Dream of a Silent Life

Two hands smooth across unfinished table top,
Hewn from eternal stock of walnut.
The slightest curve drawn along wooden edge,
Subtle as buddha smiling lips.
Every joint captures infinity with patience,
Seams become seamless in form.
Meanwhile, pines whistle above frozen winter workshop,
Somewhere fire crackles; breath steams.
And finally, the long-sought serenity;
The carpenter, with love, produces his wares.

In one lifetime, I transcend

Bodhisattva, I yearn.
Bodhisattva, I wish.
Bodhisattva, I want.

Monk, I've known you these ten thousand years.

Bodhisattva, I sit.
Bodhisattva, I breathe.
Bodhisattva, I blink.

Monk, I'm with you in this moment now.

Bodhisattva, I see.
Bodhisattva, I know.
Bodhisattva, I am.

Monk, I'll be with you always.

Lady Cat

I unpack my bags,
And rest upon a metaphor.
It's been a long time going,
I'd like to stay a while.

Stories do entwine and entangle.
Life is unpredictable.

Cat and Monkey
Cat and Monkey
I'll catch you mice
You climb my trees
Cat and Monkey
Cat and Monkey
We ride down this river
Will you tangle your tail with mine?

Lady Cat, where do you come from?
Your slender limbs and soft coat.
Do you eat fish?
Do you chase rabbits?

Lady Cat, how many hours do you sleep?
Your purring, expressive moan.
Do you have claws?
Do you see in the dark?

Tell me once!
Tell me twice!
Tell me all the way down
to when the river meets
the sea!

Collection of Two, Three, and Four Line Poems, #B

#101
You carry me, I carry you.
Walking upstairs,
Walking down.

#102
You love me, you hate me.
Rising breath,
Falling breath.

#103
Dropping like flies,
the seasons change.

#104
The lizard on the wall,
knows up from down.

#105
Love makes me tired,
solitude makes me cold.

#106
Slowly a place evolves,
darkness to light.

#107
Truth from my youth,
forgotten or disproved?

#108
Is it better to collect a thousand
unattached memories,
Or a few deep commitments?
I've already spoken my answer.

Untitled Mantra

This one photograph,
my talisman,
held fast and close to my chest,
against the Asuras and Yakshasas,
who gnash and claw,
and would fill me with fear, with doubt;
if not for this one photograph,
my talisman,
held fast and close...

Moons

The Moon is full.
I just saw it --
golden, round --
a perfect sphere.
But I am half full only --
and waning,
probably.

Do We Remember?

Do we remember honey and soap?
These are not the things you put in a bottle,
Or wrap as a bar in plastic.
These are much older than that.

And navigation by stars?

Yes, the City of Wind

Ah yes, the city of wind.
I know the place well.
Clouds drift and gusts blow.
What in one moment was right here,
The next moment, has gone away.

You pull up your collar,
And turn to the gale.
And I in my armor,
For once wishing to stay,
Am instead silently carried away.

This city can never be seen,
Yet you know it is there.
The way the banners flap and fly,
And how those tree limbs sway.
Silhouettes of one more going away.

In this place you never know,
Who'll blow into your view.
You can only enjoy brief collisions.
Then, quietly trimming your sails,
You hope with fateful gusts to meet another day.

This Artist

She puts paint in layers upon a page,
and creates a world for me.

small numbers

until today
the number "one" did not exist in my mind
and "two" was preposterous -- pretentious
i've only every conceived of millions & infinities
to their logical point of insignificance

but today
i saw that "two" is maybe possible -
against all of the unlikely odds -
and moreover, that two can become one

Is it so?

Thinking,
a thin electric thread connects;
intermittent, but going to, going fro.

Moments,
photographs placed into a box;
occurring and accumulating, one by one.

Feeling,
a wave on water;
swelling with the huge, unseen gravity.

Silence,
a game of riddles and hints;
speaking volumes, with no words.

Tomorrow,
an unwatched film playing;
flickering images and unknown endings.

Xalam

Waykat, Oh Waykat, take me away.
Take me to a land where nothing is grey.

