Poetry

Munayem Mayenin

A Temple for his Music

Midnight Paris Metro carries the night

Within its double-decker breast busily

Shooting through the tunnel’s pathways

Busy and sleepy people running rustling

Like wind-blown leaves all fathomed in

In we go and out we come rush rolling

And there he was serenading the dusty

Air filled with floating footsteps playing

His Chinese musical organ some sort of

Violin sitting on a stool in front of his open

Hat gathering proceeds of people’s pity

He plays closing his eyes and the music

Flows out rising upward like an invisible

Vine swinging in the free air of his mind

A poignant tune sad and deeply piercing

He plays and does not look in case his hat

Looks at him with the eyes of the coins

Reminding him he will have to come down

And count his fragmented printed notes

In silver and paper all polished porcupine

He carries on playing through and through

Ignoring the space and place where he was

Rooted: unwelcome, hatched and fabricated

Oh! How I felt the need to kick that hat off

And plant a temple for his music to fall down

On and find a seat a home and there he is

At peace, happy, playing and would not

Need to close his eyes to stop seeing that hat

Be Mindful

In there you are

Busy-bee bent on bright stuff

Forking out illusions’ dust

There where you tell yourself

Hang on there you are going

Somewhere tropical and top

In there you are

But-end-proof bold and boisterous

Gathering mindful momentum

In a space that only knows

How to become a shark

And gulp anything that moves

And you are there chairing

The futile fossil of firebrands

And dreaming of dead dreams

That would never fly

For phoenix they are not

In there you are

Busy-bee bent on bright stuff

Be mindful and mind the gap

For the bright stuff might be wrapping paper

When in need of warmth fires fail there.

This Image

This image of myself lying on the grass

Outside the National Art Gallery like Jesus

On the cross holding onto the cool grass

Jesus the man not the prophet I thought of

In pain’s grasp I looked up to the sky spread

Out smiling sparkling blue in a flood of lights

And there was that big bird high up flying

In the majestic mind of the ocean-dome-sky

On his back the whole universe thinly stayed

I facing him exactly resonating his image on

My back the earth: both facing each other on

A distant relation: magnanimous an image that

I could grasp from somewhere where my being

Became part of the whole and won the pain over

Telescoping your Life

They say: here you are with a lens

Magnifying marked objects: oily

And ornamented with absolute

Fanciful market’s sure-fire moulds

They say: here you are to press these

Bankrupt buttons and then add the

Final one: fully accommodating to give

A total and say: twelve twenty, please!

They say all this and offer you a sheet

From where you howl in and out your

Day’s diagram: fully functional you are,

As a professional: your smiles and words

Are versioned, shaped and all you need

To do is to pick and use the right one up

The City Night

The city lights bleach out the darkness thin

At night and on her rather fair skin she holds

Her smile on nothingness; still making it visible

While lights work on the slates of things, showing.

One sees their works reflected on other’s craft;

Lights for things to be seen against the breadth

Of darkness while she presents the void in a

Transparent blank: both in need of being seen.

And the buildings that stand like aerial giants

With electric eyes shining out their rays through

From their bodies’ exterior expanse: mute, mindless.

As the night thickens in dry and dusty city air

The space transforms itself and becomes almost

Like a multidimensional glass house: static, still.

On bare River Seeking

I seek and a subtle response is what

Offers me a flow of something that I

Could not handle: joys remit is limitless

Yet there comes the low tide: bare river

Although there still shines the silt in

Happy sunlights that transform the surface

Of the glowing mud where a bird seeks

With deep confidence that its breast could

Hard-handle: something, anything to gather

For life, her compounding connections to it

I am spell bound in the bounty of, even this,

Bare river, beyond low tide, riding on lights’

Loving care and the fairs of human affairs

Carry on gathering notes and boats: seeking.

Munayem Mayenin

Guest Poet

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