Related quotes: Unheeded in the spread of...

Unheeded in the spread of his name, quaking

Unheeded in the spread of his name, quaking
Through the knit brow cuddling the sombre eye
Twice buckled into the couch of his yearning

The mouldy cast of unsculptured hands, moulting
In the surging sweaty cries' unexpected sigh
Sooner lost than won with unrenewed longing

Every day, every night in chastened haste, calling
That one face, one hand trembling on bosomy thigh
Through all the twigs of his knotty brooding

Mighty log in the dismembered chips, raking
In uneasy orgasms of a protracted lie
The woman clasped in the memory revolting

Fleshy hair to press, hovering nostrils, drinking
In the incensing vapours, and that face a wry
Screaming in the rubbing spasm, a bloody cursing

All, all and more, and the biting shame, clawing
Now at the name, silently growing, that shy
Child of old hopefully shared and lingered moaning

poem by T. Wignesan
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The Death of the Hindu

Chin cupped
on the ancient bone
of his elbow
he spread five fingers to the world:
and like a cat on zither strings
the hoarse voice of his fathers
issues from his forgotten children:
now he picks one tick
from the back of that suckling cow:
his failing fingers
find not the strength to crush

Not a single eyelash twitters
pass him by
pass him

'Wake not a man asleep
And tell him he has
Nothing to eat.'

(©: T. Wignesan - Paris,1957; from T. Wignesan. Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961; first pub. in 'Forum Academicum', University of Heidelberg,1957)

poem by T. Wignesan
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Coal-Truck

I am a coal-truck
Carrying gold dust.
Someone threw some
Coal-dust upon
My gold-dust.

I am a coal-truck
In a gold mine.
Someone struck a coal vein
And piled me full in vain.

I am a coal-truck
Covered in subterranean dust.
Someone shovelled my soil
And found an ancient bone
All coiled.

I am a coal-truck
Waiting for the rain.
The sun is my rail
The night my shed.

I am a coal-truck
Rumbling all the way.
Wash me in the rain-storm
And fill me full of coke
Until I choke.

(©: T. Wignesan,1957 - Pub. in 'Forum Academicum', Heidelberg University,1957; from the collection: Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961)

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The Gnat Nebulae

Full pummelling fisticuffs
Stitch over stitch
In and out
Imperceptibly kaleidoscopic
Swirling from ear to ear
Sporadic
Thrumming mystical notes
Notes of whisper
Whisper in the ear
Now a bothered swish of clawing
Cleaving slipping fingers
Immalleable rolling universal ball

Microcosmic needle into
Macrocosmic wool all
Silently thudding kneading pulling
Sealing a sin all opened unforgiven
Eternally whispering to a few
And never really heard
Pummelling sewing the invisible centre
Round and round the darkless sun
Only the end that began

Only a scratch and a bother
What bother to scratch
For scratching bothers
Bothers a scratch

Scratch and not to bother
Scratch Scratch Scratch

Dedicated to J.C. Alldridge

(©: T. Wignesan - Paris,1957; from T. Wignesan. Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961; first pub. in 'Forum Academicum', University of Heidelberg,1957)

poem by T. Wignesan
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The Snake Charmer and the Hamadryad

Piccolo and been-throated pibroch
Dilating dimpled hood
Spreading photometric darkroom eyes
Waxing waxing matching
Venomous lip to music's piping lip

O Queen of stung dragon-mouthed Po
Dancing girl of nuanceless ancient reliefs
The apotheosis Brahman curling on the neck
Must you now sink sink
Dread watched
Spineless
Into the winding womb wickerwork
Watching watching pipe-eyed watching
Until you slip
Over the sill of the pipe and the lip

Anathema!
Amorphous piteous anathema!
Amulet of Siva!
Licking the boneless air companionless
Then slithering to lie on the trodden path
Must you have this one last lick
A lick that
Stills the
Unheeding
Child astray
Or ripple tailless
In the reedy gust
To the squat charmer's
Hypnotical pibroch

(©: T. Wignesan - Paris,1957; from T. Wignesan. Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961; first pub. in 'Forum Academicum', University of Heidelberg,1957)

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I saw a tree a-falling...

