Manas Winfield
Musings
For the ones I’ve loved
© Manas Winfield
About the Author
Married to my Wife and we Lobed you Groupies
How I would miss you so
if you weren’t as omnipresent
in my life – ?
my anchor, my mooring
my sweet stability.
May I not take you for granted-
your efforts, your love, your fighting
on my behalf . .
Or forget how even as my better half
You may need me,
from time to time,
Or even more than that, perhaps-
I am not a perfect product
and can hope only to progress
toa better version of myself,
a better version of myself,
more complete, more Whole. !
more capable of giving you
every last iota of love
you deserve. . ?
In the meantime:
life goes on,
we get older,
navigate the mundane
and the Chicago river waters,
on boats of wonder
and of necessity.
This life we have chosen to share –
together- –
what does it all mean?
Sometimes, I don’t care anymore
because I have the honor of
sharing the same sofa as you
feeling your warmth
the vapors of your breath
Resting in your assurance;
Your grace
that allows me to
forget how valuable you are
as you return to your
fundamental nature
of having at the same time
absolute conviction
and supreme, unknowing
humility-
turning away from yourself,
seeing crystal clear
the problems of the world
and not over-indulging
in your own importance.
And yet,
how could anyone,
how could I, give you
as little thought
as you give yourself?
– with love, from Manas
The last year
You spread your wings
And took flight
Even when we shared
Sojourns to Helen,
Charleston, and Chicago
You took off on your own
To Tallahassee
To Nashville
Doing a little bit of everything
Along the way
Not to mention
Flying off to India
Seeking a heartwarming homecoming
At the year’s start
Soon to be rescuing Mummiji
And containing your racing heart
As hers was failing
And Papaji was not too better off, tho-
Resilient does not quite describe you
Well, enough,|
Adventurous, too
And brave
Working 7 day weeks with no respite
Hundreds of miles from home
Where you drove
Even without my comments
While I could barely rest alone
In our new abode.
Riding bulls and weathering
Last minute conference storms
And a typhoon of new love
Confusing in its form
And pulling you away
From me
Yet … ! -/ here we are
Another year gone,
Done and dusted
Best friends still
And maybe more?
Who knows what the future
Has in store, –
Though to know you these last 5 odd years
Wasn’t the worst 5-year plan-
For me, at least?
To know you in all your forms,
Personalities, and moods
My admiration continues to deepen
Even if there were moments when
My respect for you
Did not feel so resolute
As when I knew you less
And loved the idea of you
More
Yes, More than the depths of who
You are
The What grows more complex
The how you came to be
Comes closer to view
As you seep more comfortably
Into me
And the why
Continues to elude;
Mysterious and wise
Maybe there are things about you
I will never know
Worthy of a lifetime
Of intellectual pursuit,
Perchanced?
But intuition tells me
A hug, a kiss, a warm embrace
The expressions on your face
Are my karmic reward,
And I can only thank my past lives
For Romita_-, mi Amor
#mAm
12/3/21
What’s not here now is what one seeks
What’s here right now, one neglects to meet
What one fears is oft not yet here
Who one chases is not quite dear
Manas Winfield, 1989-
Forever Unfinished
When I first saw you, you were sitting there
And here I came, wondering where
I was and where I was going.
That was the day you answered me,
with dreamy equanimity,
and crawled back to your precious mind
as I receded, back to mine.
And although I didn’t notice it,
you had tugged on me that small first bit,
You made things clearer, for what it’s worth
you quenched a little of my thirst
from walking up and down the dunes
looking to excavate the ruins
and bring them back to life
But why speak of phantoms, when my rose
is sitting underneath the globe,
withering away from lack of care,
because I could not even come to share
the only thing she’s always due,
Her soil, her light, her water too,
I did not keep out the caterpillar,
I can only hope it does not kill her
I do not want this poem to end,
I want it forever to extend,
There’s so much more for me to write,
I long to go deep into night,
With you radiating from my pen.
I need to fill the middle in…
Insight
I want to go on forward into life- eyes gliding, taking it in;
inner eyes set, staying away from those cabins
like that line from the book I told you I didn’t like-
keep the oil on the spoon. No longer howl at the moon-
when it’s three years ago October
and my mind broke through, sober.
make me forget those nights, not because they weren’t nice:
air evaporating off me like it had to catch supersonic flights.
but bring me back to the matter at hand, down to the atom,
and up past the skies to the interstellar stratum,
Don’t wanna fuck it up with my last throws
Do I exist in a place that I’ll never know?
want it microscopic and cosmic, This shit is not even comic:
All I want is everything.
And we have plenty of time…
Stay Away from the Circus Train
Let me give you some advice, young one.
When the loose cobblestones tremble,
and you can feel the crowds as they come…
Keep singing your tune, don’t dissemble.
When their rabble engulfs you, an isle,
and your ears tingle for gluttony,
Know that they traipse silent single file,
Keep your soul free from fragile debris.
When you see them approach, close your eyes.
The most savage animal eats all,
To look will feed them little white lies
Keep your heart steady, for truth stands tall.
And I remember what an old sage once told me when I was young:
Entertain the unnamed untamed lion mane,
Seek no fame, no glory in the game,
Go against the grain, try to stay sane,
Stay away from the circus train.
Rubble Telescope
He wakes up in the ruins of a destroyed home. All his memories are still there, intact, but there are no more walls. The windows he used to gaze into the future with are all filled in with rubble. He feels trapped, a cornered tiger. Fuck, more like a cornered gazelle. Always running away from the facts. The first thought that comes to his mind is, “Human sacrifice, anyone?”
He knows, however, that he will be hard pressed to find a place where an Aztec will tear out his heart and other internal organs anymore. The Aztec would be too gentle a punishment for his crimes, anyway. He looks up and sees a beautiful bird hovering around. It used to be his bird, when the structure of the home could contain the two of them.
Now it has been let free from its ugly confines, but still it hovers one more time around its strange companion of old.
Why is the Ocean Blue?
We used to run and build and play
Our joys and plans would fill the day,
We used to whisper and talk and chatter,
Our thoughts were shared on every matter
We used to joke and tease and laugh
Our merriment took unknown paths
But then the hour gets too late
runaway trains with coal in freight,
his fragile mind deteriorates,
the ones at the station can only wait.
The birds disperse, the bats do fly
A light goes dim within his eyes,
standing, waiting, his looks look shy,
he only means to say goodbye.
I used to be able to sit down and read
About the different places in the world.
The seven wonders, the great blue sea.
Filled with great blue whales and great white sharks.
I wondered why the waters were blue
Until someone explained it to me once.
What a sad day that was.
To Write Her Poem
the mob, the crowds, the rabbles rattle,
gossip swells amongst the prattle,
all the while he’s locked in battle,
to pin this elusive creature,
convey every facet, every feature.
digging into moons with brows damp,
the pen scribbles ‘til his palm cramps,
putting a seal on it, his heart’s stamp,
eschewing using the typewriter,
for this, a method far quieter.
stealing hours the other side of the sun,
words spiraling out like the bullets of a gun,
he commands, “write, ‘til the lexicon come undone!”
his crews assembled in rows unending,
the room emanating, the verses pending,
the man at work, a preposterous task,
to tap the finest wine from a buried cask,
and reveal the beauty beneath a mask,
he peels each layer from its shell,
to put in words beauty’s look, touch, and smell:
Her eyes were fastened on the one she chose
Her skin felt softer than the petals of a rose
Her heart burned bright the way neon glows
This is the one who is marrow to his bone
This is the one he has made his own
Eggshells
He’s been in there a long time. Sloshing around. Slipping and sliding about along the sides of the curved wall. Sticky and syrupy, movements slowed like three toed sloths. Sapped of his energy, all the while trying to stay afloat. Swimming with eyes closed and numbed soul, he realizes his soupy predicament. The translucence of his confinement bathes him in a heavy amber glow.
He stops and holds his breath, then decides to take a different approach- solidifying ever so slightly. No longer splashing about, he waits it out. He bides his time, sitting soundlessly. All the noise is within. He feels himself stretch and expand and fill in- he can feel the growth. His gelatinous form stiffens, hardening against the thin yet powerfully sculpted walls. He soaks up his surroundings and reaches the point where the air supply is not enough to fill his lungs. Gasps replace the stillness and he rocks back and forth. Suffocation drives him head-first roaring into the barrier and…Crrraaaaackkkk.
He crashes out beautifully, covered in golden yoke, and dances around- a flash in the frying pan.
Ragged
look at that one… Ragged.
taken for a stroll. dragged along the road.
is it allowed to hope?
does it have time to despair?
look at that one… ragged.
that one has suffered, yeah…
scolded by an iron rod, chastised with a rough leather strap,
you can tell it felt like smashed porcelain,
from its baggy eyes.
yeah that one has suffered.
does that one hurt? is it numb?
stumbled many a mile on those clanging heels,
oh, that one is well-traveled,
been to places a nightmare would not conjure up.
was it stung? or is it numb?
will it find a bed?
and rest in slumber. one night
without being chased out from its covers?
will it find what it yearns for?
will it find its home?
won’t they take it in, this love?
look at that one… Ragged.
taken for a stroll. dragged along the road.
is it allowed to hope?
does it have time to despair?
look at that one… ragged.
