ARI SITAS

Aliens: Three Poems

Indian Ocean Reverie

A score of ocean cruisers in bloom on a restless sea cut fresh from the sickle of a Ramadan moon, I admonish the waves to keep quiet, my brain still throttles from the sound of engines and clatter that took me down cliffs by the Hogsback past fields of proteas on fire.

A sip from my flask and I murmur a deep holy thank you to the wild olive and the fig tree that gave me some shelter and aggravated dreams of nymphs with braids and streaks of gold in their hair by the dark fynbos-tinted streams. And I admonish the waves once again, bloody hell finally give these fishermen some flowers.

I travelled,

Among pre-historic rocks and I did so in pelting hail or iced-up dew, up-down endless hills and carved my name on an anthill. I was involved in grand heroic acts like that and now the ocean turns dark and dangerous; I travelled far with a broken compass, the handlebars ate at my palm and the stockings scarred me; I left large footprints on the red earth when I went to piss and who knows one day someone will reconstruct my shoes.

I travelled,

I heard both shouts and songs from one homestead to another and sometimes stopped just to pretend I needed something, just to hear someone talk so I could also hear my voice talk. Words are funny things, they vanish in the wind.

The sand here is pure velvet and by the shiny rocks out there, I see pups chasing their mom to suckle, there is I am sure someone who cares whether they do. I do not know whether anyone cares I walked or crawled this way unless it is about begging a fag or two; we are all beggars, there is no chapel, this is the chapel, the temple and the mosque.

I travelled,

This road has no end, and here your memories are rather dumb, they get in the way, their thorn trees are growing fast inside your head in geometric leaps, the wound in the distance from the moon’s sickle has opened up for rays, the sun is up.

The dew on my tyres will dry. Our turn will come.

A  Homeless Shroud (after Walt Whitman)

 I am there carting a corpse unsure about the proper placing of the grave
as we roar along eating up landscape
the journey’s bike, a constant pall-bearer of a dream 
dragging its shroud - village to city, from avenue to highway
and back
through unforgiving seasons, and the deep fog descending on this land
as if it needs to hide flags, cavalcades of hideous greed and gawdy trimmings, province to
province;
The widows of all them gone, lining the streets veiled and with umbrellas
and uncountable drum majorettes marching with bands bleating.
I see no vigils for the dream, unless I misread the rows of youths
lining the streets for mourners;
I find no station to rest the shroud, the downcast look of people is always for
something else more important elsewhere;
The laments, the guitars and even treacherous metallic bows are chartered
and the comradeships of voice, polyphonies and embellishments so
resonant in the deep night, the split-tone voice, falsetto or alto like
are rented out;
Not even the churches and the outfield congregations, the clapping and the clamour and the
chant -
they belong elsewhere.
And the muezzin’s voice sounds like an ad-break.
I drive my shroud past valleys of audacious Namaqua daisies
I do it in the day, when their eyes are not quite shut.
I gift it flowers.

The parts are greater than the whole

Wretched land, I know you
you took me in, joyless
Wretched land, lit starkly
wind-lashed
Land of toppled sculptures
face-planted in the grass.

Solitude
Chains
Discord
Bowed land
I am sitting in your lap
Drinking star-juice
Puzzling still over the math:
How were the foundations laid
on the void
on the blood of the slaughtered
goat?

And how long does it take for the dead to ripen?
I bring you keen eardrums
gestures, smoke-signals
Blunt sounds
Blunt
No one has cut the bamboo
No sigh
No consonantal click
Ripped land
ripped timber
ripped from forest people.

A sack-full of skin, of stars
Your workshops have tried to snuff out
beauty
Wretched land
How long does it take for the dead to ripen?  

I return alone
On the wheel, still traces of jacaranda petals
In my lungs the scent of the wild daisy
And in my eyes, herons preening on the wheatfield
I gave colour to the flower
and a strange tune to the makeshift flute
I painted each sunshine red
I painted the landscape blood-red
I have felt the storms, hail
I counted the distress and hunger
I weighed up enemy and friend
And I sent messages that went nowhere
They just kept me good company by the campfire. 

I lost two teeth
I trumpeted loud in the lunchtime haze
I learnt how hearts are iron and manganese
I iced my brain
My memory was filled with homes 

I prophesised crops
I harvested them alone.

Ari Sitas is a poet, dramatist and sociologist who is also involved lately in musical work in and around the Indian Ocean. His first poetry collection "Tropical Scars" was published in 1989 and has subsequently seen another 7 volumes published, the last of which was a poetic dialogue with Bengali poet Subhro Bandopadhyay titled "Mapping Gondwana" which appeared this year.His work has been translated into many languages. Some of his Sociological and creative work has been published by Tulika Press in India. His latest production was the staging of "Giraffe Humming" a musical and visual reconstruction of the tale of the move of three giraffes from Africa to Bengal and then to China in 1414CE. He has been awarded the Order of Mapungubwe, by the South African presidency in 2019 for his contribution to scientific and creative work.