“The Intimacy That Erases All Darkness” © Bill Wolak

 

Gifts of Truth
Exiled Lady Chatterley’s Lover
A fatwa for Rushdie

Is the soul of poetry free?
Can you buy truth?

Wash your eyes!
Listen to the voices closely,
Floating in the air of mutiny-
“Poetry is not a blue jay singing the soft
melancholic songs of nostalgia but
A raven that brings the nimbus of ugly truth.
It is for creating havoc in the brothels of Bigots,
for massacring the imposters of Legislature,
for unfastening the corsets of sexuality.”

What good is poetry if it does not twist your
Rusty placid guts into knots?
What glory is it to leave if it doesn’t crush your
Ligaments into dust of awe and smoke of solitude.

Let it spurt out from the barrels of
Psychedelic rhyme and eloquence.
Segregate it from the family of
Odes and romantic ballads.
Ablaze the Prussian ocean of ignorance;
Watch the shimmering currents of truth stream –
Truth that a painter paints about war,
Truth that a journalist writes about corruption,
Truth that we all hide beneath our clothes.

In a world where leaders sell cannons and nationality;
Where priests have whipped religion into a tamed dog-
Let monologues sell conscience.
In a world where questioning the moral codes of
“Maryada Purshottama” Rama is blasphemous;
Where same- sex marriage is punishable by death-
Let poetry sell wild passion.

If poetry is for selling, at all,
Let it sell questions.
Let it sell mistakes.
Let it sell rebellion.

 

Sanskriti K is a post-graduate Literature student from The English and Foreign Languages University. Her poems have been published in YuGen magazine and several poetry anthologies including Poetica (Volume 2). She has also written short stories which have been included in The Inspiration Collective. Her works on “Magic Realism as a Narrative strategy: A study of Marquez, Rushdie and Morrison” under CPE Scheme (UGC) along with “A Discussion on Re-exoticization and Neo-Colonialism in India through Visual Texts” have been published in national journals. Currently inactive on social media, she has taken refuge in the alluring world of diametrically opposite Mahabharata and Yuri Kazakov’s stories. In her pastime, she sits down to relish and critique Quentin Tarantino’s movies and Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn’s music.

Bill Wolak has just published his eighteenth book of poetry entitled All the Wind’s Unfinished Kisses with Ekstasis Editions. His collages and photographs have appeared recently in the 2020 Seattle Erotic Art Festival, the 2020 Dirty Show in Detroit, the 2019 Rochester Erotic Arts Festival, the 2018 Montreal Erotic Art Festival, and Naked in New Hope 2018.