I
The charges might as well be read out
in Chinese, Bantu or Dravidian
or not be read at all – they drift, they loop
like light that cannot turn a corner
or soundwaves that bend in and out
of some fidelity to the original. To whom
do they cling? Another dumbstruck boy
who does not speak the English they speak
or even hear it – all nape and haircut, sat
folded up in a Jesuit clasp
with hands in his armpits, perusing
with a sort of thick-lipped composure
the platypus-nose of his left trainer, as if it had
evolved out of kilter with the rest.
II
No is the blank, the zero, the lumpy zilch,
the bijou fuck-all the question solicits
and wishes-for: the litany, the plural of no.
It is the answer the question anticipates
before asking itself, surrounding no.
Do you have anything to say in your own defence?
The hiatus, the answer-in-minus scans
the many milliseconds of a second
that hang like a threat, scaring it
way up into the corner of articulation
where it ceases to exist.
Without fuss, or noise, or anything,
without changing expression or looking up
the only yes there is nods to a no.
--- Tim Liardet
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें