Author: mascara

Douglas Miles on WS Rendra

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in Reviews/Essays.

EVEN MUTTERS CAN MATTER: TEMPTING STUDENTS
WITH THE TASTE OF BAHASA INDONESIA

DOUGLAS MILES: An Essay On W.S. Rendra

W.S. Rendra who enjoyed several visits to Australia, died in Jakarta on the 6 August, 2009 at the age of 74. I valued a joking relationship with the “Burong

Merak” (= peacock). He delighted in this soubriquet and successfully nurtured his own media image as a youthful cosmopolitan and energetically flamboyant maverick despite the fact that like Javanese farmers, he always went barefooted and usually dressed entirely in their faded black cotton garments anywhere “off- stage” and as a rule when on it. Indonesian thespians who were younger than he assumed that he was my junior. They called him “mas” (= “gold” as well as “big brother”) but categorised me with the dross of “oom” (=“Dutch uncle”). Even so, among Indonesian sponsors of my graduate students, it was he who proved to be the most venerably avuncular and persuasively represented the interests of these sometimes difficult expatriates during his occasional formal visits to the Academy of Sciences (LIPI) with a charmingly elegant (alus) but sartorially flawless (rapi) professionalism. Should I now share the secret that he persuaded me 30 years ago (when Suharto’s junta refused him an exit permit) to smuggle his way an urgent consignment of not-so-flamboyant-black hair-dye? Never!

My disconnection from the internet in recent months because of travel spared me the sad news of the death until his Teater Bengkel (Workshop Theatre) unexpectedly contacted me during mid-October with some of the distressing details. And I certainly was not insensitive in retrospect to the poignancy of my efforts in Europe during the interim to have striven to emulate the characteristic vivacity of Rendra’s own readings of his poetry with my own incomparably ersatz declamations but of course with no mention of his recent passing to any of my audiences. An even greater regret has become my inability to tell him how his work has recently helped me to recruit Western students to the study of his language. But it would be more important to him that teachers who have that responsibility should receive that message in which any doubt they may have that this is so will cease once they have tested the tried and proven pedagogical procedure I exemplify below.

Even so it will be interesting to see whether any of the cognoscenti will gainsay my certainty that Rendra was the most brilliant of the few Indonesian poets and playwrights who managed to emerge from and survive the suffocation of literary creativity for three decades under Suharto’s New Order (late 1960s- mid 1990s). The Smiling General’s regime banned any printing or performance of The Struggle of the Naga Tribe which through the structure of classical Javanese/Balinese shadow puppetry, satirised the royal court in the pseudonymous Astinam (read Indonesia) and hilariously pilloried the Queen (read Mrs Tien -“Ten Percent”- Suharto) as well as her ministers for their vanity, venality and vene …(read the American itches which his dalang, played by Rendra’s wife had all these puppets forever scratching).

His security guard of military police arrested him rather than his assailant when targeted by a bomber while reciting the even more satirical Snapshots of Development in Poetry to the thousands of roisterously applauding aficionados who packed Ismael Mazuki’s roofless Garden Theatre (TIM). His prosecutors had to invoke a special Emergency Law that he had “provoked the attacker to violence” so that it was the terrorist in mufti who walked free while the poet went to gaol … And not for his longest stint … But what gets under my skin even years later, for nine eternally vermin-infecting months.

The former love lyricist’s originality in eliding the idioms with the sophistries of several languagesultimately defied Wordsworth’s (1800) narrowly effete definition that “poetry is emotion recollected in tranquility (sic) and calls for recognition of the genius Rendra evinced through anything- but- tranquil articulation of authentic and indeed uniquely Indonesian cultural and political priorities in Western literary forms. The poems he scripted as critiques of the New Order in his own handwriting for his lively readings from the stage became somewhat more than even the finest examples of that art by his most talented contemporaries (e.g. consider his protégé Emha, the theologically muscular Muslim bard). It was indeed Rendra more than any other of these Indonesian scribblers who transformed the “ho-hum” convention ofCatholic schoolboy elocution at Dutch eisteddfods throughout the colonial Indies into modern Indonesia’s robustly intellectual and iconically political dramatic genre of deklamasi whose magnetism has packed the theatres of Asian capitals and of foreign universities whenever they have delivered to publics and whether domestically or overseas.

Top dissident musicians of the time who were no strangers to the limelights were glad to sit somewhere out there in the darkness before him at home in awe-stricken envy of his command over that ambience. They included glitterati of pop and folk such as Ebiet of country-and-western fame, Mogi Daroessman whom they called the “Neil Diamond of Indonesia” and Gombloh of Lemon Trees. The singers persuaded the declaimers to compose lyrics for them whenever possible as they imbibed the lesson that the thousands of typically illiterate but articulate Jakartans in the surrounding blackness would loudly relish a politically barbed stanza whenever Rendra fired it just as surely as these ghetto-dwellers would flinch at the sharp whiff of a real Betawi curry when a back-alley cook stirred it : just a slight breath of salty blacan serrated the bite which hallmarked its own perfection; no need for these acolytes of Rendra to read some bit of paper like a recipe to savour either; and no need for them to wear footwear to a his recital if the price of cheapest thongs challenged their purchase of a ticket.

