happy new year

happy new year to you friends....
may it bring you guys all the luck n love

mythology — vignette no. 1 [boomerang]

Time had a whim to stop!   but had simply forgotten how!
the trees had grown more cautions     they declined to say

the birds?   they'd all flown south   (a wind had whispered "sough!")
well & as for the rivers     still they pretended to   wend their way!

it became (in fine)  a non-event!   (though an allmost-was)
time gradually drained itself in thought     could this allow

these pellucid beings   to feel some   lift   of a blissful buzz?
had time   really hankered to stop?     but failed to remember how?

Beltane

She speaks in pinks and yellow daffodils.
She talks of innocence in the clear sunlight.
She tells us of purple lilies that climb up to the sky.
She stands like a goddess; her hand commands all living things.
Her smile tells the earth that all is good, all is as it should be.

When Beltane comes, the people dance their fever, lifting their arms
with fresh grass and glowing stalks.
When the fires burn down, the couples mate in quiet with their intended.
All is at rest.

She stands alone as the sky darkens.
She knows what awaits her people;
the Roman invader slits her throat,
while his soldiers scurry after the naked women,
slaughters the men who want to protect them.

God has finally arrived.
Original sin has tainted us once more,
as our dying eyes watch the burning of her last grove.

Visitors

Those new visitors are like morning dew –
they lift off the grass so quickly.
Do not be scared of what they will do
or for how long, as clearly
you will be unkind.
Take care of the fresh dew
let it vanish
and go
with the sun -
rise.

Set
sun and mind
on them:
your visitors.
They will not ruin you
they will abandon
you as you abandon them
to their travels and ephemera.
They will sort themselves and begin
leaving you without an et cetera…

P.S. Thanks for inviting me EOTR.

Hush, little child

Betrayal

Drowning in silence
The moment shrieks
At the gnawing violence
Of this mind’s deceit
But the eyes reveal
What the lips conceal -
A promise broken
And a melancholic defeat.

© Dan Husain
June, 2000

PS: EOTR's poem prompted me to post my version! Oops! I hope I am not cluttering here! :-)

Betrayal

That soft patter
like little paws,
eager to soothe
the master's grief.

You enter my room,
a solid spirit
made into flesh.
You're a god, the holy one,
spent all over my coverlets.
You devour me,
my body in pieces.
All I ever wanted
happened right here.

The mist slaps my eyes;
that shining other grafts your heart onto mine---
I can't hope for this again.
Nothing is love for you.

This path I walk alone.
You shattered that bridge that
plunges me into the bottomless chasm,
while you ascend like the Holy Dove,
so pure and far away from me.

What if I grew wings?

I could fly
I could soar
to unexpected heights
unimaginable goals.

Explore the world,
its mysteries
kiss the magical skies
glide the mystical seas.

Befriend the birds
and animals too
Become one with nature
with the wings I grew.

Be unfettered, unbound
No holding back in pain.
Sheer ecstasy and bliss
of tasting freedom again.

No more “what ifs”
About what life can bring
I just wish….
I could grow wings!

Written months ago!
:)

Pain

To heal I need you,
your rawness,
to feel you,
touch you,
hear you,
as you tear me apart
till the tears flow...

Your beauty lies in
that you remain
hidden
closeted
behind the layers
that no one else can
glimpse but me...

Only when
I venture into space,
the empty space
that you occupy
where I savor your feel
your fullness
and absorb you....

Not a friend
not an enemy
just my teacher
teaching me lessons
through challenges
that I have ignored
so far...

I go to bed
every night feeling
I have accepted you
just that bit
that little bit
And just when I catch
a glimpse of the healing light...

I see the shadows lurking ahead …..


Written many months ago and co-posted on my blog.

"Perspired temple" [a reply-poem]

Perspired temple
tear on the brink
long were the amble
nigh to the precipice

somewhere we settled
to linger & think
what were the mission?
where were rest of this?

squint of the eye
furrow of the brow
cloudmist in sky
portent at prow

pulling away
falling behind
outliving attrition
till witting the jest of this

response to stimulus

David gave me a sly nudge in the side with this today, and is now sitting back with a gleam in his eye to see if it worked.

Yes, my friend, it did! And I picked inspiration for this three-minute creation from the footnote on your page.

Esteemed audience and blog members, my first one here, timing and brevity thanks to David:

Neither a beginning
nor an ending
Somewhere in the middle
we lie

Squint of the eye
Furrow of the brow
Perspired temple
Tear on the brink

Pulling away
Falling behind
And yet we remain
You and I

Now left, then right
And then,
The Current
sweeps us away
All consciousness rendered futile.

