THE LOST POEM-- for Paris Hilton

I found this poem the other day composed a year ago, forgotten in a misplaced archive of the home computer. Paris Hilton’s brief dalliance with incarceration led me to reflect on writing behind bars, within earshot of the jailer’s keys.


ON RESERVE AT THE LIBRARY


Miss Hilton’s jail time journals
may be read in this syllabus along
with the Diary of Anne Frank and
human landscapes described
on cigarette papers by Turkish
poet Nazim, not to mention U's

letters after reading Twenty
Love Poems for the first time
thanks to the Red Cross. Am
moved by the transformation
after twenty days deprived
of free walking in New York

or Sunset Boulevard or
the Champs Elysee, to know
the Bible belongs also to Paris
and she has no favorite passage;
she will now use fame to raise
awareness of cancers that afflict

women, breast in particular,
not any desire to highlight
hair and ride elevators up
to studios where she will
record the 500th episode
of the long-running reality show

that does not belong to me,
distracted by Gramsci,
lean-boned and bearded
on the book jacket
of my friend’s master class
in making social sense.

I will read him too once
I’ve finished Gibbon’s
history of the Romans
and Mandela’s letters
from Robben Island.
So much to absorb

in the words of tragic heroes,
big men and women,
and now Paris poised
to sweep them all off
the bestseller lists
if only in my lifetime.


-- Indran Amirthanayagam c) 2008