The Sufi's Garland

The Sufi’s Garland

--A Tribute to Emily Dickinson, Antonio Porchia and Rabindranath Tagore

by

Manav Sachdeva Maasoom

Kokallis Scholarship Program, Harvard University (Comparative Literature)

M.A. International Affairs (Poetry & Policy Studies)

Columbia University, New York City, New York

manav.sachdeva@gmail.com (Email)

Poems inscribed, corrected, and finished in Afghanistan

Love Poems

Lines and Letters

Lost poems

I

Shabad Shradanjali to Tagore’s Gitanjali*

I found for me a love, a love so great, a love so great I could not contain, could not contain and I, I was sad. But when I learned that containment, that containment and betrothal are signs not of love but of life thereafter, then I, I lost my fears, my fears of losing, of losing my love…and loved freely.

And when I learned, sitting among the shoes and sheets and shards and sheer that, that the mind of man, that the mind of man too is a solo act, a solo uncontainable act, I lost my fears, my fears of losing, of losing my mind…and thought freely.

And when I learned that the mosque, the mandir, the church, the shrine are all homes of God, are all homes of God and not of the priest inside, I lost my fears, my fears of not knowing, of not knowing how to pray…and entered freely

And when I learned that the reservoirs of man, the inner reservoirs of man to take it, to take in, to take it in have no limits, I lost my fears, my fears of not being, of not being able to brook it…and took in freely

And when I learned that I could not save, could not save, those, those that never needed to be saved, I lost my fears, my fears of not being, of not being able to save, save enough for myself, save myself…and served freely

And when I learned that kindness, that kindness is not to be done to ensure, to ensure you get kindness in return, then I, I lost my fears, my fears of being, of being in their shoes some day…and shared freely

And when I learned that we, we means becoming we without losing, without losing that little bit, that little bit of me, then I, I lost my fears, my fears of you, my fears of you becoming we…and wed freely

And when I learned that acts of good, acts of good, acts of good need not become tokens, tokens that encash, need not become tokens that encash as good feelings in return, then I, I lost my fears, my fears of not being, of not being thanked enough, of being unappreciated…and helped freely

And when I learned that feelings of worth, that feelings of worth have more to do with works of respect, producing works of respect than working for respect, then I, I lost my fears, my fears of retiring, of retiring unbeknownst …and strived freely

And when I learned that giving alms is not, that giving alms is not for displaying strength, displaying strength of position or flashes of character, then I, I lost my fears, my fears of being, of being misunderstood…and gave freely

And when I learned being true must not, must not be a way to ensure they speak good of you, speak good of you when you are gone, then I, I lost my fears, my fears of not, of not being able to buy their words worth…and spoke freely

And when I learned that giving one’s self, giving one’s self in the karmic awareness that good will come upon you, will come upon you now or later by the laws of nature is even so selfish, then I, I lost my fears, my fears of not, of not being selfless enough…and rendered freely

And when I learned that acts of fear, acts of fear, that acts of fear reveal more of the feared, reveal more of the feared than of the fearful, then I, I lost my fear, my fear of being, of being afraid…and feared freely

*A word weave offering in loving respect and inspiration to Tagore’s 1913 Nobel Prize book of songs Gitanjali

II

I went outside to see

if God’s voice

was disturbing anyone

III

dear anooshka

your emails make see

watch our lives reel

fix our bread oven

our life will be

IV

dear lohiyan

you seemed to me

in the opening

hours of the morning

the embodiment

of all that is

beautiful

V

love is known in an instant...

and realized over a life time

VI

If I slow down everything and listen

I cannot move without being moved

VII

seek first to love

then to understand

VIII

Lucy

with her little horse-hop

O my Lucy

my darling my beloved

my love’s love’s love

O my Lucy

O my Pappadum

now you’re gone

I can love others for

you loved me

the wishes of your troubles

are fulfilled

IX

Voices in the gullies of Kabul

incoherent, muffled

are gods murmuring

on His children’s streets

X

He kidnapped my silva, my milky

this afternoon

to have her

and left me a note

bequeathing

a ransom of late arrival

XI

When in Iran I prayed to Mohammed

Rasool and PEACE be upon him

one asked me straight—Are you a Muslim?

and I told him, with a date

and water, breaking my fast

I don’t think Brahma would’ve minded

XII

parents talking

through their children

teaching unselfishness

If the I is we

the we is weak

their own knots breaking

threading

woolgathers they had sown

together as song

once

XIII

a twig of grass

is all I could gather

for my lovely little one

tonight

XIV

dearest anooshka

thank you for your kindness

that went

from your hand

to my hand

to the hands

that love

this world of mine

hope they’ll slip

some caring strains

dissolve them back

in yonder sands

XV

the beauty of the witness color of jealousy

her stop was the hop my grave coveted

thank you for leaving the grass

and coming aboard

gracefully in class

XVI

I wish to make curry in a scurry

and I wish to bake a cake in a flurry

yet flurries and scurries yield only urry

and a poem if that you may as well bury

XVII

centered on aiding the ailing crown

detection of cause of reflex frown

fretting diagrams of shifty senses

rushing the care of all my bothers

entering the quivering, pulling cave

of creeping imagines, free rein i crave

ordeals of infancy, brooking debris

mad cap I yell, set me free

XVIII

the color of my skin; the ethnicity of my underwear--i

do not know

XIX

she judged

that I judge but she doesn’t

so we can’t we be

XX

coming home, she got into a bloody fight October 30th with a street man; she said she was

preparing for hell-o-wean

XXI

an Indian rain fell in new york city today. and estranged ny from me to my home. i feel my country in here uncomfortably

XXII

a baby only hears sounds

of reassurance

XXIII

those who don’t know their trace

don’t seek to know

their’s

XXIV

I have learned from myself much

but couldn’t to myself much teach

XXV

when a mirror breaks

a secret is bereaved

when a shell breaks

a journey is revealed

when a lathi* breaks

a scream is released

when a father breaks

freedom is deceived

lathi* (n) : club consisting of a heavy stick (often bamboo) bound with iron; used by police in India

XXVI

enjoy a rich and creamy night

pint of amber black

drink the ritual cascade

will with chilling Irish

unmask perfect radiant English

you I terrifying rewards

we’re original legendary eerie

XXVII

the sheer elegance

of the seagulls

gliding

startling the Hudson

freshness

of the summer’s

first navels

XXVIII

eagles are mourning the death

of a snake lions that of the

zebra butchers that of the

capon her parents that

of her lover

XXIX

O blue waisted

richly cheeked

wayward gaited

o amber lord of rain

in your welcome no refrain

O blue bod

dusky amór

fair hair locks

O man upstairs of seasonal boon

pour my moon, my lovely monsoon

XXX

O within, fill the absence of life with the arrival of two lovely poems

If the lamp of remembrance begins to flicker

fuel it with fill streaming from tacit eyes

XXXI

men walk around with boisterous laughs

adorning manliness on their sleeves

I walk around with ink-bled cuffs

with laughter rich and smooth as wine

And I too am a man

when women wrote begging to please

others imploring for a night of bliss

I chose my kin who I had loved for years

damning chances lost or cultural costs

And I too am a man

when unexpectedly death knocked my doors

my ailing heart, it ached as never before

I told my beloved who I loved as life

to cry for a year but marry again

And I too am a man

XXXII

to learn a language, language-less, as a baby

to only have expressions in my heart

and somebody providing the language

and uttering and writing my memoirs

from memory

XXXIII

O my Baa’lum*

not the sleeping of the sounds of night

nor the sleeping of the world around them

it is the falling asleep of swirling voices

whence bellows of your name

O my Baa’lum

unconsciously spring

*Baa’lum—an evocative endearment in kharri boli for husband (as one’s beloved) used by women in Kanpur, North India, to call out to their husbands gone on fishing or other trips afar. It is a word phrase in a specific dialect of the hindi language.

