Rococo and Other Worlds: Selected Poems

The Genres of Poetry

37 The Genres of Poetry Without knowing that nomadism is a creed of life and among poetry’s more difficult genres, he found his way to a tattered amphitheatre and began to dream of tightrope walkers; but his ropes were not yet woven when a non-nomad girl appeared before him who took him many light-years away from nomadism. This encounter exposed him to the shadow of light and blood and in a bird shop he priced the dream of a fledgling of exquisite plumage in maiden flight, until the spool of his voice flew away from his hands. The custodian of the bird shop pasted him to the wall of an edifice and from there, in exchange for cartage and a time-and-a-half allowance, he was taken to a cell where someone addressed him. The liveliest drop of blood in his body which sometimes disrobes in his eyes, is the voice of the girl he heard, and found out that the paper blossoms, the glass vase, the brick wall, the wooden door, and even he himself, could speak, in the accent and language of his choice. He did not see the girl but like the lighthouse which the waves perhaps never reach, he saw how the sea lay, and the parts where it was turbulent. The live drop of blood which once answered to his fingers disappeared in his body of a sudden. From that moment he turned bitter, and now searched for an adversary. Ages later it dawned on him that both friend and foe are terms for a lost blessing. But for now he had no patience and set forth the charges against his father in his verses. This selfinstilled enmity which solidified one day, allowed him to search in his father’s eyes for the face of the girl he could pronounce mother, or not pronounce it. Around that time he was granted 38 bail from the prison that was his home. Those who bailed him out introduced him to the pack of fifty-two fairies. The training in self-denial and his suicidal tendency brought out in him a gambler’s keenness. He gambled excessively but could not forfeit himself. Then he played a strange trick, becoming partners with a preceptress in life. The drop of blood that disrobed in his eyes was absorbed in the preceptress’s white chalk. After some time, one day when she drew a fledgling in maiden flight, the picture flew away from the blackboard. When he learnt of the incident, he began to dream of nomad girls who can walk on air without tightropes—without knowing that this variety of nomadism is poetry’s most complex genre. ...