the chorus 
you came here to join

in stark darkness

is still unknown to you

sockets start to bloom

it’s the sentence of spring

white immeasurable

spreading everywhere
an opening tone

you can forget 
the time it takes

time to be a tree

there never stood a wall

to shield the hour

you came to join 

because of the twilight

unknown to you

same poem we start

over and again

same 

the hand writing

effacing it

enough pain inside

perhaps

for wind to deliver

all along drifting

with this snow

memories of  indigo

wherein 

we are buried

allouville-bellefosse, 1996

what we are

doors can move
change chambers

the door in the room
moves to and fro

the wooden door is part of the wind
a part eyes cannot meet
leaves appearance behind

tree-tops and branches
belong to the wind

not a world that vegetates
belong to a world of hands
outstretched
invisible

things here are movement
roots of desire carved out of air

to translate absence into music
for those who cannot listen

no one to listen
to look through the glass
as we fall

rise and fall
through shadeless speech


ubud, 29 april 2016

shun ya ta

across winter plains
distances disguised
in city lights
scintilate
in darkness

mel
bourne
mirage
aflare

grass and yew trees
where moist is deep
eucalyptuses too
enter a gate where
maples and oaks
fade away in silence

remembering
forgetting
are one

one
to be
with dwarf stars
unborn spaces

gisborne, 30 may 2016

souvenance

to walk out of sleep
tired and helpless

to bow to a tree

towering before the balcony

sunday morning

foothills alive with

bird songs

human sounds

sun burns the shrubs
as it passes over
rough country

as you age

you become home
to distances

nowhere

nestles in your hand

no one
blooms in your eyes

mandrem, 20 december 2015

rising

yesterday
she had a name
blue moon
they called her

tonight
she is nameless
but close

she sheds her blue
for the ocean's dark
where the dead dream
of grasslands high
and times
irrevocable

pale
that face emerging
behind the durian tree
could be my own

ubud, october 2015

sayan

you tear the skin of sayan
to loop her with your flight

guide her voice through
passerby stones
and limpid skies

sparrows
kin in wounding
we are

dark river
you pulsates in us

september 2015, ubud

wednesday above waters

atlantic crossing
returning to montreal
same journey as years before
then it was a garden in england
roses to take you through summer
how much has changed
how much hasn't

time's remains
who's remains
who remains

where it matters
little matter for change
things go through turnings
yet the same breeze
arrests you at the threshold

yourself you are
endings and beginnings
of paths converging
paths effacing
journeys to come

montreal, 20 june 1984

i see your face

tremor of leafage
on black sand
torrid

across seascapes sketched
by voices now drowned
shadows ferry us

moment's pause in this heat

out of waves
we scoop the timeless

where rocks abide
where storms abide

in sleep you appear
then out of ripples
give me form
give me name
and anchor me
to the grief of reefs

where i remember you
where distances dazzle
rocks abide
storms abide

amed, 26 august 2015

kalampunian

her voice is still with me

she comes in waves
and prompts casuarinas
that line the shore to speak

by nature they rather listen
happy to offer passage
to tumults far and near

she prompts them to speak

her voice is still with me

murmur of spaces unknown
where what you can never find
what is lost to you
though out of reach
is safe

only the sea
offers such release

may it be so

kudat, 26 july 2015

words

words 

free to remain

shy away

return before fading

long besought

long forsaken

desired no more

what you longed to illumine

could not and was not

reached by their glow

unstirred by your quest

or abandon thereof

the urge to die

while still burning

fire’s last breath

consumed by silence

still

insects sing about the hills

flowers release their scent

deep into starry night

january 2008, nilemba

winter tales

year’s first snow

blankets late december slopes

white

everywhere

trunks barely visible

white

eye-white

mounding

snow levels forms

into no-forms

shrouding  stones

it unnames  

la rochette, december 2004

wheeloflife

have yet to taste the fruit of conversion

muted beast 

i eat my bitter fruit
alone

voice passing through this night
is not mine to reach

voice of snow

irrigating soils of arid sleep

lightening even minds of animals

with its soft echo

offering rebirth

in realms less dire

nice, 2003

winter retreat

walking uphill

to ei tai ji

late in coming

slow in falling

the year’s first snow

la rochette, january 2001

the wind

wind's conversation
reaches the high
while uplifting the low

clouds drifting
trees astir
shrubs too
the aging grass

windows rattle
as curtains unlace
hours lived not to the full

here and there
i am the stillness
in your restive voice

ubud, 2 july 2015

journey home

dwarfed tombstones
in neat rows aligned

roadside images
fleeting

the morning drizzle

in the distance

heavy clouds hover
above sleeping volcanos

trimmed to the bone
driftinng with salvation
in the breeze


klingkung, 30 may 2015

termites

here we are
fate exposed to the storm
dismembered and dislocated
captured in a pool of silver light

