sometimes poetic, sort of philosophical and occasionally with a psychological insight—me cogitare
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Trying goldfish
Saturday afternoon
the summer sun unchanging
catches the golden fish
turning under the lilly pads
I remember bringing them home, hurrying
Two startled, frantic with life
in their shallow gasp of water
my neophyte hand
my clapping eyes
open, look, close
opening closing
I realise: we are to breathe all of life in
And in this, all life is with me
the summer sun unchanging
catches the golden fish
turning under the lilly pads
I remember bringing them home, hurrying
Two startled, frantic with life
in their shallow gasp of water
my neophyte hand
my clapping eyes
open, look, close
opening closing
I realise: we are to breathe all of life in
And in this, all life is with me
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The Trejamilla
Draw me a trejamilla
What’s a trejamilla
Up dare, she says, pointing
with her crayon smudged digitule
Trejamilla, dere, no, d’ere
And still I could not make it out from
all the books on the shelves
What’s a trejamilla
Up dare, she says, pointing
with her crayon smudged digitule
Trejamilla, dere, no, d’ere
And still I could not make it out from
all the books on the shelves
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Imago Ignota
Before you were born
I was blind to the World’s secret power
to the hidden purpose of our desire
Before you were born
you were already part of the World
revealing yourself through your mother’s womb
When you were born
with your darkling eyes, for the first time
and with all the World, you looked
to ask of us our entire life
I was blind to the World’s secret power
to the hidden purpose of our desire
Before you were born
you were already part of the World
revealing yourself through your mother’s womb
When you were born
with your darkling eyes, for the first time
and with all the World, you looked
to ask of us our entire life
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
this child we have lost
this child we have lost this child we
have lost this child we have lost this
child we have lost this child we have
lost this child we have lost this child
I have opened a
window this evening so
that I might
hear the rain’s first heavydrops, there’s sweet scent of jasmine on
clement breeze––Oh gracious world
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Pilgrim
Back up the street he makes his way
through broken pavements and rucked up clay
Past battered drums, banded red and white,
tied with ribbons like the tails of a kite
He comes to the apocalypse and its yellow machines
abandoned by the gods and by men clutching to their dreams
Then, in amidst of quiet despair,
the sun breaks through and nails him there
It is an ancient place, once made
smooth by a brook of trembling hands
through broken pavements and rucked up clay
Past battered drums, banded red and white,
tied with ribbons like the tails of a kite
He comes to the apocalypse and its yellow machines
abandoned by the gods and by men clutching to their dreams
Then, in amidst of quiet despair,
the sun breaks through and nails him there
It is an ancient place, once made
smooth by a brook of trembling hands
Friday, March 23, 2012
Old Poems III
There and back
Tired and alone on a mysterious machine.
Entering dissonance’s quarry at Manzini. Petrol and a robbed tomb at Bigbend.
Then the many hills of the Zulu, each its own apprehension—the bike fails slowly. Durbs sinks
into the haze, old friends and remorse; a distant father emerges. On the way
back I meet my dead self several times.
Old Poems I
A
week-end like dust
on a chair, on the books and a window sill
(that drift around and around),
with the besotted cries of the alleys below,
the tap tapping hum of air-conditioner vents
and the ceaseless run of cars
like a jacket hung over a chair
like dust collecting under the stove
and in the corners of this room,on a chair, on the books and a window sill
the air is laden with it,
with dry, weightless words(that drift around and around),
with the besotted cries of the alleys below,
the tap tapping hum of air-conditioner vents
and the ceaseless run of cars
it lies thick on the city’s pale face
and still it covers all with despair—like a jacket hung over a chair
Old Poems II
In Luther's chair
He finds himself in a room in a chair
Between his fingers is a cigarette
poised over a jar lid on the armrest
He is exhausted, tumescent
with the cigarette’s bruising rush
He cannot remember how he got here
His history and that aching need to be something –
all is in anxious remission
Outside,
beyond the terylene strung across the window,
is another world, soaked and darkening
Glimmering streams mark out the roads by which
the myriads make their obdurate ways home
And the city, its tower lit in the clouds,
becomes a palace of light
nestled in an enormous bowl of stars
The wind, harbouring winter, coldly rolls dark cloud
reflecting at its base, the city’s fevered blush
In the pale lit street, sodden leaves paste the gutters
beneath the ancient birch, their boughs
are full of mynas and their tuneless chatter
There’s a foul taste in his mouth
He wets rough lips and takes the last dry pull in the dark
Its smoke singes and there’s a sudden urge to take a piss
LitNet: 12 July 2006
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Bookmark
As a bookmark I find
my words
mycrimson heart seals like Tupperware
For these memories are like food.
It is almost
And the famine is almost here
I feel you going
with every parting
--at the end of each kiss
We both grant, these fragments
may still be thawed and made fair again
mycrimson heart seals like Tupperware
seals memmories of y o u a
w a
y
For these memories are like food.
I feel you going
We both grant, these fragments
may still be thawed and made fair again
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Come see the beautiful outside
She asks for a particular album “the one with the boys
singing”
I know which one but play stupid so thatit’s a surprise: ”yes that’s the one I mean, that’s the one I wanted”
I turn it up–my son has never heard the sound so loud
he is not sure whether to be afraid or …I can see that he is very tired
My daughter sings along in Kiara meows (not Narla–the
grumpy one).
