THE VOYAGE
after Baudelaire
I
It begins with a child, engrossed by maps,
the globe answering his wish for adventure.
How huge the world seems under the lamp’s clear light.
How small a thing memory makes of it.
One morning we set out, our brains on fire,
hearts a blur of hurt and desire,
and off we go, borne by the waves,
infinite questers stuck on finite seas:
some glad to escape a disgraced nation,
others a dire upbringing, and a few,
star-gazers drowned in the eyes of a woman,
despotic Circe with her lustful scents.
Not to be changed into brutes, they get drunk
on space and light, and blood-red skies;
suns that toughen and ice that bites
slowly erase the trace of kisses.
But the true voyagers are those who leave
for the sake of leaving; hearts buoyed like balloons,
they never diverge from their path,
helplessly yelping like some kid ‘Come on!’
With clouds for heads they dream, much as
a rookie pictures a fired missile,
of pleasures that are unknowable,
for which the mind has no words.
II
We mimic – it’s comic – the top and the ball
as they spin and bounce; even in our sleep
‘I wonder why’ fools with us, twitching us
up and down like some yo-yoing angel.
Strange condition: our purpose shifts around
and, being nowhere, might be anywhere…
hope pulls the same face as despair;
we run like crazy in pursuit of calm.
Our soul’s three-master searches for its goal.
A voice sounds from the bridge: ‘Open your eyes!’
Wild with ardour, a voice from the crow’s nest cries:
‘Love… glory… happiness.’ Hell’s teeth! It’s a rock.
Each small island detected by the watch
is, we think, a goldmine owed us by fate;
imagination, orgiastic fantasist,
discerns the submerged Needles come first light.
Lover of chimeras!
Ought he to be thrown in the sea,
that tanked-up finder of Americas,
mirages that make the void worse?
So an old tramp, traipsing through mud,
might dream of a five-star hotel;
he drivels on about the honeymoon suite
as a weak bulb lights up the latest hovel.
III
Stupendous travellers! What fine stories
we read in your eyes, eyes deep as the sea.
Show us the caskets of your memories,
jewels faceted with stars.
We’d like to voyage without budging.
To liven up our prisons
paint on our minds’ taut canvas
your recollections and their framed horizons.
Tell us, what did you see?
IV
‘We saw stars
and waves; we also saw Saharan wastes;
and, despite traumas and unforeseen disasters,
we were often bored, just as we are here.
The sun’s glory on the...
