy
We who simplify
Don’t be like us
We who get by
We who abide
We who chase after nothing
Don’t be like us
Don’t be like us
We who remain quiet
We who cling to comfort
We paper tigers
We cellophane dragons
Don’t be like us
Be something else
You can be anything brother
You can be anything
7
Once I told a priest that I was full of sorrow.
He proceeded to tell me a story about a woman.
The woman disliked her appearance so much she wanted to die.
She suffered a great deal because of what she believed.
For years, she was unable to ease her turmoil
One day, she took a gun, put it under her chin, and fired.
But
She didn’t die.
Her face became disfigured beyond recognition yet she remained alive.
Finally
Finally after a lifetime
Finally after a lifetime, her sorrow was complete.
Finally after a lifetime, her sorrow was complete, and she became whole.
Release
Release
Release
8
We had a promise of food
but what of this food
and a promise of water
but what of this water
and a promise of shelter
but what of this shelter
and we were given each other
to shield each other from loneliness and restlessness
but we hate each other
and mistrust each other
we will never feel like brother and sister
I despise this brother and despise this sister
I despise myself and mistrust myself
and all I want is pleasure
to relief the monotony and release my pent up feelings of boredom and sadness and failure and fear
and when I feel like a failure how do I remember the times when things were much better
and how do I remember to be grateful for the things that I have
and the things I’d been given so very long ago
so long ago that I have forgotten I have forgotten I have wilfully forgotten every good thing everything that I should be thankful for
like a meal two minutes ago or some money two hours ago that I didn’t deserve but received anyway
it’s hard to remember because I spend day after day waiting for nothing
like waiting for godot
like bipolar disorder
like life will be better
like governments will change
like sickness has meaning
like waiting for a sign when I don’t want a sign don’t need a sign
so I woke up one morning and made a decision
to let my hair down and let myself go
and I started to dance and started to sing
and turned to my brother and saw that he was doing the very same thing
and turned to my sister and saw that she too was doing the very same thing
and just as I thought I had found perfect relief
based on a
decision to cut myself loose and float freely in this world like a free agent
I felt a sickness in my heart and I realised that the sickness I was feeling was a worm in my heart
and I got so mad so hopping mad because I was not spared from the worm in my heart
and I couldn’t go back because home was too far away
and the journey back would be too hard
and the worm kept mocking me
so it was madness for me
until I realised that the worm could actually be appeased
which was really a great discovery
which made me laugh because I realised that I could keep the worm happy by doing the things that he liked
like reading and having conversations and acquiring knowledge for he loved knowledge
and just to put it plainly
he loved history and philosophy and literature and science and religion and art
yes those were the things he loved
and I did all those things to appease him
and in time he got so fat and comfortable in my heart that he didn’t bug me anymore
and I forgot he was even there
ah forgetting ah forgetting
but soon enough the time came again when something didn’t sit right
that awful feeling that something isn’t sitting right
and I couldn’t get away from that feeling if you know what I mean
and I couldn’t put my finger on it
but I knew it had something to do with forgetting
and I wondered if I had forgotten who I was
I mean I know who I am
I am a free agent with a worm in my heart
that much I know
but I couldn’t get away from the feeling that I had forgotten who I was
not am, was
not am, was
ah forgetting
ah forgetting
although if I had to describe myself
I would be a pebble sitting with many other pebbles in a shallow stream
yes we are sitting quite comfortably
yes
just sitting
quite comfortably
and
oh
oh
oh
this is actually
quite
blah
9
It is nighttime, and the house is dark. A small boy is walking down the stairs. Alone. He is too small to be alone. It is too dangerous for him to be in the darkness walking down the stairs. He is calling out for someone he knows to come to him. His voice is like a bell in the night. Nobody hears him. The grown ups are in their rooms. The doors are closed, and they are lost in their own thoughts. The small boy is midway down the stairs, but he stops. This is the furthest he has been by himself. Halfway down the stairs in the middle of a dark house must feel like some kind of purgatory. Please. He is too small to experience hell. Please. But it is simply unavoidable. He cries. It is a cry of despair filling up his entire body. It is easy to fill up a body with despair. Despair is all or nothing. He has been alone for ten years, in limbo, midway down the stairs in a dark house. This is too long for a small boy. This is doing some serious damage. The small boy now knows the feeling of abandonment, and it will never ever leave him. Some time in his adulthood, he will act out in some irrational way, and he will make the excuse that he’s wired that way. That’s simply not true. He was not meant to be this way. He was meant to be secure and confident. Sadly, he will act like a real fucker sometimes. He won’t understand where it comes from, and he won’t bother to analyse it. He will be too caught up with pretending to be tough and all OK. He would have buried this incident of betrayal, betrayal by those who should have done more, to keep himself safe and secure in his childhood.