My tape-recordings vouch for Rendra’s remarkable propensity to draw volcanically creative spiritual energy from his largely barefooted audiences when he composed some of his most inflammatory verses. He would even create new stanzas spontaneously from behind the lectern amid his fire-and-brimstone barrages at the regime’s catechism of national commitment which prioritised ‘Development’ (Pembangunan) over ‘Freedom’ (Kemerdekaan); and the security of censorship over the public’s hunger to know (see below). During intervals in TIM’s dressing room he was genuinely inquisitive when he asked for someone to play back still-smoking lines he had just uttered but never yet read even to himself so that he could scribble them down notably for the first time and ask: “Did I say that or did you just make it up?” (How I wished I had.)

The specific qualities which constitute Rendra’s artistic greatness also include the many ways with which he transcended cultural differences; for example, with the translingual pun which I understand is an anathema for literary purists. The device helped him (deliberately?) to induce Western novices into an appreciation of Bahasa Indonesia and uncannily to speak that language sometimes before they even knew they were doing so. As a mere taste of this magic, I invite the readers to reflect on at least their own whisper of a few lines which the paragraph after next will borrow from “Sajak Mata-mata”. This “Ode to Spies” enlivens both Snapshots of Development in Poetry (Potret Pembangunan dalam Puisi, Balai Pusaka, 1978) and SOB (State of War and Siege, University of Queensland Press 1979).

Mourners at mortuary gatherings in Australia conventionally request one another to be upstanding and close their eyes to observe a collective silence in memory of the deceased. I propose that we honour Rendra’s memory equally respectfully by the very opposite of silence and with pupils wide open on the world in rousing declamations of what he wrote even when those who are with us are not all Indonesian speakers. Teachers can do no better than follow his example in providing prospective students of Bahasa Indonesia with such tempting introductions as the following to the creative possibilities of lovingly moulding the clay of the language he mined as the basic material for his wordcrafting.

Consider for instance the duplication which is so well exemplified by a word whose root “mata” means “eye” and which in the internationally now familiar “Mata Hari “translates as “eye of the sky” (= “sun”). As “mata2”, the root becomes an expression for “spy” or “spies”. In recent months I have introduced my tributes for Rendra in Europe by drawing attention to that simple feature of Indonesian and then inviting my listeners to participate in an articulation of this poem by quietly voicing the words “mutter, mutter” as a chorus to contextualize my own declamation from a faulty memory of the following excerpts from “Sajak Mata2”.

I recalled that the opening stanza of his handwritten notes of which I had kept a few photocopies somewhere back in Australia, began with an allusion to Indonesian newspaper readers urinating provocative gossip on one another to substitute for the facts which the controlled press denied those in the political hierarchy’s lower echelons:

Ada suara gaduh di atas tanah. (aduh2)

Ada suara pi(s)sing kebawah tanah

Ada ucapan-ucapan kacau di antara rumah-rumah.

Ada tangis tak menentu di tengah sawah.

Dan, lho, ini di belakang saya

Ada tentara marah-marah.

I encourage the continuation of the chant of “mutter, mutter” especially to accompany this fifth stanza about censorship and the expression of outrage that:

“……. Aku tak tahu. Kamu tak tahu.

Tak ada yang tahu..Betapa kita akan tahu,

Kalau koran-koran ditekan sensor,

Dan mimbar-mimbar yang bebas telah dikontrol?

Koran-koran adalah penerusan mata kita.

Kini sudah diganti mata yang resmi.

Kita tidak lagi melihat kenyataan yang beragam.

Kita hanya diberi gambara model keadaan

yang sudah dijahit oleh penjahit resmi.

Mata rakyat sudah dicabut.”!!…oleh… ?

This italicized and highlighted initial line of the sixth stanza translates as

“The eyes of the people have been “ripped out ” (like teeth) …by … ?

And the chorus answers with “mutter, mutter “ which harmonises with the

declamation’s

“………………………………….mata2”

So be it if Auden mused that “Poetry doesn’t (sic) make things happen….”(MascaraEditorial, November, 2009) when decades later on the other side of the globe Rendra’s talents with ball-point and microphone panicked even the most menacing of the New Order’s managers into seriously self-damaging, political miscalculation under the relentless barrage not only of Rendra’s drama but also of his declamations. Peerless artistic qualities proofed them against competitive cover-up of malpractice by the junta throughout the social system. Remarkably, the contribution of this Indonesian scribbler to the cultural heritage of the oppressed in his country has probably become the best evidence which pundits may ever need to marshal that poetry really does matter (c.f. Parini, 2008).

