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Blue Hanuman

A four-armed flutist took me
to the blue avatar: stone-blue
monkey, whiskers silver,
broken beads silver–
paint dashed by the artist on cheap paper.
Bought for a few annas, God
kneels, looks left. Intense concentration.
His ink hands rip open his chest,
pull skin aside like a velvet curtain–
Rama and Sita alive
at his core. And what devotion shall
my flesh show, and my broken-open breast.
His blueblack tail flicks upward, its dark
tip a paintbrush loaded blue.

Born in Massachusetts in 1939, Joan Larkin is the 2011 recipient of the Academy of American Poets Fellowship.

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About This Poem

"At a Brooklyn Museum show, ‘Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior,’ I was riveted by a powerful watercolor portrait of Hanuman, the monkey god, tearing open his chest to reveal Rama and Sita in his heart. The stylized image and opaque blues and blacks drew me, and I was moved, thinking of the anonymous artists who once made and sold paintings of gods in the Calcutta bazaar. This visual encounter led to drafts that began as description but ultimately turned inward–the poem showed me that my response to the painting was inseparable from a long habit of self-questioning and self-censure.”
--Joan Larkin

More by Joan Larkin

Rhyme of My Inheritance (audio only)

Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.

Joan Larkin

2009

The Combo

In barlight alchemized: gold pate, the bellmouth
tenor, liquor trapped in a glass. The e-flat
clarinet chases time, strings shudder,
remembering the hundred tongues. Here comes old
snakeshine, scrolls stored in the well, here comes
the sobbing chazzan. O my lucky uncle,
you've escaped the Czar's army. Thunder
is sweet. Here comes the boink, boink bossa
nova slant of light. Snow-dollars
dissolve on a satin tongue. The river
swells green, concrete trembles, and we
sweat, leaning toward mikes and wires
as the last tune burns down to embers. Ash-
whispers. We were born before we were born.

Joan Larkin

2010

Flesh

Hooves were forbidden, but she fed us			               

stringy liver, thick tongue, gray kishkes 						

crammed with something soft. She had a bulb	         

of garlic, a handful of salt, some wretched carrots.       

Drew out blood with salt, clamped her grinder 

and fed chunks into it and forced them down.        

She let me turn the crank, and red worms      	

fell to the bowl. I ate according to the Law             	

and the cow's flesh became my flesh. 	   		

Now I lower my head to eat, moan when I wake 	

from the fear dream, the one where we shove 		

one another down the ramp toward the violent 

stench and the boy's knife. He lifts his arm

in a rhythm I've always known.

Joan Larkin

2011

poets.org

Poems

Blue Hanuman

More by Joan Larkin

Rhyme of My Inheritance (audio only)

The Combo

Flesh

poets.org

academy of american poets

national poetry month

american poets

Poems

Blue Hanuman

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