grace

glance behind the shoulder
over spent springs
winters to come

you are but a breath
enacted for a dream
shudder
running down a shade

yes
it's me
this kneeling animal
with frosty eyes
starring outside
into vacant spaces
no its inside
no its nowhere

yes its nowhere

nothing divisible
in this void

not even wind
not even time
even pain
repletion of pain

friends on the road

here is a song
for the songs i lost
written on the strand
with lucency of waves
and fingers of storm

vanished
you vanished well before me
witnesses to this crossing
once i named you
now we go without witness
nameless with no crossing
straight into the sand
straight into the sea

here in this dark
a votive in my hand
i bless you with oblivion
compañeros
bless me too with oblivion
compañeros

does a dog have buddha nature

barking complete
barking so full
you can no longer call it
dogs’ work
god's work

it comes from everywhere
everything is barking
houses
trees
streets

seamless tapestry
pervading night’s remote confines

it becomes space
night is barking
stars are barking
world is barking

clamor
no one can stop
ruthlessly alive
dislodging you from your hiding

pains exposed
shames exposed
lumps in the throat
thawing in the dark
barking in the dark


mandrem, 2 january 2012

baltica

water is perhaps turning
with it turning the river
clouds erring above the river
mirrors burning into smoke
galaxies reaching outward in haste

on this bridge footfalls fade
made of yesterday’s sand
tomorrow’s tears
unsettled dust of migrating souls
stars come here to cross path
with the living
with the dead

at doorway of shadows
in breezy night we meet
unlistened
your hands try to awaken my face

we herd in your paining stones
one by one
heartbeat after heartbeat

mandrem, 29 december 2011

what will you call it

here again after so long
grazing grass as i promised i would

this is no longer the neighbor’s pasture
all the neighbors have gone
one day a heavy gale came and
all of us became water buffalos
now feeding off someone’s prairie
vast
where grass is verdant and profuse

as with bitterness
sweetness of its taste
our laments blend
with the river’s roll
running down the vale to no end


siem reap, 22 august 2011

sermon to the unborn

the bridge on which i stand
name it gateway of the mute
life and death both
pass through its arches

what runs in these waters
is more than just
obscured parts of fortune
and home seeking souls

here sound of fish flapping
as more than a star cast
shimmers on the trembling surface

a candle by the window pane
is all i have to offer
to hearten you in these draughts
as you stumble through bardos
solid night of weeping names
heavy on your shoulders

mandrem, 25 november 2011

bardo chill

only when the last lights go dim
do you realize it is a dream
not before
before you are the dream
stream of raging images
learning to speak to mirrors
who have no use for your secrets

the shrub of dreams
does not draw water from our hours
its futurity is the wind’s voicing
herding trees through awakening

waiting for you has made me old
your call at the brink of the world
makes the heart shudder

in the temple yard
they open the fountain of blessings

mandrem, 21 november 2011

the other side

what is coming back to you
from the other side

nothing

the mirror you grew up in
doesn’t reflect anymore

gone blind our mirror
lost to the dark
lost to late-night stars
our mirror

in its place a window
open to lush trees for now
tomorrow we do not know

we salute and wish you well
tomorrow we don’t know
you and all your seeds
your raucous birds
dipping at daybreak
into fury green

mandrem, 18 november 2011

end of land

in a distant land
where souls are scant
left this morning in the cold
with a wind that no longer speaks
or speaks but no one hears
with trees no one hears
or hears but no longer sees
or green forever flows
far where the eye is drifting
to water's endless embrace

new brunswick,june 2011

in the open

if we see ourselves anything other
than a flickering image in a mirror
wavering between the trivial and the tragic
then death could not be a pond where we disappear

there is perhaps a deeper humiliation
in being human
lacking the kind of literacy
that would enable us to tell the trees
how unloved we sometimes feel our hands

something consoles us in the breeze
as it animates our lives’ sketchbook
swiftly averting resistances
exfoliating our darker core
to redeem us from failings
that have much to do with distance

we are entrusted to the open
where all things
whatever they may be
wherever they may stand
are at all time beginning

siem reap, september 1, 2011

cévennes

you slip outside your voice
speechlessly err at summer’s end
the dusky garden breathes in
wind’s many gates
wind’s many gold

cicadas hush up
slowly i approach their sleep

blessed by a night of loss
we become a moonlit vessel of song
consigned with stars’ orison
adrift on distant seas

saint-hippolyte du fort, july 2009

the road again

regrets
unmet faces
unheard voices
hands not seized
smiles not returned

leave a place for that too

when the wanting fades in the being
and everything falls away
you still have
things are
it is

