Editor’s Note
In my first read of Faiz Ahmad’s poems, I was struck by their restraint in form and expression. Coming in bite-sized pieces, these poems are economical with language, resulting in sharp images and short lines with some startling phrases. In my second read, I discovered the ways in which restraint extends to the idea of narration itself. Consider, for instance, ‘Eavesdropping’, where the narrator, treading the liminal space between sleep and wakefulness, overhears an altercation. It is tempting to draw conclusions from the dialogue—the reader almost does—but the narrator stops short.
This idea is extended in ‘Dal Lake Nocturne with Four Figures’, where the images hide more than they reveal. The poem starts with the visual of deserted ghats and ends with a wailing patrol van. The unresolved tension gives the piece its sense of impending violence, since the aftermath is never revealed, only hinted at. In the silence following the poem, I heard the siren wail louder. The unuttered, half-uttered, almost-uttered textures of Faiz Ahmad’s poems demonstrate how restraint is more than just a style; it becomes a political position, a mirror to a place where violence is woven into the everyday, ambient, and without any sense of an ending.
—Debmalya Bandyopadhyay
The Bombay Literary Magazine
Past midnight, I wake an awkward judge,
called to hear them out from my bed:
high, sharp voices flaring like figures
from a bad dream, their tungsten echoes.
Show me the phone. What? The phone.
You’ve gone insane. Again drama, whole gali
should hear. Sit then, sit. Sit your whole life.
I return the water-jug’s beat to my
bedside table. Everything just seemed so
consequential. The drip-boom of a faucet
all night long; the scatter of stars.
And what I remember most: the weak
kitchen light, a window slammed shut –
and trembling – like a moon-knot
in the lake, pinching darkness to darkness.
The last shawl-merchants are leaving. Ghats
emptied of voices. Hedged by reeds and willows,
the night lake reflects inn-lights and still boats.
Four figures sit on the embankment’s curve;
one doubled over with laughter, the rest
tilting toward the thin wail of a patrol van—
A hand reaches for the low oleanders
blue hums the afternoon sky
and mothers they wait the axiom of waiting
nothing truly happens the smell of freshly
cut grass a koel’s cry drifts over
the sad splendour of pears on a table
cold light slanting through the window
as another day’s dust dissolves dis-
solves in some irredeemable vortex
Acknowledgements
Image credits: © Léon Spilliaert (1881–1946). Marine aux nuages sombres (Sea with dark clouds, 1935). Material: Watercolor and gouache on paper. Dimensions: 51 x 69 cm. Private Collection, Huizen, Netherlands.
Flemish painter Léon Spilliaert’s favorite colour was the twilight hour. Faiz Ahmad’s line “the night lake reflects inn-lights and still boats” inspired this particular choice.
Author | Faiz Ahmad
Faiz Ahmad is a civil servant working with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He has done his graduation in Biological Sciences from IIT Madras, India. His poems appear in Poetry Daily, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Northwest, Salamander, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and others. He currently reads for The Maine Review and The Adroit Journal. [Source: Author’s text]
