They Want Us To Obey

They want us to obey, you to obey, me to obey,
all to obey them, like children, asking no questions.
The very word has a sinister hollow sound:
O…B…E…Y.
Pronounce it loudly: obey. Repeat: obey.
Can you feel it? Obey!
Dog is not man’s best friend without any reason.

My only hope is in those I did not like earlier.
The face maniacs. Those who record themselves
in yogic mudras doing asanas to post on facebook
for an instant wow. I love them now.
They show me the glowing fire from dying embers.
They do not resist on principle. They resist by habit.
They are not Satan or other fallen angels.
It’s human to rebel without reason or purpose.
For what is rebellion but a different perspective

Published at: https://inbetweenhangovers.wordpress.com/2017/07/28/they-want-us-to-obey-by-rajnish-mishra/

Thoughts Race

Every day, every place the sky
is the same but the ground beneath is not.
The roots go down and spread downwards,
rarely they skywards rise.

When float the broken bergs of clouds
over sun’s vermilion tide,
every dawn, every dusk
the sky is the same
but the ground beneath is not.

Mind brings to fore my places first
before sky comes and joins,
then evening softly comes in train,
gives pointed, pain to pine.

Planned it’s not for who would know
stepping on from down below,
After months on flat wide roof,
that evening’s thorn piercing
on tip the venomous layer of past,
on touch that numbs all pain, pleasure too?

Breathe yes I do, yet mind is lost,
in the land of dormant past,
escaped present-prison, it happened
after ages that pages blank were filled.

So fast, so much, so far
thoughts race.

 

Published at: https://spillwords.com/thoughts-race/

 

 

 

 

Old Order

All old order is subject to decay,
they say, and when fate summons,
old ways free fall. Heart-held loves,
friends, hatreds, foes: all. Yes, all
give way to mighty time’s sway.
Bright, fearless, grand, green youthful years
With each passing year grow
thick wisdom layers, while marching on its way,
time fills with fears the cup full of joy
and life eternal. Wisdom and fear
almost lose their powers when time is stretched
and moments go eternal. For lost is that fear
overhead that hovers, and wisdom unwanted
unused lies there, where heart burns deep
sans flames infernal.

 

Published at: https://spillwords.com/old-order/

Advice to a Young Poet, from Ezra Pound

This one is a real gem, taken from the wonderful: Advice to a Young Poet, from Ezra Pound

 

He talked about Confucius, kept returning to him. And about Bill [William Carlos] Williams, with approval but as though he were remembering another time. Pound then was in his sixties, but to me he seemed like an ancient, and when he looked back it must have seemed to him that he had lived through several distinct lives. He talked about The Cantos, his cantos, and about that magic trick that he predicted so many times: When the hundredth canto was finished, he said (demonstrating with his hands in the air), the capstone would fit perfectly across the columns of the temple and everything would be seen to be in place. I was eager to ask him the right things, but for the most part he took care of all that. He was glad to have someone who wanted to listen to him….

      He went back to talking—about Cocteau now, whose poems he liked, and it was not easy for him to find contemporary poets he wanted to read. He spoke in the key of judgment the greater part of the time. He talked about reading in general. “Have you noticed,” he asked, “that senators never read the newspapers?” I admitted that I had never noticed that. “That,” he explained, confidentially, “is because a political party goes to pot when it begins to believe its own lies.” I hoped he would veer back to the subject of poetry, and he did, and talked about Eliot. Tom. But again a distance, a remoteness, seemed to hover around his words. I wanted to ask him about Yeats, but he took me by surprise and turned the subject to me, or someone he took to be me. Someone, as he seemed quite prepared to believe, who was bent on spending his life trying to write poetry. He had been lucky, he said, to have known a generation of writers who had never thought of writing for money. He told me he imagined I was serious, and that if I was I should learn languages, “so as not to be at the mercy of translators.” And then I should translate, myself. “If you’re going to be a poet,” he said, “you have to work at it every day. You should about seventy-five lines a day. But at your age you don’t have anything to write about. You may think you do, but you don’t. So get to work translating. The Provençal is the real source. The poets are closest to music. They hear it. They write to it. Try to learn Provençal, at least some of it, if you can. Meanwhile, the others. Spanish is all right. The Romancero is what you want there. Get as close to the original as you can. It will make you use your English and find out what you can do with it.”

Time that Never Could be

Miss you poet Ali, homeless, exile.

Never met you the person, but met the poet

of Kashmir, pain, and loss.

Yearning for a time and a place that never could be;

never, be mine again.

