[Carl Copeland]

The Deccan*

I wouldn’t mind going to bed if, instead
of sleeping the sleep of the dead, I could drowse
to the hum of a long-playing thought and be roused
from gaps between tracks by a click, never dread
the blare of a seven-a.m. resurrection,
which is why, if the night lies ahead of me, it’s
a side upper berth that’s the ticket to bliss,
in a rickety sleeper car crossing the Deccan.
Sliding the aisle curtain shut, I would take
a fetal position, interred in my berth,
and rock in the many-armed, interconnecting
embraces of dreams half-asleep, half-awake,
while a juddering mantra of death and rebirth
is chanted in clacks on the tracks of the Deccan.


* Rhymes with “reckon.” A vast triangular Indian plateau south of the Gangetic plains, between the coastal mountain ranges of the Western and Eastern Ghats.

[David Callin]

Ah, Carl. To sleep, perhaps to travel by train through a vast triangular Indian plateau south of the Gangetic plains.

You have the railway rhythm exactly, I think. (Not that it's ever quite exact itself.)

The return of Deccan in the last line is also extremely satisfying. And I love the three rhymes in one and a half lines at the start. They're like the clunking out of the station before the train gets into its groove.

Even "lines" have (should that be "has"?) a double meaning here!

I like it a lot.

Cheers

David

[Jim Moonan]

.
Woah Carl! Such sonics. Such exoticism. If I could I'd book it today. There's so much good in this but I'll have to come back when I've got the time. Your vivid description of being rocked and jostled in half-in and half out of sleep, experiencing a full dream state is a Kubla Kahn vision; sleep steeped in rich dreams, all while the landscape of the Deccan passes by in darkness. That's a powerful vision.

I wasn't aware of the geological wonder of the Deccan. Thanks for that. I look forward to hearing how others see this, and how you envisioned it. I've only read it once and have already felt so much in it. Great stuff!

And yes to everything David had to say.


----

Coming back to say Kubla Kahn is a bit of a stretch. And I certainly wasn't implying any opium state! Yours is simply a train-induced half-dreaming half-awake state. Just my usual free-thought without borders.



.

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks, David. The railway rhythm was something I was going for, and I’m delighted you felt it. In fact, I heard the train sound in the word “Deccan” itself and thought I’d use it a lot more than I did, but something else happened.

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks so much, Jim. I can’t think of a better compliment than your readiness to book.

As for how I envisioned it:

I’m a good sleeper, but don’t like going to bed, and the reason, at least on the surface, is that I think it’s going to be boring. I used to keep talk radio on during the night. Now I take my phone to bed and have YouTube talk me to sleep or else take some pet thought with me and let it loop in my head till I drop off. I did that a lot with this poem, in fact. It really is a kind of bliss for me when the drowsy, daydreamy state is prolonged and renewed by the motion of a vehicle, and that long, long train ride across the Deccan a few years ago was the ne plus ultra. That’s the idea that got me going, but then it started turning into a contrast between the belief of some Christians that the dead sleep until the Resurrection and the Hindu scenario of recurring death and rebirth.

All power to free thought without borders!

[Jayne Osborn]

Carl,
This is lovely.
After reading David's comment I went back for a 2nd read... I hadn't fully appreciated the train rhythm first time around, but, yes indeed, the clickety, clickety, clickety clack is perfect for this poem, and it never waivers.

Never having heard of the Deccan, I was grateful for your note at the end. I don't mind having to Google something unfamiliar, but it was nice not having to bother!

I did wonder about the coupling of "berth" and "re-birth", but not enough to trouble me... though I found myself momentarily trying to concoct rhymes like breath/death instead, if you happened to switch while a juddering mantra of death and rebirth to "while a juddering mantra of rebirth and death", as the berth had already been mentioned in L7. It's not a big deal though.

The internal rhymes are excellent (and as for the blare of a seven-a.m. resurrection, I can relate to that as I have one every day) - and I dread them too!!

Jayne