10
I will stay in bed. We all descend into madness and decay anyway. I tell you, fear. Wow. Fear. Bending, breaking. In shadow or in light, it finds you. Even breathing is hard. Breathe.
11
WOMAN 1: As a child, I climbed trees, without care; as high as I could, I went. If I fell and broke a bone, I knew it would heal. How did I have so much confidence that my bones could heal? In university, high, I had a vision of my heart, floating like an angel before me. I was staring at it forever, and, of course, it never stopped pumping. I didn’t expect it to. In fact, after a time, I got bored looking at it. How is it I am so unimpressed by the working of my heart? I close my eyes and shut out the light, I open and vision profusion. How is it I don’t marvel at this? How is it my lungs billow with hardly any effort on my part? How is it, asleep or awake, my veins and arteries still run?
WOMAN 2: It baffles me.
WOMAN 1: What does?
WOMAN 2: That you believe in God.
WOMAN 1: I do.
குழந்தையும் கவிதையும்
எழுதியவர்: க.து.மு. இக்பால்
பெரியவர்கள்
கவிதை எழுதுகிறவர்கள்;
குழந்தைகள்
கவிதைகளாகவே இருப்பவர்கள்
கொஞ்சம் கூர்ந்து பார்த்தால்
குழந்தைகளுக்கும் கவிதைகளுக்கும் உள்ள
தொடர்புகள் விளங்கும்
கவிதைகள் அழகான மொழியில் பேசும்;
குழந்தைகளும் அப்படியே
கவிதைகள் எதையும் விளக்கிச் சொல்வதில்லை;
குழந்தைகளும் எதையும் விரிவுரை செய்வதில்லை
கவிதைகளில் குறிப்பு மொழிகள் அதிகம்;
குழந்தைகளும் அதிகம் சமிக்ஞை மொழியில் பேசுகிறவர்கள்
கவிதை
என்ன சொல்ல வருகிறது என்பது
சில நேரங்களில் புரிவதில்லை;
குழந்தைகள் சொல்ல வருவதும்
சில நேரங்களில்
நமக்கு விளங்குவதில்லை
கவிதை மென்மையானது;
குழந்தைகளும் மென்மையானவர்கள்
கவிதைகளில் கற்பனை அதிகம்;
குழந்தைகளும்
கற்பனை வளம் மிக்கவர்கள்
படைப்பாளியாக இருப்பதற்குக்
குழந்தை உள்ளம் தேவைப்படுகிறது;
குழந்தைகளிடம் அது இயல்பாகவே அமைந்திருக்கிறது
கவிதை சந்தங்களில் அடங்குவது;
குழந்தைகள் தாலாட்டில் அடங்குகிறவர்கள்
Child
BY K. T. M. IQBAL
Translated by A. Palaniappan
Elders
become writers of poems.
Children
are God’s poetry in motion.
On closer look,
one can understand the
connections between children and poems.
Poems speak to us in beautiful languages,
so, too, children.
Poems do not explain anything,
children, too, expound nothing.
Poems abound with symbolism,
children, too, speak with much gesticulatio
n.
At times,
it is not understood
what the poem is saying.
Similarly, at times,
what the children say
is beyond comprehension.
Poems are tender,
so are children.
Imaginations abound in poems,
so, too, children are filled with imagination.
To be a creative artist,
one needs a child’s mind.
Children are naturally
endowed within.
Poems wrap themselves in melodious tunes.
Children succumb themselves to ditties and lullabies.
Girl Talk
BY HARESH SHARMA
MOTHER, aged forty-nine
DAUGHTER, aged fifteen
MOTHER: What did the teacher say?
DAUGHTER: Which teacher?
MOTHER: The Drama teacher. What did he say?
DAUGHTER: He’s not the director. They got someone from outside.
MOTHER: Who did they get?
DAUGHTER: A professional director.
MOTHER: What about the Muslim teacher?
DAUGHTER: My Lit teacher?
MOTHER: How come she didn’t object?
DAUGHTER: Object to what?
MOTHER: There are two men kissing in the play.
DAUGHTER: So? She should object just because she’s Muslim?
MOTHER: She should object because the school’s Drama Club is going to perform a gay version of Romeo and Juliet. Romulus and Julius? The alarm bells should have sounded weeks ago.
DAUGHTER: It’s not a gay version of R and J. We were supposed to do Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet. It’s been done to death. So we decided… we thought, what if the play was set in Roman times. And we were quite excited, and we did more research and then…
MOTHER: And then?
DAUGHTER: It wasn’t uncommon then… during the Roman period… for men to have relationships.
MOTHER: Where did you learn that? In your History class?
DAUGHTER: Internet. I just Googled.
MOTHER: So then it is a gay version. Look at the stage directions. There are two men kissing.
DAUGHTER: We’re an all-girls school. On stage, there will be two girls kissing. If we had done Romeo and Juliet, it would still be two girls kissing on stage. What’s the big deal?