Even if only a few critics (and Auden) never understood that truth as certainly as Rendra did, he has bequeathed future scholars with an obligation to analyse the chemistry of the breathtaking literary and thespian dynamite he used to achieve its realisation during his own lifetime. Ma’afkan kenang2an saya yang begini syukurlah, mas; semoga berpulang dengan selamat!

Doug Miles (Centro In Contri Umani, Ascona Switzerland)

Email: miles.douglas09@gmail.com

REFERENCES

Mascara, (2009) Editorial, November, https://dev.mascarareview.com/editorial.html

Parini, J., (2008) Why Poetry Matters, New Haven, Yale UP

Rendra, W., (1978) The Struggle of The Naga Tribe (translated by Max Lane) Brisbane, University of Queensland Press

Rendra, W., (1978) Potret Pembangunan dalam Puisi, Jakarta, Balai Pusaka

Rendra W., (1979) SOB, Brisbane, University of Queensland Press

Wordsworth, W., (1800) “Observations Prefaced to Lyrical Ballads” in Harmon’s Classic Writings (pp. 279-296)

Shannon Burns: The Translator

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in Fiction.

Shannon Burns is a writer who lives in Adelaide.

The Translator

I am, you should know, by trade, a translator, which is to say I know several languages, and I can turn one language into another, as it were, so I am no amateur to this, whatever it is, if there is a name for it, which I doubt, since I haven’t come across it, and I have come across a lot of names, in many languages, but not the name for this, to what we are doing, or what I am doing, or what the world is doing with us both, whether we like it or not – and whether or not we like it I cannot honestly say.

I can turn one language into another, yet you, it would seem, have no language at all, you can barely turn your thoughts into sounds and gestures. The best I get from you is your moaning and biting, and the way you wring your hands, if they are in fact hands, since they seem to me to be somewhat like hands but not completely functional.

In any event, you won’t let me look at them closely. Every time I get near enough to study them you move away. If you are in your corner you move to the other side of the room, or you growl, or you foil my attempts in some other way, by sitting on them, for instance, or by screaming so loudly it hurts my ears.

When you scream, I am the one who is forced to move to the other side of the room, which leads me to imagine, sometimes, as I am scurrying away, that I have in fact taken on your body as you scurry away from me, from my desire to see your hands, which are in some sense sacred to you, and untouchable, although you touch them yourself, but always as if to protect them from being touched by someone else, by something else, since you won’t touch anything with your hands, other than yourself, which leads me to wonder whether they are hands at all, since hands are surely for touching, and if they do not touch perhaps they cease to be hands, and if they are in some way misshapen perhaps they cease to be what they seem to be, or seem to attempt to be, although they make no practical effort, but just by looking somewhat like hands, by having fingers and thumbs, and having the general shape of a hand, but never being used as a hand, and therefore doing nothing more than seeming like one – which strikes me as an attempt to be a hand, because it is so close to being a hand, whether it desires to be a hand or not, that it appears to want to be a hand, as if the form itself is the truest gauge of intention, although I strongly doubt it, yet it seems that way nonetheless.

It is as if, in those moments when I scurry away from you, feeling myself to be you scurrying away from me, I finally understand what it is to have those hands, which are not hands. I wonder, at those moments, or to be more precise in the aftermath of those moments, whether you have undergone a similar experience, whether you have taken on my hands while I have yours, whether you have suddenly felt yourself to be inside my body, and whether, for the briefest moment, while I am wholly disoriented and therefore incapable of watching over you, you have been able to speak.

The question of your hands is something we cannot depart from, but we will, for now, at least to a certain extent, although they must always be hovering, those hands, over everything, since without them what else?

What else, other than this, since there must be more than this, because without that what is this?

At least they are better than my eyes, which are nearly blind.

But, there again, how can one compare eyes which do not work with hands that are not, strictly speaking, hands?

It appears foolish, but at the same time strikes me as acceptable, and that seems good enough, for now, for me to depart from all this talk of hands or whatever they are, although they may hover, and let them hover for all I care, for I have cast them away with my eyes, which do not work very well, but whose mention at least has this power, so let that be the end of that.

The real question is as follows:

If I am to be you, it seems to me that I am, as a result, in a sense, to embody you, but which you? You have not yet, in truth, been allowed to speak, despite my speaking for you, as you. In truth I speak despite you, as well as for you, and with you, and because of you. In truth you are my speaking, and yet you are dumb, utterly.

For the most part you shuffle from side to side, instead of speaking, which is to say you walk in a strange way, if one could go about calling such a thing, as your gait, a walk. It is more like a dance, but without rhythm, or flow, or balance, or anything resembling the joyful expression of bodily movement. Instead you gait. There is no other way of putting it.