you still have sunrise above mekong
blazing the watercourse
as it breaks into branches

you still have the breeze
brushing silvery tree-tops
lining the river front

you are still in the reach of fire
and the waking voices

phnom penh, 1 november 2011

it's a mystery

a mystery
the glow passed onto you
in unvarnished darkness

heart rejoices
in forgetfulness that comes
watching mirrors go down
over the precipice one by one
flights all fused and effaced
in sudden stillness

raucous cawing welling up
from lush mangrove
and subdued cries of the dead
converge course in wind’s flood
blossom into pristine air
lips stung again
with morning’s sparks

nilemba

night not offering much sleep
me lying restless in the cot
you sandlewood buddha
sitting stifly on the pane

outside fireflies
mingle their glow
with stars clustering
above heavy boughs

shadows deepen
in this tiny cell
where death
silently remolds me

nilemba, sri lanka, 29 january 2008

waking

its early morning as i
enter to sit in a circle
birds spread before me
with their subdued songs

that’s my gateway into
the mighty voice of the rain
as it pounds heavily
on tinned roofs and foliage
as it pounds
on the arc of sleep whence i emerge
soon there returning
without my bundle
or so i hope
after long ferrying this pain

often the need to unload
adds somehow to the burden

this listening redeems
for what you hear in the rain
is the most ancient of songs
it is the voice of the world
humming its own beginning

source of endless refrains
vibrant
where along with birds
we too find provision

siem reap, 26 august 2011

dreamcatcher

early they sailed off
the boats I dreamed up
with wrecks retrieved
from uneasy tides
of one last sleep

wished their shadow's play
would distract me a while
from the loneliness one feels
drifting through to no end
these crystal flows of indigo

bilan

page
yet another
on the journey turned

is that what it’s called
this erring oblivion
of ends and beginnings

not knowing why
not knowing whence
nor whereto from here

questioning no longer
what portent in
sea’s glittering mirrors
sands brushed away on dunes
echo of cries dying in the wind
dreams from threshold
to threshold displacing us

or

stars’ borrowed light
fadings that precede us

alliance

here not to grasp
here just to bear
earth upholds us
universe motherly
we can cry our fill
cries heeded and heard

stones hear us
stars hear and entreat us
god hears us
god helps us stand upright
as we cast our lament
in his illumined night

with us in every waill
we could not have cried
had he not wished to hear us
we are the provider’s sigh
echoed in the provider’s ear

we are your tear
crystalline
lord
your eye
blind
a chaos adrift
mirroring loneliness
infinite

devenir

why should you not
be cradled by palms
profuse with insomnia

metaphors drift asea
where cries are cooled
and aired better

you stand still and stare
beyond pain’s frame
to a pass from one end
to no end leading

sunset afterglow
spans lower skies

memory
you mourning moon
riding tideless nights

epitaph

poems
milestones on this road

journey from where
to nowhere
witnesses to your passing
passers without witness

slowly diffusing
through oblivion
their timid light

what the thunder cries out

what the thunder cries out
the wind need not remember

dormant beneath their spell
in remembrance
rocks may still echo
sea's many voices
and screams

it's a tearing into
breach
in the order of things

night pierced through
spans of dark
massive
tumble over a starlit bay

heart
an opening

shudder
remolded into a face

om beach

still another return
yet to say
here i was once
now am here again
you can not

you were then not
so much yourself
as now you think you are
abiding nowhere
erring nowhere

erring with the wind
wind intimate
with faded journeys
obliterated paths

secrets too
gain vibrancy
in displacement


gokarna, 21 april 2008

was there

was there truth to it
did i ever exist
perhaps was it you
here or there
now and then
in limbo of dreams
wastes of insomnia

did i see a sun set
from a hazy window
ever hear a bird sing
fusing from a bush
perhaps was it you

how to say i am or was
cannot stay nor say
the further more
the further still
blurred borders of me and you
same source to assertion negation
slow closure of despair
realm of speech retsrained
realm of speech faltering
words in disarray

from absence and presence
things human inhuman
confined to a round of cries
my vioce your voice the voice

the voice
rapid tremor of silence
returned to silence

moor park, california, 21 may 2009

all night long

sound of rain
pounding
on sleepless grass

long winter furrows
run through these lids
where from updrafts
i try to shield a soul

from faraway
have erred till here
drawn by these vapors
pearling on the pane
all night long

transhumance

bird’s path you follow
call it treading
flying
falling

from one end to another
notes of vernal branches
drift along the breeze

unseen traces unfold
song-clusters in echo
contained in silence

its one body
in one sphere
from one end
to another
azure

it’s the no end
mirrors coming
going
non-abiding

chiming bell of stones
meld with sigh of grass
slowly waking in the prairie
throbbed with morning light