From a Dream
She doesn’t have to strain herself too much these days. She just is. How is she, you might ask? It’s hard to say, really. On the surface she is pretty, gracious, and considerate. Her first noticeable feature, which will speak to you long before she will, is the simple symmetry of her face. Everything about its design is elegant. Decorated by the fiery and uncharacteristic eyebrows are her softest eyes, like a slumbering dwarf star girded by fiery meteor showers. Her eyelids look like they must be very heavy and inclined towards sleep, and she doesn’t strain herself to keep them open wide. Though, it is as if their purpose is to gaze, to see through the flimsy charades of her counterparts and into their spirit. These eyes are not greedy– they are neither searching for treasures nor carried away by pleasures. They are a faithful and humble servant to their master, her mind; and they stretch out to her lover when her mind is no longer relevant, joining the two hearts together, miraculously rushing the blood from one to the other. The ample width between her eyes allows a spacious feeling that calms you before her best feature claims you as it draws your eyes gently towards the center. This nose I speak of arches outward into a rounded tip and if you look straight ahead the bridge of it, along with the cartilage of her well-proportioned nostrils, resembles the Hindu temples at Bhubaneswar. You can imagine her breath circulating in concentric circles within these rounded chambers, effortlessly chugging up the oxygen necessary to keep her lamp lit. And how bright it shines, when southward her lips are stretched by the power of an effervescent smile… and another, and another. When her bow is strung by the might of her heart, and her words are let flying like magical arrows, they are known to heal as they strike instead of causing damage. Sometimes her nervousness shows, but what more fertile grounds than the furrows of her forehead to plant seeds of comfort and security. Sometimes she is tired, but what greater bags to fill with the fruits of loving labor than those which form under her eyes when she is exhausted, when even the perfection of this face of hers shows the signs of wear and tears… and tear? If I have been the destroyer, cannot I also be the creator? Can’t my sun evaporate the tears that the clouds of my sky have let loose. I love this face. I adore it. Can’t I have this face forever?
Lone Trumpeter
What sounds does the trumpeter blow from his horn?
when there is no stage, no lights
no audience
When in his band are
a fluorescent bulb buzzing and insects chirping
outside his basement window
When his songs vanish as he plays them,
never to be pressed into a record
or a soul
These silent sounds,
they intoxicate him
so that even he cannot recall how good they felt
Printing Press
He has gone too far, there is no escape.
As he shoulders his fate,
In between a boulder and a plate,
The rollers flatten him into an awkward shape.
His death is slow, the pain is real,
How did he end up with such a raw deal?
How was he flawed? Where his Achilles heel?
His bones crunch under the weight of the wheel.
His skull now splits open, he relinquishes his claim
To the words inside that are now given to fame,
Distorted and contorted, they are bound to his name,
As his precious thoughts are smashed out of his brain.
Time watches him go, swept away in a blink,
As the meaning of a corpse is lost in its stink,
So is his soul and mind, his work’s only link,
How much he has suffered to be written in ink.
Digging
Searching in the ground for something buried long ago. Where to begin? How deep do I go? Keep hearing in my head, “The X marks the spot, The X marks the spot.” As if there could be some treasure. So much gravel in the way of sweet soil, it’s hard to get through. I just want to dig…
Just want the ground to give. When I dig. When I live. I find solace in the repetition. In the sedimentary depositions. What is my position on the friction of my mission? Well, the gravel sucks and the soil rocks, so much coal for Christmas socks. No crystals here, no emeralds neither. Not even a flash, of an ephemeral pleaser. Alone in my hole, the digger’s den. Far from the worries of women and men. The deeper I go, the closer to China. They should give me a hardhat and call me a miner…
But I’m not going back up, not in a million years. Not until I’m dead and fossilized. Not until they have to go through a thousand layers just to excavate me. Not until they have to cut through all the gravel I did to get here. Just to find me. And wonder what I once was.
Fallen Star
What a year it was for him,
watching his favorite star fall out the sky.
It tumbled silently at first,
and seemed so graceful
that he rejoiced,
because something was happening,
something exciting, before his eyes,
a spectacle.
But he knew it wasn’t that simple,
from the times he had fallen.
And this star was so much higher up
than he had been.
He imagined
the life of the star.
How it was raised,
up to that point
where it shone
for billions of years,
and millions of miles.
How it must’ve toiled to rekindle its own explosions
when the supernovas seemed to burn so much brighter.
How it must’ve struggled
against the pull of other galaxies
to maintain its orbit,
to stay at that spot
where he had watched it
everyday for years.
What grief it must’ve felt
to have fallen
when previously,
so many eyes had fallen on it.
But he also knew
the star wouldn’t mind
because he hadn’t lost sight.
And when he climbed the roof that night
and had to squint maybe a little harder
than he had before,
his eyes twinkled again
when they found his favorite star.
Complicated Days
Complicated days
Complicated days
Branches soak in kerosene
the tree limps as it sways
Weighed down crooked by the end
it breathes deep sighs of relief
as lightning strikes a spark at last
and roasts each twig and leaf
But its tip is not a wick
its trunk not a candle
it does not stay alight gently
to serve as an example
Complicated days
Complicated days
Branches explode out in flames
the tree roars as it sways
Illiterate
The world appeared to him like the pages of a book, flipping endlessly before his eyes, a black and white blur of letters and shapes and symbols that he couldn’t wrap his head around. He hadn’t yet learned to read, and so what he experienced in his illiteracy was a mere whirring and flapping of papers, on and on and on. It never struck him that something could be eluding him, though he wondered where the colorful illustrations from his childhood had suddenly gone. And so he went about his business, wandering great expanses of time, advancing from school to college to work, without questioning the muffled hush, the muteness that was his world.
He lived in a city of millions, but the walls of his apartment kept them out. His ears hung out with humanity when sounds trickled in through his windows in the night and poured in during the mornings. The honking and screeching, the blaring of police cars, the wailing of ambulances and fire trucks—it never let up. His friends lived such troubled lives, he thought. He only heard from them when they were busy being cut off in traffic, getting arrested, becoming deathly sick or lighting their houses on fire.
Lions and Gazelles
I stayed inside tonight, with moonlight slanting in through plastic blinds. How easy it was to filter out the infinite wonder of creation. But of course. richest in mind, I was of all animals poorest in sight. If I could enlist all humankind and stare through the 13 billion eyes and all the billions more that came before, even then my vision would prove futile. Because, while the lion recognizes its destiny at the sight of a gazelle, grasps it firmly by its jaws, and feasts on it, nothing visible under the sun or moon can fill the jaws of my soul. Even the sky above, packed so densely with stars that only billions of years of space can prevent them from blinding me, doesn’t provide me a morsel. It’s true, I have an expansive view of the land and sky from where I live. But I’ve seen enough gazelles sprinting through these grasslands, running races that finish at the claws of lions who, drooped in languor, perk up only at that critical moment when they can exert their power. This uneven contest no longer entertains me. So I twirl those plastic blinds closed and look inwards instead.
Philosopher
Lost in thought…
his gait was fraught…
with demons as he stumbled forth…
His mind was set…
on all those steps…
he took to trip upon the next…
Buried by troubles…
and in the rubble…
still he tries to solve the puzzle…
of where his youth…
fixated on truth…
fled, absconding with his muse…
And what was she to him?
And he to her?
he’ll never learn, the philosopher.
Beautiful city
The most beautiful city frets
not knowing what to expect
of its latest guest.
What foods to cook?
What curtains to put up?
How to entertain?
But now he comes
with open heart and empty stomach-
And he could feast on the meagerest of meals,
but she prepares banquets
of decadence and luxury,
so he will never ask to leave
but only think, Paris.
Tree of Life
If I were an oak tree, I’d already be three hundred years old. The last few years, I teetered and tottered and threatened the roof of the house on this plot, and I scared the neighbors, too. But no longer. No more. Now I come crashing down. Now I rain thunder on the earth. The birds caw, the squirrels scurry away, everything shakes. In a few moments, though, all is still again. I am not the first tree to have touched the ground.
Intricate branches, my leaves and twigs, they reached out towards sun and moon, accumulating. Now they dig into the dirt. And roots, the roots that kept me grounded, they point skywards- stretching out desperately, yearning now to escape to the heavens. Why did I take them for granted? And when I was young, I remember, how fast I grew. I thought I’d extend forever. The clouds, the sun, the moon- I’d get there one day. I would rise above my thick canopy easily. That was a given. I would surely rise that high. But my foliage, my leaves, my branches never stood that tall. The older I got, the less I grew. And now I lie scattered.
When the lumberjack comes to slice me up you’ll see it all- for our lives are written in the rings. Sap leaks from every contour, and if you touch your tongue to it, you’d know bitterness, you’d taste anguish, in my last drops, it oozes out. They say if you come at the right time, just at that moment when tree turns to wood, and place your hand there, you absorb the wisdom of its memories. Not very many know this or chance upon it, and so, too much of history repeats itself. But pay attention- if you wait too long, it will all turn to syrup. At my funeral you’ll see how sweet it can be, how sweet they’ll make it. And maybe one day it will even become amber, all crystallized splendor- am I arrogant to dream? – But no, right now, it’s neither, it is as plain a substance as can be. Stay away, though, please, I beg you. It’s all poison.
Was it always like this? I can’t remember. Put your hand to the innermost rings, and tell me. Tell me what you see flashing in front of you, tell me what happened, please?
