Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2025
Social Contract, poems by Indran Amirthanayagam.
Social Contract
What are you concocting in your studio?
We would like to know what to expect, when
the words come out to walk, to get some sun,
to say hello to the trees, to venture down
into town and straight to the cafe where
the coffee is hot and the waitress used to serving
you a first beaming cup…Oh, and if you insist
on keeping words to yourself, that can work.
The right to privacy is as important as any
other, including that of the social contract,
knowing what your brother thinks and does,
so you can sleep better, and wake up content
that the village is taking care of itself
and nobody writes or screams in silence.
Declaration of
the Rights of Fourteen Lines
I declare here that every poem I write, every comment
on the war, every declaration of love, every naming
of memories, the whole shebang, will be housed
in fourteen lines. Thus I join Shakespeare and Petrarch
and the millions of their followers who have already
joined the Fourteen Line Club, civic association, fraternity
and sorority, League of, then United, Nations, together
to celebrate the International Day of Fourteen Lines.
This is a heady moment. We have gone through war
and heartbreak. We have lost love only to find it, then
lose it again. This needs to be documented, in this format
that has withstood vicissitudes of historical preference,
that has come back into fashion thanks to our
conscious decision, to say with pride, fourteen lines.
Clearing on the Path
When melancholy starts to seep
into mind, filling thought with
smoke and fire, bile and blear
thickness, stillness forming into
a pressure cooker about to burst,
your message arrives like light,
cool wind after heat, stirring me
to smell roses and look for rabbits
and deer gamboling on the path,
setting off on that morning bet,
refreshed once more, advancing
on the year’s end goal, new year’s wish
recovered, step loose, strong, striding,
getting stronger, not looking back.
Trust the Voice
Searching for the elusive with roses,
darts and excuses, the essential
question, win the girl or write the verses…
and build stock for the next long winter,
seeds that will not perish, perennial
protein but partnership provides clues
to finding the escape route, a word
in French, a floor in a house where
we share an office, a blanket contract
obliging us to work under all conditions.
If this is not union then who will update
the dictionary, defining the term
according to love and dream, station
and use, none of which are at issue?
Distributing Seed
The sharing was sweet, exchange
of heart speech, interweaving
of lines, mutual inspiration pact.
Not writing to you now feels
blear, befogged, bitter. How
easy to hit send again? As easy
as a finger pressing on the key.
But the finger depends
on the brain, and its guidance
counselor says we must rest
for a time, to give other seeds,
beside this damned business
of loss, the opening they
will need to sprout.
© Indran Amirthanayagam
Indran Amirthanayagam writes a Substack at indranmx.substack.com. His 28 poetry books include the Paterson prizewinner The Elephants Of Reckoning (Hanging Loose Press), El bosque de deleites fratricidas (RIL Editores), Seer (Hanging Loose Press), The Runner’s Almanac (Spuyten Duyvil), Powèt Nan Pò A: Poet of the Port (Mad Hat), Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (Broadstone Books) and Coconuts On Mars (Paperwall, India). He is the translator of Kenia Cano’s Animal For The Eyes (Dialogos Books) and Origami: Selected Poems of Manuel Ulacia (Dialogos Books). He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly (www.beltway-poetry.com), hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube, and publishes poetry books at Beltway Editions (www.beltwayeditions.com). Amirthanayagam writes weekly poetry columns for El Acento (Dominican Republic) and Haiti En Marche (Haiti). He writes and publishes in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and English. Amirthanayagam served as a diplomat for the United States from 1993 to 2023.