Poems by Alamgir Hashmi

“The Cesspool”

            By Alamgir Hashmi

On the last rung

of the ladder

the rust is flaking off.

Everything, it seems,

is scared of what lies below.

I drag my eyes away

to concentrate

on ordinary objects:

a green and white flag

fluttering weakly on a bamboo,

a tangle of multicolour kites,

and clouds hobbling along

like old women in warm, grey shawls.

Breakfast is laid.

Teeth dug into half-boiled eggs

reflect the yellow stuff.

I cannot eat.

The gelatinous white

brings the gutter to mind.

Why am I afraid

of these vibrations

that suck me under?

A poem is not a lotus;

it will grow in a cesspool.

Copyright© Alamgir Hashmi, from My Second in Kentucky: Poems by Alamgir Hashmi (Lahore & London: Vision Press, 1981). All Rights Reserved.

“The Earth is Greening Again?”

            By Alamgir Hashmi

The earth is greening again?

Fresh salad days ahead,

as I reckon the date

on the kitchen-calendar:

October 18. Good, good.

The season must turn

and match the time in my mind.

It’s 18th March,

the earth’s greening again.

Fresh salad days ahead,

as I recall the past meatless

winter I spent here

chewing mouldy phrases,

grazing the German cauliflowers

in every forbidden field.

But Winterthur has a monopoly

on the summer; wears

it like a bra

of light blue silk,

with which you must not

trust me.

It can rain for ever

while you do-not-trust-me

with it.

Could I care less

for the necessities of time?

Raleigh assured his countrymen

how he could feel the heat

of the moon in Guiana.

Bad weather may have founded

empires, but the rainmaker in Kansas

sports a cloud on

his magic string,

like a long-tailed Indian kite,

pink and black,

whose colour is a bedsheet

I could use the next winter long.

It’s the wrong time, though.

It’s got to be 18th October.

I already see

late November through it,

as through a deep blue bra

of European silk (made in Weisslingen,

St. Gallen, or Hong Kong).

There! The ski-lifts

holding people down

like so many bluejeans on a washing line.

Copyright© Alamgir Hashmi, from This Time in Lahore: New Poems by Alamgir Hashmi (Lahore & London: Vision Press, 1983). All Rights Reserved.

“The Woman at Lahore G. P. O.”

            By Alamgir Hashmi

His long scrawl in black—

­now he circles, now he draws

a crooked line, a horseshoe

language that he writes.

God, is there no way

to talk straight to people?

I am the third. Two others

will have to be written for

first; the one at front is

already pouring forth,

and he writes her letter

ready for post before she

has finished. They rage in their

passion, they whisper

and wail in loss. He calmly

sharpens his pencil meantime.

I wonder if that is all

they learn at school.

My husband is away and I

am lonely, but other women have

just said it—and every time he

has nodded his head.

He’s all eyes and no heart.

What will he put in that letter?

I cannot say it;

he does not understand.

I’d rather go home

and cook the carrots for dinner.

Copyright© Alamgir Hashmi, from Neither This Time / Nor That Place by Alamgir Hashmi (Lahore & London: Vision Press, 1984). All Rights Reserved.

- Alamgir Hashmi is the author of numerous books of poetry and literary criticism. His poetry and prose have also appeared widely in journals and in recent anthologies like Battle Runes (Bibliotekos, 2011) and No, Achilles (WaterWood, 2015-16). He has taught as a university professor in North America, Europe, and Asia.