SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE

by A. V. Koshy

First you throw away the style manual
then you burn up your soul body mind
give short shrift even to your women or woman
even that one who you know: she can take it
who beat up your rival, to pulp
while you watched
relishing every moment of it
playing your axe, singing "don't you cry, tonight" -
that was something, don't you remember it? -
her heart bears the red marks and welts of your spanking
because in your dark heart, like Genet or
Gauguin -
or was it Rimbaud or Huysmans?
the names don't seem to matter though you know  them -
the blue archipelagos of desire beckon
or the dreaded land, the empty quarter
the mistral in the Arles or the sandstorms and the Sahara
the great desolate is what draws you
wheels in the sky, the great cormorants
and you want to go to the unknown regions
Malta across the Meditteranean
the depths of some black jungle where blooms the rafflesia
you are traversing the terrains of the unconscious
you are in the land of the exotic surreal
here there are no rules and your harem dances to nautch tunes
here there is Mughal beauty and Byzantium and
more than America!
here there is Khajuraho and Chidambaram
Jerusalem, Athens, Rome and all the upside down towers of London ringing  bells
bats in their bellies and flying out from their dark belfries
you are making warts grow on your face
'horrible worker', you have come to expand the territory
tasting even the poisons left untouched by those earlier others
making women free to speak in their own voice, with their clefts
setting them free to express what the Other is
what the world knows you are doing and is watching uneasily
the fiery comet
the shooting star
the black hole
the white dwarf
the collapsible time-frame continuum
the arrival of the big bang and its shrinking after full expansion
the pinprick of light
the cosmic dance of yogi and yogini
you have set free the subconscious
and you are swimming past the ether
in the coral reefs where puffer fish, monstrous fresh water snakes and snakes of the salty deep and ocras play
in the skies where dragons and pterodactyls still fly and battle
you have gone further than any one else you have known
set sail, don't stop!
you will reach the zenith and the meridian
you do not need magazines to publish your love poems
you do not need publishers or awards or collections
if no one pays you money you do not need them fuck them
fuck Sahithya Akademi, Nobel, Booker,  Hindu literary prize, sales and what Penguin has become
fuck Pulitzer, Man Asian and Man Booker too
instead there is the way of the bums who burn out and do not fade away
you are the Jim Morrison and Nirvana of poetry
you are the rock and roll star in the world of poetry
on the burning sands of time
while your life bleeds out inch by inch in poem after poem
like Apollinaire's Christ zeppelin who holds the record for height
you are crucified and yet making ardent love to your one woman lover daemon muse
making space melt and the sun burn down
with the rage of poetry, setting the world on fire
you both are unclothed and the old song is sung
man and woman adagio if you can only you two meet
like the molten rays of the midday sun
driving into parched earth
into each other's marrow
you will reach the furthest pole beyond all human compass
no do not yield to the lesser ones
but set the universe unverse on fire