wingless
hauled on the shoulder of ants
down into dark chambers
where earth's labor
awaits us

ubud, november 2014

guidelines for the dying

at night
when hours thicken most
facing north
if you look outside of the window
you can see a cross
atop a copper dome
twinkling for you
in freezing cold

let breath drift away
let name drift away
freezing cold
let light drift away

it shall be as you wish
let soul drift away

from chimneys
white smoke rises
snow blankets roofs

this is time
leave the body behind
let sleep spill over the bed
run over sores and bed sores

it shall be as you wish
with life as with death
with coming and going
soul and soul no more

it shall be

you are a wish
no one's
a wish
a nothing

free

montreal, 8 january 2015

from the window

my room is looking out
on lush vegetation

trees are heavy with
sleep and morning rain
midnight rain and all
that falls in between

i see a man walking in tall grass
his walking captures the falling
movement in and out of nowhere


he is moving with the rain
with the sound of the temple gong
with music coming from branches
with all drenched things around
in the direction of a world
yet to be seen

ubud, 3 december 2014

down the wind

you no longer go astray
when loss becomes your path

still you will go astray
but wont feel it as loss

it delivers the seeker
from the sought
returning fire
back to fire


the village poor pass
one by one
gathering frangipani
strewn before the house
as the day rises

falling is what you have
when abundance comes

here
in the whereabouts
of the wind

ubud 2 november  2014

listening to you

something of you
floats in birdsong
rising from the trees

in scattered noises
down there on the road

cicadas' calling
an impromptu tide
rolling over me

something of you
is moving with
the abandoned grass

as heat slowly rises
in the morning

ubud 17 october 2014

notes made of borneo rains

I

the way i see it
the way you see it

stories
no one's really
simply stories

floating in the morning air
floating with dust that fills
the lungs of trees
before rainfalls pour

fables of floating
in the morning air
rising and falling
through dust

of absence come alive with words
words such as
you and me
sabah
mengalum island
the land below the wind

II

at the table across the floor
locals chain smoking
sipping ice-coffee
words again

conversation is a fire
we keep rekindling
heat where both
speaker and hearer
try to warm up

for it feels cold
suspended in mid-air
mountains below
light pools above
to rest alone
in the fold of clouds
invoking songs


 III

she writes to tell me
she needs more days
for pain to find her way
through the rocks
flow into a voice
run through the steppe

for now
we are part of a
longer poem
to come perhaps

for now we are left waiting
here at the bottom of this page
at the mercy of a finger
that alone decides
if what is left of us
shall one day reach the sea

kota kinabalu, 24 october 2014

take me to the other shore

day is dimming
across the strait

dying light that receives
early flicker of lamps
from java's shoreline
is still

is still the light that waits
is mute and still

still it rips through mist
shrouding land that falls
into abyss disappears

sense of something closing here
as distances carol
incarnate
undulations
pearly

voice
imbued by ocean speech
i hear you rise
cave in

i disgorge your vowels
one wave at a time


4 august 2013, gilimanuk

alter

dust on your shoulders
incense ash piling at your feet
not a flower to ornate your vase

bouddha
this oversight
is an indictment
to my state of mind

as without
so within
chaos merging
with chaos
seamlessly 

early morning breeze
passes through the window

ubud, 30 september 2014

echoes

in this world
on scales of distance
you are weighed

you weigh
what weighs
a dog's barking
on empty streets

sound of frangipani
falling on the ground

a drop
into the night
that passes

a drop

20 september 2014, ubud



 

alone

there is ease
in dying
if not comfort

there is ease when
heart wears thin
thread-thin
smoke-thin

you snap

to snap
at every sound

20 september 2014, ubud
 

ashes of words

the path with a pulse
that keeps beating
when all seems lost
that keeps beating
when your fingers
consumed by shadows
lose their sight
that keeps beating
the path with a pulse

