Lyric/Resistance
Anis Shivani
*
I learned handwriting as a single member
of a class of pilots.
——————For the storage of oil
(the death of the insured person) the observed
values are mouth-central.
————————–Explain to me
this language spoken by 6 million people.
I am a full month of the moon (my never-never
land at the south celestial pole), and my fleshy
cheek pads
are soon to see the bladed African tool.
*
I am afraid of:
–spraddle, the tartufo-spree
of the Tarim, evaporating,
with not much of a defined bed,
evaporating into pollen sacs,
cartoons. I am afraid of:
thatches of trout lilies,
–making me stay away from school.
What is not covered by insurance?
The weeklong wiggle of the hips.
I am afraid of gliders,
–I refuse to drop closer to the ground.
After the fall of Jerusalem—
after laissez-passer at the Wailing Wall—
the black river out of gear,
the one who worships idle threats.
*
When my mother—
through the arrows of idle-memory—
became hybrid
back-formation,
———of lower rank than the angels,
then I brought bad lack (wryneck)
to translating her ear,
and in the local tango (or polka),
the infection, they said,
was minuscule:
—————–like the dry
monsoon, a simpler sugar.
*
The litany of 100 liquid songs,
each one of which is the price of a candela,
placed on rooftops (to hum a lullaby/
soothing drink) on the morning of the destroyed
horse-divided-lobes (the matchbook imam
who ran away to Canada), and each of
the songs an eye in the sun, a mute swan
(never on Friday) listening to the firearm.
Anis Shivani is the Pushcart Prize-winning author of several books of fiction, poetry, and criticism, including, most recently, Karachi Raj: A Novel, Soraya: Sonnets, Literary Writing in the 21st Century: Conversations, The Moon Blooms in Occupied Hours: Poems, and the forthcoming Logography: A Poetry Omnibus. He lives in Houston, Texas.