THE IMMORTALITY OF NOTHING and other poems

Cecil Rajendra

THE IMMORTALITY OF NOTHING (from By Trial ‘n Terror, 2004) 

On one nothing- 
much happening 
day, a wandering  
vole sidled up 
to me to whisper: 

“Know what 
the trouble 
with your poetry 
is, mister?“ 

i shook my head 

“It is always 
trying to say 
something 
about something; 
always striving 
after meaning; 
and nothing 
dates like 
a poem 
that says something. 
if you would  
your poems endure 
write about 
NOTHING; 
Nothing lasts forever.” 

— —

MY MESSAGE (from Hour of Assassins, 1983) 

And now you ask 
what is my message 
i say with Nabokov 
i am a poet 
not a Postman 
i have no message. 
 
but i want the cadences 
of my verse to crack 
the carapace of indifference 
prise open torpid eyelids 
thick coated with silver. 
 
i want syllables 
that will dance, pirouette 
in the fantasies of nymphets 
i want vowels that float 
into the dreams of old men. 
 
i want my consonants 
to project kaleidoscopic visions 
on the screens of the blind 
and on the eardrums of the deaf 
i want pentameters that sing 
like ten thousand mandolins. 
 
i want such rhythms 
as will shake pine 
angsana, oak and meranti 
out of their pacific 
slumber, uproot them- 
selves, hurdle over 
buzz-saw and bull-dozer 
and rush to crush 
with long heavy toes 
merchants of defoliants. 
 
i want stanzas 
that will put a sten-gun 
in the paw of polar-bear and tiger 
a harpoon under the fin 
of every seal, whale and dolphin 
arm them to stem 
the massacre of their number. 
 
i want every punctuation --- 
full-stop, comma and semi-colon 
to turn into a grain of barley 
millet, maize, wheat or rice 
in the mouths of our hungry; 
i want each and every metaphor 
to metamorphose into a rooftop 
over the heads of our homeless. 
 
i want the assonances 
of my songs to put smiles 
on the faces of the sick 
the destitute and the lonely 
pump adrenalin into the veins 
of every farmer and worker 
the battle-scarred and the weary. 
 
and yes, yes, i want my Poems 
to leap out from the page 
rip off the covers of my books 
and march forthrightly to 
that sea of somnolent humanity 
lay bare the verbs, vowels 
syllables, consonants … and say: 
 
“These are my sores, my wounds ; 
this is my distended belly ; 
here i went ragged and hungry ; 
in that place i bled, was tortured ; 
and on this electric cross i died. 
Brothers, sisters, HERE I AM.” 

— —

ART FOR ART'S SAKE (from Rags & Ragas, 2000) 

Let us rescue poetry 
from the barbarians  
Those who would reduce  
it to a flag, a slogan 
a vehicle for propaganda 
 
Let us cleanse poetry  
of everything political  
of causes, campaigns....  
the stock-in-trade 
of the crude pamphleteer 
 
Let us return poetry  
to the realms 
of pure art 
resuscitate it with  
the essence of nature 

Yes, let us give it back  
its true noble stature  
and enshrine it in 
its rightful sanctum  
sanctorum of culture 
 
But when the last leaf 
quivers to the hot earth 
from the last 
chemical-riddled tree 
and the last grasshopper 
limps away into the sun 
and the last beleaguered 
ant-cater turns halt- 
ingly towards the sea 
and the last songbird 
plummets from its 
ash-gloved perch 
 
and the last soldier 
twitches in his ditch 
and the last oil-slick 
moves in to devour 
the last of our beaches 
who will explain 
"Art for art's sake" 
to the gasping fishes? 

— —

FORGING AHEAD (from Refugees & Other Despairs, 1980) 

To build a nation our people 
were urged 
to forge 
a National Unity 
 
To build a nation our people 
were urged 
to forge 
a National Culture 
 
To build a nation 
our people 
were urged 
to forge 
National Consciousness 
 
And in the end 
though it was not 
the Government's Intent 
our people had built 
nothing but forgeries! 

— —

REFUGEE (from Refugees & Other Despairs, 1980) 

(for Jane Fonda & M.M.) 

Do not talk 
to me 
of inhospitality . . . . .  
A refugee 
from the granite 
inanities 
of my fellowmen 
i've known 
rejection everywhere. 
 
i'm no beggar 
or tradesman 
but S'pore to Stockholm  
London to Berlin 
i've seen lips tighten 
eyes turn to flint 
at my offered hand 
 
And i'm a stranger 
in my own land . . . . .  
They shoot refugees, don't they? 

— —

NEW BROOMS (from Limericks from a Lockdown, publication forthcoming) 

(for Kua Kia Soong & Ann) 

We were promised  
new brooms 
that would sweep 
away old rubbish  
accumulated 
on our doorstep  
over the ages . . . . .  

new brooms 
that would sweep 
out corruption 
acronyism, draconian  
legislation & every  
kind of discrimination 
 
and so, on a wave 
of high hopes 
& expectations 
we swept a new 
coalition into parliament. 
 
Little did we guess 
those new brooms 
would sweep old rubbish  
straight from our front  
porch into our kitchen! 

— —

INSTRUCTIONS TO 'TRUE' POETS (from Hour of Assassins, 1983)

Seventeen million dead children: not just an  
unpleasant thought, but a horrible reality. In the  
past year while most of the world fretted over  
rising inflation etc., that's how many children  
died on this planet: 40,000 a day, 1,666 an hour,  
27 a minute, one every 2.2 seconds. 
 
Damn, damn all clichés  
race, blood, famine 
& such fleeting things. 
Record for posterity  
the eternal verities:  
Love, sex, loneliness  
the loss of innocence  
precious little things. 
 
Write about how she turned  
and stomped out leaving  
the garden gate unhinged;  
write about the terrible pain 
of grandpa's ingrown toenail  
or the angst and anguish 
of some long distance novelist ... 
 
Write about death  
(if you must) 
but keep it personal  
and in proportion 
an aunt or two 
or a distant uncle 
never of an entire people 
of some bloody foreign nation. 
 
Stick to precious little things; 
i mean love, sex, loneliness  
the loss of innocence ... 
not bleeding matchstick babies! 
 
And if someone says 17 million  
die each year of malnutrition  
(one every two seconds) 
that's someone else's problem. 

You must concentrate on precious  
things like love & loneliness; 
you must steer clear of obnoxious  
clichés like blood & dying children.