Here, to discover every day until May 18th, the 13 poems by Sandeep Bhagwati who inspired his lastest creation Niemandslandhymnen.
XII — Portents
As if it sang about a future we could live in
The morning lark cheers up this day of sun and blue
As if these nightmares had all suddenly dispersed, misdriven
By memories of the future, a brain’s curlicue
In time, no omens, just an over-anxious rant…
Outside, indeed, the world seems "various and beautiful and new"-
But would I really ask the poet [1] to recant
His acute auguries of endgame empires?
No. Bliss comes not only to the ignorant.
Will our species, when our use-by date expires,
Still cherish birdsong — and marvel as, with nary any pause,
relentless winds sweep our earth, fan feral fires?
- Matthew Arnold (1822-1888). The quote is from his poem "Dover Beach" (1867).
XIII — No Man’s Land Anthem
Wind Relentless winds sweep our earth, fan feral fires
Diaspora Abolish boundaries, scatter souls, demolish dreams
War Whip war and peace into a dance of violent gyres
Magma Deep in earth’s crust despair seeps into creaking seams
Entropy Where ancient energies, unearthed, dissipate
Clouds Into the void, in hazes and mists, vague, inchoate streams.
Radiation What once was intimate now must evaporate
Networks Across an arborescent globe. Dispersed and driven
Avarice By greed or lust, we hasten to disseminate
Algorithms Through matterless manipulations of the given
Oceans Our voice above the din of oceanic choirs
Portents As if it sang about a future we could live in.
News posted on Thursday, May 18, 2017.