Guest Poet Pradeep Mane
wings for cyllene
my daughter said she had been chosen to be the fairy
in the school play.
so sat down making a pair of thermocole wings,
strong but tender,
and elasticised so she could flap them. and understand
the meaning of flight.
/song of the supposedly sacred sin
it was that sack
where genes
passionately in that searing heat pounded
away in an undulating ecstasy of an ethereal convulsion.
you divided and multiplied
into those cartilagious limbs
(strong tomorrow)
buffeted in uterine lullabys.
& you, you my daughter
through who's arch of legs
a thousand generations will come to pass.
an oasis under your belly;
a mother touch taken for granted.
docility exploited.tenderness expected.
cantilevered bonding.
condemned giver never receiving.
- a
chrysalis
that's not to soar.
woman in your decrepit living
those accursed thighs,
suppressed laughter,
dead feelings and
abandoned emotions.
lying to suffer another screw.
you'll moult as each relationship
is burdened on you. you
grappling myriad avatars -
leper daughter-
motherlode sister-
whore wife
who's mother art thee?
how many births of a lifetime must you endure?
your heralding
a monster in its pagan spite
a spring in innocence
i learn to chase
i did not know what.
wings for cyllene
so
i give you these wings cyllene. dream but chase.
dream and achieve. be tender in understanding others
strong when they are defenceless, fly them when
tears do not comfort, spread those wings to provide shelter
and you'd be tied down as you grow...
August, 2002
Pradeep Mane's questions:
1. this is a poem for my daughter. struggled 2 years to write it. i
wanna tell her the truth of living. the kafkasque vaudeville we
compromise with. it may not have a structure, no craft but could i tell
my daughter thru it the banality of our living. the rip off. the tar of
our existence. she's 7 years old.
2. dissections are welcome.
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