I Will Remember.. ~ Charles Bukowski

Photograph : Ugo Pellis 

(1882 ~ 1943)

I will remember 

your small room,

the feel of you,

the light in the window,

your records,

your books,

our morning coffee,

our noons,

our nights,

our bodies spilled together,

sleeping,

the tiny flowing currents,

immediate and forever.

Your leg,

my leg,

your arm,

my arm,

your smile

and the warmth of you

who made me laugh

again.

~ Charles Bukowski

(1920 ~ 1994)

I Saw Her In The Moonlight..

Poetry : Subramanya Bharathi

Rendition : Sanjay Subrahmanyan

I saw her in the moonlight

And took shelter inside her

I have emerged victorious over my senses

And vanquished the desire for possessions

She told me to work without expectation

She told me to live a life of devotion

She extinguished my grief

And wiped away all the sorrows

She created the light of the stars

She created the blowing whirlwind

She created the cosmic space

And lit the passion eternally in my heart

~ Subramanya Bharathi

சந்திரன் ஒளியில் அவளைக் கண்டேன்
சரணம் என்று புகுந்து கொண்டேன் 

இந்திரியங்களை வென்று விட்டேன்
எனதென்றாசையைக் கொன்று விட்டேன் 

பயன் எண்ணாமல் உழைக்க சொன்னாள்
பக்தி செய்து பிழைக்க சொன்னாள்
துயரில்லாதெனை செய்து விட்டாள்
துன்பம் என்பதை கொய்து விட்டாள் 

மீன்கள் செய்யும் ஒளியைச் செய்தாள்
வீசி நிற்கும் வளியைச் செய்தாள்
வான்கணுள்ள வெளியைச் செய்தாள்
வாழி நெஞ்சிற் களியைச் செய்தாள்

~ சுப்பிரமணிய பாரதி

And For No Reason ~ Hāfez-e Shīrāzī

Gustav Klimt ~ The Kiss (1908)

And For No Reason

And

For no reason

I start skipping like a child.

And

For no reason

I turn into a leaf

That is carried so high

I kiss the sun’s mouth

And dissolve.

And

For no reason

A thousand birds

Choose my head for a conference table,

Start passing their

Cups of wine

And their wild songbooks all around.

And

For every reason in existence

I begin to eternally,

To eternally laugh and love!

When I turn into a leaf

And start dancing,

I run to kiss our beautiful Friend

And I dissolve in the Truth

That I Am.

~ Hāfez-e Shīrāzī 

(14th Century)

(Translation ~ Daniel Landinsky)

Rābiʻa : Nor My Eyes Find Ease Of Sleep..

My cup, my poured spirit      
and companion are three.
I am Rabi'a the fourth,      
Fevered and longing
For the One I belong to       
who waits on me.
Round the clock, round the room,      
in the cupbearer's hands
Goes the gratifying cup      
of grace and jubilee.
If I stare, none see me      
except by Him.
If I'm there, none see the Me     
as separate from our We.
O small men who rebuke me,     
His beauty has swept me!
By God, I block my ears     
to your abuse. I can see.
How many a soulburning      
night of surfeiting
Fixation made my head      
like a fountainhead weep!
The drops won't dry away,      
nor my oneness with Him
Abide, nor my eyes     
find ease of sleep.



~ Rābiʻa al-ʻAdawiyya aka Rābiʿah al-Baṣrī 


Lover Of Lovers : Translated By A.Z.Foreman

The Hollow Men ~ T.S. Eliot

The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

      A penny for the Old Guy

      I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

      II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

      III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

      IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

      V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
                                Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
                                For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

~T. S. Eliot

Wislawa Szymborska : Nothing Twice

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice. Even if there is no one dumber, if you're the planet's biggest dunce, you can't repeat the class in summer: this course is only offered once. No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses. One day, perhaps some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent. The next day, though you're here with me, I can't help looking at the clock: A rose? A rose? What could that be? Is it a flower or a rock? Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It's in its nature not to stay: Today is always gone tomorrow. With smiles and kisses, we prefer to seek accord beneath our star, although we're different (we concur) just as two drops of water are. ~ Wislawa Szymborska Wislawa Symborska (1923~2012)

(Nothing Twice : Selected Poems ~ Selected & Translated From Polish By Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak)

Chinese Music & Tang Poetry

*

Down the blue mountain in the evening, 

Moonlight was my homeward escort. 

Looking back, I saw my path 

Lie in levels of deep shadow.... 

I was passing the farm-house of a friend, 

When his children called from a gate of thorn 

And led me twining through jade bamboos 

Where green vines caught and held my clothes. 

And I was glad of a chance to rest 

And glad of a chance to drink with my friend.... 

We sang to the tune of the wind in the pines; 

And we finished our songs as the stars went down, 

When, I being drunk and my friend more than happy, 

Between us we forgot the world. 

~ Li Bai

*

From a pot of wine among the flowers 

I drank alone. There was no one with me -- 

Till, raising my cup, I asked the bright moon 

To bring me my shadow and make us three. 

