From the Tongue of an Experienced Simpleton

From the Tongue of an Experienced Simpleton

Akshat Khare With what words do I answer the Sun? The song of time wordless Flows through the matted locks of the destroyer Shiva * On the streets of my city Well-meaning people are handing out Obscure books to the lost men who wander And shuffle about in their faded green jackets Searching in the back alleyways for the alchemic formulae That can transmute old paper to bread * Which Chowk was it, Which Chauraha where Camus lies now In a Jumble of linoleum and oil and fragmented steel and blood and bone Kaufman did you finish writing the Great American Suicide Note Before your old age death In some forgotten gully of Delhi Nietzsche in fits waits for a warm hand In the palace of mirrors His voice reflects eternally Žižek stands fragmented and alone In the Thar Fisher I know it is you who haunts the sand stone forts of the pink city Rambling to the tunes of jungle and jazz At the end I can see you smiling Cioran As the Ganga takes you The celestial river of death and life I found your bloodied bandana Tangled in the branches of my Banyan, Wallace What now How do I balance your accounts Pessoa * Forgotten tongues trace out the alphabet of longing On the backs of the unloved and the unloving * Signage: This is a memorial for the thoughts that died under the yoke of the unconscious * The Thousand Plateaus that drowned in the Aral Dot it as Islands now Tiny Islands once Now Endless Desert The Curves of the Landscape Rising and Falling along The shadows of her form * Zarathutra climbed the mountain Searching for Solitude But found only lonliness there When he came down He came down running * In the depths of the sunless stepwells In the belly of the Bhramarakshasa In the murky depths of forgetting Messages without destinations Wait * Saturday is a good day to die Cobain died on a Tuesday Calvino on a Thursday Camus on a Monday Wallace on a Friday Mekas on a Wednesday Kawabata on a Sunday * At the centre of the Mandala Constellations of March are laid out On the cloudless dark sky In search for lost words The tongue of the simpleton Wandered the Thar Rolling over every grain of sand Gliding over the ever shifting dunes Parched The tongue found itself In the Ganga tasting history Drinking now the cool rivulets From caves hidden away In the Himalayas Ending its journey It folded back inside the simpleton’s mouth No longer restless for secret meanings now Having tasted the honey of unknowing

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