Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Varavara Rao

After All You Say

For me
The scene of writing,
Torsioning out word-chains,
From the seams of the earth,
An endless movement.

In writing too
Pressure and stress inflecting sounds,
Repeated in a weave of inter animation.
Force re-gendering
Words
As lines of people,
In-surge in movement.

My self seems
Inscribed –
Forces that lived me and awaiting future
Lives.

The blood on the sweat smelling
Person’s forehead is indelible
I try and mop it
I can neither touch nor soil
The glorious sun-scape stretched into the stellar space.

As I pore over,
The work in my hands
Moves me in to the hands
That is in the work
Unknowingly moving into them
If I spread the work
On my self
Feeling, it is indeed!

Reading in silence
I feel unblinking looks
My tongue plays when the lips move
As the vital chords of myself
Reverberate encompassing gong waves.

I feel
As if the work
Has uttered in me the clues
To this cryptic universe.

Yet I know
This is only empathy
And haven’t lived through the work.

I am only shaking awake
The multitudes to encounter from my bones:
Taming the volcanoes
And tending the spring-currents
From the innards of my earth-self,
Perhaps like the Pavlov dog.

But for me –
Used to reading man as a text
Can the book become a substitute
For the world?

AFTER ALL YOU SAY

Close

After All You Say

For me
The scene of writing,
Torsioning out word-chains,
From the seams of the earth,
An endless movement.

In writing too
Pressure and stress inflecting sounds,
Repeated in a weave of inter animation.
Force re-gendering
Words
As lines of people,
In-surge in movement.

My self seems
Inscribed –
Forces that lived me and awaiting future
Lives.

The blood on the sweat smelling
Person’s forehead is indelible
I try and mop it
I can neither touch nor soil
The glorious sun-scape stretched into the stellar space.

As I pore over,
The work in my hands
Moves me in to the hands
That is in the work
Unknowingly moving into them
If I spread the work
On my self
Feeling, it is indeed!

Reading in silence
I feel unblinking looks
My tongue plays when the lips move
As the vital chords of myself
Reverberate encompassing gong waves.

I feel
As if the work
Has uttered in me the clues
To this cryptic universe.

Yet I know
This is only empathy
And haven’t lived through the work.

I am only shaking awake
The multitudes to encounter from my bones:
Taming the volcanoes
And tending the spring-currents
From the innards of my earth-self,
Perhaps like the Pavlov dog.

But for me –
Used to reading man as a text
Can the book become a substitute
For the world?

After All You Say

For me
The scene of writing,
Torsioning out word-chains,
From the seams of the earth,
An endless movement.

In writing too
Pressure and stress inflecting sounds,
Repeated in a weave of inter animation.
Force re-gendering
Words
As lines of people,
In-surge in movement.

My self seems
Inscribed –
Forces that lived me and awaiting future
Lives.

The blood on the sweat smelling
Person’s forehead is indelible
I try and mop it
I can neither touch nor soil
The glorious sun-scape stretched into the stellar space.

As I pore over,
The work in my hands
Moves me in to the hands
That is in the work
Unknowingly moving into them
If I spread the work
On my self
Feeling, it is indeed!

Reading in silence
I feel unblinking looks
My tongue plays when the lips move
As the vital chords of myself
Reverberate encompassing gong waves.

I feel
As if the work
Has uttered in me the clues
To this cryptic universe.

Yet I know
This is only empathy
And haven’t lived through the work.

I am only shaking awake
The multitudes to encounter from my bones:
Taming the volcanoes
And tending the spring-currents
From the innards of my earth-self,
Perhaps like the Pavlov dog.

But for me –
Used to reading man as a text
Can the book become a substitute
For the world?
Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère