Versione Italiana | Nota biografica | Versione lettura |
From: I speak for the devil
(In Lahore, in the last year of the twentieth century,
A woman was shot by her family in her lawyer’s office.
Her crime was that she had asked for a divorce.
The whole Pakistan Senate refused to condemn the act.
They called it an honour killing.)
At last I'm taking off this coat,
this black coat of a country
that I swore for years was mine,
that I wore more out of habit
than design.
Born wearing it,
I believed I had no choice.
I'm taking off this veil,
this black veil of a faith
that made me faithless
to myself,
that tied my mouth,
gave my god a devil's face,
and muffled my own voice.
I'm taking off these silks,
these lacy things
that feed dictator dreams,
the mangalsutra and the rings
rattling in a tin cup of needs
that beggared me.
I'm taking off this skin,
and then the face, the flesh,
the womb.
Let's see
what I am in here
when I squeeze past
the easy cage of bone.
Let's see
what I am out here,
making, crafting,
plotting
at my new geography.
From: Postcards from God (1994)
There are just not enough
straight lines. That
is the problem.
Nothing is flat
or parallel. Beams
balance crookedly on supports
thrust off the vertical.
Nails clutch at open seams.
The whole structure leans dangerously
towards the miraculous.
In this rough frame,
someone has squeezed
a living space
and even dared to place
these eggs in a wire basket,
fragile curves of white
hung out over the dark edge
of a slanted universe,
gathering the light
into themselves,
as if they were
the bright, thin walls of faith.
From: I speak for the devil
This room is breaking out
of itself, cracking through
its own walls
in search of space, light,
empty air.
The bed is lifting out of
its nightmares.
From dark corners, chairs
are rising up to crash through clouds.
This is the time and place
to be alive:
when the daily furniture of our lives
stirs, when the improbable arrives.
Pots and pans bang together
in celebration, clang
past the crowd of garlic, onions, spices,
fly by the ceiling fan.
No-one is looking for the door.
In all this excitement
I'm wondering where
I've left my feet, and why
my hands are outside, clapping.