Winter

Each time I pull the quilt over me
It’s like slipping within a question mark
That perennially hangs over my bed
Prodding the false warmth
With which my middle-class existence
Sleeps this cold winter.

But I know nothing of winter.
It is metaphorical for me.
I see it only in news clippings of cold wave
Or in the shivering of a mendicant
Pressed against my centrally-heated car’s window panes
Or in the vaporous breath of an illicit lover
Exhaled across my married face.

© Dan Husain
December 23, 2005

PS: Thanks EOTR for inviting me! It is good to be in august company! :-)

S o u n d s o f r a i n

Sounds of rain
tell things new
even indoors when
I don't see rain

    even in solitude
    thoughts of you
    come to me like
    sounds of rain

sounds of rain
what else can do?
nearly nothing
maybe a drain

    even in solitude
    no   is it true?
    you come to me
    in sounds of rain

Script

Script

What is this, a new desire?
To feel our fire and sing together?
Yet on this narrow stage
Everybody is of age and plays
Support or lead combine and blend
Who is each may never end
The curtain jumps as if a sun
Which one is ended, which begun?
I must confess I see the glow
of an entirely other show
The alley and the mountain climb
Wisdom is alive and quiet
Several languages speak this tongue
Many declare in the language of none

12-16-05
JM

The Magical Curtain

As I step into my mother-in-law's home in Delhi, to my right is a curtain, a simple printed piece of cotton cloth that flutters gently in the cool breeze.

This curtain is the entrance to a home, the family retainer's home where his family resides but to me this curtain has always spelt "magic”. I have never been able to pinpoint why. Maybe it’s because I have never crossed beyond it. Maybe I have spun endless daydreams over it and what lies within. Maybe my idle thoughts have conjured up an image of an Aladdin’s cave. Where I, as a child would be allowed to explore its nooks and crannies and find something magical and mysterious in there...

Aaah but it’s just a curtain...why this magical feel, this constant allure..?

My children would barge through the curtain without hesitation or restraint. And in my vivid imgination, they seemed to vanish into this magical labyrinth...Oh how I envied them!
I could hear their laughter and merriment within, the whoops of glee, the sounds of joy and childish laughter. I would be waiting to ask them about the home, the people that lived there and they would always reply,"Mamma, the quarters are so beautiful...it is so much fun" What do you do there"? I asked.” We play hide and seek Ma and it feels nice in there”, my older one would reply. Well their smiling and joyous faces was evidence enough of the fun they had in the little magical place that had invaded my thoughts totally by then.

My keenness to enter beyond that curtain was so strong that I just had to go in.

I did...yes I did! The door behind the curtain was never closed. All I had to do was to gently brush aside the curtain and step inside. I entered to find a warm, simple and colorful home with its wafting aroma of mustard oil and scented incense sticks...and the shy smiling faces of the family that lived there. They welcomed me warmly without letting me feel in any way that my visit was intrusive. I made no attempt at refusing a cup of tea that was offered so graciously. After all I was in no hurry. I had finally crossed the curtain. And the magical part of this simple quarter was that it was indeed a labyrinth with different wooden doors leading to different parts of their home and each door had a curtain...a simple magical alluring piece of printed cotton cloth....!

Abstract

The Yellow Manila

It was a lazy morning and all I could think of doing was to sift through stuff gathered over the last couple of years. And out came the yellow manila that I'd almost forgotten about. There was a picture of her draped in an orange sari and many other paper memories. Photos of some missions in California, some even looking like an old South Indian temple. Especially that of the Mission San Antonio De Padua, the third of California's 21 missions.

She'd scribbled descriptions of all the articles on post-its behind the postcards and photographs. There was one paper napkin she'd saved from our visit to Lori's Diner. Neatly folded and as white even after being mothballed in the yellow manila for more than two years now. That evening at Lori's Diner we ordered one banana split, which, when it arrived, had us gasping.

It was a very big banana.

And then there were these unused BART tickets that she never used. Just so I could save them as memories. All this prompted me to shoot off an e-mail to her. As I waited for a reply, I thought about the last evening we spent sitting on abandoned railroad tracks facing a lake.

"Why didn't I meet you in school?"

"Yeah, that would have been nice. You'd have been this tall girl two classes my senior, on whom I'd have had a crush. And we could have gone biking in abandoned wastelands."

"Why abandoned? Why not on streets with cars? Or people?"

"Then I wouldn't have to share you with anybody else's gaze. I could watch you in peace."

"Oks, let it be abandoned wastelands then."

We didn't speak for a long time after that. She was dropping me to the airport that night and I still hadn't packed.

