Jeet Thayil - Collected Poems

ALSO BY JEET THAYIL

POETRY

These Errors Are Correct (2008)

English (2004)

Apocalypso (1997)

Gemini (1992; two-poet volume)

AS EDITOR

The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (2008)

Divided Time: India and the End of Diaspora (2006)

Vox2: Seven Stories (1997)

FICTION

Narcopolis (2012)

ALEPH BOOK COMPANY

An independent publishing firm
promoted by Rupa Publications India

First published in India in 2015 by

Aleph Book Company

7/16 Ansari Road, Daryaganj

New Delhi 110 002

Copyright Jeet Thayil 2015

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Aleph Book Company.

eISBN: 978-93-84067-11-3

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

This book is for my parents,
Ammu George and TJS George

Contents

Preface

I was born the year Billie Holiday died, in 1959. In my recurring dream of Billie, she is a photo on the front page of a newspaper that prints only obituaries. Its a dream stolen from a poem called The Day Lady Died but that doesnt make it any less strange. Someone sent me a photo of Billie, in which shes leaning into a microphone, her face swollen. Theres a red whisky tone on her skin and she seems to have nodded out standing, though you cant be sure because cats eye sunglasses are obscuring her eyes. I put the photo on my desk and that night my usual dream of Billie was replaced by another: Billie and Roberto Bolao smoking smack in a Parsi sanatorium on Bandra Bandstand. When dawn lit up the dirty sea and shit-stained rocks and crowds of morning strollers, Billie was sitting cross-legged in front of a candle, a ripped seam of burnt foil in her hand. A matchstick burned in her slender fingers and a strand of fresh seaweed was entangled in her hair. As Billies head finally touched the floor, Bolao got to his feet and gathered his briefcase. He told me that the sun was high and soon it would be too hot to walk or work. Only poetry is not shit, he said. Stop wasting so much time. Even in the dream I realized that this was a fairly accurate rendering of my writing career. Ive written four books of poems, two libretti, and one novel. The thousands of pieces of indifferent or bad journalism do not count since I wrote them for money. The poetry books are out of print, but that is as it should be if youre an Indian poet writing in English. The libretti were privately printed, which means they were never in print in the first place. The novel, Narcopolis (2012), in which I tried to write of Bombay as a city of violence and intoxication, is the only thing Ive written that remains in print; again, this is business as usual for an Indian poet. Considering my modest oeuvre and how little of it is available, its an odd and oddly gratifying sensation to put the four books of poetry together in this volume, along with some new poems and poems that were written many years ago but never published. While compiling it, I left some poems unchanged, some I discarded, and some I rewrote, because, among poets, the rewrite tradition is an honourable one. As an example, here is a poem from Apocalypso, followed by the new version, in which Kafka makes an unannounced late entrance:

SELF-PORTRAIT (1)

He likes the stark symmetry of this place;
nothing excess, nothing wasted,
each book in its nook, slotted in.
(Unhappiness is something
altogether ambivalent:
Do you want to be happy,
he asks himself periodically,
or do you want to write?)

Now he lifts saucepan to stove,
images atone forever in his hands.
Ghosts of celebrations past
throw themselves lemming-like
into the insufficient flame.
Each small act is attended
by a whole host of demons,
friendly and not.

At nightfall, exhausted by toil,
he falls instantly into
a dreamless, honest sleep,
open to the elements.

SELF-PORTRAIT (2)

Unhappiness is a kind of yoga, he tells himself
each morning, a breath meditation; besides,
do you want to be happy or do you want to write?
When he lifts saucepan to stove, images atone
forever in his hands. Ghosts of celebrations past
throw themselves lemming-like into the meagre
flame, each small act attended by a host of demons,
friendly and not. The world is code, smoke signals the
dead have left us to decipher, knowing we cannot.
At nightfall, exhausted by toil, he falls deep into the
dreamless light changes, the dead or dying sea.
A mountain moves and nobody notices. The world
is old and set in its ways, and K. is saying, Of course
theres hope, theres always hope, but not for us.

I want to say, at this point, that it is difficult to ignore the posthumous nature of a preface such as this. It is usually a task left to others, preferably after the poets death. In my case, there are circumstances that make this writing inevitable. These Errors Are Correct (2008), written in dedication to my wife, who died, is the last full-length collection of poems I intend to publish. For various reasons, I am unable to equal the poems in that book and it seems to me that if you cannot equal or improve on your last book, it is better not to publish at all. I am fifty-five years old. Time, once a friend, is now the enemy. Each day is a gift that must be returned. I live in a rented house in a large Indian city. The thick air is alive with chemicals. Chaos is my friend and closest neighbour. This is my life and these are my collected poems. There is nothing collected about any of it.

NEW AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS (2003-2015)

Your lips go from sunny side to suicide in a single click.

Youre too fast for any sniper.

You know when to hit the ground and stay down.

When you step out, armies rise up or die by your eyes.

Your soldiers are of all ages, genders and religious denominations.

They have nothing in common but the image of you carried in secret lockets, or burned into their third, unblinking eyes, or tattooed into armpit and hairline and between the toes.

If you glance at yourself when youre kissed, the mirror plucks out its eyes, for no other image will ever again suffice.

You are kissed and kissed again. You are always kissed.

You wake up to a kiss and fall asleep to one. In between, kisses.

You say your dreams in a stunned small voice that belongs to the other world.

Your pauses are glacial, the age melds its continent to your breath, your tears are the end of seasons.

Sometimes, on an escalator, if you speak to yourself your unheard words will make a stranger stop in grief.

Your power is sustainable and biodegradable.

Your green will outlast plastic.

You invented electricity. The grids belong to you.

They blaze your praises, visible from rocket ship and satellite.

When you skip town, the wind on the street says your name.

Ah, it says. Kang. Sha.

No one escapes your influence.

Once, out of my mind, I tried, but the grass barred my way.

And the stars wandered out of their pens.

And God exhaled.

And no faith was left in the world.

The Hermans dance a white concertina
in the bordello of the flagrant kulcha.