The Rain
fell like lice
on the running dogs
and cracked like pox
on the pavement men
It walked some walls
and ran thru gutters
gathered in lazy pools
in the hollow places
and hurried down
the asphalt ways
moistened the rags
of my soul and
knocked softly
on my windowpane.
(Uncollected)
Here it is Spring Again
and sorrow in this eager air
has the sudden smell of stones
washed by man-walked streams
certain cotton charms
and the green round of her arm
proclaim the dull return of spring.
Each different-same day the sea
washes its smells on the sands
and a constant tree stands
to be seen everyday. Every night
the distraught drum beats
the rhythm of some ancient heart.
Each night the flesh moves
its heavy weight on the air
and at morning the distant
wall of a broken barn breaks
through the nightlong snow.
And with all there is perhaps
a lip to be watered, a clock
to be wound, windows to be opened,
every day in this world that I am.
A Letter for Mother
For heaven’s sake, mother,
how you’ve aged!
You could have been kinder.
Roots twist
and the rinse
of leaves under rain
has different smells;
white loads them differently
and the sun sets
a new yellow.
Trees grow old too.
Couldn’t you crust your kindness
in another way?
Wormwood and water
decay in your mouth
your body is a dried river
and your eye
a seamy stream
of undone sins.
But not in the same way,
you’ll say,
the modus of trees
is different.
The white snow is white
and the seeing eye black
you’re still my golden boy
and I
your beautiful bride
neither the barked tree
nor the burning axe
are at fault
for the center
is not here.
Mother, do not kiss me,
for Heaven’s sake,
your lips are leavenings
and mine withered ants.
You could have been kinder
separate yourself from your oldness.
The return is not the end
and hope only in the waiting.
(from Bones and Distances, 1968)
Portraits of America
Snow 1
The snow lies
on the rail
like a broken snake
It climbs this branch
and down another
it falls on the leaves
accumulated
like a fine white rain.
Snow 2
Atop
the wood-green
shingle porch
projecting
from brick-red
brickwalls
the snow sat
all of twenty
four hours.
Capitol Building
At night
the Capitol
Building
shines
like an embalmed corpse
being the effect
of subdued lights
Sherman Street runs
into the capitol steps
and to the right
are Democrat dining halls
and to the left
Republican restrooms
on either side
of the capitol building.
Department store window
He had seen them swinging
in his amorphous gaze
behind the glass and gold
of a noonday window
the smells embracing his eyes
and the novel desires revealing
in the near-dark nates of his wife
receding into the corner of the kitchen
Had brought it home to secrete his desires
within the pneumatic satisfactions
of a rose he had never lipped.
Apartment house
In spite of
three great
big windows
at ten o’clock
my room
is dark
You can do
nothing
about such things.
If the sun rises
in the east
three big windows
in the west
are no help at all
at ten in the morning
The Mother
Her nipples have
widened from
original points
into black diaphragms
open to hands and
the spread of weather
Her desire has split
from man to child.
The Park
Two bronze seals
in the waterless oval
of the park, ply
their constant trade
Dull
Balancing imaginary balls
on their noses
each supporting
a black boy
on their back
And on circular rows of green
benches, browned by bird-shit
and rain, old men sit and stare
pants worn, souls torn
each wholly alone
in his observation
of the unhappy seals.
Used cars
The number of
used car lots
all by the
main street
convinces me
that the men
in this city
are a dissatisfied bunch.
Snow 3
How pure the snow
as it falls fresh
onto my black overcoat
from a blue sky
covers the green beds
and escapes the metal pavement.
How like white
is the white snow
Before tomorrow’s sun
takes it all away
and leaves the streets
brown as before.
Snow 4
White loads
have fallen
from the sky
And the trees
let down
destructive arms
yellow leaves
have spattered
on the green
green beds.
The little cone tree
sits forlorn
like a dog
in the rain.
(From Selected Poems, 1995)
Srinivas Rayaprol was born in 1925 in Secunderabad. He studied in Nizam College, Hyderabad and at the Banaras Hindu University before going to Stanford University from where he obtained an M.S. in Civil Engineering. While in the U.S., he started writing poetry in English and interacted closely with writers like William Carlos Williams, Yvor Winters, and James Laughlin. His correspondence with Williams has been published as Why Should I Write a Poem Now: The Letters of Srinivas Rayaprol and William Carlos Williams (2018), edited by Graziano Krätli. His books of poetry include Married Love and Other Poems (1972) and Selected Poems (1995).