I dont want to go home;
Here I want to stay.

Cradle me in your arms;
Strum the xalam you play.

Waykat, Oh Waykat, take me away.

Among Many

Inside a room, lamps illuminate.
Widely and infinitely.
But seen from a hilltop at dusk,
One point among many.

Salvaged from and Old Notebook #2

a poet fall-away landslide
a renaissance charriot breakdown
subterrainian hamiltonian
whispered regrets sighed like mayhem
pointed boots kicking dust into their eyes
a skeleton gown draped over the stage
black magnetic hypnotism
and a ghost-like glow from his eyes
long painted eye shadows
like discs in the center of the sun
he falls away into a trance
leaving lovers and wanters behind
like a stone of unimagined momentum
who lays waste to conservatism
and women weeping who want to hold on
green-like transcendence
and falsehood's hopes
a carry-away
a cast-off
speak to him, but speak to him really
people who are really real
are impossible to know
loved by everyone but known by none
like a knight errant in his glittering armor
like rocks on a grave
like a mind who hopes to create
did he want to write great songs?
how not?

Salvaged from an Old Notebook #1

Where are you tonight at the end of day
Where cold winds do not blow
And changing season brings no more hope
Than an opening in the grave yard.

Whose note had fallen from the sky
Like wind on some faraway beach
The sand grains scrape between
The turning gears of my mind.

When's flower is pressed up against Never's frown
A golden How's glass shatters
Silent whisperings and longings for a romance
Among uncommon minds.

He who lives outside the law
Should not throw stones
And he who does not speak
Should never expect to hear.

The Poet's Eyes

Oh poet!
Lend me your eyes!

Reading you,
I see I have never seen.

Hearing you,
I know I have never known.

So grant me,
Every color and tone.

And gift me,
Wondrous shapes and flow.

But pity me,
Even one more sightless day.

Not Now

A horn sounds, and becomes the universe in an instant.
Opposite Yes and No dissolve, and there only is.
Silence even hides ninety percent of what we don't hear.
And space is supposed to curl up upon itself in coils.

There is Nothing that sends you back to Nowhere.
A pig farm where you spent one day as a youth.
It does not matter; it cannot; but it does.
This is the paradox that stands before you as the last challenge.

You saw it, but your seeing it means you've missed it.
You need to see it only.  Not with eyes, and not with mind.
But see it Now.  And now does not ever end.
Can you forget this?  If you do, listen for the inevitable next sound of a horn.

It will bring you back.

Change

I am the changing seasons.
Violent swings.
And battling moods.
Heavy oppressive heat.
Crisp fresh air.
Baking sun.
Clouds and wind.
I am unstable.
At the joint between cycles.
Nature. Natural.
Nothing permanent.
Always in flux.
I know it, I resist it,
I know it.
Like summer to fall to winter.

Rain Comes Again

Today,
the rain comes
and washes my architecture
which had become heavy
and covered in dust and doubt.
A sudden monsoon downpour,
and it is clean again.

Only

I am here, only
the wind blows through me
past my bones
carrying drum beats
from across the city

I am here, only
a fragment of a myth
written but not remembered
of gods and heroes
and someone's truth

I am here, only
a man of flesh and blood
with no anchors
and no roots
but still, I am calm

Letter to a Poet

Dear Poet,

Your beard is aged and wise.
What truths did you discover fifty years before,
that I am only now leaving behind?
And when you wrote, was it in ink or pencil or blood?
Is it true that one must go in?  Or out? Or what?
And what of love?
What did you learn in all your years?
Does it come only once?
(a one-to-one special fit?)
Or is it ample, for the taking?
Should I pine?  Should I cry out?
And what meaning is there left to find?
Have you seen the world today?!
And what next would you suggest?
And after that...?
Oh Poet!  With your words,
share with me what you are supposed to know.
Guide me with your heightened emotions.
Some of us have none.

 Sincerity.

Sensitivity

In India, I see a man sleeping on the street,
in the dark space between the lamps.

His face is mashed into the hard concrete ground,
a black shadow of not-light or wetness beneath.