I have considered purchasing footwear, within which you might steady yourself, or seeking podiatric or chiropodic stimulus, in the sense of diagnosis and treatment and healing, or of teaching you to walk differently, given your lack of balance, or disease.

I say these things, I confess, as one might whisper prayers in the face of an abyss, against which we are thrown, so to speak, with little more than our selves, our basic parts, our meager substance, to subsist on. But you are not an abyss, by any means, my dear, or at the very least not merely.

If you are, as they say, enigmatic, a thing to puzzle over, a wound, let’s say, an opening, let’s say, then you are not quite an abyss, but rather an opening into flesh, with its definite tissue, its intimate warmth, its assent by touch.

Because this is the crux of the matter: I have felt your assent.

That is to say, you have said yes to me, but it was a yes, a trust, consisting entirely in touch, in touching your body with my fingers, although it’s true to say you withdrew from me in that touching, but you allowed it nonetheless, even though you were not completely there, since you seemed to take refuge in some other place, some place demonstrably inside you and therefore, I might add, bodily.

You were not there, you said yes to me. This is what I am getting at.

Perhaps you will be able to enlighten me, later on, when you have taken up some form of speaking, when you have become, in a sense, speech itself, of the place into which you withdraw. Is it a place of the past? Or is it a still place – a sanctuary, let’s say, against time, in which things are wholly unfamiliar, as a landscape in a different world, given other predicates, attuned to different sensibilities, like, for instance, a gentler form of gravity, or a porous light.

Perhaps it is a place inside you, and if I am, in fact, to draw you away from it, in a sense, with this language, to give you tools for containing it, and constituting it, and re-constituting it, then it seems to me I am doing something bodily, something concrete, and acquiescence to such a thing can only be given as touch, as I have touched you, and discovered your withdrawal, at the same time as your assent, which is at the very least an assent to something, though it only be my presence there beside you, with my hand on your mouth, covering your lips, that you might speak.

Your lips said yes, without speaking. This is how I’ve interpreted it.

There is a risk involved, undoubtedly, but if you were only there, as you are now, as you read this, then you would understand my response to your lips, as you are now, as I write this.

You are asleep.

Something in the writing of this, while you are asleep, is a digression from the ordinary work I have taken up, of becoming your story, so you might be told it from my mouth, in return, and this digression speaks of something else, something I am not entirely comfortable with in this process.

It is this.

I was leaning over you, earlier, and in a sense conjuring something, something concrete, since the feeling had crept over me quite overwhelmingly the night before, and was being repeated at that moment, earlier today, that I was in need of your touch, and that your touch, your skin, might not be entirely relied upon, and there was something about this idea, which I couldn’t put out of my head, as I lay there in the dark, last night, which I could hardly endure, which threatened to tear away at something, something altogether necessary, the loss of which would leave me utterly disrupted, let’s say catatonic, completely destroyed, erased from existence.

Yet the next day, today, I touched you, and your flesh said yes, or if it wasn’t a complete assent it was at least a partial one, since your flesh said yes to me, yes, I am here, even as you withdrew.

Andrew Jackson

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in Poetry.

Andy Jackson lives in Melbourne, Australia, and writes poetry exploring the body, identity and marginality. He has been published in a wide variety of print and on-line journals; received grants from the Australia Council and Arts Victoria, and a mentorship from the Australian Society of Authors; and featured at events and festivals such as Australian Poetry Festival, Queensland Poetry Festival, Newcastle Young Writers Festival and Overload Poetry Festival. Most recently, he was awarded the Rosemary Dobson Prize for Poetry, and is currently a Café Poet in Residence for the Australian Poetry Centre. His most recent collection of poems, Among the Regulars, is scheduled for release by papertiger media later in 2009.

Ghazal

Why do you smother your soul in that fist still?
This wound will open and heal itself – just sit still.

Sheer will’s not enough. Floating past like dropped pollen –
all these tree-borne thoughts your intellect has missed, still.

The country doesn’t care for you, the earth craves your bones.
All your machines will only make you an atavist. Still,

who are you but your tics and eruptions, your prosthetics
and open holes? A flower is much more than its pistil.

Sand is not ground but a crowd. The ocean knows this.
However bitter the wind, the shore must still be kissed.

Press your thumb into these bruises, your forehead
to the earth, and face the unbreakable tryst. Still

water? A trick your mind plays, persuasive as a mother
tongue or god. Beyond the city’s grid, thick mist still

waits in the deep valley for your water-logged body.
Dream of becoming bread, oh grain – you are grist, still.

Not the smoke or the wick or the shadow on the wall,
moth, but the flame, which cannot exist if still.

Something else

Since the door was locked, I’ve learnt so much.
A face can feel the sun yet forget what it’s for.