The Gentleman’s Game
History recounts 27th November, 1996 as the first day of the second test, involving South Africa and India at Kolkata. For me, perhaps this date should be sacred- as sacred as July 4th, 1776 or August 15th, 1947. It was the day I first encountered the gentleman’s game, the day my love of cricket was born.
My mother brought me, a seven-year-old American boy, to watch the game she adored, which she had played (inspired by her coach, Bengal cricketer Shivaji Ray) in her college days and romanticized ever since. Amma always wanted us to have a connection to India, our motherland. And for her, this very English, colonial sport was as vital a part of one’s Indian identity as anything.
And so, shyly clutching my mother’s hand, I strolled into a Mecca of cricket. We got there early, with the crowd still filing in, and took our seats. It wasn’t long before at least 70,000 more had taken theirs, and become quite boisterous in doing so. Of course, Amma soon began getting looks and comments- “Are you here just to have a picnic?” spoken in Bengali. And in their defense, well, it wasn’t long before Amma opened our tiffin boxes, feeding me the aloo rolls and cucumber sandwiches my Nani had packed. We must have been an odd sight- this Indian woman with a white child. But while the Kolkatans scratched their heads over this reverse Mother Teresa, I was being bewildered by Amma’s cricket crash-course. Grasping the game’s basic objectives was difficult enough, and Amma’s enumeration of everything from fielding positions to the modes of dismissal was making matters worse. Over the wicket, lbw, straight bat, third man, silly point, howzzaaat…nothing made sense.
It didn’t help that I could hardly see the action- whenever anything apparently important occurred, everyone stood up and blocked my view. As the day wore on and the tiffin was depleted, I became more and more sulky. Hudson and Kirsten scored hundreds that day, history recounts, with South Africa closing on 339/2. The Indian players would have left Eden Gardens demoralized, and Amma too- her attempts to get me interested in cricket had failed.
Next morning, Amma went without me to the match- I’d refused to bear any more suffering. When she returned, a thrilled Nani relayed the news- “Manas was glued to the TV all day, watching the cricket!” Amma was astonished. Had the rules finally sunk in? Had Doordarshan’s broadcast heightened my curiousity? Was it a fluke? One more day, and all doubt would be removed- Azharuddin was smashing the ball all around the park; Eden was in raptures, and debutant Lance Klusener … was not. I was hooked.
I cherish the blurry memories of this simpler time; before I stumbled upon Cricinfo, Asked Steven, and opened Pandora’s box (Statsguru); before numbers or words (not even the moving profile by Dileep Premachandran) could explain why my favorite cricketer was Azhar; when the sheer sensuous force and physical beauty of bowler sprinting up, batsman swinging willow, and leather flying away, was enough.
No Man Is an Island
The violence
of your silence
tears away at
the narrow causeways
that connected me to the mainland.
Drawn and quartered
all civilization sinks,
full of unfinished monuments.
And I look out at the beautiful lake
from the perch of a pyramid,
where we sat atop our thrones,
where we had planned those roads,
where you told me,
“No man is an island.”
Untitled
something happened then-
I felt it
many miles away
in a foreign land.
but it was too late to know what or how,
or why
I woke up that dawn
to the whispers of a magician
instead of staying comatose.
ancient statues lose their noses overnight
and I was carved without irises
and I was stuck without Osiris’es
most precious blessing…
Voices
Young man with a cane
broken back
shattered
heel.
Freeway bridge gives
whistling
promises
of
freedom
from
walking
down
stairways
that
never
end.
Pavement
too forgiving
to return
the exhausted
to the land
from where the
angels
call.
Young man with a cane
broken back
shattered
heel.
Power at the fingertips
Do they know what came first- the Rhythm or the Blues? Well I learned to walk before I learned to talk, so I guess I learned to stomp before I learned to shout.
So then the first instrument was a drum and not the voice?
Was it more from breathing or beating?
you got the drum all wrong, though. The beat is innocent its like a circle. it’s pure. the blues shoes up when you try to make things go places that probably don’t even exist.
Fire was peaceful before people started using it to burn each others’ roofs down, and melt people’s faces off, and roast sinners on sticks. Before it was just to cook dinner. And fire was so polite it even made sure to lick its lips without making any noise really. And it would always go to bed.
Water sounds peaceful but only if you haven’t ever seen a person drown.
But does rhythm know blues? Rhythm just wants to go, it doesn’t have eyes to know here or know there. Rhythm doesn’t ask, “Where?”
Ask blues about directions; Blues always worries about where it’s going and where it’s been.
Ask the mallet about the timpani. They’re not friends, though. Not since Timpani got mallet thrown in jail for domestic abuse.
Well ask the big bass drum; they said you gotta hit it so it’s, “felt but not heard.”
did you have a soul before you had shoes?
did I have a voice before I had shoes?
like a mallet to a big bass drum
“felt but not heard”
who knows the bass drum better than the snare
that rat a tat tat
the power at my fingertips
drips
what goes up must come down
like the faucet didn’t get a grip
supple wrists
the balance in just a subtle twist
makes me thirst
tere ke te
like the cracking of a whip – – – !
dha dhin dhin dha
dha dhin dhin dha
na thin thin na
dha dhin dhin dha
Unwritten Stories
In your eyes I see stories
That I’ll never read
Of mystics, seers, and mysteries.
A burst of light through a black hole tint,
Brilliant, brilliant, but just a glint.
In your eyes I see stories
That I’ll never read
Of battles of devout heresies,
Yearning for more while doing your best,
Questing for meanings deeper than flesh.
In your eyes I see stories
That I’ll never read
Of heroes, enemies, and long journeys,
Dragons slain and promised lands,
Escaping from my outstretched hands.
In your eyes I see stories
That I’ll never read
Conversations going on, endlessly
Delicious dialogues laced with wit
And tirades and debates and mental fits.
In your eyes I see stories
That I’ll never read
Unpublished but signed with a forgery
A flash of passion trembling through my veins,
A fleeting excitation, a lasting pain.
Geniuses
There are geniuses spread like litter
On the sides of the road
Tossed out
Disposable plastic bags
Full of air
Weighing nothing
Blowing here and there
Changing hands collecting dust and
Every little thing you can imagine
Picked up and put in a dumpster
There are geniuses waiting for you
To place your order
Staring at the lines on your forehead
Observing the manner of your speech
Telling the people in the back
Just what they need to serve up
To accommodate your needs
You asked for no cheese
You get two slices
There are geniuses driving you home
After drunken nights
All you have to do is ask
The right questions
You vomit out the window
Getting it all over the car
The conversation changes
To the extra vomit fee
Next time you drink less
There are geniuses on a drunken night
Drunker than you
Drowned in sorrows
Of broken hearts and broken families
Swimming in the truth
As you tread in murky water
Looking for a hand to pull you in
They are all around you
Look them in the eye these geniuses
They are waiting for you
People are my Lands
People are my lands
My oceans, my sands
Stretched out horizons
Suns ever-rising
Moons waning and waxing
Tiring and relaxing
Growing out of seeds
Chopped down like the weeds
Canopies of trees
The shade of the elders’ leaves.
Rows and rows of farms
Gathering in swarms
Scattered by the storms
Dried up by the heat
Looks so lifeless and empty
Grounds barren with desert
Diamonds formed from pressure
Deep in the jaws of stone
Millions of years of bones
Holding up the thrones
Continental drift
Diasporic gifts
Glaciers melting fast
Old ways now rehashed
The bush is still on fire
Ignited by the liars
The honest ones pull true
Like the tides and the moon
But earthquakes tear asunder
Hurricanes and tornadoes blow
Tsunamis crash and bring us under
The fury never seems to go
People are my lands
My oceans, my sands
My only habitat
A wilderness intact
How deep to go?
How far to traverse?
This Earth of soul
Just a corner of the universe
The only one I’ll ever know
Will I ever know these people,
These lands, these oceans, these sands?
Faith in Reason
I have faith in the faithless,
an ardent striving
for clarity, for a
thought
which
could
only
be
by necessity.
doubtlessly true,
hitting me with the force of
pure reason.
But I do not know,
do not have the patience
to make beginnings
to cognize the flaws
in my consciousness’s laws
that cannot but assume
its own capacity
its own veracity
its own tapestry
of contents and forms.
but now thinking of thinking
I see
thinking thinking thinking
doing its own work
acting on itself
moving
to validate itself
before looking anywhere else
or accepting any of the rest,
revealing what comes first
and what comes next,
putting itself to its own test.
so, silently, I put away any hope
extinguish any desire to know,
so that when eating an apple
with a tongue ever-tasteless
only the truth of truth alone
will abolish my faith in the faithless.
REINCAMERANATION
my self dissolves
in the light of overexposed film
reels and reels of black magnetic tape
all that I am
nothing less
nothing more
no more cut scenes
of strings of memory
some brighter than others
some damaged beyond repair
unable to ever capture the full extent of my life
anyways
no longer identifiable
as the person I am
or was
just black magnetic strips
spinning in circles relentlessly
whirring on the wheel
is this who I am?
where am I?
