Sergius Seeks Bacchus E-Book

Norman Pasaribu

• Herausgeber: Tilted Axis Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 58

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Sergius Seeks Bacchus is a heartbreaking and humorous rumination on what it means to be in the minority in terms of sexuality, ethnicity, and religion. Drawing on the poet's life as an openly gay writer of Bataknese descent and Christian background, the collection furnishes readers with an alternative gospel, a book of bittersweet and tragicomic good news pieced together from encounters with ridicule, persecution, loneliness, and also happiness. The thirty-three poems in Norman Pasaribu's prize-winning debut display a thrilling diversity of style, length, and tone, and telescope out from individual experience to that of fellow members of the queer community, finding inspiration equally in the work of great Indonesian poets and the international literary canon, from Dante to Herta Müller.

Leseprobe

Sergius Seeks Bacchus

‘You are home now, outsider, for what that’s worth.’

Gregory Pardlo, Digest

‘Meanwhile, we lose our sense of wonder. The world is no longer mysterious.’

Jack Cohen, Major Philosophers of Jewish Prayer in the Twentieth Century

FOR LEO,

who too fell in love with footnote to howl

Erratum

What was he thinking here, picking this body

and this family, where being match-made

with your mother’s niece was possible,

where first-born sons always meant everything,

and here, falling in love with the boy

who sat beside him at school,

when all that lingered of first love was that first kiss

they shared when cutting PE,

and here, not long after his first book came out,

as his family sat cross-legged together and ate,

he told them it wouldn’t end with any girl,

much less the Toba or Karo kind,

and here as he stood by the side of the road

that night, all alone, cars passing him,

his father’s words hounding him,

Don’t ever come back, Banci,

and he wept under a streetlight, frightened

at the first drops of rain misting his hair,

and here when he realised something odd about the

text that was his life and hoped sometime soon

the Publisher would print an erratum

to restore the lost lines, wherein

he’d know he was everything and also nothing

was wrong with him, and he’d know

what lingered of first love

was that very first kiss, bestowed

back when his family sat cross-legged together

and ate, grateful because he had picked

this body and this family?

Love

When the rain pays a visit

and he’s sitting at home,

he climbs up the stairs and into this room

to make sure there are no leaks

between the ceiling and the sky.

He and the Tree

At high noon he sought forgiveness from the solitary tree

at the edge of the company parking lot, where it sheltered his car

from the sun. He sought forgiveness for his granddad, the palm oil

company’s founder, for the whole clan, really, who’d spent

generations taking a carpenter for god’s own son. The tree sobbed,

recalling suddenly his childhood friend who had been ripped

from the earth for being ‘too close to the foundation’.

From afar they used to exchange mischievous glances and winks

and daydream about growing up, when birds and butterflies would alight

on their branches and leaf buds to help them pass notes back and forth.

The tree regretted not telling his friend that he loved him.

If he were here, he would take him to a church. At the altar

they would be joined together before god, who had three branches

—like a tree—and their children would fill the lot, every

single square inch, so that someday everyone who passed

would think a forest had sprung up in the city’s heart.

The man hugged the tree and the tree hugged the man.

Sergius Seeks Bacchus

Snake-like, you shed your short-lived skin

and commence/continue your quest. Now the light from on high

passes through you. You’re luminous. Meanwhile, out west

in decrepit Rome sits Galerius, oblivious his end is nigh.

You seek your beloved—he appeared to you in your cell,

his body glowing silver as he whispered, Endure,

for I will always watch over you. With him you’ll rise

up to heaven and wonder at how familiar

it all feels. Hand in hand, you two will stroll the streets,

introducing one another to everyone you meet.

Poetry

Laos dilanglangi do ahu, tarlungun-lungun…

(In the places I wander, my heart weeps…)

—from the Batak pop song, Mardalan Ahu

Time to turn in the resignation letter

you’ve been dying to write for so long. Time

to reveal all the credit card statements. Time

to come clean to your wife. Time

to confess it was never the work meetings

that were sapping you of strength.

This whole time, loneliness has been your leafage,

green and shaggy and lush. What a fine tree, they all think,

on the verge of buzzing with bees and bursting with fruit.

But you’re withering,

your trunk and twigs diminishing, the benalu

in your branches eating away at your heart.

Time to stop living a lie. Everything is

nothing but a show. And you’re a bad actor

with no script, trying to make her life your stage.

Who’s watching? Your folks—and empty seats.

You stand in the spotlight, unfiltered, unpink,

performing an endless series of bad tricks.

At first, you’d wake up in the middle of the night,

haunted by how your life had turned out: racking up bills

in cheap hotels and the unripe tang of cum in your throat.

Then you heard your name murmured in sleep.

So she really does love me.

You shut yourself in the bathroom and wept.

This morning, you and she reached your golden years at last,

straggling as the alang-alang sprouting in the yard

behind where you grew up, playing tag with pups

to the honey melody of your Inong’s psalms.

From the sofa you hear your wife crooning in the kitchen:

Laos dilanglangi do ahu, tarlungun-lungun…

You turn.

Time to tell what has transpired in the dark.

Time to gesture toward what remains.

On the Glory that is Poetry

Shortly before his passing

and soon after he had a vision

in which Christ revealed his hidden

mysteries, Aquinas stopped working.

To his secretary he said,

‘Everything that I have written

seems to me as straw!

Nothing more than worthless straw!’

His Summa Theologiae was abandoned,

left unfinished, and yet

to this very day we revere it

and refer to its insights

on philosophy, theology, christology

and consider it one of the best books

written by a mere son of man.

Cooking Instant Noodles at the End of the Rainbow

Red, yellow, green

Set in a sky of blue.

What a Glorious Painter! Who could he be?

—from the children’s song, Rainbow, by A.T. Mahmud

Wake up at four a.m. to a cell-phone alarm ringing.

It’s for Christy—her morning Quiet Time. Turn off the alarm

and make the bed. This is usually Christy’s job.

Go to the kitchen and get out two packs of instant noodles. This

is usually your job.

Bring water to a boil in two small pots. Break open

the seasoning, then the chilli powder. Christy

hates spicy food while you’re the reverse.

Plop the noodles in pot one and the seasoning in pot two.

Christy can’t stand starchy broth and

ever considerate, you comply.

We can afford the gas, she says.

Drain the noodles in a strainer. Divide

them between two Hello Kitty bowls.

Christy bought them ’cause they were cute.

She said she wanted to be buried cute—

in pink ribbons, foundation, a little powder,

blush, mascara, and a frilly dress.

Bring both bowls into the bedroom. Savour them

alone. Christy’s gone. They found her body

underneath a bridge. She’d been saying she missed

the taste of her mother’s sayur lodeh.

You don’t. You miss Christy. The other day

she came to you in a dream. She said:

there’s nothing at the end of the rainbow.

It isn’t even a painting—