‘To ride the river, to know desire’: Five poems from Jeet Thayil’s new book of poetry

Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys made Pet Sounds in 1966.
Some critics say it’s the greatest album
of all time – better than Kind of Blue,
better than Around the World in a Day
or Body and Soul or There’s a Riot Goin’ On
or Electric Ladyland. Taste is destiny.

What about albums out the same year,
Revolver or Blonde on Blonde or Aftermath?
What makes Pet Sounds the greatest?
A band that loved Black music made Revolver.
A band that wanted to be Black made Aftermath.
A Jewish poet made Blonde on Blonde.

Pet Sounds is a reminder of a gone time,
when Black or Brown or Jewish people
weren’t seen. You saw us only when you drove,
windows up, through certain neighbourhoods.
You love Pet Sounds because this is music
before blackness entered the world.

Friday Night on the Ark
for Vijay Nambisan

The wind pours wine, slings chansons to the palms.
See the captain, there and there, lifting his glass
to the woolly mammoths and clubfoot angels.
The seas are calm tonight. The moon’s on high.
But he won’t sail until the mammoths blow psalms
in reply. Meanwhile he’s stress-testing the cutlass,
priming the front deck, tuning the curfew bells.
There is no right way to say goodbye.

If there were, this would be it, a night like tonight,
the moon fully lit, false calm upon the water
covering the diseased towns, people stunned
by famine and obesity, by drought and flood,
new spikes within the latest variant of fright.
Nothing ages you like the death of a daughter....

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