Bars obscure the world, shrink the room
to stand up, take a few steps. Legs buckle

under the weight of a body with no soul.
At intervals I’m fed, given medication. The walls

absorb the smell of those who arrived and left.
Only the press release escapes.

I have no desire to lash out. The voices are calm
and impersonal – the risk to the public

still not low enough. These wings
are withered and pecked to the bone

and see the future, like the sky, is an open
lie. Everything is a weapon.

Refusing food, speechless, I speak
the only dialect left. Outside are people

who say they wouldn’t treat an animal like this,
their faces averted like statues, ideal humans.

My life depends on us becoming something else.

Comfortable

My instinct’s to curse myself –
the shore is a wall of fire, my city sings
its people into fuel, the rotten pillars

of the jetty creak their warnings, while
this boat of bones tugs at its moorings.
Yet each rope I approach with the knife

has become a throat my heart can’t cut.
Instead, alone, at night I pace the hull
and scrutinise each knot – these twisted

lines, old stories which hold me here,
a half-brave face raised, my fear
the sea could be a mirage.

Johanna Featherstone

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in Poetry.

Johanna Featherstone is a Sydney-based poet and founder and Artistic Director of The Red Room Company: www.redroomcompany.org.

After the Funeral

Family space vibrates with Grampa’s past effects;
to the left shoulder of an elegant desk, a square
gold frame holding the smile of his son,
dead at twelve year’s old. Toiletries, wallet things,
collected from the hospital, weigh down the single
bed that recently held his butterfly body.
On the dresser, pollen flakes from a posy of blue
cornflowers, pulled from their garden plot.
Dust particles through light, fuzz forms atop
rubbish bags, packed with his clothes, for the tip.

The Fernery

Ferns shroud the bench where I sit.
Each frond settles in its own moist corner,
a rivulet trickles beneath the simple teak bridge.

Moments grow. Then your shape enters the
miniature jungle. Our bodies cowled in vines;
plants and ants witness our licks, until tourists
with cameras snap open the yielding bodies –

and we run from the radiance, leaving behind
(for next time)
the filtered light and vanishing faces of mist.

Franz Wright

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in Poetry.

Franz Wright, the son of poet James Wright, was born in Vienna in 1953. During his youth, his family moved to the Northwest United States, the Midwest, and northern California. Wright’s most recent collections of poetry include Wheeling Motel, where the poem "Night Flight Turbulence" appears. Past collections include Earlier Poems, God’s Silence and The Before Life. Walking to Martha’s Vineyard (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003) received a Pulitzer Prize. Wright has translated poems by René Char, Erica Pedretti, and Rainer Maria Rilke. He received the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, as well as grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Usha Kishore

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in New Worlds.

Born and brought up in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Usha Kishore now lives on the Isle of Man, UK. Usha was educated at the University of Kerala (India), Sheffield Hallam University (UK) and Canterbury Christ Church University College (UK). After having taught for some time in the British Secondary and Tertiary Sector, Usha now teaches English at a Secondary School on the Isle of Man . Usha’s poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, UK, Ireland, Europe, New Zealand, India and online. Some of her poems have been translated into German, Spanish and Gujurati. She also writes critical articles for international magazines. Her poetry has won prizes in UK competitions and has been part of national and international projects. Her short story “Dowry” was shortlisted for a major UK literary award, the Asham Award (UK) in 2005. Usha also translates from Sanskrit; her translations of Sankara have been published in India, the UK and USA. She is now translating Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara, in conjunction with Dr.Rati Saxena of Shree Shankaracharya Sanskrit University, Kalady, Kerala.

For The Dynasty Of the Moon
(after reading Kylie Rose)

For the dynasty of the Moon,
A hundred thousand lives lost
in verse…

Metres of battle scanned into
Krishna’s eternal song –
A stoic sage chronicles the

end of his own dynasty –
a patient elephant God scribes
into eternity…

In the Vela kali of yesteryear’s
setting sun, I hear the battle cry of
the lone sun-warrior, who challenges

the house of the moon.
Panchavadya notes echo
into twilight memory –

The raga hindola, mourning the death
of the lone young warrior killed
by deceit. Arjuna takes a terrible

vow and Krishna smiles in the
bugles of Panchajanya, while a
lone monkey mediates on the flagstaff…

From the carvings on the temple wall,
she, with unravelled hair, calls out to my
soul from stone – screaming revenge for

the disrobing of womanhood….

Krishna’s eternal song – The Hindu “Gita”
Vela kali – Temple art (dance) form
Panchavadya – five instruments played together
Hindola – a raga in Carnatic music
Panchajanya – the conch of Krishna (The poem is based on the Hindu epic Mahabharatha)

Nikhat’s Mother

She stands out in a crowd –
Her shocking pink
dupatta carrying
songs from the Gilgit –

She is without
a language here –
I am her interpreter –
translating her
language, her culture
her colour–

She does not understand
why Nikhat has to attend
school daily – Nikhat is at
her sister-in law’s cousin’s
wedding in Bradford–
Today is Mehendi, tomorrow
is the Nikah and Nikhat will
not be in school for a week –

She does not understand
why Nikhat is harassed
by school bobbies –
Bibi jaan, taleem lena,
dena hamara mamla hai –
Ye gore kyun dakl dete
hain?

