Marc Nair (b. 1981)

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SELECTED POEMS

#6

Warm currents tug at our toes 
as we walk between undying bottles.  
The occasional frog splays in death,  
holding an omen or a kindness.  

When the sun sets the beach inks  
itself into an invisible roar of waves. 
Bulbs of sea fruit, long forgotten, 
slowly harden into dreams. 

If a jellyfish were to sting you, 
first there is an electric surge,  
all the lights going on at once;  
and then comes the pain. 

I Dream of Medusa

Materials: seed, bamboo stick

When the jellyfish come  
they will be in bobbing clouds  
of soundless bodies, wild 
tentacles grasping the sky. 

A touch is electric enough  
to entrance and turn us  
not to stone, but husk;  
empty of desires,  
floating in their wake.  

We keep them dried,  
carefully planted at corners  
of houses; may whatever  
darkness that tries to enter  
look them in the eyes.


Mother, My Other, Tongue

Parasurama pulled Kerala from the sea fully formed, all 
160 katam between Gokarnam and Kanyakumari. 

I lost my other tongue  
before I knew 
I had language and history, 
rising from the axe 
of a warrior sage, atonement 
after destroying the ruling caste.  

My Otherland birthed in myth,  
freed from the poison of snakes 
that seeped into fields, crops flailing. 
In return, the Nairs became 
snake-worshipping people, warriors 
cozened to the plough, now we wielded 
pen and paper as sword and shield. 

Today, I am tourist, 
a traveller through other tellings  
of my history, searching but missing 
the words to belong. I adopt Malay 
as my easier mother, the one 
whose script is Romanised, whose  
loan words are more familiar.  

But I will always be orphan 
in my forked tongue, 
kept from birthright and blood,  
with sibilant dreams that I too 
am Kshatriya, reborn in another time, 
safe from mythical slaughter and flood, 
yet no closer to mother:  
unseen, untranslated, other.

Plastic Ghosts #5

To fall as a cloud
is to descend whole,

a fragrance that basks
on the shore, unbroken
by wind, free from thermals,
the questing winds of eagles.

Some clouds keep their shape
by hiding a ray of sunlight inside,
a knotted secret, even as
the world around turns to rain.

The Hero’s Journey

It is the Indian man’s swagger that keeps him in the 
centre of the poster, despite the too-tight shirt that 
can never hide late-night meals of rice and dahl, broad 
shoulders compromised by the swell of hips as big brother 
approaches his final form, striding through the carnage 
of another city on fire, the overturned Marutis and blood
stained dhotis evidence of his unrelenting march towards 
justice. His moustache curves downward in disapproval 
as he clenches the sacred stick of violence by which he 
will spank the evil out of his nemesis. Big brother will 
not forget to dance in between the fight scenes, because 
dancing takes him away from the truth that this is the 
only street he knows, that this town is too small and the 
demons he fights keep his passport locked away and never 
pay on time. They hide in mountains of sand, between 
faceless shipping containers that hold all manner of things 
too heavy to lift, even for a hero. 

by Marc Nair
from The Earth in our Bones (2023)

 

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