He cannot understand, decides it is crying I lift up my son; his warmth is my own soul’s–the kitchen is spread out
with his busy-ness.
Now it’s time for bed
We do the children train to her ramshackle room
“Come let’s look
outside, come see the beautiful outside”
Then, a fulguration of the whole garden,
it was brilliant day, the end of daysThen, a fulguration of the whole garden,
and the start of others
here comes the thunder
Monday, March 19, 2012
In the Fifth Week of Easter
Attrition of the soul
these first cold winter days
see how the leaves fall
like ash to the ground
the four of us paired by hands
And come back cheerful;
to doughnuts and coffee
to newspapers and home
the children and their parents
Finding our irrefutable selves
in this clumsy way
these first cold winter days
see how the leaves fall
like ash to the ground
In blanched light
we go to Massthe four of us paired by hands
And come back cheerful;
to doughnuts and coffee
to newspapers and home
the children and their parents
Finding our irrefutable selves
in this clumsy way
Sunday, March 18, 2012
It’s so funny
Fire, fire
Come this way. Outside! Outside!
A man’s glasses
Dada–Come!
A man
So heavy, heea-veey
It’s so funny
A man’s glasses
Dada–Come!
A man
So heavy, heea-veey
It’s so funny
Now I hear the angle-grinder bite into the tiles outside
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Compassion
Everything is changing. It arises and
passes away
– THE DHAMMAPADA
Where has my endless sorrow gone?
I see it shared by all around, no longer mine
to bear alone
– THE DHAMMAPADA
I see it shared by all around, no longer mine
to bear alone
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Thirty years
Thirty years of war
prisoner to an aesculapian eye
whom excised all that I held in my heart
laid silence on my prayer-tongue
I searched for that arcane path to the moon
that I too might see
above an airless wasteland
rising against the black
prisoner to an aesculapian eye
whom excised all that I held in my heart
laid silence on my prayer-tongue
Each starless night, bare-foot
across hills of mordant slag I searched for that arcane path to the moon
that I too might see
above an airless wasteland
rising against the black
the
far-flung Earth again
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
As a child
As a child I found
from every question unfurled five more
thick with pitiless thorns
all around was appearance, collapsing, dissipating
from every question unfurled five more
thick with pitiless thorns
And climbing high in the leafless tree
I looked out across the burnt fields all around was appearance, collapsing, dissipating
Monday, March 12, 2012
Being 40-something
the future was grand, wonderful and wild
With a big plasma gun, my own FTL jet
and a pocket computer that couldn’t forget
I'd wrestle the fates and travel the skies
not scared of mom and her tricky lies
Yet, all these things I have collected
in the bowl of my forty-odd years
must now be left to evaporate
“it is the emptiness within that makes it useful”
so says the Toa Te Ching
Sunday, March 11, 2012
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. ... A knowledge of something we cannot penetrate, our preceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constiutes true religiosity; and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man."--Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies.
If Richard Dawkin and the same, can not appreciate the Mystery that is at the heart of the religious experience, is he not also by his own philosophy barred from appreciating the mysterious "which stands at the cradle of true art and true science"? Perhaps in this sense he does not get science either.
If Richard Dawkin and the same, can not appreciate the Mystery that is at the heart of the religious experience, is he not also by his own philosophy barred from appreciating the mysterious "which stands at the cradle of true art and true science"? Perhaps in this sense he does not get science either.
The Fire of Nachiketa
May we light the
fire of Nachiketa
That burns out the ego and enables us
To pass from fearful fragmentation
To fearless fullness in the changeless whole
Her obeisance is to a woundedness and its despair
she knows how to make it grow
and how to grip it with her fist
Let me embrace this imperfectable life
forgetful of her
free of vindication
May I seek what is sovereign instead
Keeper of my destiny
That burns out the ego and enables us
To pass from fearful fragmentation
To fearless fullness in the changeless whole
Katha
Upanishad 3, 1-2
Her obeisance is to a woundedness and its despair
she knows how to make it grow
and how to grip it with her fist
Let me embrace this imperfectable life
free of vindication
May I seek what is sovereign instead
Keeper of my destiny
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Wings
Over a glass of wine
we watch the intercontinentals
thread their beams
back and forth through herculean clouds
we watch the intercontinentals
thread their beams
back and forth through herculean clouds
Against the pale silver of the evening
sky
a heron with pendulum sweeps and folded
neck
heads home into the east
About us flying-ants shiver
ditch their wings and scuttle across the
table
The Potter's Field
Forgetting everything
being poor, being weak, afflicted with unknowing
we find courage and patience
to be
being poor, being weak, afflicted with unknowing
Esurient wraiths trail their
weeping
through this riven place:
a vast landfill of mind-stuff…and yet
in stillnessthrough this riven place:
a vast landfill of mind-stuff…and yet
we find courage and patience
to be
Our Garden
Let the grass go and the weeds will
stand out
Weeding the lawn you learn
that every weed has its own intensity
And demands you be ready
to grasp it by the root
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