By Ashwani Kumar
Columbus in Christmas
I hear Columbus is in the city —
a sailor of ocean blue,
spilling secrets of his adventures to storm-starved skies.
Bells ringing, angels singing at traffic lights.
Persian pomegranate seeds scattered along the streets,
each a crimson promise of seers and saints.
Down the harbour line,
he drinks like a battered pirate
in cafés filled with scented sonnets, glossy lipsticks.
The sea glows like a faded ink-blue fantasy
in the starry Harlem night —
velvet slum-queens in fishing gowns
sway their rebellious hips
to the sounds of green-eyed dolphins,
frolicking like camels in candy stores
On the Brooklyn Bridge,
confessing to his old cabbie friend,
Columbus sobs over lilacs of the new world,
crushed beneath Times Square piers.
The moon slowly melts in his flesh —
pleasures burst into prayers, an unknown bliss.
I close my eyes, taste bread and wine —
snow starts falling like forgotten memories of home,
the candle still flickers in the box of the Father.
It’s Christmas again!
The Lord Comes to My House
The Lord comes to my house.
Delivers the message from the bank:
“My account is short of minimum balance.”
Late in the afternoon,
I get a call from the Seven Angels —
I have sinned by not submitting my income tax on time.
Ashamed of peer pressure,
I drink, dance,
and sing Merry Christmas from my rooftop.
At the end of the year,
the large crowd of scribes issues a new commandment:
“The names of the scriptures be changed.”
Cut off from the past,
the kingdom of the old dynasty
clamours for crumbs of lost native glory.
None too happy with the silly conversations of married men
leaning against the crystal office desks,
the widow call centre worker
is tempted to undress in the anaemic streetlights.
Snowflakes burn alive in the charcoal fire.
Children gather hairy snails in damp fields.
Grateful parents wait for hot omelettes in the living room.
Another year knocks at the door...
Another miracle descends from the sky...
O Lord,
we can no longer hide from your promise.
We can no longer keep the debt unpaid.
Absurd as it may sound,
I tell you the truth:
“Faithful buy prophecies on credit cards,
and pagans wash their empty hearts on the holy stone.”
Ashwani Kumar is a poet, political scientist, and professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Widely published, anthologized, and translated into several Indian and international languages, his major poetry collections include My Grandfather’s Imaginary Typewriter, Banaras and the Other, Map of Memories, and Architecture of Alphabets (in Hungarian). His recent works include Rivers Going Home and Scent of Rain: Remembering Jayanta Mahapatra, major anthologies of contemporary Indian poetry.
Banner image by Andrea Swank downloaded from Unsplash.com