Biting back half-an hour’s
exasperated laughter,
I interpret to the irate
Head of School:
Nikhat’s mother does not
understand the concept
of compulsory education…

Mehendi – The henna festival before marriage
dupatta – veil/scarf
Nikah – Muslim Wedding ceremony
The Urdu dialogue can be translated as: Madam, education is our personal business, why are the whites interfering?
Gilgit – a city in Northern Pakistan and is the gateway to the Karakoram ranges of the Himalayas.

Zuzanna Nitecka

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in New Worlds.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, Zuzanna Nitecka left her home country in June 2008 to seek inspiration under the palm trees of Spain. Her greatest inspiration is the magical world of Richard Brautigan’s imagination. She is currently living in Madrid, writing, wandering around at night and making friends with struggling musicians. And teaching English in her free time.

After

You get on the train at 6:45 giving off waves of afterlove frequency.

There is a glow under your skin as if you had dozens of very small Christmas candles in your belly. You stand out against the cold fluorescence of the metro. Eyes turn to follow you as you pass by in search of a seat. You sit down, oblivious: perhaps you pull out a book from you bag or sip tea from a green thermos. All the while. The car gradually fills up with your mind that is aglow.

Loss

There’s nothing more sadly sensual than after-rain pine trees stuck into earth like paper umbrellas dropped into a cocktail glass.

As I walk under dripping branches, thinking my thoughts, I see a black scarf on the concrete path before me. It belonged to a woman. She wears heels and perfect make up. Sweet perfume. She is afraid of growing old. The wind must have untangled the scarf from her shoulders. She walked all the way home from this little park with the ghost of the scarf wrapped around her neck. Before she realized it was gone.

Concert

The clanking of pots and pans drowns out the music (a sonata of practicality). She brings out the dinner: rice in asparagus sauce. As the music begins, she will fidget. Thinking about plates that should be washed; drinks to be served; stains on the tablecloth. Meanwhile, the musician plays

as if he was taking revenge on the world. To avenge some terrible grievance. Then. The trembling of strings announces it’s over. In the silence

that comes, a question: “Will you help me clean up?”

(…)

The demon of disturbed sleep

broods

in bright daylight

(…)

A hudred years ago, it was 7 am. Beds rocked softly

on cold floor like empty peanut shells.

Nandini Dhar

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in New Worlds.

Nandini Dhar’s poems have appeared or is forthcoming in Muse India, Kritya and Sheher:Urban Poetry by Indian Women. Nandini grew up in Kolkata, India, finished her M.A. In Comparative Literature from University of Oregon, and is now a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at University of Texas at Austin.

inking the hyacinth

knowing how to make

the rosemary smell

like thyme is not enough.

her brother told her. with a touch on her forehead,

which, he thought, would reassure her. if she really

wants to be the kabiyali she thinks she is, she must

learn how to make pearls from inside her spleen.

and that, he said,

requires perseverance.

amongst other things.

not yet ready to give up, she spent days

sorting through spine splintering brick.

looking for the right kind of dust.

holding the specks

against the sun with

her three fingers.

the other two craving for shades of green

she had never hoped to touch. then, once

she had them all, she swallowed the dust

drops. one by one. every one of them. not

noticing that her forehead now bears five

glowing blue spots.

exactly on the places where

her brother’s fingers touched her

cantaloupe skin.

probably because, she wasn’t feeling anything there.

almost in the same way the leprosy skin fails to notice

the prick

of a pin

on itself.

in the bread-colored desolation of a machete moon,

she had to admit that her brother did not want her

to pull out her eyes one after the other and serve them

to him in crystal jars.

marinated in lemon juice, rock

salt and cinnamon flakes. neither

does he want her to spend the day

sweeping speckless the ground under the guava tree

but, being just back from turning an oyster princess

into a porcelain-doll, he believes his assurances can

turn all silhouettes into full-blown

statuettes. she, on the other hand,

would rather scratch the oyster-shells

hard and let the blood dry under her broken nails.

blood, when allowed to harbor chaos on its own, can

become a bladed verb which will pierce a bone right

in two. yet, eager to regale in his desperate certitude,

she gave up the bristles,

the blood,

bones and the blades.

for thirteen years, three months and three days, she made

the hyacinth leaf her bed. fed on air. and woke up every

morning to throw up spit the color of deep brown earth

and sunlit scar tissue. which she would then use to sculpt

rabbits, deer, sparrows and hedge-hogs.

