Farewell Cantos

RIP VAN WINKLE

Nothing had changed
When I woke up after twenty years.
I am going back to bed.
Rouse me when it changes.
I shall then tell you how the world was
In such a way that
You would long to go back there.

SPACE
(NASA, Houston, May 7)

Emptiness
Is an endless
Holiday.
(USA, 1998)

FRANKFURT
(To John Kendrick)

Mephisto is now a machine that grants any wish.
Press a button and Helen arrives
For Faust, straight from B.C.
Policemen with machine guns
Hum the Ninth Symphony.
The joy Schiller sang beckons you
From the sex-shop, an extra-soft rubber wife.
All the clocks in the world
Have the Fuhrer's hands.
(Frankfurt, 1985)

Translated from the original Malayalam by the poet.
(K. Satchidanandan is the secretary of the Sahitya Akademi.)