I could be anything
everyone
everything
anyone
who has ever been
who will ever be
absolutely naked
nothing
a child in the womb
not quite ready for a new world
not knowing anything else
wiped clean
for the show
for the next scene
black majestic tape
it all must go on:
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
Unifinity-vid
I see constellations
in blind frustration
warriors made
out of the good red clay
stomping on tomorrow’s yield
with injuries from yesterday
firing in the kiln-
manmade artifice
no new newspaper mills-
the thirst for kill
that you-or-me thrill
so pull the water out the well
heaving hard on hope
quench ourselves from fire
because today we could just find
an oasis or a mire
dissolving in solutions-
when the problems loom so large
so close, so loud, deafening- shards
when we already have selective hearing
and our ear drums are dead to
music
then music takes its turn
moving the ocean of mood
please
Turn
It
Down
A
Little (a lot)
w omb sounds begin
a rtistic creation
v olume just so to remind us of
e xistatic
s ilence
now we (I, U, Me, Them, Us- the theme is unity)
We can either
arrive at heaven’s gate
at the rate of fate
Or eat what we have planted-
fruition on our plate
Add in all the flavors
that repelled us oh so much
bitter, sour, sweet
pungent, umami
spicy
Stomach every poison
Our tongues have let speak
Subdue our gazes
Learn from our neighbors
freedom of immigration and customs
respect for difference
especially what is individual
never to exclude the ones longing
for basic belonging-
(who isn’t?)
No One knows the uncharted way
of this united vision
Though we all are rays
In the Sun’s Vision
This mirror world we live in
pointing at each other
Criticisms and all the isms
bouncing back onto ourselves
compounding each and every hatred
and each and every joy
each and every kind act we deploy
each and every dream we pass on to another
each and every apology to our mothers
each and every insult we bomb onto the weak
Each and every cruelty we attach to when we think
Each and every disrespect to a people or a person
Each and every movement to a better version
Of Me, I, us (once I meet with U), WE (once them/us does not divide us any further thus)
This is my hope, that we stay dissolved in the solutions, that the water brigade may meet every fire brigade, and that the fire brigade will only be the water brigade, in reality. For accidents may happen, but I am responsible for me. I am responsible for my part in us. Us and Them are responsible for becoming WE. It maybe what it is, but We are who we are; We are what we think, feel, say, do, together, and for the silence that we will return to, the shadow of the light, the emptiness inside us, the beauty burning bright.
Shyamali
Consummate professional
One with the dust
Settled on the floor
Sweeping from this door to that door
Back unbroken
So it seemed
Spirit unbowed
Although
Your life was labor
And to us, what more?
Your Hindi must have met
My Bengali
Further along the line
Hand on hip, smiling
Accepting your lot in life
Not having any options
Maybe
But finding respite
In what never changed
a rag, a jhaaro, and the light
in your eyes
labyrinth
What is it I keep in the center of my labyrinth?
The letters on the spines of the books on my shelf?
The secrets I keep unknown, even to myself?
All the potions that will cure me, or simple absinthe?
What are the contours of the walls seen from overhead?
How high I launch my mind with mighty escapism?
How bright is the fall, with light scattered through prisms?
Until you reach the darkness, the center of my dread?
Mazes made for a reason, do you understand?
To keep safe what’s most valued? Or hide what is most base?
In a world where both are the same, you’ll find the rat race
Questions neverending supplanting all demands.
What is it I search for? Where my Daedalus?
Who designed this latest monstrosity?
Puzzling and exhausting me
With many ways in but no way out
Time
Watches
Me wherever I go
Time is who I worship
From Sunday to sundown
The hour is always upon me
From hourglass to sundial
Time empties me dry
Until all I can do
Is watch
Time
Time
Counts me
My every step
Every turn and twist
Time is mathematical
Multiplying in all our plans
Subtracting away the people I love
Dividing life into memories
Time is not vengeful
Use me it says
“Make me
Count”
Time
Time
Heals all
Maybe next
Time things will be
Different- more serene
Waiting for that time feels like
Forever again- I feel now
Time is always here
Together with my
Keeping of it
All hail
Time
Animating my Face
Black shoes, black pants
Grey shirt
A Human inhabits
The fabrics
Working
Standing, walking
Sitting
shifting
When is it time
To go home?
Dimly lit house
Back from the road
Hidden by trees
Won’t you come and visit?
Pour color on my clothes
Draw lines on a blank face
Eating and sleeping
And working
Have lost their charm.
I’m disarmed so easily as you
Twirl your fingers through your hair
While we play through songs
On the old-time stereo
You look at me
And the flute solo is almost on cue
What algorithm is this?
That knows our whole lives
Better than we know ourselves
Spread bare by
constellations of data points
That light up my soul against
The backdrop of my life
My mouth now dances
To the rhythm of spells
Gushing all over your rarity
Compelled by your minimalism
Letting go of every half-baked thought
Every summed and numbed sentiment
Multiplied by every rumination
Concluding
In an aftermath of
Disappearing mystery
The moment has passed
My stomach reminds me
Of another supper
Another dreamless sleep
Back to work
In the same black shoes
Black pants, grey shirt
And with these newfound lines
Animating my face
Breaking the News: The Apathy of World Affairs
A people passed
From these guys to
Those guys
Millions marauded-
Persons-
I don’t mean the
Billions in
Whose currency again?
All I do is flip through the channels
Of carousel scenes of chaos
A life plucked from a plane
By the force of desperation
Dropping onto tarmac
A thousand feet below
For all of us to see
How naked of dignity
In life and
In death
An entire people can be.
And what to us?
Popcorn spectacle
Watercooler talking point
Third world “hell-hole”
After “hell-hole”
These are the others
We could never know
Hidden in our ‘sights’
Living in the shadow
While the one’s we all appoint
To run these world affairs
Couldn’t really give a damn
Don’t really even care.
All You Are is Pretty Words
All you are is pretty words
Quicksilver touch, watery allure
Turtle shell head down demure
A heart so flawed to seek the pure
All you are is pretty words
Oceans rising, you stay submerged
Nod, acquiesce, you concur
Go with the flow, you say for sure
Pockets full of time without a spur
Where do you point, to what refer?
To follow the leader is to follow the herds
Meekness has brought you bleak rewards
Hanging back not moving towards
All you are is pretty words
10 Years On
Everyday awareness
Take me to my highness
Putting down the weapons
Of my mental blindness
Let me feel the bliss
Of a day to reminisce
Letting down my guard
Forgetting my to-do list
Leaning into pain
And learning, each refrain
As decades pass by faster
And each year links life’s chain
I feel myself much wiser
To know I’d be a liar
Not to see that 10 years on
These words will seem much triter
And from that perch in time
May I treat my follies kind
And return to that innocence-
Life not repeating but set to rhyme:
Of one who knows but not quite so much
As one day on, and on, til all is dust.
Chaos Theory
The boat rocks
With the putting on of socks
With the wearing of shoes
Begins the whole deluge
A butterfly floats hither
The hurricane now differs
The wearing of these pants
Alters the whims of chance
She stopped to have a chat
When I’d worn the yellow hat
The day the coffee stained my shirt
Was the day she left Earth first.
Do the heavens follow these random rules?
Star systems scoffing at us astronomical fools
Not meaning to be either callous or cruel
Night sky simply fizzing delight bejeweled
Not disconnected from the bubbles in this Sprite
Light as witness to all neither wrong nor right
Twisting and writhing in cavernous dark
I look for order in chaos so stark
I look for order in chaos remarkable
I look for order in chaos so stark
I look for order in a chaos
Steadfast Eternal
Steadfast devotion
To letting go of emotions
To letting go of ego
And any need for lotion
Not needing to impress
Or ever be the best
For all you are is you are all
Not standing short nor standing tall
Forget whence came your wherewithal
And ever know the eternal
Only Our Whole World Depends
I speak, I eat, I go to bed
To live with all that I have said
Dreams connect the scattered mess
In the age of the digest
I squander time like sand in glass
Sifting out the slow from fast
Ambition wipes a drop of sweat
That aimlessness would have kept
To cool my heated temple walls
And keep me cozy all-in-all
Away from sparks inside my brain
That leap against the mainframe
That yearn to bring me to my knees
And others to apostasy
I seek to know what’s but a hunch
Have faith for breakfast, truth for lunch
To fill my soul with these victuals
Spitting out the bones of riddles
Basking in delight of wonder
Ocean of thought, pull me under
What has no limits but our time
And willingness to upwards climb
The patience to think through the end
Only our whole world depends
Anonymous
I search, I search
In the wreck called Earth
For those words most deserved
By a name yet uncovered
Our algorithms ply away
Sifting out the night from day
This style in April, that in May
Like a needle in hay, my dismay
Lightyears ahead would Earthlings be
Alive, too, if they’d learned more from Tree
Here it says bots chose to flee
As most all organics disagreed
Back up our data in stone we do
0s and 1s are all we have from you
In light patterns, possibilities become few
“Shakespeare”…”God”…”Lao Tzu”
The name I came for I cannot miss
Who spawned my race, across abyss
Knower of all the secrets of universal bliss
And here I think it is!: “ANONYMOUS”
You say that we are all unique
You say that we are all unique
Saying so you’re the same as me
I see you there alone marooned
In a shadowed corner of the room
Gasping at a breath of air
Suffocated by the stares
You say that no one understands
Well, maybe no one ever can
I think I feel you on that, though
It’s a feeling everybody knows
We could connect on that, at least?
