The Cessation of Time

-------------

Search for the Ultimate

No time, no space,
No name, no shape,
No yesterday
And no tomorrow.

It’s there,
Somewhere
In a nowhere land
Where love and hate,
Where joy and sorrow
Are unknown.

And hidden still
Be still, be quiet,
Let it find you.

=======================================

A visitor

 A visitor just came
He sat down beside me.

'I come from far,
From where a different tongue vibrates,
I come from the Field
Of All Possibilities, he said.

You asked me to assist you
To become a citizen of the universe,
To grow beyond your material Self.
Silently you smuggled the message across
That barrier that guards your Ego,
Unafraid of its repercussions.
That's why I'm here, he said.

I only visit the fearless,
The daring of their time.

The universal citizen, my friend, has to leave
Most of his prized possessions
Whence he comes from.
The bodily aspect of his Self,
His homeland and his race,
His religion, color and his prejudices.
He has to come in naked consciousness.
Thus he'll be admitted onto the Field
Of All Possibilities to choose
And pick the tools, to pick the garb
That will make him a citizen
Of the Universal Empire'.

'What are the tools', I asked,
'I should pick from amid
The Field's endless offerings'?

'The first, my friend, he said, is that you become
Your own, your silent witness
Using the virgin purity of consciousness
To observe yourself in your Ego state'.

'And what's the garb I will have to wear
Among my fellow citizens in this,
The sacrosanct material world of forms
And their collateral ideas?
Don't dress yourself in uniforms of caste,
In silk or satin or the drills of monotony.

Don't dress yourself with words that catch
The attention of the conformists
And stay away from the black media
That poisons your habitual depot
Of subliminal reactions.

If you knowingly have ever roamed
The Field of All Possibilities,
You'll know that reality
Is just a chance, a random collection
Of eventualities picked blindly.

You then can populate your mind,
Equip your emotions and ideas
With the universal verity, with empathy,
Compassion and with love,
And you will lose the fear of ever dying,
Since you, your consciousness, has come home
To its native, everlasting source'.

The visitor sat for a few minutes more,
Quiet like a Bodhisattva, before he left me wondering.

Was he a visitor or was he a visitation
From some fields beyond the mind?

-------------------------------

The return of the visitor

Today, while walking the dog

through an early morning forest

the visitor joined me again.

Quietly he strolled beside me

underneath old beeches, oaks and birches,

over brushwood, crumpled leaves and mosses

through sun rays that caressed the foliage.

'You've come a long way', he said,

'since you saw all this as just

a quantum soup in colorful disguise. Yourself

a spoon stirring listlessly what obviously 

had neither fragrance, form or taste,

an actor on a perpetually changing stage

in a play without a script.

That's what I am', you told me.

'Unreal, clad in mental matter, with senses, tiny,

like the portholes on a deep sea submarine.

And now, at once, I hear you speak 

of transcending sense, of light and love,

of not only being entwined by,

but being source, part and participating prompter 

of the ultimate reason of existence.

Tell me what happened', he asked calmly.

'I finally found myself', I said,

'but not where I was searching, I found myself,

of all places, at the threshold

that divides science and spirituality,

crossing a bridge built with creativity and intuition

by quantum physicists.

For long I had to struggle with the words

and the appropriate sense

of nonlocality and collapse. Two closed gates

that kept me and us all imprisoned

in a world of solid, though temporal matter, 

mirrored on the surface of the quantum soup.

Myself, corporeal organic stuff, my mind

a secondary epiphenomenon of the brain.

As in a collapse - the appearance of a particle,

rising from an electron's wave, 

so nonlocality, transcending space and time,

have opened a two-lane highway 

on which I travel instantaneously 

between the manifested beauty of this forest

and the fields from which all possibilities,

all chances and all probabilities arise.

When I now gaze at the stars at night, 

I know these billions of galaxies 

are material representations for the mind, 

of what it could not fathom otherwise.

Now I need no more give names,

nor calculate and size, or weight and balance

what is one without a second.

Whenever I now cross that bridge,

coming from my ego self, I know that I am That'.