XXXIV

the heat of his loins

fun parched foliage veiling

tantalizing mass; the object

of my portrayal betrays me

punctured thoughts

screaming heartless air

I am the fakir with a luxurious flair

I am the student with my heart at sea

I am the poet with no pretense of class

I am the anarchist with no concern of turns

I am fuchsia, looking for my girdle,

melting, to be seized with fruit

XXXV

celebrating your lavender existence I indulge

in the far ends of your lips and the bottoms

of your eyelids and the parting of your nostrils

and the mean of your under chin and the moisture

over your mammilla nips and the valleys of your

face scape and the jungles of your belfry and the

lobes of your rumpled rimples and the folds of your

furrows and the flows of your estuary with the

darkness of my shaved cast and the roots of my

wizened hands and the kundalini of my spin-less

spine and fragrance of my bathed bod and the

the knotting of my navel and the scales of my

withered woofs and the blurring of my tired eyes

and the folds of my foreskin and the cream of my

abdomen and the puncture of my troubled veins;

I indulge, alas, in your lavender existence celebrating

the freckles of my imperfection.

XXXVI

as I slept the sleep of a feather in flight

with the world below a fallen knight

streaming stars on crescent fields

and guard of night had lost his sight

misguide of good lone he stood

and children cried as children do

and saw it happen as they could

piece by piece piece by piece

peace to pieces

as dimples deepened and trauma hurt

with green fatigues snapping colored alerts

cleaving banyans bursting bedrocks

squashing angst in timely spurts

mute star of simple bad and good

let children cry as children do

couldn’t see it happen as they could

piece by piece piece by piece

peace to pieces

as beloved belated and obits spurred

screaming scenes as weather spewed

a pandemonium chord-less struck

a fainéant world doubtless whaled

now bit by bit shrugging Atlas crude

seeking children’s smiles as well have should

let feathers return on birds alas

piece by piece piece by piece

piece to peace

XXXVII

Dear Affair

Kabul as you know is a lonely island with the dust sea all around. You were an oasis but as oases are, rare, timeless, sparse. I do regret that the oasis left me sooner than my heart's fill but a traveler must know only the desert is his true friend. Thus it is that I am making my peace with the land. I go atop the deserted desert hill over and above my little tin house and I see mud houses and a layer of unsettled dust above the city. Atop the hill I take the wind that is clear and closer to the air of yore. I look around and see fortresses some mid-20th, others younger or older. I entered one as it beckoned and I found scattered, used shells, canons, gunpowder bullets, and machine oil-pellets. They spoke to me and I spoke to them. A lovely field trip to times of seige and Amanullah Khan this would be for you.

Hope the winds of yonder land are just as pleasant and heartwarming. My doors will be flung open by these winds for a welcome to never forget.

XXXVIII

Dear Ekphrasis

Like Musicians instruments combine for an orchestra

our arts combined in raptured symphony.

As the sounds of chirruping filled the room, we asked,

“Are we forgetting something?”

We replied,

“I am leaving myself

here

to be reclaimed

later”

We had our sense of history

of knowing also than any words

we tell ourselves are words

of any other.

And entrances to truth there are

that many a

XXXIX

Maasoom complained of a constant ache;

a pain in his heart.

He finally died.

The doctors said he died

of an enlarged heart.

The surgeon who tried

to operate, said

His heart

was in

the shape

of the

E G

B L

O

XL

O Abuja Nigeria

Too gore hur stoning wouldn’t mel-law

rence a hardy shaw en twain

A wilde or well singer leary

Whit-less wolfe rejoyceing shellville

Lope and trope fitz pale ale gerald

No rude a dick insane

Na book’ve kafked a stained back

Vins chandelier faulks fins

Hug lot erhes lings kip lot

kip lot kip lot kip lot...

XLI

Martyr, many stolid martyrs

Hoisted by jaded knights

Beating together

The loss—the death of Maktub

XLII

no poet is a speaker, a seer herself

nor muse nor voice nor musing elf

a poet, a true one, is a tree, a forest

showering on soldiers all her flowers

sprawl, buds, fruits, finally herself

becoming, paper, becoming, a feeling.

XLIII

I see the milieus of Olympia

spring odes to the fruit trees

lost in your Bulgarian brown

and the thoughts that gain them color

escaping the ennui of poetic

acquainting the genius of rainbow’s

assays of that which was

beauty that short-lived revealed

captured in bottle wraps

the heart that suffers is

never to make contain

the one that slowly spoke

limbs and lips that tremble

of desires that howled conflict

the heart of the hand that wrote

when moments of memory jarred

the impulse that makes refrain

the collected inaudible feast of sounds

In the swinging of tranquil pines

now meet the silent safe

I hear the mullah pining

of pages that walk the grave

In the parables of Malgudi days

pressing the voices that skip

wis lava on the sands singing

the shouts of scared schooling

XLIII

it’s not the sleeping of the sounds of night

nor the nodding of the world about them

it’s the falling asleep of swirling voices

whence bellows of your name

بالم Baa’lum βααλαμ

unconsciously spring

XLIV

The striving feet of the seeker

the sheikh’s printed steps

The path of truth to tread

the bustle off my heart

XLV

In the deserts each image appeared as your shroud

Each grain a chiseled promise, a glitter of your magical beauty

A carousing caravan passes, thinks of me, a traveler lost, stops

Ill with love for Khorazón, Majnoon of this age I’m called

XLVI

How would one light the lamp of one’s heart

that never flickered

How would one recite the memories of one’s heart

that never fashioned

XLVII

The branch is alive with a new blossom

The tireless can rest awhile...

The tree of rights is lush anew

Ab-e-hayat* rouses beat bosoms

*Ab-e-hayat refers to the water of life in Persian. Contextual reference to a new birth, in this case to a family of human rights workers.

XLVIII

Dear Rupture

I miss your pan dulcet delight

your lissome guise

your soft, petal cheeks

your beautiful carbon eyes

the dancing laughter in your rivers

sweet knotting of your flawless navel

the lushness of your soft mounds

the simple touch, the kiss of consummation

about your lobes, your temples, where I sinned

and sinned and sinned for love knew not

a limit to keep the sweetness pailed

so love you tender I yearn in each

to be one once with my plum my peach

XLIX

O my kinder ella, good night my fate

do leave a sandal, a slipper, a trace

dream of that prince, your smitten mate

while he lies awake in your wake

for lives beyond to behold your grace

L

Dear remains

Will you let me deepen my love for living, walk with the current, take in the sights of birds? I am your shadow, a writer, a poet. I prize silence... and I need it.

LI

Dear flower

your faint feistiness to survive gives me strength. tomorrow foreshadows a tenderness in my kernel that is yours’ to keep. I do not know if the joy waltzing in my eyes that lights up our hearts lamps each time I visit is a light I see in you because my heart is but noir. I do not know if the joy and sweet in you is the same for each bee

LII

Dear elixir

december is not the cruelest month

a feeling, falling, freely falling september,

has dealt a joker, a poker-faced scream

-ing sighs unsound in uncovered mouths

shifting, slowly, approaching the genius

of brown, tawny brown, bottled dancing song

consuming, softly, destroying the dreyfusard*

drop of life streaming, in kaboobs on tongs

becoming as Johnny, unable to resist

a few rocks, a little watering down

to be consumed as a naked song

in the heart of a sleeper of the deep dawn

*dreyfusard refers to the kind of specific race based partiality destroying someone’s life. The word originates from Alfred Dreyfus, a French army officer of Jewish descent whose false imprisonment for treason in 1894 raised issues of anti-semitism that dominated French politics until his release in 1906.

