Song & Dance, poetry by Feby Joseph at Spillwords.com
Victor Serban

Song & Dance

Song & Dance

written by: Feby Joseph

 

How can I sing? I’ll quote and remember
how I sang and danced – My harp, dried leather
knows the chords so well, even a gust will be enough
to get the damned thing playing from memory

of Jerusalem – singing and dancing…
a never-ending ostinato; leitmotif celebrating
birth right – land of my forefathers where they sang
and danced with the same harp I play

their victory, celebrating, over
a mass of heathens and their land bequeathed
by an avenging and amnesiac god of wilderness,
their feet red with their blood.

I once sang songs of revenge –
Vengeance against the heathens who danced
in the blood of my ancestors who danced in the blood
of heathens; My own red feet remember

the leitmotif – song and dance…
As I sing about how I can’t sing in a foreign land,
I wonder, if somewhere, a heathen hangs his trumpet
And sing his cyclic sorrow.

Feby Joseph

Feby Joseph

Hailing from state of Kerala, Feby Joseph describes himself as a spiritual vagabond, currently working as a Piano teacher in Mumbai. Feby is the winner of Reuel International Prize for Poetry, 2020. Some of his works have appeared on Café Dissensus, Foreign Literary Journal and The Bangalore Review.
Feby Joseph

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