Six Poems

Ranjit Hoskote

RITUAL

Let the games begin

He sits alone in a room broader than a river
his song choked to a rivulet

The supple girls have bathed him in milk
fed him grapes and honey
and themselves

Tomorrow they will dance at the festival
as he burns

FLEECE

Or how the Great Game continues in Afghanistan:
feint and parry, M-24 and Humvee

Word comes back
          from a border town
          trapped in an occupied country

The wali writes in code
       I’m sending you this fleece
       woven from mare’s tail and mare’s nest

It’ll fit in your rucksack
       Fold it away with your sketch
       of the fragile midwinter sun

Hide them from the skinflint clouds
         until I can come back
         who’s sent you nothing but warnings

Emcee of freak weather events
            I’ll lift your tugboats in the desert
            They’ll tow defunct countries behind them

as I chant spells from my Pashto grimoire and make it snow

TALISMAN

A game of hide-and-seek reported from the bardo

Hiding behind the weekend
            you watch as the carpenter sizes up your boat
            and two old women start cutting your sails
            into nine coarse pairs of trousers

Take a break to look at the indigo clouds
         It’s time you owned up  
         to rinsing the heavens
         and hanging them out to dry

What do you think that huge fish was
          you hear the women whisper
          on which he rode around the whirlpool?
          He kept its skeleton by his bed his whole life

Here’s where you crouch
            above these shimmering currents
            gripping a river stone in your paused hand
            powder-blue veined with white

A talisman
                 the colour of home
                 Throw it
                 as far as it can go