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Writer's pictureA Too Powerful Word

Arvind Joshi


Arvind Joshi is an Indian poet based in New Delhi. He writes in both English and Hindi. His published works are Songs From Delhi (2002), Main Astronaut Soon (2014) and What Are the Guards Talking About In the Dark? (BKC, Serbia, 2019). In 2018 Joshi wins together with Nenad Trajković first place in a European Facebook Festival Competition that takes place in Novo Miloševo, Serbia, for his manuscript What Are the Guards Talking About In the Dark?



what are the guards talking about in the dark?


what are the guards

talking about

in the dark?


they don’t care

that it’s night.


they don’t even notice

when there is no

light


anymore.


there are two of them

these days.


one is young, and smiles

when i go past him

towards the elevator.


the other walks with a limp

and is old.


just when

the people in the apartments

are about to sleep


they begin to walk about

blowing on their whistles,

knocking


on the poles

on the tarmac

on the cemented pavements


with their bamboo sticks.


just when the people

in the apartments are about

to dream


one of them calls out

to the other.


if it is the young man calling,

you can hear

the old one’s staff

as he limps across.


if it is the old one calling,

you can hear

the young man’s laughter.


then they talk.


i sit drinking my last

one for the night.


and want to know badly

what


people and things

they talk about.


when all the bastards living here

have to smooth their pajamas

and sleep


what

are the stories that can still

walk about


and disturb the silence?





cigarettes at dawn


she had a voice, you know,


was like gold threads

pulled fine.


she’d sing when the sun was up

leaning over the clothesline


a song about the season turning


and about a brother

who could bring word from home


but won’t be coming.


she’d sing when the sun was down

stretched out on the couch


a song about a restless wife

and something about poison


and peace.


and the last time we had

some time together


she sang of those days

and of friends.


she had a voice like

gold threads.


but that was before

i found her


living life in her pajamas,


looking worn,


and silently smoking

endless cigarettes at dawn.





On a perfect afternoon


On a perfect afternoon

I push my Panama hat


Back a little and sit back.


My girl's full mouthed,

She has yellow flowers in her hair.


My belly is full

And my tongue soaks

The aftertaste


Of Coriander and salmon,

Papayas and melons.


My table has Earl Grey,

Served by a girl with tropical breasts

And shyness hands.


I have poems in my head

And time.


The sky is blue and the tide

Is up on the beach, and I think


There are only two things

A man like me can do


On an April afternoon as this.


Get an old dhow and a dozen dirty rats from the city

And storm the cruisers crossing

The Indian Ocean.


Or play Billy Holiday.


I do the other thing.


Light my cigarette and listen

To her sing.


For hours, hours.






if we were books


if we were books, we'd be two hard bound, two

section sewn, fray. worne curiosities.


we'd be in different scripts, and indifferent

cities, where walking sticks street into nooks.

in two shops, where hands leisurely seek used

books, to over and over turn, feel, pour over

and buy.


if we were books, we'd be the only ones


adjacent to the only ones that sold

in a long bookshop time; the left behind

two obscure titles, first editions, both.


surely the only spines that are leaning,

conspicuous among the long straight rows

of names that stand with a dignified air

of belonging.


i would be in the poetry section.

halfway between fact, where books, old as us,

wait, and fiction, where you without fuss

would play your closed book part, different always

from untruth, which couldn't make it to art.


if we weren't books, love, you'd live by the brush,

i by the pen. two books in two disguises,

quiet and leaning among men.





an igloo on the planet pluto


an igloo on the planet pluto


with a black dog

that shows its underbelly


to nobody


and looks away when it hears

you mutter at night.


a house with a yellow beetle

under a cashew tree


where you can hear

the sea at all times

and paint the verandah railings


in greens and limes.


some dreams survive only

till you know


they can't come true.


and some only

till you know they can.


waiting for the traffic jam

to open up, love,

when you look up at the sky,


which one of the two dreams

you reckon


am i?





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