I saw a tree a-falling
a-falling down on me
I had no way to turn
it was close on me

I thought it was a plot
to force me out
I knew I could not
even hold it or shout

It was a tree I sheltered
on many a longing day
And now it was so altered
coming to make me pay

I asked it why it longed
to touch its upmost brim
When all around no foe
turned the sun down dim

I touched its bark to hear
I thought I heard a cry
Two leaves it shed on me
and brushed its bark up high

I asked it why it stood
alone and left to brood
It shook its sticks in emphasis
as if to say it was good

(©: T. Wignesan - Kuala Lumpur,1957, from Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: Rayirath Publications,1961.)

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Pied à terre

Once within a break in brambly fields
something stirred its fearful head in sleep:
Though it be woman or child, work or vision
something that dares not hold me in derision

But till that lingering day bares your face
with prating breath I bide my bane
And even as I clear the brake, shift the trunks
hosannas crop up before you every dawn.

And someday as I have you in my arms
in osculation's brimming nirvanic bliss,
May I not then turn away empty handed
though warm in your inane atmanic face

Then as I wend my kindly way down the road
pitch my tent on this terraqueous matter-mind
Should I then go looking for my immortality
through doors that are forever locked to me

Or could I then lie upon nescience' impervious skies
upon some smoky grass unmapped or husbanded
And hear the awakening cries of spring born trees
then get up to wind my way to some factory blast

(©: T. Wignesan,1957, from the collection: Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961)

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Paths in the Private Country

The memory in need
Is the implacable enemy of the creed,
Waits and watches its foe

The all-clawing frenzy on tip-toe;
Quiescent in the instant's repose
The thud of flurried gnawing years evoke.

The poet in his solitary moments, spoke
Those whispered words, memory's secret ear yoke.
His wares, his scares, ailments and balms

Suddenly at the oasis of his thirst, awoke
Transilluminating the hard wad of his private notes,
Clutching at the infant's murmurous innocence

The clear innocuous dogma of cries;
While his immodestly preened notes of travesty
Hark back; and the first poem playfully struck

Teaches him now too late the laugh, the critic's qualms.
Just as the poet had wandered away from childhood,
So will the child thwart the unspoilt man

And shyly, shyly he turns away from the poet
Coming in like a stray camp-follower to brood.
For who may ask which the supreme poet

The child's sweet ineffable musings disrespect
While language etherises meanings proudly sown:
The title in two is halved - one the art, one, lone.

And the man, memory's ill-begotten infant
Lurking round the corner, pranks the urgent moment
Or two - then restores the poet to the poem.

poem by T. Wignesan
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Little Clock

Why in pensive ticking, silent thoughts
You wile your time away
When all around huge swelling bells
Toll the days away!

Every hour that announced may go
Your silent hands take hold
And though the ages chimed in ears
Yours they never behold.

If all the clocks the world had known
Had struck one strong big note,
They would never still your plodding tone
Nor the working hearth you alert.

Do you wonder, wonder, little clock
What makes the grandfather tick!
Or his aching belly in the depth of sorrow
Cries to the world it's sick!

Thirty million years and Pleistocene dark,
They are one split second short!
And whimpering suns that rise and flop
Have scarce stolen your tick or thought!

So, my little clock, my faithful clock
When I hear the tall town bell,
I'll shrug my shoulders, one tiny moment
And know that all is well.

Dedicated to Gertrud Widmayer, my landlady at Heidelberg

(©: T. Wignesan,1957 (from the collection: Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961)

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Feet, feet that walked away with the toes

Heavy the hoods of the eyes
that laboured the scan of horizons
Heavy the course of the thoughts
that sat unstirred on the sill of the stare

Heavy this ancient bottomed nose
sitting in judgment over this meat
Endlessly shunting the frenzied workers
now sniff-drunk and steam-bellowed in the street

This the scull careered through rutted scars
the primeval hair bushed in pathways
Where long tribes with long lances
prod the undergrowth for signs of lost bones

These the ears that heard the wake of worlds
wandering in the ever irretraceable tread
Ears though that admit the silent secrets
ever still and hospitable to the panicky refrain

This the assembled machinery, forging fire
have dropped the tongs
Down the corridors of investigation
hurtling in darkening diseases

These the loins, companion of time
stalked through fire, filth, and foam
Baked in the hot ovens of empires
wearied some morning in blurry depredation

