Two Comedians
(remembering Edward Hopper)
Could it be us, these two figures in robes
Of white with wide startled eyes as though
They were seeing light come down in strobes
After aeons of darkness. Where has the glow
Gone? The stage is empty and stark and lightless
Emptied of friends we expected to be with us forever.
My mother said, “Friends, with passing years, matter less.
They are good for passing time. What can never
Desert you is family, good for abiding time.”
But love changes does it not from the frantic to the tender?
Do you not long for the return of those quiet sublime
Days, the unspoken common thoughts, the happy surrender
To charmed babble? Where does it come from this thirst
For more life? How will it end? Who goes first?
Mascara
As I put it on and blink ferociously, it occurs
To me, how it started, the word for instance,
Derivation ambiguous, the definition that recurs,
From the Spanish, meaning mask, consistent
With the Portuguese, where it also means stain
Or smear, how the genius of Elizabeth Arden
Made it, as it had be, to sell in America, quick
And portable; how the Latin meaning, still sticks,
The one implying witches, despite the advertisements
Of innocent beauty, how since the Egyptians, it was meant
To attract and confuse the male, the eternally long
Lashes, implying with open coyness, come, you belong
To me; how each blink draws him closer and closer,
And holds him in a flickering look a prisoner forever.
The Defensive Soul
I was told the soul is like a small
Flame fueled by itself, enabled it is
Said, to dispel a festering dark. All
the dumpster mind retains, memories
of every trivial emotional slight
Or rebuke inflicted by intention
Or accident, the melodramatic plight
Mostly imagined, the ensuing commotions
are highlighted for relentless view.
But through the pilgrimage, misdeeds
It seems are forgiven, and the few
Remarkable for their cruelty and greed
Are forgotten. The soul’s light shadows its own deceit
Discreetly, sneaks its way through heaven’s gate.
Pramod Lad was born in India, educated at King’s College UK , and completed his Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry at Cornell University. He was a scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. He was part of the Artists and Scientists Group convened by William Meredith at the Library of Congress. Some of his poems have been published in an anthology published by the Washington Writers Group. His poems have been accepted in the following journals The Examined Life Journal, Right finger pointing, Omentum and Eclectica magazine.