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

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