you stand on the shore
facing moonlit waves
trawlers stringing the
far away with pearls of
absence and
receding roars
receding roars

tears rolling
unwritten and white
on sand that is black
but brims with gold

to be part of the night
part of the salt
adrift in the air
in the breeze of grief
to be part of the night

star clusters you take in
blued jewels of darkness
pangs of dreams
love's murmuring
crossings your face
now begins to mirror

you feel devotion
for the muted pain
given into your care

canggu, 4 july 2014




 

logos

full moon illumines boulders
and sleepy  stones strewn
on mountain pathway
grass and hedges
gleam with frost

voice
the silent voice listens
obeys the procession
of silvery clouds

hereon your kingdom commences
jewelled branches your crown
let sombre tree shades
guide you to the frozen heart
where austere a throne awaits you
among shattering mirrors
myriad

la rochette, 2004

travel provisions

as if the mind
recalling the mind
itself or another
always the other
mirror
reminiscing emptiness
where erring images slide
as the body shears through
sleep

wherever you be
you are a gate open
to welcome seas
star or any mountain
hurdling your sight

each breath a circle
vertiginously expanding
enfolds galaxies unknown
returns you
to that single source
spring of your purest request

time and space
not apart from you
your emerging
eclipsing

exit tower of silence

now that mirrors
lower their glow
pain cedes to rest
now that this body
has been released
you may close your eyes
and watch me freely slide
along the watercourse

i am part of all journeys
here and to come

your blessings
a budding fragrance
guides me home



hardiwar, 2001

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

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

or

dreams that from threshold
to threshold displace us

or

stars’ borrowed light
some fading preceding us

arambol, 2007

it was blue

from gold to amber
now for the end flight
cast in glassy brown
oak trees
we shed summer
together
on these hills
leaf after leaf

leaving you asleep
beneath giant rocks
down a stony trail i move

shadow slithering on scree
i cross the bloodline
of voiceless crows


la rochette, 2005

pour ainsi dire

at the village bar
the boy serving drinks
hands me a slip of paper

day is coming to a close
cashew hills retreat in the dark
night birds can sing now in the bush

pain bluntly sharpens
without sending out signs
consignment of grief
va donc de soi

poems are fatherless
alone and without echo
they stand at crossroad of winds
while we sleepwalk along country roads
they watch over our silence

its god's day today he says
gangeshwera
each monday
bhajans
sung in his praise


mandrem, february 2013

white stone on white stone

when death comes
alone she finds me
alone and in agony
in no shape to welcome her
with a bouquet of lilies
as she walks home
to walk me back home
lips murmuring graces
should one still hear

we offer our late hours to these walls
that in turn offer to entomb us
with glittering dust of prayers
suspended in mid air

when death comes
leave my linen outdoors
let the rain pour libations on them
let them reach down and grow with the turf

nothing is lost
may you receive abundance
as i receive abundance
abundance of rain
thirst in abundance
thirst blooming into desert
desert resurrecting hell

hell of this man
hell of that man
peaceful moon of no man
showering treasures of afar

this is the hell of man
nothing is lost
only forgotten
so that we may stop and see
so that we may silence
so that we may amen

ubud, 13 february 2014

wet of late

not unlike the young snake
slithering through drenched grass
not seeing the high wall
rising to bar her path

you are not seeing
the high wall
rising to bar your path
not unlike the young snake
slithering through drenched grass

ubud, 22 december 2013

demeurer

hour of parting comes
that lifelong fascination

weeks stay in samui where
balmy westerly winds stir
waters deceivingly shallow

what you leave behind alike
to what you take with you
lush tree leafages
careening coconut-trees
ruffled by the breeze
combing the breeze
breeze-inebriated
swinging
wild

directions' mantra released
chants of removal from
bays of distances
harbors in longing

swiftly moving ritual
high tidal cadences
reinventing shores to brace for
morning rises to come

just as stars
when they brace
darks in retreat

koh samui, february 2004

with the rain

it is early morning
as i come to sit in a circle
birds spread out before me
with music that wears away
roots' heavy years in the air
in the air in the air in the air

