42

YODEL

Mindless bombs blasted in hateful vengeance. Blood was spilled in a spoiled sanctity. In agony, once again we learned that we needed to steer better and clear. We gleaned some tender rays of hope, as we always do; we played the voting game. "I am the victor" - uttered the famous daughter.

Yes, she won. But did we?

In the mean time, the famous widow and her thousand minions are humbled by a rabid RAB. Mary Shelley must have smiled in repose, for she knows what follows ... By then the famous daughter, from the maze of her piquant rivalry, has forgotten all the good things she promised.

In the palace, the famous daughter, lives happily with her three hundred boys. They adorn her golden crown with lapis lazuli; happy faces, the glitter her silky sandal; and the high princess looks at her servile boys and mutters - "it's me ..."

on the other side

rivers die

forests undone

earth perched 

and our little daughter, busy gathering the leaves of her life, sees her hopes wither like a flower in an empty vase

she yodels,

we have seen the bloody blood

we have seen the mournful arrow

we have seen the hateful heart

we have seen the heart of sorrow

for I sing so low and lone

for I kept my passion moan 

I have seen and I have sinned

for all the sins I have gleaned

an yodeling quake of fire I feel

form falsetto to falsetto 

I feel a tremor,

a feel of a chilling kill

no more I sing so soft and lone

41

WINTER

Nascence smell of a cup of tea

Cold and torpid man in the sea

Hissing tea pot

A smell of a kiss of an "olden" me

SPRING

Why the earth has tilt and wobble

Why the kings and the warring noble

Fight for the diamond, ruby and ogle

Don't you know?

Singing and swinging from bough to bough,

For whom she saves her arrow and bow,

Don't you know?

Why blossoms bloom and nectar flow;

Don' you know?

AUTUMN

Nights are long and days shorter

Leaves are ripe and ripe with nectar

Nights are long and days shorter

Leaves are bright, bright and brighter

Goodbye and goodbye my dearest dear

SUMMER

Drenched in a drunken swelter, supine I lie on an unkempt couch. My eye in a pensive flight jumps off the window pane and out in the sultry sun ... Smitten sudden by a slender touch, an enamored heart of mine ... flew into an azure blue 

40

Eyes were shut, yet my eyes could see a blossom; it was an evening full of sensuous apparition. It was a night that was dark and darker than a night - and the raiment, you wore, was dark and darker than the raiment, you wore. Eyes were shut and yet my eyes could spy thy blossom ...

39

It's raining - after a week of sweltering heat, it's a God-sent. Newly sodded bermuda shall root well. It's raining cats and dogs. We sip our cups of morning coffee. It's still raining. It's raining horses and elephant.

It's a dance of the gaily rain falling on the creeks and rivers and ocean.

It's a dance of the singing wind - a torpid wind with wings on torment.

It's wind and rain; they clash and coalesce; they touch and hiss and kiss - thus they make a singing song and and dancing dance ...

Twine her sodden wisp of hair into mine

Raindrop plays its gaily to and fro

Lilac chiffon of hers I twine into mine

Raindrop plays its gaily to and fro

A pine in motion

Raindrop plays its gaily to and fro

A pain in motion

Raindrop plays its gaily to and fro

38

Ginger touch of a gentle finger lifts my hair of an unkempt sin; I look up and look at the autumn moon. A trifling sin, I indulge in delusion of grandeur; I look up and look at the autumn moon.

Oscular sin of a gentle touch; I look up and look at the autumn moon.

Drunk in moonshine, I look up and look at the autumn moon.

37

It rained and the flora was lush with vines.

Grapes were hanging still - still like a wailing drop of a painted tear;

And yet, beneath her slithering veins venom crouched

Indulgent, as she was; high in glory and toxic vain.

36

a lofty heart, i mutter

listless and weary

a vicarious feeling 

i feel

inane and insipid as she is

once she dupes my heart

vacuous ennui as she is

twice she dupes my heart

35

(one)

Less than a meager speck, this little earth of ours is breathtaking. We, the bipeds; proudly call ourselves "homo sapiens" or the wise one. Co-owner though, we pretend to own the planet, not knowing that we, too, shall perish ...

raindrops still shall dance on autumn leaves

birds and bees shall chirp and hum

and the dancing brooks still shall whisper unto the riverine blossoms

And the wise one (hah ...) keeps on its sanctimonious plundering of a shared property - as if the birds and trees and the brooks never matter. With all our cortical prowess, with all the knowledge harnessed on the way, and with all the wisdom of a precious mind, routinely we succumb to the hubris of the abyss ...

(two)

Warrior they were, yet they never dropped a "Fat Boy" from a distant sky, nor they killed their innocent brethren in gas chambers even in the gruesome corners of battle rue. They are watchful; from their placid Avalon, the great Knights of olden days are are watchful; may be a little fearful and tearful too.

full of debris

detritus reign

not the sanctity of sea left alone

not even the pristine space left alone

not the rain

not the sun

not the wind

not the earth 

immune is none 

Shangri-La 

no more

What a mess! Messed up but still ours to love and care - ours is this priceless planet; to hold and share and love and care.

