POETRY: Adil Hasan’s poems use concrete steadfast images
POETRY EDITOR Ananya Guha’s note: Adil Hasan’s poems use concrete steadfast images of life and times. Sometimes arcane they are a heady pull towards life’s movements and an inner mysticism. They are lyrical poems and the music of life draws the best from him.
—
Two Poems for W. S. Graham
Poem I
Long is the room
Padlocked and kept
Away from the night
She left me. Feared
Is the time of the broken
Bone come from the
Father’s axe the blows
Felling the oak that
Once stood unbroken
Like vast pictures
In dreams. The room
She slept in the pool
Our oceans made
Come stand and fill
For once long ago
Jade me with
Fierceness, let the fierce
Love reside touching the
Inside of caves cast
Aside, the hollowness of
Heart not you that knew
But only I breeding
Took fast for another
Life and preserved the
Dust, the bone struck
Again and again
I summoned the
Rage in its room
Taking for blessing
The cutting past, its
Ale of pain for a
Sip, you for an
Artefact hung from
Walls stoned with
Red, violet, red
The storm showed
Ghastly through windows
Washing out your sob
Threat to me, life to
The past and to me
Joined before in
The unruly weather
Fluttering in that
Soft shroud your
Hands spoke of.
Speak now maiden
Sprout new hatred
Or history, tell all
And go not back to
The candied cunning
Or rub with sand
The lilac or the
Petalled grave or
Make for worms
The playing fields
Saying the words
Finally. Finally
The words drip.
In the room the
Vastness of time
Pales.
Poem II
What is this fantastic
Clue from the first
Parts of my life
That I still love.
A few still
Words from the poem
Burn from the un-lived
Past. The fruit is divided
Sweet and won with
Spears, you breed for
Days to come and far
Goes the house that is
Bled. Remember his
Refusal of a brother’s
Share when the nights
On wing descend to
The Oak and broke
The oar of the ocean
Jets, each rock is
Parched and parched and
The last but listen
Not to flickering from
Land the rain splaying
Night catching on
Come and go. Go fall
To her sounds, she is
Here, tumultuous in the
Sea, you have paid
All and all to each
The mast crumbles
Here take bread
And cast the ship
A fiery eye, sharpen
Your hands, believe
The mind is cast
From the shadow of
The burn that rots. All
Is froth from the sea down
Below turns the quickening
Sound of sand flowing
Straight casting us below
The age of cutting each
Horse from its hold to
Follow the lamp to the
Shore.
* * * * *
The Day of Judgement
As the muezzin calls for prayer, and church
And temple bells toll,
Five hundred larks rise, as if commanded
By some unforeseen power.
Unknown to those whose heads are bowed
In silence and in prayer.
As the muezzin calls for prayer, and church
And temple bells toll,
Fifty helicopters take-off, as if propelled
By some invisible force.
Unknown to those whose hands are clasped
In silence and in prayer.
As the muezzin calls for prayer, and church
And temple bells toll,
Five masses of earth ascend, as if drawn
By the power of the Heavens.
Unknown to those whose bodies kneel
In silence and in prayer.
As the muezzin calls for prayer, and church
And temple bells toll,
Half the “Self” springs and jumps,
As if summoned by God Himself.
Unknown to those who exist
In silence and in prayer.
(1988).
*********
Airmen, Lost at Sea
For now let’s start with silence.
Wrap silence around. Make no sound, act no life.
Make those moments pass.
Make him lay there dead like, make no sound.
So leave those runway lights on.
Leave the rest to the crosswinds.
Heave to. Fuselage soaring, hands caught in lightning.
But leave those runway lights on.
As Jay comes to, sense a man rowing in.
So fix it, make him escape.
Run from channels of salt, flee from creek of shadows.
Swiftly make Ray make good escape.
Distant cries. Muffled dry but tethered outcry.
One shouts, two scuffle. Now open your eyes.
See ghouls, see ghouls. Gas lanterns wheeling wildly.
Hands on the runway, lightning.
Pass from his lips, the gritty salt.
Spray to his skin, the stinging rain.
Airman Jay. Airman Ray.
How far out to sea did we let the boys be?
Prepare for the last dim shout from the shore.
End the mainland chase.
For now let’s have all the buoys, all the buoys.
Far in the singing sea, all the buoys.
Boys all down, then up again…
Then down. Then down.
**********
Framed
Rise before dawn. Read a poem, and dress for the day, a glorious day. Breathe. Frame the function of this day – I think, I am. Thus, eudaemonia.
The contemplation of forms from above. Each a painted sign, good art or fine words. Perform. Grace. Enlighten. Get quizzical. Frame the function of this day – supreme Platonic Eide.
Learn patience. How to sit, stand, how to stare. Be sightless, be proud. Frame the function of this day – Bios or Zoe?
The means. Some kind of work. Shoot arrows to the west. Straight, you’ll need no directions. Frame the function of this day – Whole body ergasia.
The eastern line brings you back. Home. Work wood for leisure. Wag tongues. Spill wages in the mug. Or dance for good cheer. Frame the function of this day – anhedonia.
Frame the function of each day. And shallow dip into Greek.
********
Wayside Prayer
Is the sense of a solitary sojourn brought on by the illusion of the third black rail, a path cut from the stone above, yet a line of my own device?
And the thickening downward stance, how does that pin motion to the frame – an entire inner world, yet trembling in its grasp?
Must I behold you frozen and amorous, and must I not expect the daily molten crowd?
If you must ask, I stand pondering a single sinister word:
“Static”
Signifying always two contradictory states:
One – of the ephemeral electric dynamo.
Two – of the cessation of all motion.
Dispute me, gentlemen.
*****
Adil Hasan was born in 1971 in Shillong, north-east India and has made Bangalore his home for the past eighteen years. He is a visual artist and freelance writer, having previously worked in banking and the IT industry. Escape The Dark, an exhibition of his digital art was held in 2014. He is presently working on a mixed media project titled Great Industrial Dreams which pairs artwork with speculative prose and poetry.