**********

I didn't get a reply to my e-mail the next day. The message came back saying there were permanent, fatal errors with the address.

love - a burial

time is such a versatile performer,it heals,flies,n marches on...when i was quiet young...different notions used to be on d index page of my notebook..to start with d higher n lighter things...love---lighter..ya it is..now for menow that i retrospect..n reflect...my notions of love have left their mumified forms.. egyptian'no more do i perceive it as a bandage system. no holdsit is more of a christian coffin ..a burial..u preserve d sanctity..without making it go through theburning ...no post mortems ..but why to talk about such a beautiful emotion in terms ofa burial..strange but truei have learned...u need to bury many a things...ur ego,ur anger,ur sellf centeredness........n a lot more to love..i let go of many things..now simple..believe me really simple things make me feel great.i feel at times incapciated to express,so does my better half.n when i express,words do not do justice to my feelinsthese wordsthis languageUNFAIRi keep donning various robes...one day i felt grt that that this language gIves me the power to expressbut when i do express ,what i want to say..it falls short of soul...love,tulip

Want This

Nocturnal longing,
Fantasy wronging,
Her belonging
to the flesh.

Bed linen swarming,
Sweat droplets forming,
Sparking the warming
through the flesh.

Boiled breath caressing,
Frenzied undressing,
Powered possessing
of the flesh.

Unbridled panting,
Murmurs enchanting,
Hot tongue implanting
into the flesh.

Frigid breeze making,
Dream turn to waking,
Dry ice aching
her singed and deadened flesh.

The Glance

Had written this quite sometime back and is one of my fav till date. Do let me know your reactions to this. :)


What is that sparkle?
That shiver electrifying my nerve ends?
That averted glance -
Sending the unsent message...

Do I comprehend the message right?
Am I reading you?
'Coz your body speaks to me. Like you talk.
In all those unspoken words.
Spoken in all those meets, we never had.

The aware nerves the moment you're around
The times I look up blankly
And see you passing by
The veneer that shades
The glance that glades...
I know you, just like you know me.
In the jingle of nerves. In those glances.
Sometimes held. Sometimes averted. Just so.

The need to look away
To close my eyes and sense you...
It sears me to know
That maybe you burn too.

Void.

My first ever post at a collab-blog. Hope 'tis good enough.

Life begets nothing.
Ignorance is bliss.

The reaping of the cosmos
For tiny strands of knowledge –
Those accompany us
For moments, and leave

To join the emptiness
That stands unfazed
Unmoved.

Learning more and more about less and less
Is man’s ultimate goal.

To know emptiness.
Understand it.
Comprehend it.

“What is the point of knowing emptiness?”
I ask.

And emptiness stares back.
Silent.
Unmoved.

OK. I cheated. 'tis an old work. Redone.

Bluey's "Hope" II and III

These images were inspired by Bluey's poem "Hope" which you can find on her blog. An earlier version of this image is also posted on my blog. Click on them to zoom.

Tuesday

It was not sleep; we knew what sleep was.
It was not rest; we saw no rejuvenation.
It was a sudden drifting, a slight flutter of air
that means blink now.
No longer obeying commands, we felt that shift
from then to now.
Your light floated upward--
we strained to see the flight
from one world to another.
Our eyes lost that shape--
we saw no more, but
we knew that now
you were speaking to them and
no longer speaking to us.

Couplets in Iambic Pentameter

Here are some poems I wrote when I was trying for a more traditional approach.


Oh, Well

The flow of blood, so beautiful and clean
Yet soddens our newly waxed floor's bright sheen.
The mess of death, I didn't quite allay;
In my next life, I'll try another way.


Marriage

I cannot assert I love you only.
But anything else will leave me lonely;
Certain words you demand without failure;
Romantic bliss turns into the jailor.
Your nuptial bed is my padded cell.
Our children now have their ticket to hell.


Afterlife

Death has no pride, or so I've been told.
Our ultimate gasp will only behold
The puffed-up illusion of mortal belief,
A fathomless void provides less relief
Than angels with harps who cut our losses--
For only fools still believe in crosses.

The Mysteries of Dreams

This is my first posting here. It's a dream, but here goes:

I was in a gunboat going down a river. I had a camera with a long cord that snaked down inside, belowdecks and showed the men below. They were fighting, and the space was cramped, so things kept getting more and more heated. I was above, on the surface, enjoying the view from the river.

We rounded a bend and I saw American soldiers, marching in the river, in files, hands help up behind their heads in surrender. Driving them was a Russian gunbaoat and they saw us at the same time we saw them. We opened fire on each other, and many of the American prisoners were cut down in the crossfire. The river streaked red.

