Across the Wall

Roy Lichtenstein

Across the Wall

It's the Wall
That says it all
Grey, dark, wired, shut off-

And we behind blocked off windows
Like the denizens of a cursed castle.

We wondered how the Sun
Stopped shining on our side-

We wanted
For a place in the sun
And being unblocked.

Plate glass shatters well
Into harmless pebbles
We know
They make it like that
No shards-

But in East Germany
They only had the old kind
That you can't see
Before it cuts through your jugular.

Getting across that Wall of fear
You had to be sheared off
Like a butcher's abortion-

Because if you did-
You had to be torn out of a nurturing womb
That you knew well in the gloaming
And flung out like bleeding offal
To pollute the sunny side.

What could they possibly see
In a penniless refugee
Except unwanted trouble?

Know that it is very bad to be less
Even less
Least-
But with so many promises for pillows.

But we did have for plot
One stained truth
To repeat after ourselves-

If you fly, I fly with you
If you grow, I grow too.

It meant nothing
If you stayed on our side of the Wall
But it gave us hope
And made us smile.

We had heard
Across the Wall
The sunlight was strong

Besides it always glowed
From our side-

Maybe we could
Will
Energy
To harness

We thought-

And gallop to our purpose
Straight through that Wall
Like antimattering miracles!

Maybe we could bound over hedges
That only posed
As Walls
And what can Stasi watchtowers
Do to celestials?

On that grey side
We knew all about how to
Stop dead
And turn immortal.
So how could they catch a running immortal?

But like a guilty secret
We grew that Wall together
Erich and all us friends
To protect ourselves-
We grew it
Brick by brick
To shut ourselves in.

And then it came down
Like Honecker's pants
And we were just as free
As Charlie and Coca Cola.

And now we're out here
And Out Here is part of There!

We eat sausages, drink beer,
Drive BMWs with spin

We pay with plastic and Euromoney
Being rich is no sin

We spend time, make music
Walk now and then on stilts-
And look across that phantom Wall
Without the slightest bit of guilt.


9th November 2009
20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall came down.

Gautam Mukherjee

Copyright, Gautam Mukherjee 2009

Echo but it's ridiculous

Clover Box

Echo but it's ridiculous

That face was thinner
It was tight
With features
uncluttered
if stupid.

That belly was a stomach
not a disobedient overhang-
those arms were sinuous-
Not sticks borrowed from Olive Oyl.

it's ridiculous how
Every one of your vices
Etched themselves on you
Scoring lines
blighting your beard white
Stooping you
When you intended no particular respect
For anyone.

Like Killjoy the vandal-
Carving I was here
I was there
I will remain
Gouging and scooping
But boo to you
You old ghost.

Old faces look manic animated
But you must expect consequences
Like a vintage car being taxed
You expect the oil to blow-
Veins to pop-
Candles to gutter

It's ridiculous
You can't be hearing ticking
Bombs, time,imagination,
Hell what's the difference-
It's Heavens every time.

Mutter mutter mutter,
Talking to yourself is good when you're old
You hear perfectly-
You like what you hear and like what you don't.

But imagine muttering at people
Complaints,longings,bewilderment
Why would it matter
About you-

That you carry these extra enthusiasms in you still?
Silly old fellow.

But tell yourself good things anyhow
Appreciate yourself because no one else will
Shake your head at how clear it all seems
Now-

When it is much too late-
And your life events are a bore
What a joke to have kept you up nights smoking.

Grace your thoughts-
Clothe it in the shreds of your old self
Ignore the frays and tatters
Because you can see them anew anyhow.

You may have turned into a cardboard box do you know?
To pack things or find meaning in-
Not quite like Kafka's giant spider
But
Either metamorphosis
Would have delighted you at ten
When everything is naturally delightful-

You cadged the big Carnation condensed milk box
Remember
From the back of the provision shop
For your den then-
And now you've turned into one yo'self!

You've worn so thin and flappy
And become boxy too-
And yet no one wants to huddle inside
For a giggle.

But its still free
And freeing-

When no concrete can hold you
And the brown paper thing metamorphosis
You've become-

Corrugated, edges soggy,
Dead as a pulped tree
Heavy with nothing
but facsimilies
Of your life


It still makes a cozy home.
And you're hopeful
Like a lover awaiting
Call mail or text
Waiting for the huff,
The puff,
To breeze into you
Puffing out your sail
Or even
Sailing your upended boxy boat
All the way to the sea.


4th November 2009
Gautam Mukherjee

Copyright Gautam Mukherjee, 2009.