New Poetry by John Gallas: Rajasthan Miniatures Part III

John Gallas

Rajasthan Miniatures

These little verses were written on trains, camels, tuk tuks, taxis and feet in Rajasthan this Easter. A general happy bumpiness explains their shortness, and 46 degrees their wobbly vision. They are a tourist’s show, though they all began true. They are dedicated, now I come to think of it, to Kaloo (Blackie), the gentle beast that carried me along the Thar Desert, and his owner, who sang the songs and poetry in the middle of boiling blimming nowhere.

13

Thar Desert : the camel driver recites

R bounces sideways
upon the Good Camel.
His hands, curled into crescents,
present two crowns of fingers to the sun,
held up for poetry.
They pass the breaking stones,
and he proclaims
the hot old desert love of S and T
with eyes and tongue of flame.
Struth.


14
Jodhpur : the Fabulous Lassi Shop

U makes lassi.
He is fabulous for it.
The Fabulous Lassi Shop.
Now he must make lassi
forever.
Slurp slurp, clink clink,
gobble gobble, glug glug,
slurp clink gobble gobble
clink slurp glug glug.
The Sun hovers hover the city
for a gulp.


15
Jodhpur : the Fabulous Omelette Shop

V makes omelettes.
He is fabulous for it.
The Fabulous Omelette Shop.
Now he must make omelettes
forever.
Crack sizzle, flip flop,
bubble bubble, splat splat,
flip flop bubble crack
sizzle sizzle splat splat.
The Sun hovers hover the city
for a bite.


16
man with a whopper of a turban near Pali

O O a Faristha

has left the SofteeMaker on  O
it drolloped bulgy orange coils
round & round & round & round
up & up & up & up till O
upon voidance
phut
a little
dawny
W
peak


17
in the market at Sirohi

The heady, blossom’d buying hour
of incense
it is
not.
Oh, it is too hot.
Sticks of upward-tumbling smoke
keep X in business,
steaming duty,
‘An undrid fer twenny,
orl da flavas!’


18
The King is weighed in Udaipur

King Y is weighed
in a large flat pan.
It passes the time.
He is a man.
He has three hats
and a grande toilette.
There is gold in the other pan.
It is not lunchtime yet.


19
The King goes bear hunting in the hills above Udaipur

King Z sits in the top of a tree.
Bears bomble beneath.
He shoots one in the head.
Bugger me.

The bushes are painted in rows.
He looks a picture in pink.
A bunny sits far away.
So it goes.

                                                           

John's latest collection of poems is Fresh Air and The Story of Molecule. To get 25% off, go to www.carcanet.co.uk and use the code KALOO (case-sensitive) at checkout. 


Fresh Air and The Story of Molecule is in two parts: Fresh Air is an exhilarating, freewheeling ride through landscapes and languages. The poems, all written on the move (tramping the Gobi desert, cycling in Irish drizzle, paddling in Tonga) have the fizz of travellers’ tales, the enchantment and the melancholy of the open road. 


The Story of Molecule tells the tale of Molloy Gillies (‘Molecule’), a semi-detached twelve-year-old who one night takes his bike from the shed and pedals off to escape Evolution. In Gallas’s comical, heartbreaking sonnet-picaresque, Molecule encounters dangers, kindness, police cars and mauri on the roads of the South Island, while his father, his aunt, a bathroom fitter and a police chief wonder what life, and freedom, are all about.


Together, these two books explore a world newly discovered in the imagination: ‘Imagine: in the atlas of my soul / I could not make a thing so lovely.’