Stateless


                         Stateless

			…thatched houses catch fire
sparrow tires from romping in the coned-flower chestnut   
     tree
				alights on the road
	tires crunch macadam
				sparrow perches on live telegraph wires
winds sweep the plains
					topple high-tweeting power poles
			sparrow haunts deserted godowns
caterpillar cranes tear down loading wharves
		sparrow unloads wings on marshalling yard
  trains shuttle screeching   now forth     now back
  	sparrow glides  then tumbles in air-pockets
temperature plummets
					snow flakes
      magpie in the châtaignier  shrieks disgust to the skies
melting snow runs down eaves
						air sizzles with imminent     
                            thunder
Zhen of a sudden clapclaps righteous terror
  The Eldest Son of High Heaven has high business to supervise  
                     tapeworms bore deeper into the ground
	the cicada scarcely calls to mate
   wet hungry ruffled sparrow
	has no chestnut tree to go back to    now home to transiting seagulls   tries to alight on spring-green spare Pawlonia 	chockfull of crows
	averts the mulberry tree à la feuille de platane
    fishing gear lie splayed against the trunk
       the dense dripping prickly hibiscus hedge
affixes
			house-full
  sparrow perches on the terrace rose pot
	the neighbour’s Siamese cat’s ears perk up
                sparrow rolls its eyes

April 24, 1997

From the privately-pub. coll. (rev. 2016): longhand notes (a binding of poems), Paris: 115p.
© T. Wignesan – Paris,  2016

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