atiguhya padma
01-06-2006, 02:20 PM
A small voice from close space
Said “This is a city of voices”
Down it’s narrow misty ways they cascade,
Sonar on its return journey from walls
That cannot shelter these words.
Peeling plasterwork, crumbling masonry hold no solace,
Ruthless time, ages of sentences, paragraphs, pages
All words, harmful and peaceful, insulting and commendable
Liberating and deadly words. They melt into symbols.
Turn away down this paved alley, there, on the wall
See what artwork is this, the protoletter encircled, the tools of toil,
The swastika.
In this square, muddled with people, voices layered a hum
Their shadows follow them around like embarrassed children
A created and designed mass of darkness enclosed in space
And time.
They say this place is timeless.
I see architecture uniform without variety, preserved imagination.
In truth it is a ruin.
Decayed.
Decaying
Voices VOICES voices tumbling over everything a volume of water too strong
For any object or obstacle.
On the vaporetto, two Asian travellers are drawn to the empty seat
Until the old woman sitting there moves her hand across,
An inverted salute prevents them from justifying their payment.
We went through a narrow space, tight and enclosed to get to
The ghetto:
200 odd Jews were sent from here on the words of one man in WWII
Only a handful escaped, survived.
After, this man was never prosecuted, punished.
He lived here, he escaped.
“This is a city of voices” you said, snapping a shop window
I’m caught in the reflection, the long straight back of a warm coat
I stare at the stain of the sun on the peaks of the water
Rippling like a red banner that dances in this relentless tide of winter wind
This city
Is filling up and falling down.
At times, I admire the futurists.
I hear our history, our world in voices.
I see the future, the thoughts that will bring words and deeds reflected here
Captured in this deep, cold, hopeless, watery mezzotint.
Said “This is a city of voices”
Down it’s narrow misty ways they cascade,
Sonar on its return journey from walls
That cannot shelter these words.
Peeling plasterwork, crumbling masonry hold no solace,
Ruthless time, ages of sentences, paragraphs, pages
All words, harmful and peaceful, insulting and commendable
Liberating and deadly words. They melt into symbols.
Turn away down this paved alley, there, on the wall
See what artwork is this, the protoletter encircled, the tools of toil,
The swastika.
In this square, muddled with people, voices layered a hum
Their shadows follow them around like embarrassed children
A created and designed mass of darkness enclosed in space
And time.
They say this place is timeless.
I see architecture uniform without variety, preserved imagination.
In truth it is a ruin.
Decayed.
Decaying
Voices VOICES voices tumbling over everything a volume of water too strong
For any object or obstacle.
On the vaporetto, two Asian travellers are drawn to the empty seat
Until the old woman sitting there moves her hand across,
An inverted salute prevents them from justifying their payment.
We went through a narrow space, tight and enclosed to get to
The ghetto:
200 odd Jews were sent from here on the words of one man in WWII
Only a handful escaped, survived.
After, this man was never prosecuted, punished.
He lived here, he escaped.
“This is a city of voices” you said, snapping a shop window
I’m caught in the reflection, the long straight back of a warm coat
I stare at the stain of the sun on the peaks of the water
Rippling like a red banner that dances in this relentless tide of winter wind
This city
Is filling up and falling down.
At times, I admire the futurists.
I hear our history, our world in voices.
I see the future, the thoughts that will bring words and deeds reflected here
Captured in this deep, cold, hopeless, watery mezzotint.