Adil Jussawalla

New Poems

House

Wake up. Don’t you want to see me go?
What you heard in your sleep were sledgehammers.
Did you think it would never happen?
You’d read the notice.
Good morning.

I was condemned for no fault I can remember.
You remember, you have memory,
The room into which everything you once see goes.
Houses don’t come with that extra.
Where do the things we see go?

See my rooms now, staring,
Their outer walls gone: my secret eyes
With nothing left in them.

See my still-polished staircase rising
To ends that can never be met—
Doorways that draw a blank.

I was raised to think I’m no pushover,
But you see, I am.
All houses are fall guys.
The plans you lay to set us up
Touch our very foundations.

Wake up, sleeper who dreams of building
But will never build. Sit up in your bed-sit
Or better still, stand.

I’m setting you free.
You future’s got nothing to do with what’s happening to me.

Your universe was built to dance on a pin,
Mine, to stay still. Tell your guru
That stillness did a house in.

Balance, though you’ve lost heart, lost ground,
Balance, nonetheless, groundless, balance.

English Lesson

This stick means carnage. See,
white powder spilling away from
the side of its mouth
is drawing a skull.
Say it please… skull.
It can’t draw a rose.

Young Europeans, mostly, in class.
Across their faces, my wry reflections
run like water on glass.

This is a tank.
This is a skull.
This is—

This is a stick of chalk.
With it I draw pictures.

My country’s at war.

There’s only one God,
there’s only one Good,
and both must be learned without pictures.

Wristwatch

Stare into my stonehenge of radium
as much as you want.
Walk into it if you can
but you can’t.

We age unsynchronized,
differently.

It’s only three o’ clock in the morning
that spells exactly the same thing
for both of us.

An American Professor in the 70's

1

The American professor asks me where I stand
on Peace and Love, then adds, “that sixties’ shit.”
“Put in a corner, bottled for war,
as touchy as petrol, sir, I sit.”

2

The American professor asks how long I plan
to continue living this way. “Now and forever,” I say.
“Try Pandit Pankaja’s pink pills for piles
and laughter! laughter! laughter!”

3

The American professor knows there’s something wrong
with me, with the city, the moon too strong
like the drinks—a white-hot kettle
that’s run out of steam and astronauts touch with a yelp.
We stand on the balcony side by side,
every lit window a cry for help.

Government Country *

Paradise

Sufficient unto the day its anaesthetics.
More than sufficient if I take any more.
Who’s dead, who’s sick?

The walls have multiple bruises,
The floor’s out cold.
This place can’t take any more hurt.
I’m off.

Ahmed turns up,
He smells of an empty bottle.
I inhale the stars,
They smell of boxing gloves.

Lucky

What made them sick? Why are they doubled up?
Call an ambulance. Take me in too.

It’s Friday namaz, you fool, and that’s a mosque.

Call an ambulance all the same.
I’ll pray like that woman I saw at St. Michael’s,
Shaking all over, bare-headed, crying.

I’ll pray I get out alive. The press said
Bottles were sealed at the Tardeo bar,
That spacious, high-windowed Tardeo bar
Last night, ten souls too late. A star
Burst yesterday. The press has photos.

Picnic

We came to government country
Seeking asylum.

Some of us want to leave,
Some of us had to.

We got carried away like Subbu,
Like Ron, like Jal, like Ahmed.

We got carried away early.

Famous Trinity

Calendar Katy’s the guru of Trinity.
Those at the table below her
Get covered in talc when she breathes.

Her disciples at other tables
Pay her better attention.
Their eyes grow round and wet.
They’re sure to get powdered too.

The missal that’s Pandu’s special
The papads he thappads
Aren’t the magnets that draw us back.

When calendar Katy does her pranayam,
When calendar Katy takes a deep breath,
The air is filled with blessing,
The room smells of her talc.

* Government country is cheap liquor manufactured by the state and sold in special bars. The names of four such bars make the poems' titles.