gateway to a mighty voice
the rain the rain the rain
as it pounds on tin roofs and leaves
as it pounds on passages of sleep
whence i struggle to emerge
soon there to return
without this bundle
or so says the wish
after ferrying an orphan pain

though often the urge to unload
ends weighing on the burden

this listening redeems
it is an ancient song
it is the voice of the world
humming its own beginning
maybe a resurrection

source of endless vibrant songs
where alongside birds
we too glean our provision

siem reap, august 2011
ubud, july 2013

       

return

if i could say whence i would say back again

 

if i could say again i would say leaving again

 

it all springs from loss

 

incidental  the loss of more or the loss of less

 

nothing to be lost in time eternally forsaken

 

this much shall be preserved

 

what we are losing now cannot measure against the forever lost

 

joy of being part of or abandoned by the irremediable the irrevocable

 

sheer beauty of being a part of or being sundered by the perdition that floods the human mind

 

we are still human we are the too human

 

our lids closely sealed as visions race by in what we call our wake in what we call our sleep

 

 in what they call in what the dead call that slumberous journey

 

pulling into no station for ever marvellously rolling by

 

many a weathered tree witness our passage

 

for only to fire fire returns

 

upright and broken

to rise to soar

through verbal heights

shouldering trees hills

shouldering clouds

regal

to summon winds

scolding stars

chimera

chimera too

underworld images

guilt fault terror

human like the like unlike
captive to fateful tunes

as abysses slowly herd us in

in muteness to creep
to moan
you bemoan
bemoan separation

what separation

chimera

palms

light's calling you heed
ever rising
above scarcity
and abundance

its a dizziness we
pain to outgrow
thirsting for purer sources
itself submerges us

pulled along your wake
we leave our face
pearling in your hands





nice, 2007

praise to the unborn

for nima

the bridge on which i stand
call 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 what i have to offer
to hearten you in these droughts
as you stumble through bardos
solid night of weeping names
heavy on your shoulders

mandrem, 25 november 2011

sans commencement

palm-fronds' rustle
unending
waves on the shore
breaking
bird psalmodies
myriad spirals
loosened in the air

traveler
its the same book
erring
we write
writing
we efface

drinking light of sands
as they pour in the eyes

calls
recalls
of emptiness


arambol, 2007

nour

wondrous too
our grieving samsara

where with a smile
adjourning time
you tie the seas
that sunder us

where i slowly waken
as you wheel my soul
with ring of songs

together we blaze
by fire’s breath
untouched

and its light
uplifting light


mougin, 2005

stasis

entering a deserted
mountain village
in white heat

that single toll
from the steeple
arrests you

blast
dashing through
a dragonfly’s head

so goes
the fine mind
of nirvana


la rochette, august 2006

langue invisible

since we need to stand our ground
where no ground is to be found
since we lose our way
where no way is to be lost
through and away from
language 
you mirrors of

since no one is to name

no one to call to recall
in forgetfulness to dwell
in forgetfulness to name

though no sound to enshrine
the homeless one
the nameless one
that no more of  you
nor less of me
could construe
with trust common to rivers

just promise of dust

some dust of you
some ash from me
kneaded together

just promise of us
awash in predawn showers

 

mandrem, october 19, 2009

near to harvest

thicker the veil than
what you were told

just a tremor at times
running through wet grass
basked in sleeping shadows

its late night moon
cloud fringes kindle
with whispers of her halo

silhouetted against woods
palm trees enlace the paddies
crops slowly ripening into gold

deep voices of frogs
squeezing songs
out of motherland lungs


ubud, 21 april 2013

 

 

gulls

circle of cries rise
wheeling white
against the amstel sky

stretches of hunger
in sudden snowstorm
unveiled

wounds you once crossed
flood the mirror again

bridges are swept along
healing auguries
of old



amsterdam, 1999

in a thausand years

clouds capping mountains
darken slowly the valley
from northern ranges
distant thunder roars

crickets swarm the hawthorn
thistles dripping
purple

it’s september
some cool is coming

udumbera
when will your buddhas
your buddhas
rebloom again



la rochette, 2005
 

orientation

dispersed and free
free of ancestry
free of smoke
chimney smoke
rubble smoke
exhaled from earth
from lungs of prayers