LIII

Dear oral

Centered on aiding the ailing crown

Detection of cause of reflex frown

Fretting diagrams of shifty senses

Rushing the care of all my bothers

Entering the quivering, pulling caved

Of creeping imagines, free rein I craved

Ordeals of infancy brooking debris

Mad cap I yelled, set me free

LIV

Dear map

Where in the World

First Second Third World

LV

How would God walk up to, away from

him who doesn’t

think him as Him

LVI

Good books are Good books are

as new lovers as good friends

opening a wound buoying the wean

a little each morn each time each borne

LVII

What do I know of love lost--none, not

What do I know of love depart--all, each

Dark tunnels I seek walking through day--restive spirit

Ensconce me in your warm darkness--dampen the light

Bright that tears my very essence--shreds

Veil me, hide me, quell me; Ah but leave me a plume and quill

Describe I desire, my desires for you

Describe you; your desires for I; but lastly, I try, I

Droplets that know not why they fall glisten the sheets

Flakes that know not why they fail cover the streets

Attempts they do at beauty raw

what raw is raw, cannot be made

Or showed, sobered or ever stayed

Thus futile it is and forever it stays

LVIII

Dear reader of last words

In case you get this after my death, this is not the complete collection. There is much more there that needs to be, until my notes...

LIX

raison d'etre : mobility—of mind, body, or spirit, and direction—towards or against...

LX

Dear Artist not doing art

One involves holding a position, the other passion. One involves joining a vocation, the other an ongoing vacation. One involves being called a professional, the other a child who loves what he does. One involves producing for respect at work, the other producing works of high respect. One involves seeking fame and recognition yet always finding it eluding them; the other shunning it for joy yet always finding it haunting them. One is the profession, the other game.

LXI

Dear Masoch*

You are like my life blood,

Some days I want to cut myself up

and splatter you all around me,

And fall in deep sleep immersed in you.

You are but my restless spirit

You reside in me yet I can't touch you

You want to be free and yet you can't

You'll only be unbridled when I die

*Masoch refers to the Austrian novelist Leopold von Sacher-Masoch after who the medical term masochism is based.

LXII

My Dear Aging Swan

Of physical beauty, none marr thou have

My eyes will forever hold that mirage

Thou may get a hundred wrinkles

Thy image of you will never (trans) form

LXIII

a sufibhakt*’s fonts

Ends are mysterious

Of strings nuclease

That twist and bond

a sufibhakt’s fonts

in mass rapture with

Bhagwan’s theatre

loving sculpture

in spite of scripture

*sufibhakt is a coinage referring to a Sufi Muslim and a Hindu Bhakt fused in a spiritual seeker singing self on the live Indian canvas. Bhagwan is Hindus word for Him and sculpture is their medium as text alone and denying idols is the Muslims medium.

LXIV

Dear Desiderata

I see you like a person immersed in the love of another who sees her image in everything, who sees his subject and its relationships everywhere. I see as the Indians who immerse themselves in God and Ganesha, who see God in everything and are able to find relationships to and with God in everything. I see you in relationships in nature, in nature’s work, in your surroundings, and all around with the matter and focus of all you...

LXV

Dear Despairing Departed

You are like my life blood,

some days I want to cut myself up

and splatter you all around me,

and fall in deep sleep immersed in you.

you are but my restless spirit

residing in me yet I can't touch you

you want to be free and yet you can't

wait to be unbridled will when I bow

LXVI

if you belong to heaven’s sea

o my soul’s bread and cheese

then await no longer onto me

take me anon a near to thee

LXVII

Unorganized in shambles economy in crumbles

only till yesterday It’s coming

big

the wave

The subcontinent getting larger people and power

only till yesterday It’s coming

big

the wave

Sleeping superpower plodding underdog power is shifting

only till yesterday It’s coming

big

the wave

Quietly rising slow tortoise silly hare

only till yesterday It’s coming

big

the wave

Agrarian decades industrial weeks metamorphic lava

only till yesterday It’s coming

big

the wave

I’m shaking anxiously waiting I can see it

kicking yesterday It’s coming

big

the wave

LXVIII

He who has sailed he who hath not

is the former he that much more wise

for adventures he has drunk in

of the latter he, hath possessed

with of surely a great imagination

equally conversant perhaps

many doth claim experience the queen

thus reigning the former the clear victor

O I argue visuals art tougher thus

leaving the latter if reflection possessed

a gauzy chance perhaps

LXIX

curly hair brown eyes could be anybody let’s see who I am

worked in a chimney then in a coal mine out walked a ‘sooted’ man

hello billy, joe, or malcolm, they expect, they say, fearing the ‘big fella’

a wash basin ahead, the soot is off, the dust removed, the layer of black

shocked them bystanders, color a changing, fears vanishin’, expectations risin’

walk up, smile a chilled, and say, “What are you doing here, you are one of us?”

LXX

Men working, driving, jerking; off, of

your wife’s beauty

LXXI

could you spare any change, could you?

no, well have a good afternoon still

pause, unpause, walk on, short pauses

could I, yes, but should I

my father’s words prod

“No khairaat* for anybody. Get a job!

Earn your shorba and naan!” ringing,

were they more true than truth, that which I see

is his good greetin’ worth nothin’

surely it comes with a price at the eatery

or a hefty one at the consoling couch-man

must I give in, give it, give it in

that which is not, surely not my lunch money

not even my dessert, java, or tic tac toe

maybe, yeah, maybe my pack of gum before tax

muse as I haven’t, are his words kind or kindly said,

worth not the trifle, the trouble of giving, just for today,

foregoing just for the day the measly, chewy, never

fully done, finally refused lump of wretched wrigley’s

my father’s words returnin’, remindin’, oh I,

I still, somehow still, manage,

to him lie, and walk on by...

*khairaat in persian refers to that which is un-earned, free, spare, given of good will by giver

LXXII

though much has been said and little is left

yet venture I still, some once again

for wisdom, novelty, truth bereft

breathe some life I attempt again

never ever give up my dear

for fear is merely a testament

of life, a mere sentiment

cower not and face with tears

hath become fakir when once an emir

then know it, face it, and talk to it

swallow the wallow, and stomp through it

LXXIII

An antagonistic congress

cannot ever

make a country progress

LXXIV

I dreamt with open eyes of and with you

as yesteryears played on the auto stereo

the world had claimed we were infatuated

had we not listened, wouldn’t be so insatiated

let locks of gazes belong to yore

and loving flow, for the one before

LXXV

as I slept alone, a fool,

and she kept a begging

I felt her eternal side beside me

never to leave me, disown me

and I kept a tarrying

dreaming of farthings

working all while

imagining that smile

yet how long can beauty lie

if the beholder cannot see the beholden

if the beholden is but miles and miles away

should the beauty be blamed if it sways, with time

LXXVI

The kisses that were once mine now belong to another

The hugs that only knew my arms now know the others’

The gazes that were once struck between you and I

Now only belong to you and your newest my, not I

There’s nothing left to behold

for what was, is beheld by another beholder

A desire to be held

no more triggers me and mine

For merely holding

is not beholding

And no fool am I

to still believe in I

as the beholden

when you hold me

LXXVII

On why I remain tense

some days it’s you

some days it’s memories of you

some days it’s the thought of you warming your husband’s bed

some days it’s knowing that I love you more now than when we…were we

some days it’s keeping to myself the love for you so you may love him sans grains or rue

some day’s it’s waiting with love to meet and greet and sit with you, yet keeping you true

some days it’s ruining any fling or flutter so the heart stays true to you

some day’s it’s knowing and doing all this for you yet feeling lonely too…

and some days it just isn’t you

some days it’s just knowing you, and me, and not knowing why it isn’t you and me…