34

when the moon is high and the earth is fenestrated by its groping finger

and the shadow at distance transcends and transform into nothingness

only to hark back

only to walk by

side by side

33

?! as if some cherubim finger breezes softly over the strings; as if this is the birthing of that primordial singularity wherefrom cometh that superluminal celerity and henceforth space-time and thou;

snow flake fall, 

candle flicker, 

cold is brute and kisses bold, 

soft as muslin and color mauve

its midnight 

at thirteen grove.

32

imagine,

one sweet morning you and i woke up dead.

amines and cholines 

and those dancing fairies  of our carbonaceous being stop their trickery.

hooked to a machine - a cyborg;

no pain

no elation

no nothing

is not it something to be nothing : "all that remains is a fate whose outcome alone is fatal."*

and imagine, one sweet evening you and i woke up not ... alive?

(* from ephemeral creation. Albert Camus)

31

drenched by a moon and a pouring rain

She wandered in the blighted blithe of a midnight moon

lilac chiffon of hers clinging

drunk was the moon

drunk was the rain.

lone she walked beneath the midnight shadows of a salty mangrove

yonder, the sea was tamed to a calming whisper

30

a pair of folded magic

an oscular collision

a gift

a high in rhapsody

a kiss

29

few pencils of a drunken moon

vertical

fenestrated through and through

a grunting noise

a raindrop seeps

through the window pane

28

a mollusk whisper

a distant thunder

a boorish nothingness

blithe and alive was a far away sky

a sickle moon and her twinkling maidens

it was night darker than a night

hands of an eternal clock struck midnight

he holds his own hand and hitherto an antalgic night is suddenly nimble

and suddenly on a narrow strip of sandy sea he discovers the ecstasy of night

anew

the milky way never was brighter than this

orion was never this perfect

and the dipper was never better

never had he seen the sky like this ever

for the fist time he felt like holding his own hand

for something deeper - deeper than his deepest breath

for something louder - louder than than this roaring ocean

immersed he felt incorporeal

he danced like the dancing twinkles of the distant stars

full and yet empty

he sang

he sang the song of wind and of the winding surf

he sang the song of night

and of night's painted firmament

he sang of the ocean

and its mollusk whisper

27

pinnacles and spires sing of the stillness of a silent night

lulled inside his oneness he birthed out of his own belly

and sang to his fleeting heart and to the stillness of his own 

desire

26

unto the leaves of a bamboo grove

clings a drop of morning dew

a pearl in an eye of tear

wee morning still wet in its nightly dark

a pearl in a flickering flame

blue and burnt and dark

25

so he climbed high on to the ragged cliff

high and high

almost to the sky

and he spied a distant creek dancing by

lively in mirth and gay

running away and away

and he wondered:

"birthed and nourished by his mountain father

why this foolish creek cherishes so much of the ocean"

so he shouted unto the creek - but to no reply

twice and thrice he shouted - but again to no reply

tired and sad - he walked to the creek

the water was soft and clear

and there he see his shadowy face

unkempt and broken

sadness grew even bigger

despondent - he slogged back to the cliff

again he looked at the distant creek

lively in mirth and gay

running away and away

24

kids are gone searching their own destiny

he laments

bills pile, roof leak, window pane shatter

he laments

sort of pain helter-skelter, can't climb the stairs up

he laments

clinging to his ten thousand square feet house 

he laments

and 

he saw a carefree bird circling high in the sky over his 

ten thousand square feet mortal roof

23

flakes of snow

relentlessly morphing

still pretty

it was no pretty

and here cometh the spring

its time for dalliance with joyous tulips

and with the dandelions

fugacious and yet eager to fly

my heart is rising...

22

blowing right out of Raquette river

a sudden gush of a wind wuthers past my neck

sweaty and salty

i ran past the Daedalus-dandelions

and the still-nascent fragrance of Potsdam-Spring

an aura of a certain smell was there that i just could not decipher

is this the smell of earth

or of the wind

or of the river

or of myself – sweat and salt

and then came the momentary rain

the rain washed my sweat and salt

sweat and salt sipped in to the earth

and to the grass

and to the river

the moment of rain is past

still i feel the blowing wind

still i smell the smell

its in river

i am the river

21

frozen lake and 

fishing hole

rickety barn and 

burning soul

four more inch of  

ice and  snow

salt and snow plough 

on the go

no spring - so what; 

sun is crisp

air is toothsome 

light and brisk

snow shall melt and

mud shall flow

beau shall beacon and

floret follow

grove at Potsdam

has its glow

nosegay yonder

so you know

20

"you can cut all the flowers but you can not keep spring from coming (neruda)"; so she tell her wintry mate, "you have done your job - now go;  earth's tilt is here and the daedalus dandelions of april are sure to come". 

Thus spoken, she turned to her bestest friend and said, 

"its spring again, the earth is like a child that knows poem by heart (rilke)".

she sat down under the thin shade of a cotton silk tree - angling

a chirping bird nibbling at the periphery of her blazing blossom

a sudden gust

a few flower drops at her bosom

she is yet to catch her first fish

19

Do dreams have meaning?

Do elephants fly?

Jasmines and hibiscuses are in full bloom.

Bougainvilleas scream their intense colors.

Birds fly.

Evening is lazy.

Two souls forded an eternal stream.

At the second day of our life, we were kissed. Heart fluttered, but it was more cerebral. A gold rush of dancing brain chemicals inundated our total being. I was unconscious. She too. Our lips are ensanguined autumn leaves.

Is the universe anthropocentric?