My stomach is full, I am contented,
I've just had a large meal.

I walk by,  closing the door behind me when I reach home.

Morning Sanctuary

My pocket of Delhi in the morning is alive with human footfalls and healthy breathing.
The autos have not yet awoken -- with their growls and bellows and rattling frames.
There is a gentle, early sun -- itself having just waked, and not yet full strength.
Two love birds coo on a shared wire; a chipmunk chases her mate.
The park is circled and circling with morning walkers -- all shapes and sizes,
Everyone and everything is brightly fixed on this new day.

I join the quiet morning, in this ancient and new town, in this city on earth.

(Short and Not Titled)

what once was, now isn't.

जंगपुरा - Jangpura

Whose twilight pastures whisper emerald songs of welcome
Whose bustling evening commerce flares in darkened doors
Whose laughing children with grandfathers swing in parks at dusk
Whose daily hawkers ride red wagons, ringing bells for their wares
Whose inevitable green gate promises glory, peace, love, and joy
Whose wooden sturdy staircase lifts each climber to the fullest height
Whose phantom, mysterious threshold answers unspoken dreams
Whose gardens upon rooftops call back to distant mountains and hills
Whose yellow absolute moonlight arcs above reaching treetops
Whose memory cannot rest, but only grows stronger by day, by night
Whose homecoming is accepted; and whose joy is understood.

.

Collection of Two-Line Poems, #A

#01
Seeking the profound,
he picks up his pen, but nothing to write.

#02
Ten coins on the table,
one is OK, nine are losing sleep.

#03
Green ink on white page,
his mind, his mind, his mind... explodes.

Not Titled, from a notebook, #1

The palace waving leaf has not the cares of a king,

Though they share the same throne.

Roof tiles that color and stand through time,

Never grow weary, nor have doubt.

History itself sweeps away the dust of human deeds;

It could be reaching its frenzied crescendo.

And individuals are torn by circumstance,

Like the unwilling, un-wanting leaf in the breeze.

[written at 北海 in Beijing, 2011]

The Hall of Wisdom

And so I sit, at long last,

weary from climbing high walls

and treading forbidden streets,

where ancient sternness gives way

to vulgar parades of hungry wonder

and whose corridors,  now

faded in color and dusty in guise,

lead me lonely and alone

into the trappings of

thieves, whose cut-throat

knives gleam in the red flames

of want, beneath the eaves of

The Hall of Wisdom, doors barred

and quiet, I am too early or too

late.  But I wait.

[written at 北海 in Beijing, 2011]

the sadest tangent

two circles
of similar radius
floating through geometric space
full and round in their own ways
meet so briefly
and touch at only one point

White Moon Bye Bye

白白月亮，
白白美女。
白白夜晚，
白白朋友。
白白可能，
白白情侣。

The art and the act of smoking a pipe

When the match is struck, there is a flare and a blaze.
The flame bows low; breathed in to touch the leaf.
Triumphant white bursts emit -
this is fanfare, this is light!

Then you take deep draughts - pulling bright, glowing orange.
Down inside the bowl; dry pops and a crackle.
Oh!  You settle in now.
Sitting back, you recline.

Here, your mind may calm - pensive and ponderous.
The places you've smoked before, the thoughts you've had.
Alone, or with companion.
Drifting to mind, they swirl, then fade:

-- Huddled on a frozen porch - inside, but out --
-- Lady Ithaca's clockface, her footbridge above the falls --
-- Moonlight pacific ocean - endless salty wind --
-- A canyon's sheer wall, rising beside the domed tent --
-- Soft in a jungle's armchair, warm and silent --
-- And now, on institutions' doorstep, in Delhi's heart --

Halfway through is quiet - midlife, and maybe burning out.
But then, always, if you've done it right,
your pipe rekindles, it matures!
This is glory, this is truth!

Contemplation turns to joy - moments stretch to hours.
All that was - you know it will ever be.
And the pipe becomes your hair,
your clothes, your fingers, and your face.

This... is the art and the act of smoking a good pipe.