Citatepedia^®.com

Stop writing Literature, You garrulous Indian

a life of toil for the man in the centre
a hub in the peripheral tireless wheel

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

no words cling now no words meant in blame
the tongue he lash the words they now tame

no shock of blast open laughter rock the hall
everyman there say there sure were a man

a man no fear cowed in communion to other
made for no gods made for no demons either

all men he know best when he see just once
no second thought resurrect the man if bad

so go tell the magi no trek in sight in sky
here a man be born here he so sure die

other no like see one so bright stand up high
other no like feel like sky fall low into ocean

what make ‘m i say with feeling so just
is sure he different he force hisself work

work work work work an' again work
he work nite an' nite so 50-hour in day

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

where you go from word born here now
turn and twist all whoring the alphabet

‘don't write anything you can get published'
so publish only what you can't call your own

writing like reading's a public coital act
so showing your work is exhibitionism

‘why don't you send your stuff around
keeping it to yourself's sheer masturbation'

reading-watching-listening's just voyeurism
so sending wares around is prostitutionism

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

he it was in minesweeper capture aurora borealis
message from extrasensory enter into he word

in Bengal waters alone he hear No-man cry
only in deepdown psyche water drip drip dry

then on land he no see reason to the fight
so he let he wrists spill he guts to the fill

then he take the world on all by he torn self
he spare no skin in dug-Malayan-jungle-out

what he do what he think he do he no tell
everybody meet man an' no see albatross hang

he no tell story like ol' mariner in dream
he go wake people from dumb dead trance

many many people high up no like this act
some call him stuckup other just ‘im damn

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

is all he do then what kind of working this
is big work man ‘cause most body dead sleep

where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people working at waking man

Dedicated to Eric Mottram,1924 - 1995

(© T. Wignesan 13-15 October 1995. Pub. in 'Radical Poetics (Inventory of Possibilities) ', London,1997.)

* Eric N. W. Mottram held a personal Chair, since 1983, in English and American Literature at King's College, University of London where he was first appointed as lecturer in American Literature in 1960. A prolific poet (34 vols.) and critic (15 vols.) , he also taught at Zurich, Singapore and Gröningen after obtaining a Double First in English Tripos from Cambridge in 1950. He was a recepient of the American Learned Societies award in 1965 and had also subsequently taught at North Western University and New York University at Buffalo. He edited 22 issues of the Poetry Society's Review in the seventies and was largely responsible for introducing Beat literature in Europe. He authored Algebra of Need on William Burroughs.

poem by T. Wignesan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!