and once she crawled back

into her hyacinth bed, her brother

would break them all. one by one

too ordinary, he would say, with an expert frown. the morning

she spat the pearl out, her brother held her head, picked up

the pearl stone, and after looking at it for two whole minutes

through purple tinted field glass, said, sissy dear, you are yet to learn

the art of madness wild. it was then that she smashed

the pearl on the rock. collected pieces

too pink. and wrapped them up in

her rainbow-skinned scarf, walking off

towards her hyacinth-shield. needless to say, no one

saw her ever again. Nothing much happened to her

brother either. only the white hyacinth flowers, in

the lake, turned fluorescent violet. and on full-moon

nights, they bleed red. routinely. ritually. without fail.

irreconcilable:lines for virginia mem-sahib

My aunt, Mary Beton, I must tell you, died by a fall from her horse when she was riding out to take the air in Bombay. […] A solicitor’s letter fell into the post-box and when I opened it I found that she had left me five hundred pounds a year for ever.

A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf

since 1835,

when abhinavagupta, shudrak, and rumi were forced to sit

tight-packed on a single shelf, leaving the rest of the world to alphabets

that jumped out of ships and judge-sahib’s wigs, textbooks have perfected

the art of making crazed scribbling-chicks look tame.

tame enough to be tapestried into buttercream muslin pillow cases

tame enough to be painted on jasmine-white schoolroom walls

tame enough to be talked about without once referring

to that conch-shaped nose of yours

the look in your eyes, which says,

i am perfectly capable of drenching myself

in the purple-blue of a drizzly-day sun, claiming, the sun

belongs to me and only to me, and can,therefore,

be swept away, into the abyss of my purse,

just like the peacock-feather of my hat.

my tongue was daffodil-bruised.

the little man made me peel oranges

for eight hours every day, my ass on wood,

the tip of his beard brushing off the last traces

of elizabeth, mary, all those poet-girls who walked straight

into the smoke-filled coffeehouses, corsets tightly folded into eight

in their armpits.

hell,i didn’t know that even sammy dear

had waved off the sugar-bowl with the back of his left hand while pouring

out a full dose of white guilt in the wings of albatross

so, i held on to your lonely sun. although,

for my own sake,i would have rather opened my lips,

tongue,limbs and nipples to the storm. yet, there are days,

when i craved for a share of your sun, with bleeding fingernails

and all.

you were running,

your skirt hitched up to your knees,

from the very old man

with scissors for clipping the wings of women

who build abodes other than the ones thrust upon them

by holy matrimony.

i was running right beside you,

trying to figure out the color of the thread of your hems.

i would have given anything for them to be the shade

of clotted blood, rust, deep-fried, well-breaded mutton cutlet.

and there was mary beton.

bombay.the horse. the fall.

five hundred pounds a year. a room ensured.

damn it, girl, i couldn’t care less

for your aunt beton or her fall. but I did care

for the five hundred pounds, which, had they

stayed behind, could have been used to build

my own room. Or, for that matter,

one for my sister

one for my cousin

one for my aunt

one for my mother

one each for my father, brother and uncle.

ginny dearest, i don’t trust you

with the carving of my wood.

for all practical purposes, you’re just

another mem-sahib.

nothing more.

Nija Dalal

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in New Worlds.

Nija Dalal was born in Atlanta, GA; she’s a second-generation Indian-American, currently living in Sydney, Australia. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Georgia State University, and she produces for Final Draft, a radio show all about books and writing on 2SERfm. Her work has been published in Dry Ink, an online magazine based in Atlanta, and in Ordinary, an online magazine from Sydney.

photograph by Dorothy O’Connor

A Midget Toe

A sign of inbreeding long ago that weaves through generations from a small Indian village, where people still die of live wires in water, to a city where the rich live in sparkle-ugly towers built on top of slums. This minute warp in genetic code weft its way through my mother’s DNA and winds with her across oceans and continents, over, under, over, under.

I have named it “the midget toe.” The fourth toe on my right foot, it sits slightly higher than the others; it’s never quite fit in. It assumes a superior attitude, never touching ground unless forced, leaving the other toes to do the actual work of walking.

Because of the midget toe, my right foot’s profile looks oddly truncated. A delicate heel, an elegant curve at the arch, a big toe, and the rest is misery. A downward sloping hill ends with a shock flat diving board. The other foot bears no match; no, the toes of my left foot follow the graceful gradient you might expect, if you ever expect things about toes. The midget toe means every open-toed shoe purchase is fraught with one very disconcerting question: does it create the illusion of symmetry? The sales girl is never paid well enough to respond kindly; closed-toed is my refuge.

Like a grown woman wearing a padded bra, I hide my toe’s shortcoming and my shame with curved rigid structure. It feels wrong inside my shoe, self-consciously insufficient, while the left foot rolls easy and confident.