you now drift towards the
seven valleys of the mute
drift eastward
where strife births
redemption and
fabulous visions


there your hands are empty
empty of clouds
empty of dawn

melody brims with empty
heart joyous with empty

empty alone knows
empty alone stays

metanoia

we wake up in the morning
knowing little of light
groping for something
to appease the soul
savaged by hunger

out of blindness
and dedication
we offer prayers
to chaos

the wind's faith
is inscrutable

it takes more than a god
to grieve the pains of
this world



arambol, 2008

satyam dhukka

when we say here
we mean the other world

when we say there
we mean the other world

name's recompense
is in parting
soul's recompense
is in parting

there is no dwelling there
there is no dwelling here

in parting
we take refuge


mougins, 2006
                                

legacy

only few words will
remain with us once
of coming and going
we shall be dispensed
of destiny cleansed
of remains effaced
boneless
pathless
astray

and so these words
clueless
homeless
emptied
emptied of melody
tomorrow
breeze
silence

free


mougins, 2006


 

end of trance

from gold to amber
now for the end flight
cast in glassy brown
oak leaves
together
we shed summer
in these hills

letting you sleep awhile
at the foot of giant rocks
i move down a stony trail

shadow slithering on scree
and cross the bloodline
of voiceless rooks



la rochette, 2005

happy temperance

a cut in the eye
wish of parting
in the heart

we the dead

the living
munch the same morsel

a bitter root
at times mellow
night feeds us on

upon crest of flames

dust steers our fortune
ahead


paris, 16 September 1990




 

sometimes

despite the word twilight
bareness enters the day
without dispelling us

restrained by dormant melodies

the clock swirls above our heads

come what may
we will still be
part tomorrow
part forgetfulness
 
steps waver
misguided by sand
marine mantras 

spiral of dust rises from stone

does not linger on the poem

you weigh a mouthful of flame
so the wind contends

night pleases 
appeases us

marga

blue
never saw you so blue
as in this winter light
cold pale winter light

tides rising from earth
from heaven towers falling
mountains
you have traced our road

painfully long
yes
blissfully brief
these rungs we climb
up or down your ladder
not knowing which

marga

la rochette, 2005

remembering the hour

then 
the hour of clarity comes
so the blind man can see
what it is he has come to save
what it is he has come to ruin
for solitude to stay its course
as hands unfold
onto dreamless
opacity

in these lower hills
may night birds 
keep breaking
our bread of desolation
with swift songs
of blazing stars
consumed infernos

mandrem, march 2013

 

meeting the face

at summer’s end i greet you again
trade in my thirst with your roots

its twilight in blue mountains
my shadow finds shelter 
in yours

wall frames your absent face
as through sleep we move on


la rochette, 2005

rohatsu

winter retreat ends
pain floods the body
chills the burning bough

roaming on country road

an icy wind in the sleeves
cold rain slapping th feace
each step sinking you
deeper into mud

where to turn tonight

bitter winter
on the road

rohatsu sesshin, 1999

agean

in this night's tumult
were there still a voice
arms would open wide
to brace for what winds
may yet have to offer

lest my scream rejoin

rejoin the moving sea-bed 
of uprooted constellations

milos  6 september 1992

master tokuda

how far with learning
before knowing emerges
into knowing
before unknowing is revealed

how long in voiceless dark

before the unspeakable
murmurs the opening syllable
and the man of such
turns his face
begins to utter
words of water
streaming over
words of stone

your disciple

tetsu-un

ei tai-ji

september sesshin

2004

prayer

perfectly still
perfectly cold
mind-cold

light goes out

from the hidden shed
deep in the valley

mind-cold

sphere-cold
that lofty music
finally stilled

closer than before

voice itself is the stranger
it speaks to you in words
you cannot understand
speaks as you stand in the herb
speaks with the tall herb too
with wandering pollens
this year’s
that year's
unbesought
unbeseeched

thinking of walter

walking through wild grass
not easy to tell 
pre-dawn dew
from late morning rain
on bending grass

must be the same circle

where mirrors merge
wherein the hazel tree
forsakes cascade of gold
to draughts of november
whisperings

le rocher de la baume, 2005

dark of late

contentment with this
doubt all to cinder reduces
but dissolve itself cannot

still some sleep ahead
parted equally in days and nights
what comes after is of no concern
may what comes after keep coming