Wobble-eyed, knee-tied, dragged with pacing company
through yesterdays that are forever lost indemnity
Heavy the larvae lipped throb, kiss and consider
heavy the molten strata ooze, consider and kiss

These the organs that prodded nations
and shrivelled up to curse them all in pain
Pursed its potency, convulsed the course of the vein
this the dismembered member of the tribe

Heavy, alas, these feet that thump
jog and reel in the dancing rhythm of millenniums
Trod on the will-less face of faiths
twitched their toes and walked their way

(©: T. Wignesan,1957 (from the collection: Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: 1961)

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Night in the Eyes, Invading

I do not know if this is true what I see:
I see in some dim, distant, desolate rock-hold
gathering peoples, driven as though by common fear.
A low mournful humming drifts with the breeze
of manhood tread, and eyeless turban-headed
in the lambent darkness, fire-fly brands moving.
This symphonious humming fills my heart
with deep remorse I cannot quite understand.
In a winding never-ending line they keep coming:
mesmerically drawn as in a living dream.
They do not speak but it seems they are in
common bondage bound and move to words of order.

Someone is dying or some great catastrophe
has befallen these earthen men - for they do not speak!

So many seem to come, but only a few are here.
Yet they keep coming and around
a little rock are gathered cross-legged, naked
scalded knees jagged out, a cluster of brown skinny men.
On the rock someone is standing and a little
behind him - I do not know what - a tree, a ragged pole
or dolmen! and yet here it glows, now a moment paly.
Fading far volcanic lights skip engulfing the sky.

I cannot say what this is all about.
I have a fear the Aliens are here.

And in the middle of this funereal happening,
a voice bursts out crying - 'EMILIANO'...
'Emiliano', and then a choking whimpering
and again - 'Emiliano......
Is this all that is left for me! '

(©: T. Wignesan - Paris,1957 - rev.; from Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: Rayirath Publications,1961.)

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Blinks through bloodshot walks

When at five-thirty
In the rubbed-eye haziness
Of ferreting lonesome night walks
The camera-eye refugee
Asleep in the half wakefulness
Of the hour
Peers out of his high turbanned sockets:
Hyde Park's through road links
London's diurnally estranged couple -
The Arch and Gate.

When at five-thirty
The foot falls gently
Of the vision cut in dark recesses
And the man, finger gingerly on the fly
Gapes dolefully about
For a while
Exchanges a casual passing word
Standing in the Rembrandtesque clefts
And the multipled ma'm'selle trips out:
Neat and slick.
They say you meet the girls at parties
And get deeper than swine in orgies.

When at five-thirty
The fisherman's chilled chips
Lie soggy and heeled under the Arch
Where patchy transparent wrappers cling
To slippery hands jingling the inexact change
That mounted the trustful fisherman's credit:
The stub legged fisher of diplomat
And cool cat
And the prostitutes' confidant;
Each shivering pimp's warming pan.

Then at five-thirty
The bowels of Hyde Park
Improperly growled and shunted
And shook the half-night-long
Lazily swaggering double-deckers,
Suddenly as in a rude recollection,
To break and pull, grind and swing away
And around, drawing the knotting air after
Curling and unfurling on the pavements.

And at five-thirty
The prostrate mindful old refugee
Dares not stir
Nor cares to wake and swallow
The precisely half-downed bottle
Of Coke clinging to the pearly dew
Nor lick the clasp knife clean
Lying bare by a tin of' skewed top
Corned beef, incisively culled
Look! that garden all spruced up
An incongruous lot of hair on that bald pate
No soul stirs in there but the foul air
No parking alongside but from eight to eight.

Learning so hard and late
No time to scratch the bald pate.

At five-thirty-one
A minute just gone
The thud is on, the sledge-hammer yawns
And in the back of ears, strange noises
As from afar and a million feet tramp.
One infinitesimal particle knocks another
And the whirl begins in a silent rage
And the human heart beats harder
While in and around, this London
This atomic mammoth roams
In the wastes of wars and tumbling empires.

poem by T. Wignesan
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Bedtime on Tramp

He woke down the slope, by the hay
With him a thousand shrill cries
That stilled to him, yawning.
He moved with strands of hay, trailing
On his rags.
Sauntering, he is a flaneur...
The road lamps gave him away.