My hands are blocks of coarse wood,

I cannot play the piano.

My physique is that of a wrestler,

not what you might call pretty.

Yet within this improbable chassis

resides the better part of me,

a brave heart trained to loyalty,

not to betray those I favour

nor court fair weather or pander

to a false show of feeling

and

I shall not lay claim to

or slander those I do not know,

for the love I retain is sufficient

to sustain my particular shadow.

What more can the cicadas have to say?

in the static noon of breathless day,

when even the citrus trees hang limp,

tired from standing up

and the river like a cheap tin sheet

reflects the torrid hour.

What stories should the cicadas repeat?

when only dogs frequent the open street

and old men seek the ornate shade

of narrow carved verandahs,

as the Gurung girls with almond eyes

raise buttoned bodices to fan their breasts

and reimpose the mysteries of their sex.

Between the partition and the railway line,

is another face, rarely seen, in bas-relief,

a statue hung with marigolds

and the memory of our father’s voice.

His words suggest the afterlife, the solo flight,

beyond a suffocating heart that left us all competing

with the embarrassed sound of sorrow,

like oleanders bound inside a terracotta pot,

tapping for the wealth of rain,

searching for the mineral seam, the moist soil

that might thus transform the budding future,

allowing us time for the light humour

of being and knowing it shall not last.

Between the cafe tables and the sea, convulsive,

is another face, often glimpsed, in disbelief,

behind the wineracked counter

and the memory of our father’s voice.

His words suggest the zest if limes, the cocktail hour

and a wartime copy of Macniece’s ‘Autumn Journal’,

a cadence that reminds and reinvents inherited mime,

the immortality of mannerisms we fulfil,

the hybrid vigour of his blood inside our veins

as we cross piazzas into crenellated stations,

his voice haunts our suitcases on the platform,

packed for journeys we shall now never make

because of previous obligations.

In Birethanti I lay down

like a sadhu

beneath the taut limb of the simal tree,

yet still not arrested

by artless sleep

I pondered instead,

suspecting paradise

as the sovereign river’s symphonic cascade

holds sway

over my poor mind’s reflection,

prompting mournful echoes to remind

of love’s glorious failure to provide

and

how often it is a common business,

comprised of petty transactions,

avaricious alliances and deliberate deceits

designed to avoid surrender,

to block, ignore and not explore

the internal core,

the famous mystery,

for we are too frightened of joy,

too false to deserve its favour.

Two Tibetan ponies graze neglected terraces,

one is brown, the other white,

seeking fresh shoots of bamboo grass

down by the rapid water’s edge

where the river bends away and often floods

during the monsoon, after the snowmelt.

There is also a burnt-out tree,

standing like a sculpture,

with a ragged crown of charcoal

where lightning once struck

and a local adonis sits,

with the grave face of an Aztec,

hunched upon a limestone boulder,

casting the shallow pools below,

which the distracted current empties and refills,

empties and refills forever.

Beyond the clipped laurel hedge

and the idle kissing-gate,

I lay in a plantation of saplings,

my innocence torn like linen,

for I could hear their voices

discussing me,

as I were a child.

When I awoke,

the window was open

and on the boards beneath the bed,

a drift of yellow leaves.

Alone, I shall re-enter Albion,

that chill convent of mists

which conspire with the monochrome sky

to provide a sodden tarpaulin

that denies the eye an apt horizon.

I shall suit my pace to winter

and the sullen passage of the Thames

to pass the sedentary barges becalmed

on the reeking sludge of the tidal floor.

I shall turn down the defiant avenues

of pollarded limes,

with their gaunt statuary that reminds of Rodin,

to cross the genteel environs of Chiswick

into the partisan terraces of Hammersmith

and the drab exile of the Irish quarter.

Rain blurs impatient headlamps,

sulphurous flares which briefly expose

the tart, the tinker and the tobacconist,

all representative of the rank and file,

their amorphous faces unforthcoming

like the reserved British smile.

There is only so much reading

that one man can do,

before doubting his own mind

and paradise too.

