a retirement home for gods
have faith
even when carved dusty gods have vanished
retreated
retired
with their burning-eyes centaurs in grave
even when you are repelled
as blood-thirsty mosquitos
by a fetid smell of urine
wafting from their beds
in the remote retreat
where they sit senescent at a breakfast table
abusive
swearing at each other
disagreeing
words fleeing from the gaps of their brown teeth
bullying
even when they are tangled in an imbroglio
for scrapbooking
exploding with Therefore-I-Am
reminiscing about their lost arms or ears or legs
even when they have been rascals at times
sleeping with Heras
raping Nemeses
with bastard offsprings
not coming to visit them
even goddesses no different
promiscuous
catty
laughing at ugly flab
old goat’s goatee
even when you dig them out from lost myths
buried in deserts
find them sitting at stained windows or silent tables
blankly looking into the void
themselves with no god to follow
have faith
even in the morning
in their hellhole
when a newspaper drops from a letterbox
—breaks the silence with a thud
bringing the news
like the current affairs with agitating debates on the TV
this one about gods that replaced them
with their armies at war
arguing disputing
these lost rascals fallen gods
trapped in the nursing home
cut off from buckled Bifrost
take sides
in a doomed hall
bet on who will win
but offer no wisdom
in their Fields of Asphodel
between two heads of Agni
like faiths their ritual of recitals
there is a roll call every morning
Amun-Re, Zeus, Odin., Jupiter…
to hundreds of gods
bored—all waiting for their name
to be uttered again so history never loses them
new wings added are empty
ready for gods of our time
empty rooms waiting for their fall
as they take the burning men women and babies
as human sacrifices
just as their predecessors
the seats are kept warm
cakes are baked fresh every day for the tea
with their arrival anticipated in the day room
there they can join the others
for the games that do not matter
where they can grow
their haemorrhoids
sitting and playing poker
and keep losing
as they have always
for that too
you must
have faith
Shortlisted for the Aryamati Prize 2023, Yogesh Patel received an MBE for literature in the Late Queen’s 2020 Honours List.
Patel’s last collection of poems, The Rapids, a winner of the Finalist Award in the Indie Book Awards, was published by The London Magazine in 2021. Its Italian translation was published in 2023. Internationally celebrated, he edits Skylark and runs Skylark Publications UK, as well as a non-profit Word Masala project to promote literature. Honoured with the Freedom of the City of London, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, he has LP records, films, radio, a children’s book, fiction, and non-fiction books, and three poetry collections to his credit. A recipient of many awards, including The International Pinnacle Accolade Award by Vatayan – Poetry on South Bank and a Co-Op Prize for the poetry on the environment, Patel was Poet-of-Honor at New York University in April 2019. Among the venues he has read in, are the House of Lords and the National Poetry Library. Patel’s poem is also scheduled for the moon aboard a NASA/SpaceX rocket to be archived in a time capsule as part of humanity’s cultural record on the moon’s Southern Hemisphere.
His writing has appeared in many notable literary journals, including PN Review, The London Magazine, World Literature Today, Indian Literature, Stand, Envoi, Under the Radar, Shearsman, IOTA, Understanding, Orbis, The Book Review, and Confluence. He has also appeared on BBC TV and Radio. Patel’s work also features in The National Curriculum anthology, MacMillan educational series, Sahitya Akademi anthologies, and more than fifteen other anthologies across the world. Having written columns and articles for numerous broadsheets and literary journals, he was an editor at Ars Notoria which he helped establish and writes regular columns for Confluence.
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