LXXVIII

On a very long angst-filled amnesiac accident

I have lost somewhere, someplace my friend my nation

And has fallen asleep there my strength my summation

There were no hints in the garden, no moon in the pond

No pull in my mother’s soil, no life in her mighty bedrocks

The seed that was once lain uprooting today I try in vain

The sheet that was once torn sowing it today I try in vain

O how I thought love grows tender in the hearts’ adieus

O how I thought banter lives forever in shades of chateaus

LXXIX

In the palaces of God, poets or children never still

Lest they take the place of a sinner confessing his will

LXXX

On Another Very Long Moment

Only speak I this live

My heart’s watery as fish

To whom must I what where

Let streams flow from sockets that see

Break away what mighty walls of stone

The home to be is not yet pictorialized

Only speak I this live

My heart’s watery as fish

To each each what what

When even our mothers snicker snort snort

Cast away rituals, fault lines

Then whose hands will break my bread

Only speak I this live

My heart’s watery as fish

LXXXI

On his day before last grandpa, his broken chair

holding his broken-hearted self, headphones

circling his surround with no source, teeth taking

the shifting point ears trying the wealth of his shattering

would give him that which reduced him slowly daily

moving and shifting, canines, molars, finally the wise unplucked;

grand-mum quietly suffered…then offered her only set anything

that would ring ring ring…wring him out

LXXXII

Washing Radha’s flowery péds and wiping her jeweled eyes…

feet, feet that wheel the world each day swelling with finds of pebbles and fears

soaking in dirt and caking in tears, of others, others who daily come and sing

strains of melancholies of yesteryears of life and mind and money lost

of heart and house and sanity cost, those feet that walk to them and hold,

hold their feeble fibrils tight as nostrils flow till tear ducts dry, as trauma drains

till terror dies, as stuttering shatters till shudder subsides…

those feet, those smiling, loving peds,

those feet, those lovely smiling peds,

those feet my dear are flowers for me

and flowers from which to dust careen with wafts of amour I wait each night

eyes, eyes that soothe the world each day burning in sights of cinder and sears

hoarding in ashes and hiding the tears, of others, others who daily come and sing

strains of melancholies of yesteryears of life and mind and money lost

of heart and house and sanity cost, those eyes that see through them and flesh,

flesh their sagging spirits high, as nostrils flow till tear ducts dry, as trauma drains

till terror dies, as stuttering shatters till shudder subsides…

those eyes, those soaked, seeing eyes,

those eyes, those seeing, soaking eyes,

those eyes my dear are oysters for me

and oysters from which to pearls wean

with torrents of verve I wait each night

LXXXIII

When evening surprises,

Nothing salves, as a kiss of kins

O to be kissed by kins, softly

As the chasm light kisses Paper Mache

O to feel no need for ever

For a kiss from one’s kins

Oh to be damned to dusk

By the kisses of one’s kins

LXXXIV

In a crafter’s school

the many treasures

museum, with their maker,

their jungle lover, eternal curator

Finger memories

of the seer’s truths

are his tools…

and a hookah is all he needs

LXXXV

A lost palm in a sea

…of clouding sands singing blues

of the past I must have lived

…through eyes as yet alit

LXXXVI

when an artist is jailed

…bosoms cage beasts

LXXXVII

the bridge is my beyond

…for I never love; I have always loved

LXXXVIII

dearest bosom blossom

move block consolidate

I bid help

LXXXIX

Your innumerable windows

softly chiming my childhood

onto these long forgotten streets

in fits of squealing, on visit maiden

adding kernels to memories

hoped to in all these years

be waiting their key

from their lost transient…

to walk through one’s township

of times past, unrecognized

is a luxury worth tonsulling

for if I was to feel the hurting heat of tropicalia

walking my summer streets…

they drenched me, invading with their warmth

XC

Oh how I wish to stand across from you with resolved heart and wish you the wishes of our happiest day to let you break into my life without mires to mirror your light bright against my eyes to love be loved without loving my queries of you to be simple with you

I have measured my relationships in Bollywood rentals

I have always looked at the sky and fallen in a ditch

XCI

A poet’s heart’s a dish, her life its cart

Peckers the party, poking each (a) part

XCII

my muse knows naught of my moods, arriving with a glint

abandon this, renounce that and that, time for another stint

XCIII

On Masks and Melting Milieus

as eyes look around in boxcar A, faces—black, white, sandy, peach—these that are bébé, those that are not

men, women fat, fit or fine—countenances weighing visages seen in heart’s mirror; unaware, transposed

visions of faces in different settings—set upon you as you look in them Africa, India, China, Queens

grounds, thatches, mahals, markets—each one a queen, a king, a prince, a dame, working for the Apple

as worker-bees to return to rule in pastures some day, places from where they were to be,

would be…

XCIV

they are gone, those bright autumn day-falls

joyful midnights and easy-starting wheels

casually dressing and dreaming of going

to stars or Mars or somewhere afar…

these days my dear these days it’s different

today our lovely Apple was carved

with it’s first flakes of winter-fall

groves a-gone cemeteries asleep

and as cars sputtered and the sun hid among its brethren

and murky skies veiled dancing bears, it occurred to me

I can still dream of going

to Mars or stars or somewhere where you are

perhaps more fancifully now than ever before

XCV

the dying gaul* with many unanswers

that sudden twitch transfixed slaughter

the fenced breasts shielding nobility

shortened man embracing mean

shadowed shoulder askew silhouette

fresh slice of life returned to slab

when alive isn’t plinth, plinths become

emasculators of life itself

nude signifiers of eras consumed

consummates for eras to be

single sort countless bloods

fresh slice of life returned to slab

all that arm and hand scaffold

exposé of glorious splash

tarnished life in metal hearts

a spark of tribute alight it now

and rouse eλλas to expire some more

fresh slices of life, reduced to slab

* the dying gaul is an ekhphrastic reference to a picture of “The Dying Gaul”, also known as the Dying Gladiator, Capitoline Museum, Rome

XCVI

On the Mythistoria of Venice

Mythistoria is the feat yarn of the word

Shylock and Shakespeare intended it so

as links, kinks indeed; kins to be exact

wrangling for dominion, survival gone amuck

believing Aristotle had it wrong with use of reed

as if to sing the human being is to grasp him

dreaming Venice with mosques, in between Portia

knowing as Oedipus, as every Įtalian, as every

Alemani, as each Espaniola…

touché touché if forked tongue gives

for taking a thing isn’t taking the thing

gentle or gentile isn’t human each, yet

bloodletting comes only of Christian leech

contracting the illness from idle beans

lordships separating on the mercantile

pucker purse the spoils of golden lips

narrowing the wreck of Catholic peace

mort gage content for current ends

short story of the soothers as Babel did

mark in-group rituals and native spaces

essence in translation of politico –ocracies

brahmins filing as peripatetics

talking walking walking talking stalking shocking

Myt historia Myth istoria my historia my three storia

becoming iron twisters of considerable repute

as worms that crawl in heavy traces as tradesmen ducat

and unnoble Darwins civilize allegory coping with reality

XCVII

Where must restive souls reside when hunger drives

and nights of thousand-dollar dinners abound around to help subside

the pains of fellows in worlds outside where wants for water

and needs for coal collide and gathered stars speak heart to heart

of sweepings scars off faces afar all this while all this

while restive souls in city’s ports and car and train and shuttle stops

are wondering unsure some day some way same stars will find

their local starve bewitching enough and have that ball, that rousing blast

and take some part in their daily starts in scrounging together a thousand

dinners for a dollar each and every night

XCVIII

this is a story of a time when easily we could have among the stench become stench ourselves; our roots, our feet, stymied sullied, so easily we could have among the soot

become soot ourselves; our core a-gone, heavily infested so easily we could have among the locusts become locusts ourselves; our dreary feet silting, sinking so easily we could have among the swamp become swamp ourselves; our squeezed hearts gristed, roasted so easily we could have among the nuts become nuts ourselves…

yet oil we became clear and expressive so easily we could have among the waters become watered ourselves; yet fire we became light and rising so easily we could have among the quicksand become quicksand ourselves; yet engines we became whistling locomotion so easily we could have among the fuel become fuel ourselves

yet lotuses we became bursting bosoms so easily we could have among the forgotten become forgotten ourselves…

