No Coffin, No Grave By Jared Angira
NO COFFIN, NO GRAVE
BY JARED ANGIRA
He was buried without a coffin
Without
a grave
The
scavengers’ perform his postmortem
In
the open mortuary
5 without sterilized knives
In
front of the night club
Stuttering
rifles put up
The
gun salute of the day
That
was a state burial away
10 The car knelt
The
red plate wept, wrapped itself into blood its
Master’s
blood
The
diary revealed to the sea
The
rain anchored there at last
Isn’t
our flag red, black and white?
15 So he wrapped himself well
Who
could signal yellow?
When
we had to leave politics to the experts?
And
brood on book
Brood
on hunger
20 And school girls
Grumble
under the black pot
Sleep
under torn mosquito net
And
lice lick our intestines
The
lord of the bar, money speaks madam
25 Women magnet, money speaks madam
We
only cover the stinking darkness
Of
the cave of our months
And
ask our father who is in hell to judge him
The
quick and the good
30 Well, his diary, submarine of the Third
–World-War
Showed
he wished
To
be buried in a gold-laden coffin
Like
a VIP
Under the jacaranda tree beside his
place
A shelter for his grave
And
much beer for the funeral party
Anyway
one noisy pupil suggested we bring
Tractors and p lough the land.
CONTENT ANALYSIS of the POEM
No Coffin, No Grave is an elegy which mourns the demise of a
national leader. The leader according to the poet died on the street and was
buried without the fanfare he deserved as a leading political figure. He was even
denied the privilege of using ‘coffin’ and ‘grave’ to bury him.
The stanza reveals the instrument of death. He is killed by
gunshots from assassins who waylaid his car. His diary which was later
discovered near the sea summarizes the sordid action.
In the third stanza, the poet’s lamentation increases. He
asks when the academics should know when to leave politics and then go back to
their teaching profession. At the classroom, he is expected to work on his
books and not be engaged with problems of hunger and other inadequacies.
The next lines express the poet’s despair and resignation. No
one can identify the assassins. And so the matter is left to the spiritualist
to judge.
In the fourth stanza, we are given the identity of the dead,
and his wish for a noble burial and thanksgiving which never came to past.
POETIC DEVICES
Diction: The poet’s diction is the simple
direct medium of prose. The language had to do with the politician’s inner wish
for a rich burial and his ultimate ‘gutter’ burial.
Enjambment: Lines 26 – 28, ‘We only cover the
stinking making darkness of the cave of our months and ask our father who is in
hell to judge him’.
Rhetorical Questions: Stanza 3 and 4, i.e. lines 14, 16, and 17.
“Isn’t our flag red, black and white? “Who could signal yellow, when we had to
leave politics to the experts?
Metaphor: as ‘stinking darkness’.
Personification: Line 11, where “the red plate” is
said to weep like human being.
Onomatopoeia: Line 7, ‘stuttering’.
Alliteration: Line 23, “…let lice lick…”
Repetition: Lines 24 and 25, “…money speaks
madam”
THEMES
1.
Politics
as a dirty game
2.
The
theme of moderation and self-control
3.
The
distinction between wish and reality
4.
The
reality of life.
MOOD
The mood of the poem is that of melancholy. These are the
feelings of sadness and
unfulfilled expectations in the poem.
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