Mukesh Williams

by Best Poem

Two Poems

A Composite Enterprise
(For Nietzsche)

We always look for the perfect jewel,
The most exalted image of a genius
To reach the sanctum sanctorum
Of our aspirations, and
We reject the quotidian
As meaningless bagatelle,
Unfit for inclusion in a glorifying renaissance,
Or an imposing order of things.

The works of Cyclops, ants and profligates,
Are equally important
To make harmony,
To produce melody,
In a composite enterprise,
Something that will remind us
Of our deformities, blindness and follies
And leave us truly human for once.

*

Performing a Begging Act

Not just to beg alone
But to induce the family,
To scrounge in mock distress
In public spaces,
Is to force the psychic destiny
To feel the lack less acutely
Than the enactment itself.

Not just to snivel, flail, or cavil,
But to watch the mercy act shrewdly
Like some Homeric epic
Is to cultivate a style, and
Believe in the hypocritical moment
As an obsequious oral performance
That can provide a decent living.

Mukesh Williams has been published in Indian, Canadian, Caribbean, and American journals such as Indian Verse, The Journal of Indian Writing in English, Muse India, Centrifugal Eye, The Blue Fog Journal of Poetry, Foliate Oak, Plankton, and Best Poem. His poetry possesses a startling mixture of Japanese minimalism and Foucaldian coups and carries with it an uncanny postmodernist signature. His works have been quoted in reputed journals around the world from The Journal of Commonwealth Literature to The Other Voices International Project. He is listed in Marquis Who’s Who and the World Poetry Directory of UNESCO 2008. Williams has published two books of poems, Nakasendo and Other Poems, 2006 and Moving Spaces, Changing Places, 2007, and is now working on a third book, The Figural Moment. His latest co-authored book, Representing India, 2008 has been favorably reviewed in both journals and newspapers. He teaches at Keio University-SFC and Soka University, Japan and can be contacted through his blog site.