XCIX

Wailing Imprints…

sights, sights I wish I did not see

leaving my eyes in living stills

begging for darkness and yearning for sleep

those eyes these eyes don’t let me be

words, words I wish I did not speak

paling an unpipped, orange cheek

leaning on walls and walking on trees

those slips uttered don’t let me be

C

On the Model Minority trying to sleep

O to utter our utter immigrant nights

who would believe our privileged shrieks?

while pickle to pulp our lives become

and all that all are wont to know

blissful strides and moneyed bides

blue veins dry of pulse affirms

and flow that firms is sappy flow

‘lone we lie in lovely abodes

suckled, sucked, storied, sold

and one to one have each one told

strains that stream in struck strings

and friends that buzz and beat around

ill of life yet full of life

chell, cell, surf, surge

and tides will come and winds will blow

yet ours’ to time the come and go

while all that lasts we’ll never know

suppered, stuffed, stifled, sowed

suckled, sucked, storied, sold

CI

Abstinence is the greatest form of adultery

CII

On the Harvard Dead Discussing the Idea of Europe

the perverse pleasure pike Elytis, the precariously contemplating Cavafy, the

audible in an audience Auden and the humbler of rhetoric Seferis, the plain speaking Szymborska and I, yes I, toasted and hosted at Eλλas a day not long before

we spoke comparatively of the uses of ancientia, then sparred on differences in –isms,

of Balkans and of the Orient—prisms, of seeing and not seeing—othering, of dubbing one chap another soft puss, of incomplete shadows, romantics, negative problematics

then broke a bit for syrah and feta, aping the me and them again, back as soon for some and same, parleying legacies and discursive, protectorates becoming pressure cookers, translations un commissioned, of Napoleon, Islam and not Mohemmadanism, of Hindustan and Near East and Far East, of Shiva and Pentheus the horrible, Agave, and bacchantes, Suleyman the Magnificent, Venetia, and titanic tiaras

next stopping thinking of Classics O the Greek ones are they any other Achilles not Arjun as Arjun losing Maha-bosom, then rousing, switching now Rama now Hanu, Hanuman that is, shrilling causing Ilou Persis as Lanka had been, tearing, O, but we had to be into Classics Greek Homer, rather Orpheus the great singer of the lair, shrilling—a city of peace, a city at war

of what of origins, Demos, histor, skeptron, Ecphrastic tropes, of price of life in civil strifes, of tekhne of shield, musiqui rhapsodies at Athena, mimos masking, wearing this is that all occurring en-theos with enthusiasmo en trance, a paean shrilling—Hutos Akinos, Hutos Akinos, Hutos Akinos

slowing, years have we, evening, tiring, speaking, talking, Confucian way, verbalizing, posing short asks, offering thought drops, poetics of space—hermeneutic, sacred, model—temenos, space that is circular and triple square, triple altar mapped in circe, no mysterium rather telesterion, simply Vedic, Rig, Vedic writing rites

breaking and breathing, whole gulp-fuls, nonsense makes one breathless, breaking, slowing onto a sympotic couch, lovers with potions and potents, communing on Kline

pondering soon thereafter if Plato really knew Homer, imagining Socrates without his daemon, easing, getting elevated, stumping, slamming, swinging on all twigs, and for a moment understanding completely eureking, Kainomuthos Esothe! Kainomuthos Esothe!

Death to me not to the Dialectic, wakes us all this myth-mongering bawdy bard-sir, so went the myth Oedipus as patient, riddler and solver, determined and determined, decoder and maker, faulty as philopsychosis, guilty as anal-genesis, associating home truths as the making and decoding of tragedies

No single region is my specialty neither my friends’ we weave and sow and steep and smart, start and cleave, and we stop, we do stop, and so we did, all gathered at Ambrosia’s in Olympia, for Ouzo and Mezzeh, looking far away for sovereign sway, or raising up some, of bearing others, of Muslim brotherhood, of bleeding thicker and love does wicker, of interest in sheep and pens or armor for defense, of money and friend becoming contracts and transacts, from a single being to one spiritual geograph Shakespearean of purse and person

then reaching today’s burly scones, decisions of who is blue blood who confused, who be married who be tarried, who become ewe who alien spew, who Jessica with no music, who Portia for recreation and procreation, who would be Christ forgetting to buy insurance for the greater good of man, Auto Man Bassanio reminding, Adam started his woes by biting that self-same fruit, what the Shibboleth, who is Shylock, who got hoary tongue, who lone desire, not for peace for conflict is all but caused by searching for it, but for one who’s knowledge as cased is not yet known to drivel sans wisdom

all this while, all this, while we can’t decide how Moses moseyed and walkie-talkied, and we still must decide without decrying at times the boundaries and literature of yew origins, creating myth hysteria and easing ourselves, thinking this time, at least this time we ease our designations, sweet privations for novel savage nominations

so exhausting, speaking, we reached the evening’s end, Seferis and Cavafy left for the grave, Rimbaud had already begged early leave, a high feast wasted Auden and Eliot, drained Elytis bid a quick farewell, and on to his Odyssey, leaving Szymb and I, just Szymb and I, to prepare her hymen…

CIII

As I stretch my third eyebrow

the strength within is pulling thin

the long projections leaving me

with less than before but more relieved

I wonder if I will make it through

to do this again next morning too…

CIV

four full new years have gone by

the bed of celebrations is not faint

eating morsels of self

as daily memories

new world keeping busy

old world un-letting go

mounds of unfinished, mid-sculpted

mantle clay

—stirred, desiring session

to shape the finish, finish the shapes

inactive substrate fitting catalyst

awaiting

CV

To heal

the self

love your work

and work

your love

CVI

no tears no heartbreaks no one-offs

tonight I shall have curry

I will have curry tonight

CVII

petal to petal is not as close on a live ripe, embosomed rose as I and another and eyes and others tonight

ooze to ooze is not as close in an outpoured aged whisky toast as I and another and eyes and others tonight

blouse to bosom is not as close on an eternal Hindu idol pose as I and another and eyes and others tonight

newfound pom-grapes, ripened cante-melons, bursting tom-fruit, as I and my other, our eyes and others tonight

CVIII

miles years gone one poof

love attachment un-gone, un-poof

people days times distract

people days times fade one poof

your scent your dangle un-gone, un-poof

your meet sits here, a fig descends, a pigeon drops

a distant missive, all back in one single poof

CIX

cold winds blew, tents gave away

the sheltered selves, lay barren, cold

a huge sign, snack bar, a cup of joe

another acquired it to be a women’s lo

tarps flying away, shirts clinging to bods

contours flaunts blushes giving no damn

frosty, chilly sparsely surrounded, couldn’t care

more or less, our ties selling as soft cakes

not hot ones delicious ones bought once a lunar

breathing, taking out the green, carrying his visage

so we sit a while, calm, collected;

others freeze, entertain, complain, even copulate;

not us unh aa Pap & I cool sold two go home proud to mom

CX

mommy mommy where are you even in my dreams I cry for you I look out the window and read signs affirming lOvE bollywood blaring all...in my dreams hug me mommy hug me come hug me mommy at least in my dreams...

CXI

as ashes to turn this child does unaware barbed obstructed throbber; wheat and coal strand and fall, boozer stops sips hops gulps vintage; knights are gambled pawns bailed; unaware you me the child this child our wants; smoke, ashes, cinders reduction to; no hindrance celestial, earthly, pristine ashes ashes unaware ashes unaware growing as children grow becoming now always and never more divine...

CXII

dear Mahmoud Darwish

the gawping bird elevated on a west side shore

transmitting to me a song the song of Philistine

lifting, gifting me a stainless glob of free freedom

commanding scribe scribble score scale slide sort

write and s t a r t l e t h e t i m e s, the times of dark,

of Abu becoming past, come stop this thing, come sing

a strive undone in my songs my fight for my own canto...

