زرد پتوں کا بن جو مرا دیس ہے
درد کی انجمن جو مرا دیس ہے
فیض احمد فیض | Faiz Ahmad Faiz
If I could see, simply, where to get to
in that city where I stood,
blunt as a rickshaw flat.
Neither seen nor hidden
If I had tossed rupees
into its river’s murky sleeve,
its litter floating—If I could say one true thing to it,
like fuck this place
If I had said let me break free
If I could walk its river’s cusp
like the pilgrims who haunt its sludge,who fling from gaunt arms
chunks of meat for crows
If I held out a lump and waited for one to clutch back,
my stillness loosened—
my benevolence like grease
If the river wasn’t hurt
its toxic belly with bloated minnows,
pharmaceuticals, and lovers routinely scavenged
sometimes dumped
If I hadn’t turned to leave
that river, that city, the wet mud
at my feet trapping rainbows
bubbling, hissing, you will carry this burden:
these scabbed walls, fissures,
this city that daily orphans its own
miasma, flaccid mynahs
the evergreen minister’s grin fraying the banner’s slogan;
these streets with makeshift earth ovens,
with livestock and farmers razed off
for Urban Transport and Housing schemes
If I could spin away & still sing
the pavement with one foot short
of toes sliced clean from a factory machine
under each bridge’s black lung
of the woman who sweepsthe pavement with one foot short
of toes sliced clean from a factory machine
of laborers who flank the back streets,
with backs kissed
to the scrape and dirt of earth
with snores humming in the sewerand ribs that throb
with echoes of hard-hit drums
sent from a flaring of wedding tents;
of the vagrant children who huddle
like the raceway beltway overhead;
like matchsticks in sewers,
with fists pumping needles, their bloodstreamlike the raceway beltway overhead;
of the lurker in alleys who moves panther slow,
his heart at war-beat, an artillery rattlingat the barking dogs
at the quiet
& its whistling, misty specter;
Blithe Spirit by Sarah Short of those irked clerks who slouch
before strident, ringing phones,
whose imagined, impossible lives sometimes float nameless
through writhing phone cables;
of spring winds
of rippling kites of burnt brick rooftops
& those youth who open soft
to endless, porous ache
that blisters awake to dissipate like bagasse;of the funk
of tobacco and marigolds beneath his collar;
of the salon worker who softly thrums
to Bollywood tunes, who breathes
into my supine nostril
something of fuchsia lips
and riflescope eyes she’ll wear one day
for billboards of ghost theatres;
for billboards of ghost theatres;
of the dancer who flees in time to the airport
against the thought of her own hacked body,
heedless of the hash the cleric-pimp slips into her suitcase–
on cracked, bleeding heels
by the invisible rope of a blackout,against the thought of her own hacked body,
heedless of the hash the cleric-pimp slips into her suitcase–
& of the activist who peacefully knocks
municipal doors that mete out her protest
for clean air and water
in body bags or a hit-and-run;
of the drivers who daily sling in car seats
outside the boys’ school to steal a last drag
of smoke before home time, before the last
chickpea dunks moist
into their newspaper cone, before their slobbering
of smoke before home time, before the last
chickpea dunks moist
into their newspaper cone, before their slobbering
little masters herd inside
heaving stink & orders–
heaving stink & orders–
of each empty hour
in which my mother spores ears
to her disconnect, its fungal wool
& of my father, whose swilled dreams
no longer scramble before him, like TV static–If I could speak, simply
outside assonance,
outside assonance,
If I could speak plain as tarmac
to that shady, vigorous, fortressed city
that spills tedium like ash and so much shit
would it condescend to me,
a stone splitting my absence, its far seas?