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Where Do We Come In

Where do we come in
					in medias res  not knowing nor caring when
doesn’t everybody pine being number one we leave behind our lives in pages  pictures  or else make for images of what we saw dreamt of as part of our lives in marble  stone  rock  twisted metal  scrawled hieroglyphics of the tortured deserting mind do we have to leave then or when or do we strain for more  ours and others
lives in one vista of the whole on the tele they are playing games   plentiful games  rubber boats  caves and scaly cardboard mountains in gluey-glossy plastic colours each team was flown in on the sponsor’s purse each team member  tailored for each part  sporting spotted crocodile scales  bunny tails  blown butterfly ears  bearhair streaming down from head to toe in a brownish hugging fur hue before and after  the sponsor’s exclusive breaktime slot invited guests clapping deaf on peak dinnertime  and for millions and millions of others relaxing at home  or maybe standing leaning against the open door or lolling on sofas  sweetmeats within reach of crawling fingers  highballs in handsafter lush juices streaking down protein-heaped plates turned to a gravy curd on the low table that the au pair would remove before the programme end   while the prize board chalked hundreds of thousands  for those who merely did nothing else other than have themselves a ball
      in whose stomach-holes do the golf balls sink  	

	the postman in the morning brings in the Waste Industry’s thick envelopes stuffed with multi-coloured magazines together with ball-points with your name inscribed as though you were to be called on to affix your signature to international treaties that last only as long as the ball-point would that is to say three and half days if you use it only twice your name and add elegantly embossed on handsome stickers asking for handouts with glorious recall of their efforts for the poor the sans abri the diabetics the heart-stricken the spastics the handicapped the endless medical research for cancer how many million times can research be duplicated and all those lush colours in deluxe printed covers  if only they could print a poem for some poet without a literary agent every time they send out a bulging envelope  you give to one and the whole damned carnival is at your door cymbals clanging voices hymning every week of the year  year in and year out they send you their mag with professional photos of dying but well-fed sick forsaken-looking children posing from Ethiopia India Costa Rica ha the Rich Coast what you give in return cannot cover the cost of stamps after a mere stream of au secour calls for oeuvres caritatives during a period of weeks or months  
	in whose sick souls do the golf balls sink
what are they doing so wonderful that is not like the blaring blazé voice of the compère on the tele on a Saturday evening primetime show who gets paid in the hundreds of thousands just because he’s a celebrity and all the made-moi-selles in the front row with tongues lolling would at the slightest glance be ready to lick their hands  a tincan Saturday night chivalrous mounted charger whom the hebdomadaire hounds write pages and pages about their visits to any old place what they wear which senorita worshipping at their lapels  so often that people don’t look at their faces anymore for they know every feature by heart every trait every dimple and pimple  
in whose brain holes do the golf balls sink
right round the year shine tennis stars  the same faces jumping up and down the ATP  grunting and swearing after balls that bounce out and away from their needless hands their eyes straining beyond all measure of human endurance  each ball they hit virtually a hundred dollar bill  and when they are pushed down in the ATP list by the fresh teens buoyed by muscle tyre-lessness  there’s always the clowning in the rigged up exhibition matches or the doubles or mixed doubles Man and John  Yan and JM to take the laugh out of the bounce in the yo-yo ATP also-ran list
	in whose psyche-holes do the golf balls sink 
what do they send in the post to the directors of the beggars’ opera  what do popstars contribute they who sell the I heard that classical melody song on bandaid to millions and get gold in return infinitely more than they can use   who filled the paupers’ grave with Mozart  who gives a thought to the lonely pilfered Cervantes but the Sancho of his delirium
in whose a-holes do the golf balls sink
was that MJ gyrating grabbing his crotch in a spacecraft  the decor specially ordered and paid for   for the nonce  what did it cost  what’s the cost of an Ethiopian peasant Indian meal a day  uncooked corn or flour douzed in tinned or dried milk  the surplus waste of white markets  all above-board of course   eaten out of rusty discarded worm-twirling tins and cans and shells of infested coconuts
	in whose dream-holes do the golf balls sink  
	where do the directoires of the beggars’ opera dine what do they suck on  and how often do they sup together in the name of the needy all over the romping world  do they wine themselves while gobbling on foie gras caviar shark’s fin and pheasant or is this an impudent question  you the charity-mongers
   so here we come in   
in medias res
	it ain’t mon problème that the needy can’t ask but in the street   i’m not the conscience of the world  the grapes of wrath  the martyrised conscience of the common Indian patting tortias on the mud patch a strong people don’t need a strong man how do you make a people strong if not with tortias and chilli con carne  are they still strong where Zapata left only his riddled body in straw sandals  has the Indian peasant still enough fight left in him where drug cartels rule a kingdom where ideals hardly thrust up on reefers
follow the golf balls and squirm jumping up and down in a squirting frenzy on the mons veneris
© T. Wignesan –Paris, 1997  From the collection (revised) : longhand notes (a binding of poems), 1999.

Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2016

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