I
flit through the cities as an embodied ghost,
Here in the shadows of spires kissing stars,
Or along mews still fragrant with fame,
An invisible shadow that sways along waves
And sings with the leaves of Notting Hill or Hyde
That chime with the footfalls of time's studded
stars,
Here along banks of Thames and its nymphs
Who dapple my feet with uncertain beats
As I gaze into its depths, unsure and cross
Calculating fractions of ecstasy and loss.
Blown by the gusts that rush through my
pores
I stand almost dazed on Westminster pier
And walk towards bridges with Arias in feet
Buoyed, yet conscious of memories of skin
That grope for their roots beyond towers or waves
And sunder my soul to a thousand new bits
Which gather on the wharfs of our time.
Puzzled
though I am, I shore them in grace
And search for the patterns of faith which'll smell
Like cardamom and cloves along Bayswater Road
And frame me new constructs of culture and self
That spill beyond squares of immigration forms
And scatter into pixels of sense.
Author’s note:
The images of the disembodied ghost, Thames and its nymphs, the sundered bits of soul that gather on wharves of time and even the idea of patterns of faith are all drawn in various ways from Eliot’s The Waste Land, as evident in particular from the verb ‘shore’ which is also tellingly used in the same poem. His lines, images and techniques keep seeping into my texts, consciously or otherwise, testifying to his abiding relevance.
