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| 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.
1
Delhi Airport : Welcome to India
A is a lengthy soldier up a bloody big ladder,
washing the water wall
in the Arrivals Hall.
He swings his sponge,
swish swosh,
and so his rifle goes,
like a small back door
swept with rain.
2
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| Kaloo |
B and C go before,
and pull the thing with string.
D pushes behind.
Thus they triangularly mow the hill brow,
and disappear
in a hurrah of clippings.
3
Not selling refreshment on the ring road
E sits shining on a wall
with watermelons.
It is so awfully hot,
everybody wants one.
But who can stop,
e’en for a fountainous angel.
4
Beauty on a bicycle amidst traffic
F is waiting orangely to turn.
Cars go careless by.
But do their other engines passing rise
like paper flowers wet,
and make a bagh
down every road.
5
In the gardens at Humayun’s Tomb
G and friends are thin and white.
They stroll the runnel-rows of Paradise
and speak of holy things.
Thoughts of light, thoughts of light …
kites poise on the highest rooves.
6
at Jama Masjid
H has moved to a flat Fan box,
Red Colonnade, Northedge,
Jama Masjid.
But the Postie does not come.
H cast after his legs
his last earthen address,
to share a house with God.
The following six poems will be published here on Sunday. The final seven poems will be published on Tuesday.
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.’