Miss you Lahore pre-forty-seven.

Never been there, in person, but felt you through

pages on you with ink of pain and stylus of loss,

in the land of Punjab, times bright that never could be;

never, be yours again.

Miss you olden times on sepia: black and white.

Never lived then, when you were in full bloom

had colors that never can never return, come back to

that land of romance, escape, that never could be;

never, be ours again.

Never met you but miss you Shahid Ali.

Never been there but miss you Lahore.

Never lived then but miss you old times.

 

 

Published at: http://indianperiodical.com/2017/07/time-that-never-could-be/

While Caesar smugly smiles

The long unending chain of toadies all but goes on knees
To kiss the ground beneath the Caesar’s feet divine,
And masses spineless fawn o’er him with lolling tongues canine,
While Caesar smugly smiles.
His laurels, rank, and destiny, his power, throne and crown,
Anoint him with, then gladly they press on him their leash.
Teeth glittering, widened lips, resounding, deafening claps,
At every single dropping word from Caesar’s lips divine.
Then tail-like wag all tongues; sweeter than honey spread,
Cloying, unctuous, authentic, invented compliments.
They truly lie and truly please the head that wears the crown.
Their words and praise rise not from heart from lips downwards they drop.

Bravo! Stinging and biting, inverted compliments,
Impressive speech, well-worded, and what fine sentiments!
You think you know then all you need of countless regiments.
We live by knowing where to bow, and smile, fawn and kiss when,
The hallowed ground beneath his feet and selves how prostrate then,
While Caesar smugly smiles.
Our happy days and nights, we smiling live our lives, at Caesar’s feet divine.
By God we truly look our part with lolling tongues canine.
O you tigers of wrath! Your wars for liberty, produce dictators worst,
Today you have your Julius, tomorrow Augustus.
And what indeed is truth if not calibration?
Timeless, endless, meaningless ratiocination?

 

Published at: https://dissidentvoice.org/2017/07/while-caesar-smugly-smiles/

I write

It’s not easy to write.
First, there’s that light,
piercing pain somewhere between my right
ear and eye. It goes away for some time but
returns stubbornly. Then, there’s that doubt,
rather, there are two of them. My wife was not
well this morning. Was it just
common cold, or there’s something to worry about?
I need some documents to start
a process, and have applied for the same. Will I get it?
Shall my will be done? Yet I make myself sit to write,
happy that I’m free for the moment
and no one needs me for some time. I write
because I can. I write
for my dream. I write
as I hope. I live, so I write.

Published at: https://thelocaltrainmag.wordpress.com/2019/04/21/i-write/

The Angry Driver

He presses pedals, rushes fast,
Drives impatiently,
Angrily past plastic, glass and metal.
Cuts through slow, slimy snails,
driver’s bane,
switches lanes,
swerves, then goes slow
and blocks their lane
For revenge.
He drives
with geometric precision,
with a drive to drive,
eyes of tiger,
half-a-smile.
Lingering fingers or eyes
on screen, not his way,
his style is simple,
not a moment extra
spent on road.
Rage erupts when he outdrives,
with a war to wage
every moment.
How could he, she, or they,
delay him for a second?
Mon semblable, mon frère?
You know him.
Don’t you?
 

Published at: https://www.scarletleafreview.com/poems9/rajnish-mishra-poems

 

Old Order

 

All old order is subject to decay,

they say and when fate summons,

old ways free fall. Heart-held loves,

friends, hatreds, foes, all, yes, all

give way to mighty time’s sway.

Indestructible, invincible,

grand youthful years, with each
passing year suffer wisdom’s

sedimentation, while marching on way,

time fills in fears, foreboding of future:

quite an accumulation! That knowledge

and fear lose all their power,
For lost is that fear –

a servant attentive.
For lost is that fear –

above head always hovering.
So, lost is the fear –

of not ever returning
As roots are cut now,

or withered; ineffective
pain.

Heart,

now hardened

is drained of that terror.

 

 

Published at: https://festivalforpoetry.com/2017/07/11/poetry-old-order-by-rajnish-mishra/

Three Haiku

I

Walls, white-washed, white floor

white ceiling: shroud, corpse sits through

days, life-long, alone.

II

Days are long, short nights.

Lights dim help slip down the slope-

Sleep, you wake to die. 

 III

Crossing long deserts 

of pages, poetry-oasis.

I reach; forever stay.

Published at:  https://poppyroadreview.blogspot.com/2017/07/three-haiku-by-rajnish-mishra.html