Alas, the moon was unable to drink 

And my shadow tagged me vacantly; 

But still for a while I had these friends 

To cheer me through the end of spring.... 

I sang. The moon encouraged me. 

I danced. My shadow tumbled after. 

As long as I knew, we were boon companions. 

And then I was drunk, and we lost one another. 

...Shall goodwill ever be secure? 

I watch the long road of the River of Stars. 

~ Li Bai

*

It is almost as hard for friends to meet 

As for the morning and evening stars. 

Tonight then is a rare event, 

Joining, in the candlelight, 

Two men who were young not long ago 

But now are turning grey at the temples. 

...To find that half our friends are dead 

Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief. 

We little guessed it would be twenty years 

Before I could visit you again. 

When I went away, you were still unmarried; 

But now these boys and girls in a row 

Are very kind to their father's old friend. 

They ask me where I have been on my journey; 

And then, when we have talked awhile, 

They bring and show me wines and dishes, 

Spring chives cut in the night-rain 

And brown rice cooked freshly a special way. 

...My host proclaims it a festival, 

He urges me to drink ten cups -- 

But what ten cups could make me as drunk 

As I always am with your love in my heart? 

...Tomorrow the mountains will separate us; 

After tomorrow-who can say?

~ Du Fu

*

I dismount from my horse and I offer you wine, 

And I ask you where you are going and why. 

And you answer: "I am discontent 

And would rest at the foot of the southern mountain. 

So give me leave and ask me no questions. 

White clouds pass there without end."

~ Wang Wei

*

Now that the sun has set beyond the western range, 

Valley after valley is shadowy and dim.... 

And now through pine-trees come the moon and the chill of evening, 

And my ears feel pure with the sound of wind and water 

Nearly all the woodsmen have reached home, 

Birds have settled on their perches in the quiet mist.... 

And still -- because you promised -- I am waiting for you, waiting, 

Playing lute under a wayside vine.

~ Meng Haoran

*

In Chinese literature, the Tang period (618-907) is considered the golden age of Chinese poetry. Tang Shi San Bai Shou [300 Tang Poems] is a compilation of poems from this period made around 1763 by Heng-tang-tui-shi [Sun Zhu] of the Qing dynasty.

English Translation : Witter Bynner

* 

*  

Haiku Of Issa

The distant mountains  

are reflected in the eye

of the dragonfly.

Before I arrived,

who were the people living here?

Only the violet flowers remain.

Arise from sleep, old cat,

and with great yawns

and stretchings -

Amble out for love.

Live in simple faith -

just as this

trusting cherry

Flowers, fades, and falls.

What a moon -

if only she were here,

my grumbling wife.

~ Kobayashi Issa

(1763 ~ 1828)

A Door Imperfectly Closed..

It was your familiar greeting.
But floating across the aisles in Sainsbury's
from a distance of many years
it caught me unprepared.


I turned - to see a different person
within a body that might have been
what yours was going to become.
Only your eyes unchanged.


The customary rapture of old acquaintance:
a slight touching of cheeks, in front of
four observant little eyes -
no scent of Mitsuko now -


your hand so close to my trolley
I might’ve touched it. But no time
or thought of news in aisle 12;
amid the Household Goods.


Your body, once so swift to respond,
now looked to have its own tempo –
passion just a memory,
a door imperfectly closed.


So, with a cursory admiration
of your womb's fair-headed fruit
we part, faithlessly promising
our families' reunion.


At the checkout I recall
the open cheque you gave me once,
drawn “All my love”, signed L,
and “Not Negotiable”.


What value might it have retained
in the teeth of scoundrel time
had you not issued, between
whiles, 'instructions not to pay'?


~ Michael Maxwell Steer

To Go Beyond Oneself..

Dance By ~ Vidhi Shunyam Bogdanovska

The Pathway Finally Opened

When my heart came to rule
in the world of love,
it was freed
from both belief
and from disbelief.

On this journey,
I found the problem
to be myself.

When I went beyond myself,
the pathway finally opened.

~ Mahsati Ganjavi


(12th Century)


Excerpted From 
Love's Alchemy : Poems From The Sufi Tradition
Translated By 
David Fideler & Sabrineh Fideler

I Wish I Could Speak Like Music ~ Hāfez-e Šhīrāzī

I wish I could speak like music.

I wish I could put the swaying splendor

Of the fields into words

So that you could hold Truth

Against your body

And dance.

I am trying the best I can

With this crude brush, the tongue,

To cover you with light.

I wish I could speak like divine music.

I want to give you the sublime rhythms

Of this earth and the sky's limbs

As they joyously spin and surrender,

Surrender

Against God's luminous breath.

Hafiz wants you to hold me

Against your precious

Body

And dance,

Dance.

____________________________________

Excerpted From "The Gift"

By
Hāfez-e Šhīrāzī
(1325 ~ 1390)

Translated By Daniel Ladinsky

____________________________________