GALLERY OF POEMS

Nii Parkes

Handle with care

Four corners,
one sun.
It's what the world was
before it turned into itself;
this surface reflecting
in its dark wealth
the mystery of ages past
woven
into the present.

Around the sun
sixteen lovers, intricate.
I imagine the hands
crafting these satellites
with nonchalant verve
fingers feverish with the twine
beneath a cloud of gossip
or song.

Like my mother
berating us as she braided
my sister's hair
changing her rhythm
and tenderness with her mood,
her song, her memories;
my sister's hair becoming
a map of her passions.

This carpet
wrought in the colour of blood
from the random
prickles of its weaver's memory;
the smell of eglantine,
its olive green stem,
a child crying in the night,
the silver sheen of a cypress,
last night's conversation;
drifting in and out of the weave
like breath,
is a map.

This carpet
with its gold encrusted lamps
lovingly embalmed
in the eternal sweat
and dedication
of its weaver,
the pride of Persia,
is a prayer
uttered with simple faith;
the unquestioning belief
of my grandparents
in the religion that enslaved us,
my silent moments of homage to God.

This carpet
laden with 320 knots per square
inch of weaving
is a love letter.
Each knot a heartbeat displaced,
a breathless pause;
each knot an orgasm,
a reason to continue,
a musical note…
Each knot is defiance;
a colour-coded message
entwined on the axis
of possibilities.

Each knot
is a lock of hair
a strand
in the fabric of humanity:
Handle with care.

Small things

i

place one hand on the left pillar
another on the right
and summon Samson's strength
to conquer your blindness

as time flits and the mist lifts
behold a kingdom unfurled
before you majestic buildings
between them streets

streets for trading
streets for bargaining
streets for walking
streets for lovers
streets for kings
streets for beggars
streets for arguing
streets for meddling
streets for peddling

endless streets of life
unclassifiable from distance
baskets of people
like oranges
all the same
yet each with its own seeds
each with its own volume
sweetness
bitterness
each eaten differently
by kings and beggars
as they walk the streets
the story of these pillars
could swallow you whole
prejudices and all
like a small thing

ii

that ring
amandite with gold
translucent brown

made for a royal hand
of rock dug from beneath
the feet of a labourer

survived royal and rube

that ring smelled the streets
as it emerged from its chrysalis of stone
coaxed lovingly into shape
by the callused hands
of a royal jeweller

that ring is the lie the royal lived
when he believed
he was the first to wear it

the stars know
that the moon saw the young jeweller
compare the brown finish of the ring
with the moist dark flesh of his lover

the wind heard him whisper
that he could never make anything as beautiful as her
even if he died
and learnt from the gods

the ring tasted her taut nipples
as the jeweller and his jewel
bled into each other
like cooking spices

iii

small things

place one hand on the left pillar
another on the right
and watch the streets
between the majestic buildings

streets of dust
where the dead rust

and ask yourself
who can name oranges
in a basket?

and if all men go to dust
can we tell the grain of a king
from the grain of a beggar?

and do we care?

or do we brush these small things
off our pristine clothes?

The history of silence

praise be to Allah
the cherisher and sustainer of worlds:
scrolls, wall and mats proclaim it
scimitars tapered down in display
according to size
etched with invocations

to heaven via the prophet;
peaceful words glistening
on the violent edges of blood-polished blades
like prayers on the wet lips
of the dying

a clash of words and action
layered into the script of life
smuggled underfoot
in the guise of hand-woven carpets
knotted with years of secrets

beauty hides everything - even truth
covers the floors of rocky pasts
dampens the sound of suffering
colours death in deft strokes
painting battles as fluid graceful dances
while eliminating the stagnant music of pain

so who dismantles the hierarchy of truths
peels away the coloured imaginations of artists:
the creatures of land and sea
coated frolicking onto porcelain plates
breaking the continuity of their white supremacy;
the designs and carvings merging cultures and climates
showing the tracks, trails and trials of religions?

who climbs the delicate steps
of ornate pulpits
from which muezzins screamed
raising dead pharaohs?

who lifts the leaves of gold
tattooed onto caskets of ivory and stone
to find the shadows beneath?

who questions the structured poetry
of history
the multiple motives of writers
the muddy gradations of truth
the sheaves not saved from the fires
of a benefactors wrath?

who opens the alabaster box of pain
beneath the magic carpet of documents
to smell the spicy sprinklings of the past
to taste the futile chemistry of war
to feel the twisted innards of injustice?

who, like me, marvels
that the loud clash of swords in anger
the sustained thunder of battle cries
the breaking slates of betrayal
and the crumbling walls of empires
amount to no more
than the stoned silence of a museum?

Dynasties

Clang of silence in my head:
Struck mute by the beauty of bowls
Jade, ceramic, round, formless, delicate
Sturdy, lidded, open
Lustrous like eyes in flashing light.

Dynasties pass me by at the speed of sirens
Ming, Shang, Tang, Qing, Zhou;
Knife-sharp, porcelain-smooth transition
Into tiered levels of creativity.

I see a boy bearing tea
In a Song dynasty glazed stone bowl
In Fujian. In his bearing lives
His great grandfather
40 generations before inhaling
The tunnelled tang of smoke
From a Shang dynasty pipe;

The seas between them travelled
By the great sailors of the early Ming dynasty
As they fell under the spell of stars
And the magnetism of the earth's poles

Leaving wrecked junks in their wake
For the world to discover with glee.
Leaving maps for bumbling
European sailors
To follow and stake claim to lands and seas
Already discovered.

And will they turn in their graves;
This boy, his ancestors, these sailors
As their imagination is paraded
In glass cases in the world's museums?

Will they raise their hands
In dark and forbidding rooms
Where men with paper come to bid
To own China's teacups and dinner plates?

Will their cries be heard
As written history attempts to rewrite
Their burnt documents, explain away
Their relics and far-flung monuments?

Or will they wait
Until figurines dancing in blue nothingness
The hulls of junk ships in American waters
And the hollow insides of ancient mines
All rise like ghosts
To usurp the authority claimed by historians
And little captions on display cases
To tell their own story?