Olson: Space is for him a her

What uncanny timing presents
A picture as a birthday poem
To this porcupine-pine
Prickly-pear pear
Tree with me written all over
It.

Sustained on a staple diet
Of mouse and pad
I bristle nicely at the slightest
Threat.
Cover my flanks with
Hives.

But how nicely I stand
With my elbows sticking
Out!
All angles and isosceles!
To equanimity my humble
thanks!

Poised on the head of a pin,
Pin-cushioned from
Tumbling
Down
Held together by a static
Automatic
Discourse.

Of course I’m happy.
I was born that way.
I’ve been sitting
Too long.
Let me stand up and up
Do the one-leg
Dance
Shake my disquiet
See?
On to the ground.

Sampurna Chattarji

the paradox box is flipping out, as usual.
and you,
you’re keeping your head.
as usual.
that’s where it all comes together
the animal farm of ideas
delectably yours.
wouldn’t do to lose it.

the double helix is hiccupping.
it happens to the best of us.
there’s a puzzling phase.
who are the best?
who’s us?

the juke box is telling stories
in a beer bar in south Bombay.
feed it fifty-rupee coins.
don’t mind the loops.
in time, your story will come.

your story. never a-
verse to slipping side-
ways.

your mind.

strange attractor.
magnetizing
blue
paper
very small coffee cups filled with
very strong coffee
bicycle
graffiti
river
train timings
such things are not
unheard of.

it’s taken its time to grow.
three years to be exact.
slowness has been its sap.
it might be a vine, not a tree.
find it a staff to twine around.

and longing?
what do you do
when it comes?

in story your time will come.
bearing giants and pinwheels
sycamores and shibboleths.
it will be mythic.
no one will
write it down.

it was the hottest summer.
the sternest metals melted.

lingering in the greenhouse
a tactician’s move.
who knows if this poem
will need glass to shelter it
from the cold
will need heat to keep its
tropical heart beating
will need a bright
artificial sun?

take it, transplant it where you will.
it’s yours.

A poem by Sampurna Chattarji  for Nils Röller, October 2015

because feet will always fly
skin will always crawl
goose-flesh will swan-song
semantics turn antics
to good advantage
but what when it fails?
up-lifting
like an in-spired un-mechanical
crane
depth out of flatness
is beyond most.
but you
you
push light through wall
each time
a new break
through which my eyes
can fall
skyward again.
you
never stop changing
me
into the colour
that might
rise or spread
splotch or gather
darkness
gentling
I look for the knife
in your softly-gathered
flowers
the ridge of the face
that sits white on white
in a neural
inwards so strong
the surface is endangered
beyond touching.
oh and then you
restore
my fingertips
in them I feel
the blue grapes
ripe for picking
from their crushable glass.
this is all your doing.
I have never felt so close
to the edge
of paint
what paint might mean
beyond knowledge
of what it is
what it can do
how edible
and cruel
how demandingly
it rises
to meet every challenge
you set it.
this is your owning.
I have stolen a piece
for days
when words are not
(they never are)
enough.

Sampurna Chattarji, poem for Barbara, August 2015

Oh the disturbance of fur!
Where shall we hide?
Which cliff shall we hang on to by the skin of
Our teeth?
(Teeth unbrushed          fur)
(Shingle   hair    illness of the skin)
Collisions shall set us free.

Sampurna Chattarji

qualitas occulta,
this is
-not- what, Keith,
renders poetry transcendental, or
yes, it does,
does it?

The fabric of your life is un-
Weaving
Wear your heart inside-
Out
So I can see you for the
Me
You really are

Sampurna Chattarji

Look. I am emerging from fingers of grass.
Hedonist grass-man, me.
Head of lead soul of tin heart of golden syrup
I rip-off ofs from every animal vegetable thing.
I slit air-vents into duct tape
I seal off exits I slowly carve apertures
That will help me speak
My
Ventral
Mind.

Sampurna Chattarji

Impotentia recipiendi Deum I
write these big words,
adopting them in my squeezing way
in mind Keith Waldrop:
As the wave reaches the church, it
Separates right and left and the edifice is
Embraced. Confabulation fills the gap.

The image rings a bell in the inner ear of purloined wolf.
Watch the rabbit run.
The awful finagling tweedle inside sardine dins.
The twang of twine.
It is intentional.
Throttle openers tot up the score.

Sampurna Chattarji