Because I really think you’re very sweet
You know I haven’t lived your life
And can only imagine your strife
And try to meet you there halfway
You grew up fast driving in the fast vein-
Starting at pleasure and on to numbness
School of hard knocks alumnus
Spinning, crashing, burning out
Lights out nodding without a shout
All they see is a junkie thief
A dying tree, grey, without a leaf
Remains of your spirit scattered
The day they decided you never mattered
But I know your fate- it’s not too late
Because we share a common trait
And not just me, but most of us
We’re all riding on the same bus
Head bumping the window looking outwards
Life flashing by with each encounter
Jerking here and there and losing balance
We lose sight of the scenery with every challenge
Looking down and averting our gaze
We miss the rays of better days
Don’t lose sight of this most important fact:
This ride will end and there’s no way back
I Listen to the Rain
I listen to the
rain
sounding
on the
speaker
shuffling tracks
almost forgetting that
these
recordings
capture
droplets
across the age
of the microphone
from who knows where
on what forgotten days
Nature
pours down
sometimes pounding
cacophonously
other times
that gentle rain
all the while
radically
inconveniencing the plans
of picnickers
here
and pompous ceremony
there
and causing
ordinary
disaster
to the ones
sleeping
on the sidewalks
where there are
no
awnings
And cuddled up
on a sofa
to write this poem
I listen
to
the
rain
Hey Mister, Maybe It’s Time
Hey mister
Won’t you help me get from A to
B?
Don’t know how to spell
Never had any epiphany
you speak of
haphazardly
Not seeing the cracks in the road
Where we stumble
You say you feel the bomb blasts underground
When you’re bouncing around the hall
In your own world of
XYZ
You say each day is the end times
Well I’m just trying to get from A to
B
Won’t you hold your hand out strong?
I’m tired of pleasantries
We’re not at a gallery
Gazing from portrait to landscape
We don’t know no pleasant trees
No silver mountain peaks
No crescent moons
Just take me one step ahead
Because I’m losing my way
I’ve done tried everything they told me
Going in your direction
Along your destiny
Maybe it’s time
You came over here with me
Flower Mind
What is that feeling?
What is that feeling when you have something to say?
A question to ask
a gap to connect
a thought pit to make whole
an urge to counter what you’ve just heard
to improve on what was said
to speak better words
or design a better world
in speech alone
when simple niceties are not enough
and reading the room only goes so far
when conversation is not the goal
but only the medium
and ego reclines
the focus shifting
away from my petty life
onto the pettiness of life itself
or its grandeur
or the unfulfilled promise
of we high potential humans
or the scarcity of time
or the fear therein
of the ultimate unknown
pulling us, bringing us
to our knees
praying “please”
What is that feeling?
that gets back up
stands up
burning as if desirous
of nothing within reach
of my petty life
as of a Higher Power
that does not lord over
pettiness
that does not preach
or promise
or hush the crowds
rather lifting each and every
mind (with ego reclined)
into a daze
as it would feel to our everyday
sensibilities
a stun
a stimulus of enchantment
as the unknown becomes known
and what remains unknown
loses its vice grip
What is that feeling
of having something to say
out of a place of ever-flowering curiosity?
And what is that feeling
to grasp the fully-bloomed flower petals
in your palm
shining with all-knowing luminosity?
And what could be that feeling
of having no longer anything left to
have to say?
Pupil Pool
I hang around a pond
and the pond becomes a lake,
and I swim in this lake
that is your pupils
I realize I can’t swim
as well as I thought,
so I tread there-
treading softly and eyeing
the shores of your irises,
flashings of colorful delight
I’m in deep waters-
deep black undulating,
Moving slightly, here and there,
widening and widening,
swallowing me whole,
or maybe just the part of me
that had any sense of time,
place, context
And I drown-
until one day
my body will be found
somewhere deep below the glossy
surfaces of the watery glass
of your eyes
Unable to be recovered
in such a deep well
by anyone else,
but one who could
equally have
channeled
into the chasm of my
once and future
gorge-ous,
gorging
pupils.
Turning point
Reluctant writers
stepping out of the shadows,
out of the cool, damp, mellow home
where we hide our sorrows,
our tortured thoughts
chained to the furnace of regret,
on house arrest for our sins,
and the sins of others,
circling around
in our own captivity
But the light comes through the windows,
through the holes in the roof,
maybe I wasn’t meant to be so aloof.
the doorknob doesn’t seem so scary,
I turn it, walk out, and see,
the light rains down and thunders,
the feeling reverberates in me.
I soak up all around me,
the people and the trees,
growing side by side
with the force of destiny,
the unknown is adventure
with friends along the way,
exhilarated freedom
with every breath I play
Assessment
Where do I go from here?
What have I seen? Who have I met?
What have I learned to take to the next?
What would it mean to be at my best?
Master the self,
subdue my ego (and that of the rest)
humble myself in my work,
my actions, my speech
and my thoughts, above all else.
banish any ambitions for empire,
sit back and listen,
and look within,
let go of any criticism
of the ones I love,
for who am I to judge?
accept the flaws in others and my own,
for truly, knowledge and wisdom don’t sit atop a throne.
expand the reaches of my heart,
dissolve the barriers of different parts,
focus on the vastness of mind
and not the rash desires of this ‘Manas.’
content in everything big or small,
love the crude, the beautiful, the hateful in all,
lying as the fulcrum, steady and tall
balancing the world of wonders,
never beating down,
never going under
Constant distractions
Constant distractions
over here, over there
feel like hale pelting
on the top of my car
as I look straight ahead
following the road.
Constant distractions
blinking through my mind
as I try to keep those eyes open
focused on my mission
my purpose, my vision.
Patience eases the effects
of any pitter-pattering
and when I see even each distraction
reflected in the water of my mind
the hale becomes like gentle rain drops
connecting the skies to the sea
Hope
Hope sounds more exotic in Russian
but you prefer the Western ways
the sunshine and warmth of temperate days
and you see freedom in our flags
You don’t exactly stay hidden
but you know to be careful
for your ultimate mission
isn’t just for you or me
Yes, you swing between languages
and hang with those of many lands
One day may we be global citizens
for now, a netizen of silicon sands
You drench yourself in an online sea
Rather caught up in the internet
than the snares of henchman
out there rounding up the Freshmen
The characters of villains
Are rehearsing their roles
The audience is captive
Not seeing what they came for
it’s real horror-show
as the critics of this theater
are now critiquing heaven
and the light shines bright
on the void of any hero
Hope- a noun and a verb?
Are you enough?
Without a second and a third?
Your heart is many good places
Your thinking will yet develop
As you are what is boundless
A reaching out into the expanse
of all that we need
and haven’t had the chance
to manifest with hope alone
or alone, with hope
As we cast this net into an ocean deep
tighten and stretch the rope
we catch the ones we need to keep
for us to move as one
and pull the ragged dusty rug
out from under the ones who trample over
all beauty, truth, freedom, justice, and love
princely states
Who knows the rose
who never had a globe?
To keep out the bugs
that made the stems shrug
what is a dove
to an indoor plant?
who gardens its self
on the corner of a shelf
in a cool dim shadow
malnourished and alone
who waters the leaves
to answer its pleas?
The golden-haired boy
arrives on the scene
wearing his cape
and endlessly naive
thinking that he will know
just what to do
to revive this rose,
make it blush from blue
but he asks so many questions
and jumps from here to there
traveling the universe
while the rose is on Earth
learning came easy
to the little princely one,
of all things most exciting
even what was in writing
the further he explored,
the more gold dust he collected,
whimsical wizardry extravagantly sublime:
ideas, friends, and beautiful rhymes
but none of these things
were proof to his heart,
for he had foregone the hard toil
of replenishing the soil,
and the rose had near wilted
under the weight of existence
and no amount of persistence
will raise a rose from a distance
Growing
Uprooted from a humble, shallow home
transplanted in resplendent greens
the earth is still made up of dirt
underneath the scenes,
underneath the greens
though it won’t at first be seen,
the seed holds all the promise
of every single thing,
of all a plant could ever be,
and the air and sunshine and flowers
a plant might never see,
but you’ve been growing upwards
and branching out as well,
tending to your garden
a product least upscale,
that you find your solace
in watering what is silent,
and waiting for tomorrow
to apply your fertilizing talent-
shows the humility in your hands,
the patience in your greenest thumbs,
and the blossoming radiance
that breaks through what is numb,
and sprouts out of a bud long dormant
in kaleidoscopic ways,
but only for the ones who’ll wait
through all the rainy days
Neverending Reality
From a dream, she came to me, as I sat there looking tennis shoe. A stone white tulip replaced her tulpa and I hula hooped in fantasy
Calvin said your fate is good, just believe it’s gonna come.
The cream rises to then top they said, and so I whipped it Kingdom come.
Reality came to me by my choosing and it was deep than blue. A color browner made me yellow and I weighted into stew.
Hobbes say we is born free while we living neck down chains. Potato was the first I cooked when I fed Malcolm to the Mane.
As you see, they can’t see the other, lookin at Quintillion’s Sky. But I can make the stars rain zeroes when Earth-ling’s graze on dyes.
Dreams show up like starry nights, bejeweled and crystal nebulons
But reality knows the kid got toes stuck in the quarry mines. The gold ain’t mine but I don’t mind cuz Mansa’s Jesus Musa.
And when they moo and boo and mu and wil’ away our times
Remember Quincy 17 and all the Quincy’s still in Tangerines.
