SELECTED
POETRY
by Ashok Niyogi
'YOU PHONED'
I have to recall
Vividly enough
That tonal nuance
Across ether
Lest I suffocate
Chewed up fingernails
Of uncertainty
Fragile as is life
Has it shattered
Fragments devoured
By pixels prancing
On TV
Prayer is the answer
To a lungful of air
I strategize
To myself I will be fair
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'RESURRECTION'
Walking on molasses
My fingers twitch
Voices lost to silence
Cranial convulsions
Acute sense of smell
Enlarged liver
Constricted lungs
Not ready for resurrection
I am not well
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'RHYTHM'
He will lead me on
Upturn each weathered stone
Explain what the maggots stand for
I will fight
Use my accumulated folly
As a clone eroded with gray
And salvage moments
Through meticulously planned random
From a syphilitic time
When I was master of present
Navigator of the future
An overgrown stage actor
Cuddling an orgasmic past
And having failed
Be led
Into a horse-trodden sky
Mesmerized
By the metronome
Of hoof on stone
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'SUNDAY IN THE FALL'
It startles me
This arrogance of the geese
Formation flying in fall
Exultant in the morning breeze
They swipe and slash at me
Cruelties innocent
In these morning shadows of destiny
I tap my feet
To an unlikely beat
Your sounds at sunrise
Uncanny Retreat
From abyss to abyss
Across beds
Of needles that have fruited
Red berries
And yet
There is no deliverance
In poisoned ambrosia
No succor
In curling back
Into my shell
At the Milpitas Mall
They paint me gay
And of my naked claws
I am afraid
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'DEATH IN SPRING'
Somewhere
In the third paragraph
You talked of spring
From equator to pole
Left to right it spread
The contagion of grass-flowers
This dimple on your left cheek
Just above the mole
Must this poem end
Or will the sleeping pill take hold
Perhaps
This childishness I can transcend
With a sanitized murder
An unambiguous bullet
Beneath the cheek-bone
A Carnation
In full bloom
Inside a blown up head
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'MOVING ON'
Ignored
Overlooked
Slighted
An object of unconscious contempt
Like a sun that has set
Like a fading twilight almost
Tomorrow I will rise and shine
And ignore overlook slight
Blind dazzle
Unconsciously stare
Down out and away
And so it will be
River into sea
Into air into rain
Pouring on my sailboat
From the river
Take away disdain
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'STILL LIFE'
Mix some 7-UP
With the water in the vase
Put in a quantity of plant food
And in the single shaft of afternoon light
Through the Venetian drapes
The Lilies will bloom
In the crowded room
I sit in comparative gloom
And run away with horses in Ulan Bator
Until its time for my evening walk
And then the inspection in the mirror
Chins tucked in chest puffed out
An analysis of alternative routes
With Lilies blooming in the room
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'TIME PASSES AND PASSING LEAVES NO TRACE'
I
BHUTAN
We made a shortcut
Through nascent paddy fields,
Terraces into the sides of hills,
We splashed across in sandaled feet.
Ten, maybe fifteen leeches
Stuck their suckers onto ankles,
Between toes,
And gorged themselves
Until they were almost as thick
As my little finger.
All we did was carry common salt
Which we sprinkled on their bloated forms,
They would disintegrate,
Leave a blob of blood,
A red weal that would quickly heal,
And a shred of inconsequential skin
On the soggy mud.
Life was uncomplicated then.
II.
MOSCOW
Warmed up brandy and Cuban cigars
Chased by Vodka in a crystal shot-glass,
One dollop of caviar topped up with a cherry,
And tankards full of Nevsky beer.
Trees are barren, they wail with the wind,
Soon it will snow.
Gentle giant flakes
Wafting down through the up lit Moscow,
The chipped pavements, the cracked roads,
Hydrants leaking steam from hot water pipes,
They are all overwhelmed by the chaos of Yeltsin,
Ornate chandeliers in incredible metros,
Blink at pensioners and war widows,
No one knows why in Chechnya,
Flowers bloom and wilt away,
Despite �plant food�
In poly packs.
Nothing much more happens anyway,
Life is full of twinkling stars.
III.
DELHI
The topography of my split-level living room
Flashes through my urgent mind,
I must quickly negotiate one more step
To reach the basin in the bathroom.
Blood corrupts marble and the varnish
On teak-wood doors,
But washes away from porcelain,
I must vomit in the basin.
No common salt remedy now,
They must band the esophagus,
I have a �gusher� so they must rush,
Must force the blood to coagulate,
The scab will leave a scar,
And of course they must pump in,
A basin full of somebody else�s blood.
IV.
KOLKATA
I sit in the geometric center
Of an absolutely windowless room,
Just the floor, the ceiling, and me
The walls are hostile aliens,
In slow motion they inexorably close in.
The air is fetid with my breath,
With occult blood the floor is red,
The color of red-oxide on the Golden Gate.
In this lull before the ambulance comes,
I illogically think of leeches
In paddy fields.
No holding of adolescent hands,
No poetry near the memorial
Of Queen Victoria,
It is like a circus winding up,
Packing bags, coaxing animals into cages,
Hectic activity near railroad wagons,
Complicated manifests to check through,
Life is stuffed with inventory now.
V.
FREMONT
Hospital visitors have dwindled to zero,
The nurses and doctors are disgusted
At life with its guided tour to death,
They wish they were treating cancer instead,
Not something self inflicted.