CXIII

a subterranean craving for a child, a Palestinian Indian Hindu child, and for him a life

away from the railroad

CXIV

eyes, eyes that imagine that scene all day each day

blood, blood oozing fearfully,

fear

each day I try

each day I try

to voice or word

all that occurred

that fateful night

my hands are taut my neck is tight my eyes are blank and the heart, the heart

is full of fright

God, God please take away these horrific sights

I have no might

but I still want to fight

some day dear lord some day

some day dear Lord

I want to perform

the simple act of

flying a kite and

feel once again

s o f t l i g h t

a n d

CXV

not known are strings unaware

my fellow heart springs, spring with joy

mention your name, springs, bellows

had not known another joy that moment

has not the need for you or I that moment

had I eaten dulcet or dote had I drank nectar or drain

would I have felt the difference, the pain

alas in vain, ah, that but that moment, that

sweet thought that thought-moment exists

in neither space nor time your name, name

that is forever mine even if you do not

you may change, betrothals and such,

but thou will not, not in name, not till thee

CXVI

On the wishes of the black and white

the death of the brown eccentric

the misled, the lost, the frenzied

the drug-lord, sadist, the baddie

death, death of the brown eccentric

the wishes of the black and white

the death of the brown eccentric

desires, desires to be unreasonable

to be or become a man with beard

death, death to the brown eccentric

the wishes of the black and white

the death of the brown eccentric

wanting to be sad crazy and true

howling his life and love depart

speaking to self and writing inverse

death, death to the brown eccentric

the wishes of the black and white

the death of the brown eccentric

wanting to mourn dead lover’s love

on napkins, tissues, towels agog

crying on planes and grieving in loo’s

suspicious, suspicious behavior this

neither black nor white nor civil this

death, death to the brown eccentric

the wishes of the black and white

the death of the brown eccentric

neither black nor white nor American thus

death, death to this brown eccentric

CXVII

Dear Sweet Deceit

peaches and litchis come long-ward my way each day rolling in a sensual crepe oh they do

mangoes and cantaloupes beckon me to taste and stay each adorning a fresh cape oh they do

honeydews and melons do the drip sip sashay each day basil chutney mayo shape oh they do

but sweet cherry un-blueberry fray-less slip-less sherry drape to you only you to this day I do

CXVIII

a love doomed to never ease a marriage doomed to never please so decided the two non and non...neither living nor ceasing, just on and on...

CXIX

I

a m

a

p o

e

m

CXX

To Raunchyball

the time twelve thirty am the place the jungle

six youth—three boys three babes

their only possession—a basketball

go figure a hoop in the middle of nowhere

who in what state of mind put it there

well so it started three on three bodies guarding bodies

heavy breathing the panting the gasping the shooting

basket after basket shot after shot slamming in again,

and again, changing positions, jamming it in endlessly

clock strikes two sweating and groaning game gets rougher

figures rubbing, pushing, shoving, groping...for the basket

two thirty hormones raging no stopping now playing horse

hotter than burning coal, three am can’t wait any longer

can’t do this anymore all ready for it race home, shower

and fall asleep like babies uh-hah, uh ha ha, ah ha ha ha...

CXXI

a happy face across her cheeks and light blue hues adorning her as she, touching things and gathering darkness on coattails, to her dream lover said,

thank you very much mr. one-eyed surgeon general mr. three-eyed purple colonel you were good but there is better and I will never see you again

CXXII

as you watch sitting on stone steps in 2003 a play of The Ghost of Polydorus, you look up and take solace and joy in knowing that while we only see for three hours, these stars above have been witnessing since perhaps the beginning of Epidavros and ever before. Maybe the light still shines through the stars gone but still here

CXXIII

every judgment is not an observation but every observation is a judgment

CXXIV

a new york city subway door, we run towards the about to close train doors, doors, I am already in, you are ten feet behind, you stick your foot, I stick mine in, the door, the door tightens around our feet, threatens to take us like us on a train wanting to roar, then suddenly opens, you hop in, I hop out...and wonder if breakups could happen like so, if they did, what, wow, and how.

CXXV

cultures of food cultures from food cultures cultured from hours spent preparing spent eating cultures where the meals are shared—Ethiopian, Indian, Afghani—cultures where the dishes have to be shared or you cannot eat...amour couture

CXXVI

clay objects in the hands of the lovelorn with distinct non-love love messages such as “Don’t love”

CXXVII

the beauty and grace of a tyre hand-made with ridges from, due the hand of the rubber tyre-maker, him, her imagining the safety provided ‘tis subjects and the splendor of ‘tis ephemeral art objects

CXXVIII

am I dressing up when I wash up for the white man. when I see a white man do I see white before man. if so I have not evolved

CXXIX

SANITIZATION AS CIVILIZATION: The Great Fallacy!

CXXX

fasting in America as Bhook Hartal as protest

CXXXI

positive stereotyping—the key to any being’s awakening in the short run

CXXXII

not words not actions

nothing

is everything

CXXXIII

racism as grounds for divorce, as grounds for awakening in a cross-race marriage of one to her identity and demanding separation for typing of her race and of her as the exception...

CXXXIV

poems as repositories of ideas—ideas of science, humanity, of art ,tekhne, ideas of craft and technique, of technology

CXXXV

I detect depression by the acts of crumbling coffee-cake in the hands of a December soul.

CXXXVI

Is the sun getting brighter or my eyes lifting more

CXXXVII

my, well, she was a treasure trove of skimmed pleasures

CXXXVIII

I am locked in the toxicity of the pleasure pain possible

CXXXIX

developed and civilized are sometimes antonyms

CXL

I have made a habit of losing lovers and loving losers

CXLI

saving the world is much easier than sharing it

CXLII

you be good and I be good and we be better when we see each other

CXLIII

O to be able to put so much sweetness in me so he conducts his operas through me, each vein becomes his flute his reed, he permeates, permits me to use he for Him.

CXLIV

o to build a million brick bridge not a million men march memorial a rebuttal to the Israeli wall against Palestine a brick for each Partition(s) parted...

CXLV

poetry in public space and poet as public intellectual

CXLVI

love has an enormous capacity to paralyze and lost love even more so

CXLVII

brilliance and depression are related but it is not a mystery; for brilliance is nothing but an over firing or peaking of neurons and depression in some ways a lack of firing, a balancing need to level the firing. Brilliance necessitates depression in neuronal terms.

CXLVIII

i work as a team

CXLIX

thank you but not much said the man to the woman who picked up to return his divorcee’s wedding ring...

CL

most couples just live together

CLI

less pay for more say has more sway than false way

CLII

Maasoom’s daughters in order, to their father, why their grades suffer: my dignity is far more valuable than letters of the alphabet...all letters of the alphabet are equally beautiful

CLIII

In order to meet the right person I must be the right person.

CLIV

bush doctrine as confusion theory: a theory the practice of which is intended for a result of deliberate confusion...

CLV

the continuous delivery of joyful sounds and monologist acts and simulated mimicks and fringeless pouring, this rich oral rumbling must find greater mediums of mass reach—I guess what I am really trying to say

CLVI

discussing the intricacies of eating a hard taco without breaking it while breaking over perplexing liberation wars

CLVII

96th street station 1 am: alighted from 2 express, awaiting the 1 or 9. a black senior citizen, destitute, homeless with pants a drooping and back a bent having somehow procured a McDonald’s hamburger, the 69 cents one, or perhaps the one with cheese at a dime more. a white 40’s mustached vagrant, same state, comes to him, beseeches, looks and wanders and I see a second later in his hand a sandwich too. At first I don’t see a sandwich in the older black man’s possession and feel the joy of the largesse of the poor black man sharing his sandwich. But I was wrong only factually so for the black man still had his sandwich. there was a McDonald’s bag beside his foot, and as he was going to walk further and in my mind I was going to judge him as a poor, old, kind man and turn around when I see him bend down and pick it up and walk it to the trash can. And I think now as I look, of the civil duty and civic sense that I felt he had, thinking of it lacking not just in beggars in India. and the 1 and I quickly jostle as the doors close quickly and now I thought how he was a story. and a minute later I heard his voice, a voice I had heard once before and rewarded, on the train, with pennies and dimes. he was now alone and he asked for food and money saying it was so late and probably the shelters were closed and so he wanted to find what he could to. and I thought him a fraud for having just eaten and asking, and then he was passing by and there wasn’t enough room and ever so politely he said excuse me and I was blind to shifting anymore.

