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Daddy Daddy, it was just like you said
Now that the living outnumber the dead.

Where I come from it's a long thin thread
Across an ocean, down a river of red.
Now that the living outnumber the dead.
I'm one of many.

Daddy Daddy, it was just like you said
Now that the living outnumber the dead.
Speak my language.

Hello. Hello.
Here come the quick. There go the dead.
Here they come.
Bright red.
Speak my language.


- Laurie Anderson song

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Sunday, 24 December 2006

Water Song


Water Song

and whose poem colours the fish…as you let your confessions crumble upon the river…the stone falls from your soul…sinks somewhere…somewhere the wind churns up the words of the saint….rebel saint…the wind wounds the sleeping tiger in your fingers…the wind is the shade of old city streets…

the city shakes…in the river's pulse…and I know how the river looks at night…when all the bullets have mixed in bones…and all the bones have mixed in the boatman's breath…and the women in the auto remember death…and that night of séance…when the dead man let the romance leak out of his soiled hair…his purple love…for when he was dying he was afraid of insects but yet…he dreamed of the dark child who seemed to be watching him by the corner of the street…the dark child who held wild leaves between his lips…and the tanpura crept in like the tiger…or the wind flower…

At times, the darkness speaks…speaks of that thin figure that walked up and down the corridor…looking at pain…painted on the floor in the colour of a kiss…she wept at the river…time slides in her skull…her story was only heard by the rebel saint…a story clings to the bullet in her hair and his soul…

In the old silent streets, you sit on the steps of a home and let your confessions mix with the wind…and will the darkness find its priest…who sings the water song

girl of the rivers

whirl in the blue air

talk to the lovers

walk the tiger's lair

the girl walks upon the tides, and hears the voice of the fish and the voice of the stones…and the voice in the bones swallows time…the tanpura starts again…like wine and the wind…

And I know just how the river looks at night.

5 comments:

Sheelonee said...

too much in love wid the Girl of the rivers ,huh..Inam?(smiles)

very well woven....goes perfectly in tune with a song -"River of Dreams"

[In the middle of the night, I go walkin in my sleep
From the mountains of faith, to a river so deep.
I must be looking for something, something sacred I lost
But the river is wide, and it's too hard to cross
And even though I know the river is wide
I walk down every evening and stand on the shore
And try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find out what I've been looking for]

purpleshunshinethings said...

rebel saint... hmm... i like it. as cliched as it seems.
i'm going to use it somewhere.
where are you? werent we supposed to meet?

Diviani said...

it looks like this? it sounded better. if it was really this.

i'm blogrolling you. (hah. like it makes any difference.)

Inam said...

yes Diviani, the stream-of-consciousness technique used in this poem doesn't fall gently on the reader's mind...requires audience agility to keep up with the changing images...therefore I guess it works better with my guitar-harmonica-reading-audience- eyes-closed method!

swapnita said...

like an epilogou to some thoght left unfinished...repatriated on a nite of lonesome birds...but yes! the birds did crow when i left my 'confessions to the wind'!
poetry is often a portrait of a body without a shape. 'stream of consiousness' was affective..
felicitations!