White banners
flutter from the lampposts
marking some sort of surrender.
He hurries aimlessly, unsure
if he's the pursuer or the pursued.
Something is fleeting, his sole certainty.
Something nauseatingly beautiful
like the white chrysanthemums
withering outside the deli.
Something is fleeting
like the smell of genitals
on a finger the morning after.
Seeking no destination he sits at the bus stop,
hides his face between the palms, and weeps
invoking the god of arduous roads. |
A word from the poet about "Assimilation"
Once you become an exile, says Sartre, you lose your place in the universe. I have pondered hard on this statement because of my own bicultural identity as a Pakistani-American. With due respect to Sartre I want to pose a few questions: Isn’t this loss of place necessary in order to gain a better insight into the universe? Can exile be a state of mind, a necessary state of mind? This poem is an attempt to capture a gesture that blends the emotional and physical reality, an epiphany of exile long after the assimilation into day to day.
|
