Desicritics Category: Culture: Language

Poessay: Rosary 18 - burning blazing fire rages

temporal — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:54:01 EST

credit tanay behera

burning blazing fire rages
combusting, charring fire rages
kehti hay
jalo, jalao,
jalo aur jalao

fire bowing to clay, we're told
created conflagration
that continues to blaze in clay's belly
the satans of fire twirl their moustaches
and smile diabolically at the lost ones
(can the lost and wandering be misled?)

this is not the fire of old
nor the fluid fire
that left noah dry

beware for He is father
of all fires, fury and furor
merciful, compassionate, graceful

maloom hay humaiN
yeh aag nahiN bajooz oos aag kay
jo kisi aanay walay lumhay maiN
sub aalamouN ko chupa laigi
apnay shikanja e zeest maiN
(laikin maiN yeh bhee souchta hooN
kay ger tu paida kernay wala hay
tou hum tabah kernay walay kum nahiN
yeh da'wa nahiN khudai ka
taqaza hay t'ray ak's ka)
tum jalatay raho, thako mut
hum jaltay rahaiNgay bila thakawat

a glimpse of the promised inferno
an ending, another big bang
and yet another beginning
your rage is creative, consuming
and enraged we can only bow down
and continue the destructive forays

burning blazing fire rages
combusting, charring fire rages
kehti hay
jalo, jalao,
jalo aur jalao

Earlier:
Poessay: Rosary 1 - Pink Sand Beach
Poessay: Rosary 2 - Fishing
Poessay: Rosary 3 - Adam and Eve Limited - I
Poessay: Rosary 4 - Adam and Eve Limited - II
Poessay: Rosary 5 - Descending
Poessay: Rosary 6 - Dinner In The Park
Poessay: Rosary 7 - Under the Jamun Tree
Poessay: Rosary 8 - Voices In The Air
Poessay: Rosary 9 - Life Rosary I
Poessay: Rosary 10 - Life Rosary II
Poessay: Rosary 11 - Creating In Isolation
Poessay: Rosary 12 - Kohled Eyes
Poessay: Rosary 13 - By the Lake
Poessay: Rosary 14 - Snow Flakes
Poessay: Rosary 15 - The Drop
Poessay: Rosary 16 - Ageless Quest - tishnagi
Poessay: Rosary 17 - Hemashree

Poessay: Rosary 17 - Hemashree

temporal — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:29:50 EST

the hemashree whose hand
i held in palliative care
was not the one with golden body
and infectious laughter
though i could see the wrinkles
where smiles danced once
around her eyes and mouth

she was skeletal, taut skin
throaty almost shrill voice

everything is for sale babuji
some you buy with money
others you can barter
or purchase with promises
there is no person or object
that is without a price tag

ghungh'roo ho ya mangalsutra
sub kay sub hee bikao haiN ji*
said hemashree, unread, street-smart

* everyone has a price on their head

Earlier:
Poessay: Rosary 1 - Pink Sand Beach
Poessay: Rosary 2 - Fishing
Poessay: Rosary 3 - Adam and Eve Limited - I
Poessay: Rosary 4 - Adam and Eve Limited - II
Poessay: Rosary 5 - Descending
Poessay: Rosary 6 - Dinner In The Park
Poessay: Rosary 7 - Under the Jamun Tree
Poessay: Rosary 8 - Voices In The Air
Poessay: Rosary 9 - Life Rosary I
Poessay: Rosary 10 - Life Rosary II
Poessay: Rosary 11 - Creating In Isolation
Poessay: Rosary 12 - Kohled Eyes
Poessay: Rosary 13 - By the Lake
Poessay: Rosary 14 - Snow Flakes
Poessay: Rosary 15 - The Drop
Poessay: Rosary 16 - Ageless Quest - tishnagi

Book Review: Tonight, An Anthology of World Love Poetry

Santosh Kumar — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:49:53 EST

I met Dr. Amitabh Mitra at the World Literature Festival in Oslo in September this year. He was representing South Africa and had launched his Anthology of Love Poetry to an august gathering.

Tonight: An Anthology of World Love Poetry is a fascinating kaleidoscope of poems of love created by the poets from several countries. Tonight includes poems revealing Dr. Amitabh Mitra’s determined and characteristically emotional quest for love. This Anthology is edited by Dr. Amitabh Mitra from South Africa, Victoria Valentine from United States and Glory Sasikala Franklin from India.

Dr. Mitra’s vision of an Anthology that he yearned to create since the days of the publication of Pritish Nandy’s Love Poetry Anthology ‘Strangertime’ in 1979 has finally been fulfilled.

