[Editorial note: This spoken-word piece by our late co-founder Rana Bose was first published in Montréal Serai on March 18, 2014.]
Slowly the skin gets depoliticized
mottled and flaky.
The throat parches over
Beleaguered, crotchety and shaky .
The shoulders cringe
Blue veins, snake rivers
Crawl, where muscles
Once showed off
Slowly, the voices,
of mothers and fathers get closer
To a whisper.
Behind curtains,
Conversations drift
and voices lift.
Slowly, the hope
That inclusion will happen, disappears.
Neglect will not be forever, fades.
Slowly she departs
Skips town,
Smiling brightly
Through the window.
Slowly he says “right”
Raising his head
In an indulgent tone,
The intelligence
Of coffee, spewing, brewing from
a fair trade zone.
Slowly the years amble, stroll and roam
Crissing and crossing
We sit like bored cats
Pawing homeless flies
Waiting
To pounce on
Mice men
Who meander in
From an alley
That sold you
The next gen.
With no warranty.
Slowly, the poubelle cans of contention
Distraction, competition and dereliction
Roll, scatter,
In the alley
Where grown-ups
Once grew
with attrition,
Chewing the fish-bones
Of a millionaire
Who made his money
By imitation
leaving the alley
On a Wens’day morning like that was his innovation.
Slowly valour, surprise
Victory and elation rise.
And then collapse on a beachhead.
Breaking thru’
The first forty years
Of émigré madness,
Many trapeze acts
Many deaths,
Of circus acts with life,
Of crisis before the peace
Of peace without control
Of empire by benevolent madness
Of morons winning
And vermin turning slowly,
In a soil
That is pronouncedly hospitable,
Slowly, the majority vote like idiots
And let idiots rule the majority
Slowly they make films like Namesake
Of Mothers left behind
As Fathers reminisce
And quietly perish
in rented places.
The caress of loved ones
Are submarine gestures
Inert to malignant thoughts and secrets
The bend in the road
Is but a dystopic dream
In a church basement
Where the waters rise
As the dykes give up early.
Slowly they make films
like Volver
About coming back
Over and over
Of returning
With haunting eyes
Grace without tears
About slumped bodies
And dumped souls
Spinning darkly
In a cavernous
Velouté.
And slowly I want to volver
Return.
I want to Return
slowly.
Slowly I want to change the names of the spaces
That I sought to change and volver/return the
owners
to their names.