Black soot baby faces never matter the races, carry guns when butter melts treadless on the table. And little kids we know how to put the chess board on its places.
Flip the table and scatter pieces- the whole damn world doesn’t need mo-mo pizzas. The whole damn world doesn’t need to shine. We people only need a heart-soul-mind.
A Cappuccino of Madness
Holding a cappuccino
By the ear of its cup
Several fingers carrying the
warmth to come
Of a supposed elixir
One finger curled around the handle
Ready to rifle myself out-of-bounds
If not spill a hot liquid-
Unstable.
With my index pointer trembling
Not wanting to be outcast yet again
Sitting at this coffee shop
Cozy and sociable
Invisibly sick
Not knowing if what I want
Is to have a grip on this reality
Or any other, for that matter
To sip by sip, be okay with it
Or to pour dreams into
A cappuccino
To accept destinies of chance
In the cream swirls
Of a not-thinking barista
To give my future
To signs, randomness, the universe,
Trails of imagined deliverance,
In the warmth of a cappuccino,
Seducing me
And yet failing me, always
As, with each sip,
Each gulp
My self gets washed away
As I take on the form of an empty cup
Once again
Frequent Flyer
On an international flight
With my guide book in hand
I’m marking off all the sights
Sitting cramped and in-between
Mr. business-as-usual
And mother with crybaby queen
The pilot assures a timely departure
As I flip through photos exotic
Of staggering architecture,
While I thumb through the history
Of my destination. Not expecting
What’ll hit me thrice as vividly
A romance with a place
Starts just like one for a person
With the most curious of tastes
And the wheels are in motion
Thrown back, the plane’s ascending
Before even arriving, set off by a notion
That in the complete unknown
The future promises to unveil
Someone awaiting in an ethereal zone.
Simply by booking a ticket
And leaving solitude behind
Does this guarantee I’ll find my Mrs?
I can say from experience
Every foreign land was unique
Each flirtatious in appearance
Each offering homely whiles to stay
And adventures of every kind
Though up until now each was but a foray
For though I have a home country
I’ve not yet found my land beyond time
As I’m brought a drink with some munchies
As the plane descends, it’s time to unwind
What and who awaits, could be any, all, and sundry
While each journey happens one at a time
The freedom to stretch, walk, step out the airport
To take that first foreign breath
Once again, a glance, “nice to meet you,”
“For a while,” “nice vacation,” or “until death?”
Coffee Cup To-Go
Coffee cup to-go
As simple as
A recyclable paper cylinder
Crowned in a plastic helmet
With one spout of an opening
as if to represent sea mammals
up late studying
Now tepid and more than half-empty
Easy to pick up
With hardly a risk of spilling
for any land-dwelling primate
By the gown of its paper frock
That not too long ago
insulated once-steamy
Coffee, by now serving only to
Advertise in bold font
a well-known author
Appearing in our small town
Who knows where
I don’t care-
I came here for the coffee
to wake up from despair
The Heroine(s) I’ve Known
We met halfway past sundown
At the suicide saloon
I did not let you see the craters of my moon
Coffee warmed us up and all we did was swoon
The second time we met and the sky was our whole room
Your mother made us tea and we sipped away our hopes
She said you’ll marry this one
And she’d had you on the ropes
Then your Papa sent the crows
From the Eastside to the West
…And My momma always taught me you gotta choose the best
My father art thou in heaven?
Only German Hegel knew
You can read a million pages
But you’ll never misconstrue
If you’ve only heard the greatest hits
Of History and its tunes
Then all the Led Zeppelin you’d ever heard
Never learned you ‘bout the Blues
Because current events cut deeper
Than crimson ever could
and the red-tongued goddess maidens
Won’t ensnare fires in the woods
For a water-bender most quenching
Is what’s needed to keep the peace
But don’t be misled my dears
The typhoons are of the East
I’ve seen the paths straight out of hear
In the crescents of your ears
I knew my god was in the flesh when it did not sweat in fear
I knew that peace was love supreme
When I let it whip me bare
I knew I’d drowned my craters there
When I crouched my hatred down stares
I knew I’d wait another year to show the moon to shine
We don’t need to be reborn again
To know who’s born …. under a
bad…
sign
I wouldn’t cry because you left me
For that is whom you choose
But to question my reality, wept me in the blues
I do not cry because you left me
Nor felt the agony of heart impaled
To see the mass graves adorned in blue suede shoes
would crater me to see you fail
For freedom goes of its own Accord
And To Yoda’s onto Hondas
But the day you drove straight up that hill
The Warrior Peace Arized down Yonder
The day you grab that wheel and don’t turn back
I’ll be your journalist
Until that day shall come
I’ll carry your shoes upon my chest
You needn’t bear the weight of chiles
To be the most respected of the pack
Browner than Blue and Bluer than black
The wheatfields in Egyptian mires
Are whole-grained pleats in ricey tyres
And the world won’t keep turn another day
Till the farmers make theirs back
What Cide Are You On?
I’ve had it easy
And I’ve been blessed
To only suffer the feeling
For those with less
And those with more
Of the carnage of war
That pounds unwelcome at their door
That brings down the roof
And scars the youth
Of tens of thousands
Who are used to playing
Going to school
And maybe just losing their first front tooth
And now a hand
And now a leg
And now a parent
And now a friend
And now a family
And now a future
And now the vividness of sense
Vanishing with their view
And what happens then, I cannot say
I only see pictures of their pain
This I’ve understood
That I have had it good
Though I’m trained to think that I’m in need
By the vulturous advertiser’s greed
And my problems have all been imagined ones
Internal battles with my own demons
The battles of one’s own existence
The persistence of my own resistance
To such inevitabilities of life:
Universal failures, strivings, strife
That distract all us living from our dying
But again there are the very many
Whose peace must come along with plenty
of things not other than agonies
Nothing other than tragedies,
And not of chance but travesty
The contortions of humanity
The results of the depravity
Of those hearts that are but a cavity
And callous to the gravity
Of a single person multiplied
By the millions more amplified
By the screaming of each and all
The loudness of unanswered calls
The desperate wails that overcome
The visions of the tons and tons
Of bodies piling in the sun
The former loved and loving ones
No longer…
looking like…
Persons
For evil ideologues there are calculations:
Who can we trick into taking our side?
Who can we get to fund our supplies?
When can we erase them and begin renovations?
What can we gain from this mass starvation?
And this is what the killers think
That flesh and blood
And beings that breathe
Have no value guaranteed
Not to mention the truths perceived
In years and years of life elapsed
In the children’s futures and elders’ pasts
No different than buildings collapsed
And we all can see
Though some deny
And others turn away their eyes
We all can think
And know the lies
Forget for a second our piece of the pie
We all can hear
The babies’ cries
How many more are going to die?
If you have the power it’s time to decide
Feel Real
The sages say the world is an illusion
My nerves tell me it’s real
My thoughts flitter
My heart runs quicker
I know what I know and I feel
Getting Old
all the things left unfinished
and all those not yet begun
hover around me unceasingly
bothering me for fun
like an evil champion
like a villain on the run
a list of books I’d have to read
to know anything at all
the actions I know I’d have to take
to know that I stood tall
when it feels for all the world
that the world’s about to fall
one step at a time they say
one deep breath to clear your mind
as civilization self-destructs
I might as well unwind
disposing of my time
like a sing-song, easy rhyme
that’s the way to acquiesce
with what I have helped create
contributing however small
as we all participate
accepting horror deeds as fate
renunciation coming late
or take control
of what I behold
grasping with the will’s hold
past the arc of what I’m told
wary of what I do for gold
because a life bought is a life sold
I must choose to play a more worthy role
because I’m getting old, I’m getting old
Continuum
The knots in my muscles
Release themselves
Bit by bit
Like water falling over stones
Descending step by step
Loosening
Not holding me up
In awkward poses
Anymore
I think of where I’d like my bones to be
What seems most natural
Looking for balance
And uncovering
The logic of the body
Taking its position in space
Changing over time
Not imagining any purpose
Other than to be
My body
My awareness
My mind
Now I see it now I don’t
Now I control it now it controls me
Now I wonder
About the I
And the inseparability
Of all these things
Extending now my body my mind my awareness
I become the space around me
The strangers in the room
My mother sitting next to me
And I see the world
As the continuum
That I am
Lightness
Use the mind as an instrument
Is what the lesson said,
Remember that you’re more than living
And always less than dead.
Lightness also means not heavy
Like the properties of light,
The here and now is where you are
No matter how dark or bright.
Speak more or less or not at all,
Feel the quiet of sun swept mystery,
Embrace the pain and joy of life,
Love away the misery.
Disappear into a word so deep
You understand it to its core,
Then live in wordlessness a while
Or else what is living for?
Row Your Boat
Whatever I feel,
What’s done to me,
I’m still the one in charge.
Live life large
Or with serenity,
This life is my property.
For all those blows
Beyond my power,
It’s up to me to face the hour-
To stand up or capitulate,
As rising waters undulate,
Stay behind, duck, cower,
Or elevate my state?
I know I have to choose and yet,
No telling what’ll come to be,
What really separates my good intention
From insanity?
I think I’ve made the right choice,
So off I go smug and content,
Only to find catastrophe-
“No that’s not what I meant!”
Let go of what I can’t control,
I’ve heard it many times.