part of the howls you hear
goes to fill empty spaces
part we do not know

dogs tire of barking
into silence
night relapses


ubud, 2 december 2012

omens

from afar

farther than birth cries

uprooting winds
are coming

taking you where

taking us where

salutary flames

back to stars of afar

prayers of rain

salutary flames

rolling us over the sea

taking us where

uprooting winds

back to stars of afar

brushing us off

earth’s hardened edges

into our arms they fall

lights of ripened pains

scars of hollowed trees

thoroughly bitter

thoroughly sweet
the stars of afar

                          

 mandrem, 24 april 2012

sleep

i offer you what resistance i have
for you consent to dig deeper into me
in your nearness sleep
shuffle of change resounds no more
wish to be burdened with heavier fruit

branches stretch out bare in the cold
flow of your sap stiffens the roots
where are we heading in this dark
why is the wind harsh on me
blowing out the ashes’ glow
before i take heart to the woods

after the rains

in this roar
nights many
and days
successively
slumber
reawaken

it floods and flows back
beyond your questioning

words not opening
not emerging from silence

their retreat
perhaps a sign

distances growwithin
wherein you raise
wherein you fade

growing too
with enclosures
walls
moss
caking stones of wells
paddies lavishly swaying
your questioning
blind


mandrem, september 2007

hishiryo

in the heart of autumn
i sit on a cushion
covering golden slopes
with my robe

day and night
the rain’s voice pummels
chilling the marrow
of trees and beasts

am i thinking
am i nonthinking
dripping beyond thinking

meeting the face

its destiny you said
encounter of destinies
should one time we meet

it was an overnight stay
in a rundown hermitage
stars spread over the sky
greet your dark flame
some hidden sorrow of the sea

you see my hour go blind
you see shades roll over me
for i need to step aside
to let your echo pass
in the growing mountain

le rocher da la baume, 2000

passage

so drifting
is part of the stillness
sea's vast stillness
heaving heart of eternity

is this death now
tenderly dissolving me
in green reaches of water

is this still me
some human rest
murmuring with shells
in echo of distant tides
breaking on the beach

mandrem, winter 2006

ashen

night is mute
withholding secrets
if secrets you call them

revelations no one needs
to stand upright in the cold
and sustain the hunger of trees

silouhette of tales
blooming

sequence of events

sitting among highland grass
overlooking a dormant valley
at blue mountains’ waning light
eastern crags blurred in mist

pointing to this terrain
shaded in old plum-trees
heard tokuda say one day
fine resting place for monks

on one of the steles
your name
and this epitaph

kyuzan tetsu-un

journeyed far
when a cloud
now only
mountain peace

atlantic

ocean crossing
back to montreal
same journey as before
then it was some garden in england
now water everywhere
how much has changed
how much hasn’t

time’s remains
who’s remains
who remains

where it matters
little matter for change
things go through turnings
yet the same breeze
arrests you at the threshold

you are yourself
endings and beginnings
of paths converging
paths effacing
journeys to come

june 20, 1984

elixir

a word to you blazing full moon
you have made of this night
a thick potion where you brew
sunlight of azure skies
dregs of pitless howls

a river of pain
is what you pour into me
i feel it broaden as it runs
serene into the sea

room on the cliff

hours pass by
day begins to drift
twilight colors enshroud the sea

alone with roar of silvery waves
in a cliff-hanging room
and rocks' open-ended reply

it’s a single voice
where merge the caller
and the called

in deep slumber
find you lying next to me
from distant shores returned
face awash with moonlit waters

from where surfs whistle you return
in the garden of swaying palms
you become queen of the breeze

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
yes its inside

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

bardo chill

only when the last lights go dim
do you see it is a dream
not before
before you are the dream
stream of raging images
learning to speak to mirrors
that 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
that glow passed onto you
in unvarnished darkness

heart rejoices
in forgetfulness that comes
watching mirrors go down
one by one over the precipice
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 again stung
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 subdued songs

that’s my gateway into
the rain's mighty voice
as it pounds heavily
on tinned roofs and leafage
as it pounds
on the arc of sleep whence i emerge
soon there returning
without this 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 a most ancient song
its the voice of the world
humming its own beginning

source of endless
vibrant refrains
where alongside birds
we too glean for 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