The needles in my arms tell my head
That that is how it should be,
But I need the poetry of Bukowski.
There is no blood,
So leeches avoid me,
They can�t possibly gorge
On my poetry.
The wife is like Quixote,
Lancing windmills of the mind,
Sancho Panza, shall we sit
By Lake Elizabeth,
And surreptitiously feed the geese.
We talk of the Mongolian Olympics,
And plan to go this June.
But before that, I must go to the Ganges,
Meet it where it flows out from the hills,
Stand in the fast, shallow, cold water,
And perform mandatory last rites,
For my father who died a year ago.
You go back to Shanghai,
Be with your uncle for a little while,
These Nevada hills are anyway yellow,
We will meet in December and gaze on the green,
Let life go on,
Until then.
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'MR. ELIOT, ARE YOU LISTENING?'
Madame Sosostris, the leaves are running away
With the springtime wind, into the University caf�,
Mr. Scogan, what prophesy of apocalypse do you bring?
The grass smells oh! so fresh and green
Budded with cupidity and sin,
In shadow behind the lamp,
Tent pitched beneath a Portobello mushroom,
On your ear lobe is that an earring?
These mushrooms grow in the air from Hamadan,
While you examine a cemented palm print
On the footwalk of Stars embedded in archaic senility,
What, after all, is your Machiavellian plan?
Eye huge behind the magnifying glass,
Sinister, these fates of March,
�Perhaps there is something in it after all�
Otherwise, why have the cacti mutated so?
We cannot help but oversimplify,
Decimation follows the metric system,
Is uniform, total and immediate,
Decimation does in turn itself mutate.
Ashes radiate ashes to create a wasteland
Shrunken ovaries, ululating uterus
As rheumy eyes keep shrewd watch for the Holy Grail
On a spec of dust in the universe.
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'LAGUNA STREET'
i woke up first
A back dated copy of US News
Stained by roasted garlic flavored
Extra virgin olive oil,
The neighbors have moved away,
In this silence, I miss their children�s noise
I resent the refrigerator rumbling so.
On Laguna Street the cars come and go,
Geese squawk by
On their way to Ellis Lake,
Branches are pencil drawings against a gray sky,
Works of art that never sold.
Autumn leaves seasoned by winter rain
Are sequestered in the patio,
A pair of bicycles with flat tires
Is chained to a tree trunk.
We live outdoors in almond groves,
Row after row in camping huts,
And plan to walk through tulip meadows,
Mind numb with color,
Counting tulips to go to sleep.
Is there a lesson in this to learn?
Write me a five hundred-word story,
Call it � The clouds will go,
there will be sun�.
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'ENNUI'
Disenchanted with ennui,
I want my earth
To meet the sky,
To catch a falling star
Outside a �Monday thru Friday�
�Nine to Five� job,
But traffic on the eight eighty
Enshackles me in the tapestries of my mind.
Amnesia walks me through corridors of lice
Armed with coffee cups, the stock market on the radio,
I have lost all with my nasdaq fall
Into bars and brothels of dubious repute,
All is carnal after all.
Entrapment with Chopin on the alarm clock,
Donuts oozing with cream, wiped away with a napkin,
How do I get away from Tchaikovsky at night?
As the older whores at last snore,
I light a cigarette and lean out my window
To wail a poem, catch a falling star.
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'BLOND HAIR WITH AUBURN ROOTS'
Life, in the cruelty of morning light,
Is a strand of copper blond hair
With auburn roots, asleep on a pillow.
Are you waiting for the snail mail
To bring you the implant
That will explode in your head?
Or will you dedicate your life
To multiplication of garbage that oozed
Into ancestral rivers, lakes and skies?
Will you let blood bubble on the Tigris
Or become a collector of limbs in Grozny,
While I inaugurate a thousand Darfurs?
Will we terrorize freedom in freedom�s name?
Goliath, let us fortify, let us amend,
Or one day David will pelt us with a catapult,
Blood will copiously flow
From our forehead into our eyes,
We will be blinded, unless we already are.
Deep cleansing milk has to be sold by the gallon,
And, of course, Listerine.
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
'DADDY'
My Daddy scuttles across the ocean floor,
Let tons of seawaters flow past him,
Over him,
As he makes subsonic noises
Protesting my sins.
The waters listen,
As do fish and sharks
And other predators of the sea,
The sea horse dances its traditional dance.
Seaweed�s weave and sway,
As if in chorus.
The villainous dragon from Monsters Inc.,
Changes color and does his disappearing,
Shrek awaits luncheon in his swamp,
Daddy is late, he has �diver�s� cramp.
I patiently explain to him
The phraseology of Rap,
The mechanics of whoring
Just outside the Kremlin,
But with magnifying glass,
He still looks for gray in Lenin�s beard.
A thousand Pol Pots were David Copperfield,
No less, spinning agrarian dreams for Daddies like
him,
And other Daddies like Uncle Ho,
Paddy growing from the barrel of a gun.
Gorbachov had the world on his head,
But ultimately, the Drunk pointed cannon at the Duma,
And won.
�Daddy, understand the dialectics
Of the spinning wheel in Atlantic City,
Otherwise as Donald Trump would say,
You�re fired!�
� Ashok Niyogi
Reproduced with permission