All those clever words

start to dissipate his former purpose

and if left alone with certain quotations,

he can but hang his head and sigh.

At times such as this it is wise to order

two fingers of Scotch and half the soda,

thus to opiate sorrow’s appetite

and forget that tender is the night.

Close your modern eyes to see

the signposts of tranquillity

for God is in the branches

and the thin wind off the mountains

that shivers the bamboo ceiling

to the sound of a skin tambourine.

With hindsight consider the other world

where all is in anger and alarm,

without time for ceremony or courtesy,

nor compassion for the lesser breeds,

only the multitude in pursuit of money,

such a species is beyond consolation.

Awake again into the margin

which houses all manner of subtle fancies

yet still knowing awhile the enchanted deep

before night’s ink shall fade and morning admit

to let your ears renew charmed acquaintance

with the archaic melody of songbirds.

Love is a dangerous condition

which one should hesitate to advise,

for it makes you feel wretched

and reddens your eyes.

It acts like an irritant

to get under the skin,

once contracted,

the heartaches begin,

the palpitations you cannot disguise,

the hot flush, the little white lies.

All these are symptoms of a disease

for which there is no proven remedy,

unless you are able to mock yourself

and appreciate the comedy.

That we should meet out of the blue

to want each other’s eyes

had before been prophesied,

but should our souls engage in recognition

of previous lives,

this was for the inscrutable fates to devise

an appropriate hunger,

to let our bodies advise passion

even as I quoted that love does not last,

for the example of others suggested such.

Thus we spend our golden days

not without the pangs of apprehension,

waiting for the axe to fall,

to sever the lover’s knot we had tied

from the bedstead to the orchard wall

wherein our mutual blossom fructified

according to Adam’s original design

until your skin shone like beeswax

from love’s sweat which lay

like dew upon your narrow shoulders

and the words we said in whispers

were meant to be true,

with the devotion of ancient promises,

your mouth tasted of fennel

as you leant across the dogrose summer

to share the final sacrament

of postcoital tristesse.

Why do you never notice me?

I am here,

within the sanctuary of leaves,

under the wings of the banyan tree,

inside a monsoon pavilion.

If you were to cross the rushing gulley,

run with the rain, diagonal,

to share the nomadic shelter

behind the curtain of hanging roots,

then we could speak of love.

I would employ my tongue with tenderness

to enrol your ears with persuasion.

I would paint your eyes with praise,

your cheeks would blush from my intention,

with a single kiss I could convince.

We would be as butter in the lamp

or water in the well.

I would fly a kite with your name on it,

for you I would shave my head.

In hushed voices we strap on armour,

raise high the heraldic banner,

linking our painted shields together

we stand to face the music of Time’s quick march

and the unrelinquished past,

for like the trumpet vine we are entwined,

playing host to our own human bondage.

No longer divisible, we are now associates,

to lick the salt tears and dress the wounds

which we inflict without a valid purpose,

except love’s mercurial temperature,

that must feed its internal fever or go blind,

for without the heat there can be no passion,

only the shallow kiss of habit

as a duty to perform.

In the warmth of the night

I lie flat,

a stone enclosed in white cotton.

Unseen,

away from the eyes of the village,

my frozen heart expands,

the outside edges unfurl.

In the familiar position of furniture

and the shuttered windows,

I can take comfort,

my breath becomes even.

At last I ascend the ladder

of dreams.

Of course I dream of you.

You are walking towards me,

your face is serene,

you are offering me something

but when you reach me, you do not stop,

we pass without touching.

If words were paint, perhaps I could paint it

making good use of the palette

and all the contrasting shades of blue

or if I were more skilful with words

perhaps I could word it for you

the poignancy of time passing

with the knowledge that an end awaits

to snuff all our cherished regrets

and the companionship of our faults

to each other in secret confessed.

I have saved myself for this,

always longing, the blue of loving,

all I never said before.

A strange cocktail,

not shaken but stirred,

bitter and strong but true

yet it could do with more ice,

it could do with you.