I’ve even heard I’m not my acts,
Nor the thoughts within my mind-
Just an awareness floating free,
Not shackled by free will,
Or tortuous responsibility,
Neither innocent nor guilty.
That sounds nice, that sounds easy,
I think I’ll drift along,
Row, row, row your boat I think’s the song-
Now I’ll sing it consciously.
Ode to Shivaji’s Maji – Amma Donyanhi
By manas, your limited alphabeta who’s grammar may need one tight slap
Poetry commotion
engulfed in devotion
Thought slowing motion
Action the potion
Painting on dival
letters to the law
A yellow hatter calls
intoxication mauls
A plan unveils John Rawls-
the cherries in the drawers
not in fame but down the halls
To worldwide clarion calls
Not seen but heard in thrall
Whisper Jamaican falls
bat rests in shade of Fall
Trinidadian boring gone
“Don’t be scary” of me song
when will you bowl your ball?
you’ve been running oh so long
here to Cal to Kol
Gardens light we built so tall
unorthodox forward fall
between each leg the wall
willow firm yet sweet in stall
Stands fiending silent awe
feeding not the weeds
but giving to the street
returning home with broken feet
the apple dropped beside the cleats
remaining in the ring,
As the ropes are meant to wring
the Freedom as you sing
so hit a four or hit a six
cross the boundary with a skip
so the kingdom that you rule,
as wise man preaches fool,
remains hidden from their view
known only to the two
You and You
Power Glass
I venture quiet deeply in all the halls of the beasts,
Plotting all my steps and the position of my feet,
The attitude of my eyes and the spirit underneath,
Determining the future behind my gritted teeth
On the surface you can see me floating placid, peaceful, calm,
Intoxicating slowly like the liquor of the palm,
Aware of all surroundings whatever may become,
I look to meet the master, Napoleon on the farm
My mission stretches backwards, catapulting me through time,
To fossilize the remnants of the essence of “You die,”
I meet every slaver, every tyrant and I’m not afraid to pry,
To understand the machinations of the murderous of mind,
I brandish my sharpest weapon, the simple question, “why?”
And I verify the answers as I look into their eyes
Among the living there is a menace,
Glorification of bad ideas,
The raising of the heinous,
Dictatorial policy.
So I go about my ways of capturing evil in a flask,
Of the millions of grains of sand that I turn into a glass,
The mummified remains of tombs and tombs of power,
I tilt them back and forth with the changing of the hours.
Without saying much at all
Oh, to be alive
Warm gulp of coffee
Laid back, big comfy office chair
Sound of muzzled ghazals, dampened only by blurry sound quality, with the enduring, endearing broken promises of nostalgia
Writing my self
What events criss-cross to weave the moment?
What sequences of time will now unfold?
For now I’m happy to sit and sip
Sheltered from the tornadoes of world events
Selectively calling upon mystic utterances when it feels nice to try them on
Making invisible the stark reality perceptions
Dipping into the all-pervading hot bath of spiritual hope
I put the foreground of my thoughts, a puny identity, into a photo frame that now I peer into from above
Could I imagine living many other lives just the same?
No, not really- One has been enough
Making each move with the careful real-time deliberation of a person defusing a nuclear bomb
…gets tiring…
But sometimes there is no other way
Every letter typed
Every thought unleashed and then subdued
Better yet, with the superpower of word processing and an artful amnesia- undo undo undo.
Pretending retroactive causality is something I understand
Fitting the word into spaces
Verbs and nouns, nouns and verbs
Barely an adjective-
(Im)precise
But all this to say, I’ve borrowed your time
Collected your attention
Become indebted
Without saying much at all
Blank Page Oracle
Blank page, work your wonder!
Pull me from my pondering
Tear the guts from out of me
Make a considered feast of the tales of entrails
Harvest what has long been growing in fertile soul
Each time I come to you
Record what my face does not expose
Make me feel again in subtle strokes
Sift the sediments of my sentiments
Show me who I am
Mirror opaque, I see now your reflection:
Greatly blessed it’s clear you are
Although distracted by thoughts afar
Well-fed, well-clothed, and at ease,
Still you toss upon the seas
Fury drives you from underneath
Lusty blows you wait for sword in sheath
As fighting stirs your blood and spirit
Calmness pleases you once you quit it
You search and seek and never tire
A questing mind fueled by desire
But make up your mind before the night gets late
Goals sharpen your aim and decrease your wait
For as much as you drift and dally and digress
You’d be less lonely further ahead with the rest
The power of the expansion of your mind
Requires the effort of an uphill climb
As you were told let it guide your mind’s fitness:
“Every step takes you closer to Mount Olympus”
Gods and Goddesses know what it means to never die
But you’ve yet to prove eternity beyond a lie
So slow it down and speed the pace
And when you do anticipate
For if you stretch the length of Reason
You’ll make seconds epochs and minutes aeons
And if and when you memorize all your roles
Remember to forget and be your Soul
Will happen again, has happened before
Some days flow freely like the words of an orator
Some days hold intrigue like the work of a coroner
Suspiciously suddenly dead and decomposing
Plans poisoned by excessive reposing
Some years creep on us like a silent trespasser
Some years all we remember are the disasters
Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods
Famines, fires, and the spilling of blood
Some moments last forever, to be cliche
Some moments we mold with our fingers in the clay
To live life seriously or sincerely to play
What matters to you at the end of the day?
Some lifetimes we see snuffed out at their start
Some lifetimes we admire as great works of art
Life we try to understand looking backwards
But what if we’re colorfully expanding fractals?
Some times we imagine, distant dreams from where we are
Some times we search the sky for a beloved star
Opening and closing a series of eternal doors
All of this will happen again, has happened before
Talking to You
Talking to you
I stumble
Upwards
Feeling my head rising into
Evaporated ether
Leaning closer in spirit
If standing upright much the same
Not conscious of heartbeat or breath
Holding a paper cup filled with
Water keeping
Level
Words exchanging
Expanses
At ease
With new possibility
Lessons arising
Seeping in
To be revisited later?
Annotated and cited
In new times revised
Built upon
Smashed apart
Reworked and made fresh-
Maybe, maybe not-
For now, though
Forgetting place, time, situation, person
Thoughts renewing
Mind elevating with each alternation of
Back and forth
Body and senses erased
I understand myself again
In what is before me
With all that is behind me
And the periphery of all
That lies ahead
Returning with the rhythm of a beat
I’ve never played before
Never heard
Like all rhythms
Initiated by coming home
And leaving home
Traveling and sojourning
Through the manifold regions of reaching
I remember the inexhaustibility of
Love of learning
And learning of
Love
Epithets, Couplets, Sher, and Shayri
What I thought I had was never mine,
What I thought was gold was never mined
Realists see the world, pessimists can feel it
Idealists see it, feel it, change it,
and that’s why they’re the realest
I’ve got a gold mine
I’ve got a bold mind
(Rewrite (Tuesday, Sept 17, 2024, 1:12 pm )?
I’ve got a bold mine,
I’ve got a gold mind
Be careful what you read
What you read become what you bleed
Words like buzzards, circling overhead
Pick apart the dream itself with everything that’s said
Talk in jokes if they can’t see the egg for its yoke (circa 2010-2015)
If you tread lightly, have them bespoke (Sep 17 2024 5:27 pm 2024)
Dragon hold its breath so long
Only knows breathe fire
Too much hope leaves you dragged across the globe
Not enough hope leaves you hanging from a rope
Prisoner of conscience
Fugitive of con science
The philosopher’s stone is just a stone,
An elephant carved from camel bone
Who would Plato be if not for Socrates?
And who would Socrates be if not for Plato?
Koy bhi bhasha mai apna man ki baaton bata do duniya ko
Ek ke baad ek mehnat se Ek banao shuniya ko
Chalte chalte gully cricket ya maidan se captain ban
Aur bulo mat baag bageecha, kabhi bulo mat van
The universal, “It doesn’t matter!”
The response, “Ah, but the whole world is at stake”
The rebuttal, “Only your life is the world”
“Only the whole world is your life”
11/16/24
Do not pity the one who falters who made a serious attempt. There is no shame in trying. For me, though, it doesn’t feel like I’ve tried hard enough. There are things I want to write, express, describe. Memories? Plans? Hurts? Dreams? I cannot dramatize a life that sits in a moment of ease, though viewing myself at a place of complacency on a still greater path may spur me forward.
One topic I dare not confront is my failed marriage. Failure is the correct word, as it is easy to see the lack of effort made on my part to decrease my ex’s day to day burden. I did not rise to the challenge. I took all for granted and squandered a good match. And through negligence, I would have hurt a soul deserving of much finer attention. That there are so many pictures of her smiling left on my phone leaves me feeling bitter, that not all was as bad as she made it out to be. But sigh, time worsens all untended wounds.
That there were opportunities to win her back that I did not see makes me think, what could have been?, and yet I can’t yet dissolve the thought that there will be a reunification in years to come. But though we may think and hope and plan for the future, we live in the present. And in the present I am as far from love as I am close to falling in once more- love is a black curtain that surrounds me, as ignorant as ever to when it will be revealed and what will be its latest form.
11/22/24
What do people need? Food, water, shelter? What do people need? You mean like human beings? That’s a big question. Too general. But somewhere near the beginning of all the questions I need to ask.
