Apostles of the New Age
1. To the Apostle of Killing Degeneration

Thunderlight had startled your eyes like an ape’s,
and the ministers you ushered into a dungeon
as if drugged by your doctrine of cool degradation,
(elsewhere in the Sundarbans it’s thought about

in frightened honey-collectors’ sagas of conquest) :
as bad omens like numerals dawned on your eyes,
emasculated hopes dwindled and clogged you
all, all of you at every ill-starred turn you took.

Confused as you were, you preached coves’
struggle as futile in that Delta’s thick mangroves,
not the evils degenerated spirits and the militia did
nor the lilt of a calm neurotics syncopated ­

the pilgrims of indifference limping by inches;
Lord, you drove back through Purgatory to Hell.


2. To the Apostle of Absolute Malice

All of a sudden like a swarm of African killer-bees,
you came up buzzing all around me harshly ­
the diamond-hard apostle of absolute malice,
the lord of the scoundrels, of bloody scavengers,

and of curt diplomats in the ministry of malice.
Yes, it was the unruffled air that filled with vowels
and consonants slaving at your arrival. I felt
fear banging down my spine, and saw your eyes,

blood-shot and always eager for the kill,
watching me soak my glittering sweat with a towel
and resting by sorrows and grief ­ my allotted sacks.
Later as I sank under the weight of one big sack,

a grin on your lips bloomed like a white lotus;
Lord, it’s so kind of you letting it flash like a flower