CLVIII

giving the gift not anonymously but to somebody from somebody who has always wanted to gift something to their buddy but couldn’t and you resolve the problem of the buddy thanking by requesting in the letter with gift to the buddy to accept the lovely gifts of eternal love but never to mention gratitude or receipt to the somebody gifting, and steal their joy

CLIX

wine is a better metaphor for a poet’s life and poetry inducing state than stronger spirits since the spirit of poetry rises, lifts, gushes, and then becomes the one dancing; the stronger spirit will come, flash, burn, and produce those sparks that are exhuming for the quieter, sadder self while wine is as it has been, the slow alighter...

CLX

an ode to whose debt I can never repay: sweet largely unseen friends—my librarians.

CLXI

if you cannot understand tradition you cannot do innovation

CLXII

to the question whether poetry can be taught or not: there is an art to poetry and there is a craft to poetry...the craft can be taught and the art refined. one can respond to an innate art by learning the craft but certainly the craft must be taught either by self to self or from one or many refined thus so.

CLXIII

acceptance always takes longer than understanding...for there are other truths

CLXIV

my doors and closets are sweet instrums producing sweet hum drums

CLXV

let’s start on a fresh note, said M. said I, I am plugging so let’s leave it on a stale note

CLXVI

raking the leaves of my erstwhile...

CLXVII

To hell with nobody! Did you find her extraordinarily attractive? Only with her clothes on....

CLXVIII

the mirror-work was stained

with the rancor of strains

reflecting the pain

of forced restrains

CLXIX

nothing is everything

CLXX

all that you see in her is all that you are

CLXXI

she made me marry her; it was the best decision I ever took.

CLXXII

some men are destined for greatness; others for happiness

CLXXIII

Damiyun, whad r u dueen agreen wid hur...?

CLXXIV

when something is lost is it better to think or to act?

CLXXV

a poet’s official hours: normal business hours are 8 am to 8 am Monday through Monday

CLXXVI

true, some things are easier said than done; but others, faster done than said

CLXXVII

i am filled with wisdom yet I cannot claim so for claiming it would be unwise

CLXXVIII

the sounds

of love

remembered

are incoherent but pleasant

the sounds of love

remembered

are incoherent

but pleasant

the sounds of love remembered

are incoherent but pleasant

CLXXIX

wisdom is priceless but books of wisdom come at a price...

CLXXX

mentors are craved early and ever yet are not essential to your growth. Be your own mentor: let your art, your craft, be your mentor.

CLXXXI

the greatest trick man ever pulled on man was to make him believe there exists a normal: ever since man has been either proud or unnerved of being deviant.

CLXXXII

I am my always you are my always you are your always I am your always in messages to my all ways

CLXXXIII

she had reached the moment of truth: she was watering the cat and feeding the plant…

CLXXXIV

the only way you can be

in the present moment

is to be inside a traveler

moving

at the speed of light

CLXXXV

I could have but that was not the order in which ideas came…

CLXXXVI

to be spiritual is to search worship

CLXXXVII

is this the way to the second feed of the day

CLXXXVIII

giving gifts creates distance: giving that which one gravitates to has force…and all that is natural gravitates.

CLXXXIX

I want to talk when I have something to speak

Or you that I must hear

I want to smile when there is reason to smile

Or joy bursting

I want to laugh when laughter is forthright

Or feel when I do

I want to lose myself from America because

America itself is lost

CXC

Imagine

the enlargement

CXCI

some see things as they are: others as they are

CXCII

if you do the due do you will get the good get

CXCIII

a cloud of fog surrounds, shrouds my body and soul

I wonder if I’ll lose myself to each subsumed roar

I run a million yards and lose you some

I run some more, lose you a bit more

the cocoon of nothingness carries me yonder

to a place quite empty as your wake before

or so I thought until I was with none around

no yonder to run, no soul to hold

only a throbbing crow with heart atorn

only to turn to wake to know

then take that arrow and stab me sure

alas, if only all I fathom were not for store

CXCIV

that which I thought and knew as love I held only with my first love of life

that which I now understand as love I hold fast with my one and only wife

CXCV

there is a delicacy in me that demands expression…an expression free from the reader’s eyes, free from the editor’s reply, free from the definition of my, mine, and life itself. An expression that takes the form it likes. An expression unafraid, true, untrue, afraid, itself, un-itself, joy-filled, joyless and the ilk..an expression free from the burdens of explication.

CXCVI

I lost someone today not someone I knew but someone nevertheless. In Kyafas, Greece. The sea is glorious the sea can be very cruel. The sea took away somebody. The sea will never be the same. I will learn to save lives. He who I lost today turned into the sky before his soul left for its home. And the dead are the dead living. And the sister whose respite from marriage woes were you and laments pouring out her heart to you for the grief was much too much for you and so you dived. And she is quiet and he is and I do not want to drink but want to find more truth and find spirit without needing them to attain it so…and I am alive to tell you without knowing so

CXCVII

Material (nice) as security for the immigrant in airports around the world

CXCVIII

I will love you all my life

for you have loved me

in all my deaths

CXCIX

I don’t want to read about him; I want to read him

CC

To marry you and make you mine I promised not

To love you and love you as mine I promise kept

CCI

she was without movement…she had moments

CCII

Teaching poetry is like teaching religion; it must be done yet how do you do it…only guidebooks remain

CCIII

Transferring of sensibilities across one’s languages breathes fresh life into one’s poetry. Yet how does one

translate context

CCIV

love is a match

CCV

loneful is full of lone as against loveful and lifeful and not moanful and not baneful and not lossful…

CCVI

If you are going to immortalize me through your poetry, your songs, your sketches (and be clear that I will not die for you) then for whom I am my dying and dying now. For you to make me the subject of your art. For you to grive into your art. For you to observe yourself grieving, for your art. For you, alas, for you, it is for you that I am dying…

CCVII

your nipples are the best part of my breast…

CCVIII

I hope I have hope…

CCIX

Understanding matter as energy helps one understand movement of objects as manipulation of force energies…

CCX

I am losing vocabulary as I question each word and its connotation

CCXI

America is an unlivable paradise

CCX

dear buddha

remember the most important conversation one has is with oneself. Do not ever devalue that conversation.

CCXI

Dearest Kinoushka

I think it is over. I really treasure you, I love you in some ways but I must have the courage to say this. I really believe we cannot do this. We were in each others lives for a reason. But we have to leave each other now as we have reached past those moments of instability. It is time to be true. You are too beautiful a person to have to hear what you do. And I am too simple a person to be put on a pedestal like you do. I absolutely love and treasure you but I cannot marry you. I am neither capable of loving you the way one should unconditionally love one's wife nor recovering at any rate or changing to become a patient or relaxed presence. I am not sorry but rather glad for you. I do not want to burden you with a life of constant dithering as well as pruning. I wish to give you the wings to fly or the seats to reign but not the cages to contain. I wish not to be the one to make you cry or laugh as your only emotions. I wish for you to become your own self with one on your thought and heart level. I know you love me dearly and tenderly but I must not inflict this upon one so gentle, innocent and flippant as you to deal with one as aggressive, impatient and academic as I. I tender you my resignation in love and wish you accept it with gentle sorrow. I came to you in earnest and realized that you are really someone who deserves what befalls my eyes in vain on days of rue I hope you are clear and strong and chant His name that gives you the tenderness and joy that makes you special in times of shaking disquiet. Love ...

