God's present predicament [quasi-sonnet]
. . . But how could you put God in the lower case?
Did you wish to connote His present predicament?
-- Dhananjay Jog
god was in a pickle
the world became too fickle
his oceanic vast
reduced now to a trickle
his penchant for unseenness
interpreted as meanness
his moon became a sickle
his cough the merest tickle
esteemed once as monsoon
he seemed less than a drizzle
his laila lacked majnoon
his drink displayed no swizzle
what pencil cared to jot him?
philosphers forgot him
Index (with links) to sonnets on this blog is here.
posted by david raphael israel at 11:04 PM
3 Comments:
Loved this, but for the oddly intrusive, forgive me my feedback,"his laila lacked majnoon".
Fingertree --
I can see (maybe) somebody objecting to the drink with no swizzle, or the cough as a tickle, but if there is objection to laila and majnoon, I would have to conclude that the reader simply is not very acquainted with the literatures that this is intended to evoke. In certain poetries (in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu -- but Persian is at the heart of it) relating to spiritual matters per se, the semi-mythological figures of Laila and Majnoon are as ubiquitous as -- well, sun & moon (or nearly so). So I apologies if these figures seemed to obtrude in the poem you read. They did not at all obtrude in the one I wrote; on the contrary, they made themselves more at home than home itself.
A rough equivalent (referencing English rather than Persian figures in the allusion) might be:
his Juliet lacked a Romeo
Perhaps, Mr. Tree, you find this equally intrusive, obtrusive, or in some other wise mistrusive. If so I again apologize, but note that the rhetorical utterance anyway is (as noted) essentially (even if seemingly vaguely so) modelled on Farsi antecedents. It's possible that this doesn't help my case. What can I say but: God alone knows best? (so: I don't)
(with apologies with the spirited riposte)
Am gratified withal at your approval of the poem, notwithstanding the (now overly-disputed) wee caveat. The reader is certainly permitted freedom to dislike an element; but the writer may counter-object that the element proposed for rejection was the very cornerstone! (as it were)
cheers,
d.i.
Of course I know Laila Majnoon, but am firmly put in my place!
-Ms. Tree
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