W. H. Auden rightly felt: “Let us love each other or die.” Matthew Arnold also indicates the importance of love: “Ah, love, let us be true to one another.” There are many proverbs about the significance of love. “Love conquers all” (Virgil). “All you need is love” (The Beatles). Walter Pater remarks that the great Pre-Raphaelite poet D. G. Rossetti (1828-1882) was ever a lover, servant and singer, faithful as Dante, of Beatrice (Pater:216). We are moved and stimulated by wonderful images in Amitabh’s “Gwalior” where we find the lyrical intensity at its best:

Where have you gone
Where have I gone
Only a breath stood
Waiting (106)

Your smile unleashed a sea
In the ravines
Palaces were swept off
To a distant sky (108)

The lyrical gift of Amitabh is undeniable.

Adam Donaldson Powell’s “Je m’accuse” emphasizes that “the rhythms of our hearts” leave us “dizzy and child-like”, and transcend “the rotation of the earth”. The most significant thing about Powell as a poet is his energy, passion and power of vivid description:

Then-captured by your stellar eyes
And crescent smile,
I arrested the first word in mid-breath ( 53)

“The course of true love never runs smooth”, so Powell seizes “the first word in mid-breath”, and the miracle happens. “During isolated moments of intense experience, when the miracle happens, life takes on the intensity of art” (Virginia Woolf).

Victoria Valentine’s two poems “John” and “Caves” are remarkable for the purely visual quality of images like ‘ashes of bridges burned’, ‘exploring the caves’, ‘heaving mattress’.

Glory Sasikala Franklin’s “Let me in” generates the desired, essential atmosphere of yearning and longing:

Let me into the coolness of your touch
A thousand births and ten thousand deaths
Being baptized again and again
Till my name is lost in yours. (83)

Geoff Jackson’s “When was Then” and “Fallen for You” will surely appeal to what lies deepest in us-passion and its intercommunication. Jackson has the power to reveal the most delicate outward manifestations of the emotion of love:

Skidding on wings of white
You flew me

And the following from “Fallen for You”:
Hot like a sun storm
And yet I bathe in your eyes benign
Sink underwater to greeny depths (14)

Bhuwan Thapaliya’s “Arise, O love of my love, resolve to make love” reveals that the code of love is ‘the haven of our trust’. Roger Humes’ “All Poets live in Exile” is remarkable for sweet and generous sympathies touching the human heart in love:

Only by giving away all
May the memory of your heart
Burn with the eternal gift of mine (77)

Brett Beiles’ “mixed messages” spontaneity of feeling in the following lines places the poet on a par with the best in literature:

Whenever I’m in the corridor
There he is
Lurking (78).

Jeanpaul Ferro’s “Restoration” rich with overtones of feeling is profoundly romantic:

This most beautiful, beautiful oneness,
Stepping stone to God
Cross over to creation, paradise (16)

Tonight has captured its rightful place in Contemporary World Love Poetry Literature. Its success is due to the efforts of its editors in choosing the best poets from around the world. Tonight indicates that the included poets are quite sensitive to the varied aspects of love, to its sensuous glory and ecstasies. Nearly all poems in Tonight throw a glistening image of love before the reader’s eye.

Works Cited:

Mitra, Amitabh Ed. Tonight: An Anthology of World Love Poetry The Poets Printery, East London, South Africa, 2008, pp. 118, Paperback, ISBN o-620-41372-7

Pater, Walter. “Dante Gabriel Rossetti”. Appreciations. Edinburgh: R & R Clark, 1931

Poem: black in white

temporal — Sat, 8 Nov 2008 12:23:23 EST

credit Daemys

dear occupant
we are expert movers
no job is too small
or too big
for our staff
we are certified and bonded
and guarantee our work
read the generic mail

i read and threw it
in the garbage

in the wee hours today
am thinking of the white man
who will be shortly vacating
                     that house

a man low in self esteem
                     and lower in polls
who should be punished
for mayhem and incompetency
and incarcerated for the rest
                    of his natural life

will the movers
wrap, seal and remove
the injustices, deaths, wars
this born again zealot wreaked
on the unsuspecting many?

will it be the same movers
who move in the black man
                   in the white house
with hope and dreams
                   so children
born and unborn cackle
smile innocent smiles
                   in far off lands?

poetry: gods

temporal — Tue, 4 Nov 2008 09:45:41 EST

credit smaher88

blue?
gold?
green?
saffron?
seen?
unseen?
his?
hers?

chalay ga
bhaee chaly ga
her khuda
her bhagwan
ab tO chalay ga
srif ik shar't hay
muskurahta ho
warna hum tumhaiN hee
khuda maan laiNgay
tum mano, ya na mano

in the tenebrous
air, am gasping
could use a god
                      or two
                      a caveat
if the god/gods are grim
                      unsmiling
will accord you godship
with or without consent

poetry: coffee break persiflage

temporal — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:16:28 EDT

photo credit Tanay Behera

forgettable
faded dreams
flagging words
forlorn look
frozen touch
frigid love

unforgettable
fetching smile
fervent laughter
fervid fracas
fledgling hopes
feisty mirth

doosra cup / second cup

t'ri ik muskurahat say
dhund janay kahaaN
ghayab ho jati hay
aur her rah geer
shanashai sa lagta hay

that enigmatic smile
dissipates all the murk
and each passersby
as if nods in recognition