Behind the Russian gunboat a huge Russian sub rose out of the water. In my dream it was called Leviathan, though I don't know if they have any subs by that name. It dwarfed our boat and bore down on us, pushing us underneath it, under the water, and we sank down deep into a hidden Russian underwater hangar bay. The gates closed behind us, like the mouth of a massive concrete and metal sea monster (complete with teeth), and we waited for the water to be pumped out of the hangar.

I was still outside the boat, underwater, and I couldn't breathe but I couldn't rise to the surface because there were bodies and equipment on top of me. I felt the objects above shift and lift off me, and I frantically swam up, trying to find air in the draining hangar. However, the hangar was still mostly submerged, and there was only a foot of space between the water's surface and the hangar's ceiling. I gulped in air, and I could feel others below me, arms and legs flailing, struggling to get to the surface. Many of them didn't make it.

I regretfully sucked in one last lungful of sweet air, then plunged back under, swam down a corridor, and then another until I found myself coming up on shore, wet sand between my fingers, coughing water and blood from my lungs, sucking greedily at air once again. I had been washed up on shore near a little village with trimmed lawns and picket fences. I didn't want to see water again for a very long time, and couldn't believe I was breathing again.

My best friends, a husband and wife, were in the village and the woman was still pregnant with their baby. I went to a Catholic church, but before I could enter I had to pass by three Celtic cross headstones that had a celtic knot in their center, and the words "faith" on one, "love" on another, and "abandon" on the third. But when I stepped close, this trinity shot jets of steam to purify the penitents. I stepped back and decided to enter through a side entrance instead, a narthex that led straight to a number of confessional boxes.

When I opened the door a shower of water cascaded down. The priests said it was for absolution, but all I could think about was how I hated water now and didn't want to get wet, so I closed the door and refused to go in.

On the steps again, my friends were talking with another couple with an eighteen month old boy. The other dad was holding his son and as we were talking, the boy leaned in unnoticed, close to my neck, and bit me, and began drinking blood like a leech. I pulled him off and when I saw him I saw that all his teeth were jagged, uneven, made for tearing skin.

My friend said his wife had also been bitten and she had begun hemorrhaging and went into premature contractions. He was worried how it would affect the baby and his wife.

I was angry and worried about my friend's wife, and searched for a harpoon I could run the boy through with. My friend said I was a good friend, but that wouldn't be necessary. His wife gave birth on the steps of the church, and at the same time I saw the boy's teeth become normal again, and he was healed. People began to call it a miracle. My friend held up the baby--a girl--and was glad she was healthy and untainted. The boy leaned close to my friend, this new dad, as if he might bite him, but pulled back, shook his head and reconsidered. His bloodlust had vanished.

Trust

My first post here! Made in Bryce. (Click on image to zoom)

Ramah

We were born mothers; we sleep in our children's beds.
Our beating blood comes from that love of children,
And all our talk is about our children.

Deep in the night when darkness grips the sky,
A razored lighted ripped into the eyes of children,
We gathered them close, hidden beneath our coats.

Our line was long: we waded with heavy legs,
Into that blackness that tried to swallow children.
The clutter of boots made hearing grow dull.

Shadowed hands grappled us with blind fury:
We huddled, muffling the cries of children.
Those dampened sounds belong to young and old.

Those grinning faces found that precious cargo,
Ripped from our arms those shrouded children.
They took them somewhere even God doesn't know.

Fetid flames grew fat and scorching heat swelled the air.
We covered our ears from those meek wails of children.
Smoke thickened the world into desperate puddles.

Yet a glistening wind raised up our eyes.
Delicate clouds revealed the smiles of children.
The feathered light rested their soft faces.

Oh God who loves us, join us with Mother Rachael.
She won't be comforted; she longs for her children.
When we soon meet, let us tell her of our children.




Based in part on Ted Hughes's "A Dream of Horses".

February 15, 2002

Think of Sisyphus, Mom,
rolling back the rock again and again.
Such a load to carry, but he bore it silently,
while disease ate his intestines, and
fever rose to his brain.
Why complain when it does no good?
Sentence rendered is sentence complete,
like the grammar you once taught.
Everyone else found something else to learn;
you just sank into the clay, while more
dirt piled up before your eyes.
None of this is over, sweet lady;
only you have the means to push
stone from stone into diamond.

Prodigal

With an alien people clutching their gods,
I should be glad of another death.
T.S. Eliot


I dreamed I was a pillar of sand,
tall and magnificant--what
soul lived in this dirty temple?
Once I walked with the dust,
shaking the earth from my feet.
I saw the light graze at the sky;
such heat begged for shelter.
My knees buckled and cried into silence.
Now I am dead; my body stinks.
What must I do to live again?
The dryness piled around me, rubbing against my heart.
I await the command: "Come forth, my child."
Soon I will feel the sand around me
turn into his clay.