Godhra and other poems

A clarificationWe were not screaming, QaidiWe were echolocating the silenceWe were not running, Qaidi.We were tapping the pavementwith our feetto see if it might givelike the trick floortrap door of a nightmare.We were not on fire, QaidiWe were field testingan experimental fabricfor wings.And when we crash-landedand started moving our bony fingersin the ashesof our bodies.we were not drawing mapsto escape the city.not at all, Qaidi.we were drawing each other's faces.we were writing each other's names.***.Aftermath.When it was finished.the citysloshed some trafficover the spotwhere my friend the lawyerShaukat Ehsanburned.the cityscrubbed at the black stainwhere the Fiat's tires meltedscrubbedscrubbed it away.with Tata trucks.bicycles.sandals.hoofs.paws.rain.the citybleached our whole neighborhoodwith camera flashes.and hid the bodiesunder the saffron tarpaulinof a stage-managedapologia.To this day, Qaidithe only scorch marksare on my memories.branded with his initialsfor life.cattlechattel.propertyof the dead.Memory, Memory.holy heifer.whose udderevery morning.I milk of pus.***.Episode from the Ramayana.Lanka is on fire.Dresden is on fire,.kerosene oblations poured on a svastika.The Vandal's mandala is on fire..With kites for walls and toothpick bridges, Tojo'spaper-and-glue Tokyo, too, is on fire..Nippon, napalm, naphtha: Greek fire, spit forthfrom a siphon, blisters the sea. Herakles? On fire,.his shirt soaked in a centaur's quicklime heme.Phan Thi Kim Phuc is on fire,.American cameramen forever by her side, shooting.Agni, agony, Saigon, gone: Thich Quang Duc is on fire,.and he, too, will become a photograph, and win a prize.Burn, baby, burn. Old Glory is on fire,.and new glory, too, this vainglory of a match burningtoward the hand that struck. Giordano Bruno is on fire,.and all our bygone divines, beggar devas, the Shining Oneswhose names are ghost pepper. My mouth is on fire,.my tongue is on fire, somebody get me a glass of water,my sinuses, my eyeballs, my match head skull is on fire,.my flamethrower's spit, my fuel's heart, my dragon's breath,my poem, my person, my sermon are one fire,.by which I mean to say:Lanka is on fire..***.The Neuropeans.Sensations river in me, lucidZambezis of cerebrospinal fluid,Upon which a whimsical compass disorientsDysenteric late Victorians..Romantics with their riding cropsScale my dizzy EigerkopfTo gaze on a misty, dendritic green,Ecstatic in the dopamine..My globe's four lobes were named in GreekBy Neoclassicists who seekDeep in an aging, Aegean SeaThat hippocampus, Memory..Any day, a Bubonic bug or virusCould plant its flag on my lingual gyrus,But the monks are singing their Te DeumIn the ruins of the corpus colosseum..In the interior, on the ocean floorAre whole Amygdalas not yet explored,Awaiting their Levi-Strauss, their Speke—My brain of darkness, my tristes tropiques..***.Ode to a pinecone.All shinglesand no stupa,all scales and no song,.fruitwood ladderleading upon steps of sap.to the pinnacleof evergreenyou pine for, all our.Christmasesimplicit in yourhand grenade's.slow-motionexplosioninto pins, the pine.full-blownwhere you land,gradual shrapnel.we touch with a hand.***.The medical mission.Unmusical men but men of sound science,we rode on camels out to the kingdom of silence.where none had been allowed to speak or humsince the House of Aud allied with the cult of Mum..A penlight in each mouth revealed a stubtongue covered with gravel-colored buds,.petrified flowers strange to salt and sweet.The vocal cords had not yet atrophied,.and so, boiling our scalpels, we daredto carry out our maiden tongue-grafts there –.lizard's tails, infused with Mountain Dew,that whipped like firehoses by day two..La la la, we instructed, la la la.La ila, they repeated, la ala..We were hardly singing-masters, we confess.We were men of science, doing what was best..In no time they were eating from our hands,licking crystals sweeter than the sand..We should have guessed that they would speak to oneanother, la, lallation, mother tongue,.but how could we foretell, forestall the said –these thousands chanting, calling for our heads?.~ Amit Majmudar is a poet, novelist, essayist, and diagnostic nuclear radiologist. He lives in Dublin, Ohio. His latest book is Dothead (Knopf 2016).And when we crash-landedand started moving our bony fingersin the ashesof our bodies