Guptara, Prabhu S

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Kunapipi Volume 7 Issue 1 Article 5 1985 Poems Prabhu S. Guptara Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi  Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Guptara, Prabhu S., Poems, Kunapipi, 7(1), 1985. Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol7/iss1/5 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: research-pubs@uow.edu.au Poems Abstract The Moonies and Questions for the Buddha This journal article is available in Kunapipi: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol7/iss1/5 23. Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (The University of North Carohna Press, 1975), p. 421. 24. Ibid., p. 421. 25. Of course, Bribing for a Descent into Hell is called 'Inner-space fiction' by Lessing herself, 'For there is never anywhere to go but in' (title-page). 26. Angela Carter, The War of Dreams (Avon, 1977), p. 1. Subsequent references are to this edition. 27. Mikhail Bakhtin, op. cit., p. 94. 28. Cf. Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Harper Torchbooks, 1978), pp. 203, 317. 29. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Atheneum, Second Printing, 1966), p. 309. 30. Mikhail Bakhtin, op. cit., pp. 96, 94. 31. Ibid., p. 95. It may be added that Rushdie's already mentioned predilection for punning is in accordance with the parodic trend in the Menippean satire (cf. Bakhtin, p. 97). Grimus is an obvious anagram for Simurg, but it may also contain a punning reference to grimoire, a manual for magicians! Prabhu S. Guptara THE MOONIES Cheesy grins even when embarrassed or enraged answering logical questions by intuition believing in an earthly salvation by faith in the Reverend Moon always in little frightened groups, making dutiful forays into the crooked world, 32 slaving eighteen hours per day selling peanuts and pamphlets joss-sticks and armaments and making good money for their master. QUESTIONS F O R T H E BUDDHA Psyched out or extinguished? Passed-on or reborn were you, sir, or did you find yourself awake? How do you rate the dividend now against the risks you took: is any of us switched on d'you reckon, to what you were about? Did your enlightenment perhaps magnetize and pattern the random iron of old rebellion against our scriptures, priests & God? We burn for your easy peace inside the kingly palaces you forsook; or crave the sweat, the blood, the cry of peace won through to by the anguish we identify as ours. Are you a little weary now, Sir, of the half-smile you've sported these bitter years? 33 

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