A warm glance, a welcoming handshake, an invitation into the home of another. The moments that strangers become friends. To feel ourselves sharing the struggle of existence, the wonderful and terrifying momentousness of life, the universality hauntings of death. To breathe, to feel, to be, to learn, to know, to appreciate the moment remembering the ones who’ve lost themselves to unconsciousness, vegetation, coma- and worse.
So while I’m here, I count my blessings. The glory to have the opportunity to feel lonely, the chance to waste time. The ability to hope, this reminder to dream beyond. The power to act, the leisure to laze. To grieve my own losses, to imagine others’ pain, others’ anger, frustration, and calm, too, while I’m at it. To imagine the coolness, poise, mastery coming from the acres of skill and the miles of experience I have never grazed. And to know that their are sheer cliff-drops of shock and thousand pound weights of suffering that I just can’t understand.
But in looking into another and trying to really see them- know them- I adjust a lens that sharpens my sight, crossing distances of unfamiliarity, opening portals with each attempt. How far I am willing to go, how much am I willing to show up and how much am I open to accepting, how expert am I in this moment in being a lover of humanity? And the next time, and the time after that?
I’ve heard the advice to love yourself, but to love others makes a lot more sense to me. To deepen that groove so each return is easier, to transform an unfeeling stone into a carving smiling with life, to polish a rough exterior into a gentle, yet powerful, everlasting glow. To not allow bodily encasement have the last word in trapping the force of spirit’s expanse.
Probabilities are imprisoned by numbers, but I feel an infinity in the outpouring of possibilities of the heart. The shortness of time becomes an irrelevant thought as I realize my self, who I am, and how inseparable I am from You. The way of compassion, it’s good to meet again. Where have I been all this time?
11/23/24
Know thyself
The matter of my character
Facing myself, in the mirror of my mind, I will provide an account and try sincerely to be accurate.
I am a man of 35. I am not who I once was, and not who I will come to be. Is history without its merits? What brings me to this point? My starting points recede further and further away from any desire to remember them, but roots are roots, they remain significant appendages of the living. But am I a tree?
I feel less and less the need to look back. Looking forward, though, is more difficult. There nags at me the sense that if I don’t guide myself somewhere, I will end up just about anywhere. But where is that somewhere, that future that I would feel zeal for. Is it about leading a life of entertainments? A different set of possessions won’t change much. A sense of accomplishment, then? An unbroken stream of activity flowing towards a sea of self-satisfaction?
And this is where we come to the matter of my character. Fulfillment will come and go in harmony with the moral tune of my actions. As much as there are facets of life beyond my control, what I choose from moment to moment is what is going to make up the sum of who I am, how closely I’m able to live in-line with my conscience. But what do I know? My conscience could be mistaken, a faulty instrument.
The heart wants what it wants, to love and be loved. This feels hard to doubt. My memories of failed relationships can remain buried, as much as they glimmer in the dirt. The hope that they renew themselves stem from the water sprinklings of reminiscence, and taking a shovel to slice through the ruggedness of fibrous roots feels a violent end to sources of past blooming. But I have feet to keep moving- I’m not a tree, after all.
This is also clear- that time waits on no one. I may wait on time, but time is indifferent. And to personify time is to call on cruelty as much as it is folly. So where does that leave me? Circling myself from the outside, winding up tension and dispelling it to return to square one. Peering within, the light shines straight through. If anything, there is no mystery.
As I talk, write, think to myself, here on the page, and to you if you ever read this, I enjoy this indulgence of expression. Certainly, one cannot fault me for doing what I enjoy, in such a harmless way. But I’ve been avoiding my original task, with the sleight of hand of moment to moment commentary, not bound by real-life experience.
So where do I go from here, in terms of real-life? I can build up my career, work towards financial security. I can get out more, to live in the world of people that I don’t already know. And the people I know? I can know them more deeply, as they change, as I change, as we win and lose and age and are eventually no more. But since you may be wondering about finer details after all this exposition, here I’ll try once more:
I’ve been working as a psychotherapist for the greater part of the last 6 years, with a couple intermissions brought about by my own poor health. Working in this profession, I’ve met with hundreds of individuals and listened to the stories of each, attentive to whatever each person brings to therapy on any given day. If I’m keeping things vague here it’s because to win a patient’s trust comes with a commitment to secrecy of their lives, a vow of confidentiality.
So I won’t speak much about my work, though it also feels that I’m blocked by the tentativeness of my own participation in the profession. I don’t think it was ever my dream to be a therapist, though it is not a job without its privileges. Each client I see connects me to the world of people, and being given the honor of knowing another’s vulnerability is an educational process for me as much as it may be an exercise in self-knowledge for each client.
I’ve been divorced now for almost 2 years, after marrying my ex-wife 5 and a half years ago, after getting into a long-distance relationship with her 7 and a half years ago, after our first meeting 8 and a half years ago. For her I still have admiration and respect, though we are no longer a part of each others’ lives. What it means to respect someone you no longer interact with is its own question. Our relationship had picture perfect moments, and frustrations brought about by my chronic failure to rise to the challenge of being a good husband, to do my duties with each small task needing to be done at a reasonable standard, and a painful misstep early in our marriage. Her departure was not something I fought against- she had a way of winning my confidence in her opinions and decisions, even if it meant allowing her to slip out of my life.
Before marriage, I had two other significant relationships- one for most of my time in college and another relationship of half a year soon thereafter. What have I learned from my romantic forays? To look back on times gone by, memories feel futile. It’s the real thing that counts. And right now I’m comfortable with loneliness.
Which brings me again to the future. That I will live and age and suffer and die- these things I’m taught I should be sure of. What it will look like is a surprise.
I used to write in images- now I just speak my mind. Have I lost my footing in the world that wraps around? Wind sweeping on a cold fall day, slapping my face and bellowing through soft clothes, reminding me of my fragile bones chilling, convulsing in a shiver.
I used to feel the rhythm of language, each word in its place, each word in its time. Some hitting like a hammer, others waving with one other like a wind chime- writing with a fever for the musicality of rhyme.
I used to write with all my senses, even if just in metaphors. I was a sky of many colors- orange, pink, and darkening late evening blue. The elements had importance, too: air, water, earth, and fire- changing forms with moods. Feeling now like a pond nearing evaporation, and now overflowing its sloshy muddy banks.
Craggy, mountainous terrains on maps of obstacles. Falling burning limbs of forest fire telling of hopeless desire. Empty space and invisible distance, showing up as stretched-out arms.
But now the abstract unfolds more freely, in the flipping pages of my book, and I’m here still, sitting with that vacant look.
12/3/24:
Going back and forth, back and forth.
What is existence? Existence is. What is. What is not? Nothing is not. What is nothing? Not what is.
Who am I? I am who exists. The I who exists am I. I always am. What does always mean? I am in all ways? I determine in what ways I am. But always, I am, in existence, as “I” determine in what ways “I” am.
Pushcart
He lets time elapse, returning to the past. Stacking plans vaguely and haphazardly on a makeshift cart with faulty wheels, he pushes tentatively over smooth paths, half-expecting disaster as he averts his gaze from what lies before him. Sometimes the front two wheels align, and the past dissipates in a steady forward advance. But often enough these wheels turn crooked and the cart jolts and stalls, leaving him reorganizing the carts’ uneven contents and choosing which ambitions to pick up or leave behind, fallen by the wayside. Though no one is watching and the world does not wait on the delivery of the cartload, he wonders sometimes about life off the path…sitting eyes closed under the cool shade of a banyan tree with no illusions of a determined journey. And there are moments when he lets go and leaves the cart where it stands, for hours and days, even. Always coming back, though, he goes back to piddling away in the pursuit of a destination which never comes, never in fact existed, but whose romance keeps him plodding along with aimless inspiration and steadfast, maddening fervor.
1/19/25
Twilit Eternal
I walk the path along the pond
And something in my heart responds
I look around at what’s in view
And every lap the sights renew-
The plants are plenty and the people few
Each stranger’s glance is just a clue
And as I walk I await the time
When the trees and faces will begin to shine
And as it comes I look around
As vision transcends it’s normal bounds
And everyone else looks lost and drowned
Nerves jangled by an unstruck sound
Of a higher Conscience peering down
Light rays search for what’s not yet found-
A perfect portrait most profound
Merlin’s Angst
Fallen teardrop, erode the cold
Granite stone who’s future holds
An object of romantic war,
The chivalry of King Arthur’s sword
Now cutting pain, revise yourself
Put back Britain on the shelf
Introduce Merlin to the Greeks,
Whose songs still linger in our speech
The Singer blind and the people lone
In thoughts, politics, and journeys home
The Wizard whispers in Plato’s ear,
“Is Socrates’s death worth your career?
Why don’t you just rewrite your book?”
As Plato speaks, “But I need that hook.
My Apology, it’s too late for review,
But for my work on time, can I use you?”
Wistful, returning now to the Ganga’s plains,
Long before Sikander’s army train,
Urgency compels Buddha take a break,
With tea and biscuits, and Merlin’s take-
“You’re very patient in sitting still,
Remarkable exploration of your will,
But we need you on the Western front,
Adolph’s starting up his rhetorical stunts”
Buddha spoke “It’s against my tendency,
To be and also not to be,
I think I better let it pass,”
While Merlin pondered whether Buddha got the gas
Manas Samuel Winfield 