I share the midget toe with my mother, my grandmother, my aunt, but not all the women in my family. Irregular, unpredictable, like a needle skipping stitches, the toe dances with some, slights others. If my lineage were woven in an ever-lengthening fabric, if the midget toes were marked, the tapestry would show a sort of hidden genealogy, a kind of coded secret, and it seems slightly magical, fairy lights twinkling in a family tree. I didn’t choose to have it; life might be easier without it. But the marvel of the midget toe lies in the knowledge that no matter how far I travel, if I unravel, a twisting thread keeps me tethered across oceans and continents to an immigrant home, a leafy Southern suburb, a sour-smelling sea-borne city, and a small Indian village, over, under, over, under.

Peter J Dellolio

Written by mascara on January 1, 2011. Posted in New Worlds.

Peter J. Dellolio has published critical essays on art and film, fiction, poetry, and drama. His poetry and fiction have appeared in various literary magazines, including Antenna, Aero-Sun Times, Bogus Review, and Pen-Dec Press. Through 1998, Peter was a contributing editor for NYArts Magazine. Currently he is working on a critical study of the films of Alfred Hitchcock. He is a graduate of New York University, 1978, and holds a B.A. in cinema and literature.

Ineluctabilis

I will leave the building with her. We will walk together for several blocks. It will be night. Before we leave, she will say something to me, she will make some remark about the tone of my voice. When I speak to her, the tone of my voice will have a certain effect on her, and so she will make this comment. As we leave the lobby of the building, I will notice that its beige marble walls have a faint glow. This will be the effect of a street lamp shining through the glass doors of the entryway.

I am not speaking to her at this moment. I am going to speak to her.

After turning my head to the right, I will lower my eyes and see the bicycle that she will be wheeling alongside her. I will notice its two wheels. She will have painted the black rubber blue, for aesthetic effect. The black night will be filled with cool air. The blue wheels will appear many shades darker than they are. This will be caused by the numerous shadows the night will have cast upon us. The cool air will make me feel carefree and somber at the same time. This association between atmosphere and emotion will be unconventional. For the darkness of the night will give me a carefree feeling, and the coolness of the air will give me a somber feeling. She will glance at me from time to time. These glances will be unrelated to the movement of the bicycle she will be pushing alongside her, except of course for the contrast between the dark circular wheels and her bright round eyes, but I will not notice this contrast.

She is not glancing at me at this moment. She is going to glance at me.

It will not be late, but the streets will be empty. It will be quiet. For the most part, the only sound to be heard will be the softly squeaking wheels of the bicycle. I will have forgotten the sound of the door that will slam shut as we leave the lobby of the building. However, she will remember this slamming sound, because while we are walking, she will glance at the dim, empty doorway of an abandoned building, making a remark about how unusually quiet it is. I will feel particularly lighthearted if I too look into this doorway. The moment she turns to look towards it, a zephyr will lightly blow across my face, and thus I will suddenly be arrested by a desolate feeling. A huge flag will be attached to a pole protruding from the window of a building across the street. It will wave slowly and gently in the night air. By the time I notice this flag, we will have passed the abandoned building with its caliginous entrance, but the flag will continue to wave in the breeze.

It is not waving at this moment. It is going to wave.

When we reach the subway station, we will part. I will enter the station and board a train. She will begin to ride the bicycle home. Before we part, we will stop for a few moments by the station entrance. It will be located on the corner of a main avenue surrounded by traffic and pedestrians, and so the silence of the night will be gradually filled with the noisy sounds of traffic and talking people. From below us, in the underground tunnel, a chaos of vibrations, created by the parallel trajectories of many speeding trains, will suddenly emerge, and at this moment I will glance at the two blue wheels of the bicycle. She will be looking at me when I glance at the shadowy wheels. Her head will be positioned at an angle that will allow the whites of her eyes to shine very brightly. By this point, the air will be still, and the flag we will have passed will hang down limply, no longer waving. I will not see the flag in this state of immobility, but I will be reminded of its waving when I lift my head from the wheels and look at her. This reminder will be triggered by a cool gust of air, lightly blowing across my face just as I lift my head from the wheels in order to look at her. At this moment, a passenger sitting in one of the passing trains will glance at a public service poster for the homeless, displaying a photograph of a derelict building, glowing in the moonlight. When I lift my head and look at her, we will say goodnight. As I turn away from her and start walking in the opposite direction, I will glimpse a gleaming yellow taxi speeding behind her head from left to right. The streetlamp will no longer shine directly upon the marble walls inside the lobby; the glow of the taxi will diminish considerably as it falls under the shadow of a newsstand in a futile attempt to miss her. This attempt will indeed fail as the cab strikes her fatally during the moment she closes her eyes while waiting for the traffic light to change.

She is not closing her eyes at this moment. She is going to close them.