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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