Bedside By Jerry Pinto
I watch your face hanging open Your warm wet mouth, your tongue flickering Your spectacles grimy, your hair alive Your forehead broad and wasted Your cheeks alternately limp and bulging. I do not need to watch your body I have tended it often Eased its pains with capsicum plasters And prayed I was easing your mind too With my litany fresh off the shelf: Tegretol, Anxol, Espazine, Hexidol Neurobion, Arrovit, Shelcal, Diazepam. I cross your palm with powder And pray, entire rosaries and masses, satsangs and majlises, that you should not Tell my future. When I last lifted you off the floor You were sitting close to my bed. You did not expect to fall Not under the knowing eyes of Mother of Perpetual Succour. I direct your gaze to the falling slipper Of the child in her arms. It falls, you told me some lives ago Out of fear of the foretold future I understand that slippage But you? You live it. Some nights you let me sleep in patches I have grown used to it, relying on my Ability to turn you off, and your pain. I have survived to write these lines To turn you, baste you and marinate Our twinned lives into a poem. But I wish I could keep My heart unguilty, my love fresh My thoughts wide-ranging, my eyes new and that wound â inflicted on days of empathy â raw and open. What happened to the in-betweens? The Erle Stanley Gardners and the Agathas? The monotonous card games and the inedible food? The forced Vicks-ings and the rage of Tiger balm? Did we take them away With our conscientious powder formulae? There are many options I know The glaze of stillness and the panacea of forgetfulness Or the black snot that stained granny's kerchief A trust in the occult, born of grief. A faith in God, born of habit. So many options and I, on auto-pilot Cross your palm with powder. Outside, I turn my face to the sun Laugh, play, pun, work, entertain, function. I know from a few grim examples And one bright shining one How the world fetes facades. I have grown used to seeing the one I devised Reflected in your laughter-silted eyes. Inside, I shrink from metaphor and magic I have no beliefs here, only a watchfulness. My world condenses into an ink-stain As your voice trails after me from room to room. I made promises for you, standing in the toilet By the skull of the Cyclops that drank my piss I broke those promises, one by one And know that is why I cannot love. Mummy, find it in you to forgive me And I will try to be bigger than my guilt And forgive myself. Jerry Pinto is a media professional and writer. He lives in Bombay http://www.littlemag.com/family/jerry.html -- :: :: :: s p a c e :: :: :: ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/rkgkPB/UOnJAA/Zx0JAA/yqIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> «¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥««¤»¥«¤»§«¤» Did you get this mail as a forward? Subscribe by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTPoets/join/ Members are encourage to post poetry, their own and others', respond critically to the poems circulated, and participate in discussions. Post via email at [email protected] OR online at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTPoets/post/ ==theZESTcommunity====================================== [1] ZESTCurrent: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCurrent/ [2] ZESTEconomics: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTEconomics/ [3] ZESTGlobal: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/ [4] ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/ [5] ZESTPoets: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTPoets/ [6] ZESTCaste: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/ [7] ZESTAlternative: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTAlternative/ [8] TalkZEST: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TalkZEST/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTPoets/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