For how can man describe his heart,

the yearning song of solitude,

the constant bleeding and the loss,

the recharging of cheap batteries,

the despair to come through.

I have saved myself for this,

finally giving, the blue of loving,

all I never could before.

A strange mystery,

imposed by previous defeat,

bitter and strong but true

yet it could do with more ice,

it could do with you.

Let us climb the switchback summer

and look down into the wishing-well

where we used to keep our secrets,

unrevealed to others who might offer

the common kiss of traitors.

Let us walk into the ripening kingdom

until our two rivers merge

beneath the ragged prayer flags,

until our voices are left behind

as there is no more need for questions.

In royal progress we returned

from the dandelion pasture

and the dappled skin of the frogspawn pool,

carrying home the first lemon catkins

as the plaintive cuckoo called

away down the rutted farmyard track,

until our disparate feet demand we stop

where the foreign quince tree grew,

orphaned amongst the hawthorn fences,

her slender boughs festooned

like a lady’s Sunday parasol,

under which His praises we would sing,

for you were the immaculate mother

and I, the awakening child,

the last born lamb of your Spring.

His Majesty’s Government formally announce

the end of this year’s monsoon,

yet still it rains every day,

just to prove the frailty of words

and all human intention.

In the lee of Mount Macchapucchare,

swagged in bolts of ermine cloud,

it rains in a proper fashion

unlike Tuesday in Trafalgar Square.

It falls like a casting net,

the riven slate roofs glisten

as if smeared with rubbing oil,

the agitated earth opens every pore

like a supplicant awaiting absolution.

I, too, have literary heroes

like George Seferis on lonely street,

viewed from above,

from a balcony with white oleanders,

dreaming of Bathsheba

and the turquoise sea translated

from the classic tense

into an agony of modern quartets.

I, too, have targets

as I draw his poetry through my nose

like an unfiltered cigarette.

Released from a labyrinth of dreams

to the plain chant of mule bells,

the drum of hooves on the wooden bridge,

I open my blue door

to the deciduous dawn in blush

and Vishnu standing on the lawn

like a daemon of the dew,

cutting marigold crowns to sew

into necklaces for attendant Brahmans,

who wait in white by the river

to intercede with the appropriate deities,

whose proper names only they know.

Vishnu leaves through the wrought-iron gate,

she turns to recreate the formal greeting,

her bracelets clash like cymbals,

her flat nose and high cheekplates

cast a mauve and copper portrait

perhaps only Gaugin could paint.

As for the marigolds,

Van Gogh must be the one to capture that,

then I could sell it to the Japanese

to hang on the clubhouse wall

of some neo-palladian golf resort

on the oriental outskirts of Hokaido.

From a foreign window I worship,

trembling with the almighty loneliness

of being,

as the eternal river disputes,

I am uncertain,

of Christ, the Devil and Buddha between.

I send this report,

cast like a message in a bottle,

addressed care of the Ganges,

for a quick delivery to heaven.

Imperfect, impure, suitably abashed,

my illiterate heart still responds,

inexplicably.

Without illumination I can only suppose

at my own small purpose.

I continue to dream without morals or meaning,

to love without sustenance from loving.

Exposed as merely mortal,

I must repeat this self-inflicted routine.

I send this report

from quixotic remoteness,

a kingdom of unsurpassed rock

upon which I have built.

Like a mongrel

I howl at the stars in the evening,

for the magnitude of infinity defies all logic.

I send this report

only to remind those who may follow

that here there is no doubt of death,

it is a point to welcome.

And love is just sheer emotion,

a divine malady,

the classic tragedy.

Is it enough this studied existence,

our mortal ennui?

I would rather god shook me

and gave me reason to be

as a table, a column or a corner stone,

asking nothing, no explanation

nor cause for clever conversation,

I would not object.

Listen to the cinnamon sparrow sing

within the pink fruiting guava tree,

bowed down in admiration,

in anticipation of the cooling breeze.

Listen to the conch shell trumpet blow

which the menthol river will repeat,

echoed in consolation,

in anticipation of the scented ashes.