CCXII

knowing oneself and making oneself clash. the more you know of yourself the less you make (new) of yourself. the less you know of yourself the more you have to make of yourself.

CCXIII

I work with the precision of a scientist and the vision of an artist...

CCXIV

the hiding of my script (Nastaliq—Farsi) every time there’s a terror attack. the politicization of the meaningless written. my script as an instrument, a weapon, to be hidden lest it terrify fellow fliers...

CCXV

nothing that will happen will happen again

CCXVI

I came to Delhi and sat in the flower bed of the songs of Gurudev. Upon my arrival in their surround, I was asked, “What did you do in Delhi?” “I sat with my Gurudev.” And they said, “Do not trust him literally. He is a poet.” And I sat, waiting to be reunited with Him.

CCXVII

a poet is a sphere a presence without a point of view...

CCXVIII

brushing past old men on way to poetry class

pushing the priests running late to Sunday Mass

thrusting through tourists to a stretch of true nirvana

cursing city cabbies to a session on healing trauma

CCXIX

ultimately all that is valuable is valuable only, and only, in the mind...

CCXX

a just war

CCXXI

the black says “they was...” because they (sometimes white people) is singular for which he substitutes the plural for the singular representing...

CCXXII

dear kinoushka

when you will sleep and I will wake, I’ll miss you

CCXXIII

a good life is a life not full of goods but of life

CCXXIV

I am glad I wasn’t poor for I would be a narcissus like you self-made sir...

CCXXV

O God, let not my nasals clog no not this eve just not this eve these hailed eyes need to soak

all that ails these young nerves let it be let it be ah, but this eve depart them from me

this dawn my life’s dusk perhaps breathe life into me please breathe into me let these eyes effuse reach water this eve

this eve these eyes those eyes drop to drop drop by drop drop to drop let not my nasals clog the “I’s”

for tonight, the night of sweet departure let them sprinkle, spring, slow, slide, slush, trouble, trough, trickle, a wee

let these male eyes, O God, mail all that they mean, convey the carousing caravan of cries, in surge to thee tonight...

CCXXVI

hold not my reigns of expression tonight

let truth be spread across the table

let not mere mortality ever sear

the bloody fountain that I know is love

CCXXVII

the times we spend are the banks of my future withdrawals...

CCXXVIII

dear dearest

to say I love you would be insulting what we have. It is simply I and you.

CCXXIX

I decline to draw my energy from God; somebody needier needs to tap in so I make way

CCXXX

I am always reaching for the stars. But in doing so I forget the ground beneath my hooves. Unearthed groundless I soar in amphibious spheres to unknown shores.

CCXXXI

epiphany: a young Muslim woman dashing through campus wearing a full hijab (head covering) skirting on roller blades!

CCXXXII

put life into your life my life or else o life of my life my life leaves my life

CCXXXIII

and he died. and they did a post-mortem. and they mused the cause, the causes. and hummed and hawed and finally said, “this man had no heart; not for the last fifty years.” he was seventy-three.

CCXXXIV

only he knows silence that who lives with the rumbles of journeys...

CCXXXV

To strive and become

or to stay and be

CCXXXVI

There is no self to discover

only one needs recover

the distracted hour

with the divine lover

CCXXXVII

only he can teach

that who is still seeking

CCXXXVIII

It is only you

with who

I have shared

the silence of struggles...

CCXXXIX

dearest cossack gorovichka

You are rich and deep like the great master Langston's

rivers, your channels will always flow and flow with

surrender, your destinations will always open the

harshest of haughty hinders, your heart will make the

land your feet touch a place of wonder.

As you breathed correctly

O Shams O Balkhi O Dehlavi

O Rooh-e-Ikhtiyaari,

jahaan insaan seh hai

insaan jahaan seh nahi

—the world is from you

you are not from the world...

So it is that the beauty of Konya

becomes purer and truer to us

through the veins of your hands

retiring and engaging in journeys your own

in letters and prints

With love that flows from petal to prose

and heart that once in your immense arose

from slumber in which truth was buried

to blossom as one svelte perfect rose

CCXL

dearest fumie

this thirst to be that river

of ever flowing attar*

How can I ever thank thee

there are no ways that speak

of journeys you have so made

to absolve this heart of me

*(nectar of roses)

CCXLI

dearest fumie sun

every sentence was a poem, is, will be

love

manabu

CCXLII

dearest goru

count me circling on the Golden Ring.

i shall be so honored lest i be the center

in the consent venn of your loving mirror's.

In jest I speak yet only half,

for if it is so, let it be known

for I shall be forever your's

enchanted well in here or fore.

I spoke a while to Fumie

whose words we know are sprightly gay

and yet I couldn't but help reveal

the trepidation for her life I feel

revolution it is as beckons Sasha

so I wished Serhiy and Masha

the sorting of their mother's woes

and leadership if that on poisoned toes.

such is my feeling my darling mate

for truth arrives in lonely states

what one must in deep darkness fear

in light of day must wake and bear

with heart a full of memories spate

knowing not what keeps this store of fate

those lanes I visit the man I crave

is none if not the inside's wait

CCXLIII

all that is natural...is imperfect

CCXLIV

it is when you are trying to teach you are not

ready to receive

it is when you are trying to give you are not

there to aggrieve

it is when you are trying to preach you are not

present to perceive

CCXLV

to dream of opening my eyes to your loving gaze

with natural yearn

as the await of blossom buds for the opening rays

of the pre-dawn sun

CCXLVI

O Dear the Light of Smiles

a couplet in your service, to your beatific smile

O affaire de coeur, your sparkling smile besets me so

in a single glance of amor in o what knot you weave me so

Joon, I want to admit to you that you have lit up my life. I find you incredible and like you so. Joon, I cannot tell you how the logistics would work or if your feelings are there and will sustain but I have no fear in telling you I like you with all my heart. However, I treasure you as a beautiful sunflower, and will not want any wrinkles or tresses to appear on your lovely self so I will let you be completely as you are.

I know where I am and where we are so I will not take your name ever lest it ever be taken in vain. I want you to know I will be the same friendly, professional presence in the office.

With this I close to you my dear

to one who is both far and near

in hopes to love unceasingly new

one who never in my eyes will wear

CCXLVII

Gauri Jooni

for seeing her I lost myself but knowing her I unfortunately found a man groping for truths and eternity in ephemeral vanishes.

i must grow gauri for the sadness, rage, and then relief of finding the reciprocity lacking were truly disturbing for me. i must grow to love and love but not seek. i must love but not seek. i must love and love and not call it so only if it is returned...i have to grow and grow a world more inside me. only true love, as you so beautifully said, gives a glimpse into the depth and meaning of the world within us. and true love seeks truth and love not gratification or requite.

i must love gauri. i never love, i have always loved.

love is not love if not felt by one who travels these so, for perhaps only he knows silence that who lives with the rumbles of journeys...

gori jooni, i must now abandon all contrite forms of love such as giving one's heart, passion, and seeking requiting and summary.

i must now journey further. i must now journey to a different place where love does not weaken or strengthen on response. i must now leave this heart's palpitations and go to a place where the heart awakens with love for that holiness of the generous surround. i must love gauri in a way not seeking fruition.

i must remember and remind myself that the most important conversation one has is with oneself. i must learn to awaken that conversation.

i must also learn to know myself to know the true roots of my stirrings.

i have much to grow gauri, much to grow...

CCXLVIII

A Tree in Bamyan--A Caravan of Witness to Taliban & Other Unbeknownst Friends of the Buddha

In the midst of such birch

Among rocks too hard and formed

To imagine

Stood he

Leave-less and Mutely Pained

To the Talibs and the Mujahids

To Dr. Najib and the Russkies

Him, stark, alone

The Grand Old Witness

To the cases

Always out of court

Of the Un-Islamic

Bamyan

#english #poeticthoughts #poetrybook