call

ocean's pure invention
each dawn
she summons the wind
to recapture me
from pits of sleep
where
mere keepsake of their cawing
one late flight
crows abandoned me

she draws me to her waters
where now
where now for ever I stand
a listening
to nothing bound
receiving her release
as she rolls

recollection

fingers
plumes of yearning
beyond the body reach

nothing to grasp
nothing to yield
they know it now
we know it now

someone’s flawed memory
called us back to this shore
detouring our exit from exile
we know it now

images resurface on spume
the sea no longer retrieves

thirsting for new skies
leaking at the seams
we set a boat afloat

something veils us in the daylight
as we wait for waves to intercede

inquiry

in a letter of intents
addressed to friends
to friends to come

healed of wounds
of wounds to come
softened with pain
yielding to a smile

brief but repentant in tone
blames passed on to gales
to tide-awakening mistral
where roars delivered
unroll scroll of seas
of seas to come

friends
where are you

one-way ticket

it is bliss to live
it is bliss to die
starry or starless tonight
some obscured in wells
some still suspended
from blade of pledges

bliss to shed your foliage
offer every leaf to the gale
efface calumny of seasons
hue of their alluring rhymes

bliss to be a chilly wind
unsheltered by memory
sweep aside perception
breathe a hasty sleep
on things that shimmer
then descending the mine
rejoin early siblings
spark-filled stones
coffer where rests
the primal dawn

bliss to relinquish pain
tell it recall this heart
with your flames i fed it
crystal cleaving lifeless layers
confines that cannot reach
this rest of animal cry

sometimes

when images all fade away
from nowhere surges a tree
lonesome you may add
with spark speediness
from a recess of universe
heeding its own appeal
yet words are too much
for such frail apparition

for such frail apparition
unaware of blooming
unaware of shedding
leaves apart from grief
orchards afar from fruit
roots severed from heart
is absolved of laws
that govern growth

question of us

over and again I read
the poem you didn’t write
didn’t send

in it I see lushness of spring
fall’s transparency
evenness of pain
in summer’s full glow

in it I hear the wind
roam without direction
shaking early leaves
uprooting years
feeding paths with snow

nowhere a shelter
except in waiting
for the poem
never to be written
never to be read

murmured on quiet lips
restless echo of stirrings
unaccounted by our strife
nowhere a question of us
sky speckless of our lament

you stretch out your hand
palm open not to receive
relinquishing answers
to abide by the question
one left out in the wild

that mute unwanted prayer
for alms
you no longer wish
for in your heart
heart
you no longer wish

grace

glance behind the shoulder
into spent springs
winters to come

you are breath
enacted
shudder
running down
a shadow

yes
its me
this kneeling animal
with eyes frozen
staring outside
no its inside
no its nowhere

nothing divisible
in this void
not even time
even pain
repletion of pain

night

watching big dipper
sink behind open fields

beneath a broken staircase
moon distils a winter sky

cold spaces to remember

unmindful of your path
of fortunes told
of before and after
fixing infinity

you are a mound
a prayer hive
promises
to you return

avici

eight and last of hells
where I may have landed
for always persists a doubt
paraphernalia indispensable
to ever reeling torments

fall depicts the shift better
its getting better and better
as you confound sin and karma
confusion and insight
mind's cascading images

its still not here yet
further downwards
further pitwards
in deeper darks
you have to reach
or plunge or sink or fall
all options remain open
marvellously open
to quieten the source
that mirrors retribution

a lot of heart left in you
left to be skinned
cries to be pinned
born or dead
reborn
reborn to suffer
suffer proper

peace

sky gets thicker
to shelter trees
night reaches closer

to everything
rest is given

tiles on star-lit roofs
the nettle
cobbles on the alley

ei tai-ji

winter retreat

late in coming
slow in falling
year’s first snow

cimetière du montparnasse

drenching rain outside
beneath an umbrella
here a couple kissing
there
people waiting for a ride
mourners
done with farewell
done with flowers

alongside the avenue
acacias shed leaves
dispersed on ground
stirring in puddles

long
their surrender to light
and those below
those above
same stuff
all homeless bound

parting

your beam of light
adorns my eyes
blinded by erring in airs
darks where soul
cannot alight
cannot sojourn

earth
you call your lips
where for a night
you house the stranger

gates of wind
open up in my ears
its your whisper I hear

remember
this is nirvana
of all shores
the other

here
your hands in mine
weigh petals
as from the plum-tree
they loosen their hold