Poessay: Rosary 16: Ageless Quest - tishnagi

temporal — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:56:05 EDT

the bachcha
chasing chimera
cheerfully crisscrossed
the same rivers, plains
and mountains
- merciless sun of desert and
moonlight cascading through clouds -
trekked through rain, hail and snow
the elements failed to dampen
the mad march -
if that was the writ

a vigorous pursuit
of flickering shadows dancing
with foggy apprehensions
to nature's cascading melody
with partners in new(er) garbs
till spiritartheritis exacts halt
and the bachcha
now a somnolent bu'zurgh
is replaced / fades away

***

tishnagi

sawaalON kay ta'aq'qoob maiN
janay kitni nadiyaaN, pahaaR
ooboor kertay jatay haiN hum

kia hay who joos't'joo
sehra, maidaan, darya
dil, jig'r, dimaagh, wajood
her ik rah e safar
kay doosray paar bhee
tishnaa hee reehti hay
kya kabhi.......?

poetry: coloraffectations

temporal — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:15:57 EDT

your smile
red, orange, yellow
a drive in the country in late october
her smile
green, blue, violet
a walk on the scorching sands of negril

a virtuoso bewildered
by the warm and cool
coloraffectations
on his pupil's canvas
torn
and tormented by
by the tenebrific
smiles of the banal
demigods
defying dark

Poessay: Rosary 15 - The Drop

temporal — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 04:11:26 EDT

queries go abegging
folded away
in the timeless embrace
of waves on shore

emerging from the icicle
falling
on the blade's edge
sliding
to the hungry vortex
of boundless queries
of parched throats dry eyes

is the drop aware
it is neither a way-post
nor a destination

qatrON ki gardish maiN
yeh qatra hO ya woh qatra
qatra qatra ker jata hay

undeterred, journeying
from lip to eye to
ocean, cloud, snow, rain
spring, river, sea
endless circumambulation
the drop - a querysperm
in the enduring waltz
of fermenting queries

Earlier:
Poessay: Rosary 1 - Pink Sand Beach
Poessay: Rosary 2 - Fishing
Poessay: Rosary 3 - Adam and Eve Limited - I
Poessay: Rosary 4 - Adam and Eve Limited - II
Poessay: Rosary 5 - Descending
Poessay: Rosary 6 - Dinner In The Park
Poessay: Rosary 7 - Under the Jamun Tree
Poessay: Rosary 8 - Voices In The Air
Poessay: Rosary 9 - Life Rosary I
Poessay: Rosary 10 - Life Rosary II
Poessay: Rosary 11 - Creating In Isolation
Poessay: Rosary 12 - Kohled Eyes
Poessay: Rosary 13 - By the Lake
Poessay: Rosary 14 - Snow Flakes

Poessay: Timeless Queries

temporal — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 10:40:04 EDT

"Are marriage and writing compatible? Co habitable? To be an artist, and create well one must be submerged in his art? at what price? Is it worth it?... Living according to the social norms? Or should one follow their passion?" Zen asked

She is a talented, passionate, caring, young woman and the timeless queries she posed had been uttered innumerable times by countless people before.

"Are marriage and writing compatible? Co habitable?"

Yes and no - I will substitute creative work for writing. In an overwhelming number of cases the conclusion would be no - no they are not compatible. Marriage (or long term serious relationships) demand nothing less than 100% commitment - and the same is true of Art.

But there is a yes to above too where (in rare cases) the spouses are immersed full into each others passions.

And in still rarer cases there is the tightrope walk between commitment to passion and to more temporal affairs. This act is fraught with forebodings and in danger of succumbing into an uncharted abyss.

To be an artist, and create well one must be submerged in his/her art?

Is there any other way? Passion and commitment are hard task masters demanding complete allegiance and subservience. There are no half measures.

...at what price?

Is there a price that can be assigned to passion and commitment? If you inquire of the price you cannot afford it.

Is it worth it? Living according to the social norms?

Absolutely. The other way is one littered with thorny what-ifs and despair.

This is the conundrum every creative person faces at some point in life. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote succinctly about that moment and the choices one faces. "The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect."

Or should one follow their passion?"

There is an allusion alluded to here of a subterranean fear - that of affordability. Can one follow the passion, throw caution out the window and be prepared to endure the fallout?

There are no easy answers in life - only tough choices. The answers appear as distant mileposts and as we continue the tread they fade behind us - the once troubling queries humbled by dogged determination and replaced by yet others lurking on the distant horizon.

Life becomes a bed of roses traversed on strands of cobwebs lined with thorns in full sight of humanity. The sighs and pains have to be endured with forced smiles. Enigma, conundrum, dichotomy, dream and illusion, taken in stride, balanced on the tightrope of hope and passion over the dark sea of despair. There is no looking back - or down - ever! and the 'hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect.'

***

having made the choice
the eternal smile
remains unhampered
unconquered, filled with
pride and resolve
- screen, paper, canvas
mere medium
for bleeding fingers