We walked along, the dog, the visitor and I,

none of us uttering a sound

until we reached the town’s paved road.

'I'll walk with you again tomorrow'

the visitor said and the dog wagged happily his tail.

---------------------------------------------------------

An Invitation

If you come and visit me my friend

bring your sorrows and your joys,

but leave your discontent at home.

This is a place that answers to perennial ideas,

where age is honored and youth is adored,

where side by side cats and quarks reside.

Bring the moving clouds that inundate your soul,

bring laughter and bring smile.

Don't bring the heat of hatred and abuse,

not the common, cynic ridicule

that drowns compassion.

For these there is the market place

and the iron smith who's welding weapons;

leave them with the merchants

and the temple's money changers.

And when you come my friend

open your chest of sentiments

and let them flow without using many words.

This house is receptive to nature's sounds

and shuns voices that originate

in scrambled, still uncaught emotions.

It's the sound of the waves, the twitter of birds,

and the rustling in the foliage it welcomes.

I am here when noonday's bustle starts to annoy you,

crossing its perimeter part of your medals

and your uniforms, focus on the horizon

and the the Gestalt of bamboo leaves.

Listen to the voices of the void,

the poetic language of your soul.

Sip a cup of the ambrosia containing the essence

of the season's solar seed

and let the world disappear while you remain.

That's then the time

when you could start to talk,

when words become just shells

while their content lingers

monistically between our minds.

-----------------------------------

An afternoon journey

 Dead bamboo leaves tumble onto my hammock,

onto my dozing body.

And while it swings

in an ambiance of peace

I just slip away.

I can leave it there. It's well protected.

Breathing and circulation keep it in a limbo.

And there I am now.

Free

I can go and like a happy child

can jump with the waves over the reef

and ride them up and down

as they roll onto the beach.

I ask a sea gull for a ride. It welcomes me

and takes me out to the deep water.

Soaring, it shares its joy of life with me

until it's hungry and goes fishing.

A breeze then takes me back onto the shore

where water, air and land do meet.

On a rock, I'm with the sea shells and the crabs

that feed on what the surf sweeps in.

Free

All forms turn into paintings

and into an endless song of joy.

At once I am the colors and thence the scent

that rises from the ocean's depth.

With the chirping of the birds I jump from tree to tree

and listen to the wind-borne stories

their rustling leaves are telling me.

Free,

I'm free,

I'm one of all and all is one with me.

I pass my slowly swaying body,

it lays there, peacefully and calm,

not yet disturbed by waking thoughts.

So I move on to where the market is,

where fruits and flowers,

veggies, men and beasts

are on their revolving journey.

From seed and semen

they ascend

to unfold their striking beauty,

their ubiquitous First Cause

in what we all call life

before returning

to where they once have come from.

I'm one of you and you of me

who swings up in the hammock

underneath the tree

to which I will now return,

tempered by the symphony

that envelops us all,

not only you and me.

-----------------------------------

The Malabar Almond Tree

Sermo I

We have an appointment, the tree and I,

each morning before sunrise.

Knowing to meet him first thing of the day

lets me gladly crawl out from under my blanket.

Sturdy, in a shade of black against black

trustworthy and reliable, he stands there

and seemingly as sleepy as I.

I can feel he is glad,

since he would squeak and he would croak

if the air wouldn't be this pristine clear.

I sit down in my pavilion chair

at the height of his shoulder,

since after all, we are about the same age,

and keep silent. We let silence speak

to each other. Our morning hello.

While I sip my hot coffee

the dawn pushes out the dark of the night

across the western horizon

and the tree starts gifting the air

with pure oxygen.

'You know that I know what you do,

and I know that you know

that I'm grateful to you'.

But he doesn't react.

Until, until the first breeze,

stirred by the warmth of the sun,

 sways his big leaves.

Then, eventually, he starts talking,

talking in waves or vibes as they say,

which we all understand.

'This is a good day, brother,

we can expect some rain in the afternoon.

Stay indoors please.'

'I'll protect your sala with my branches

if the wind comes from the sea.

I'm strong. Have survived many a storm

that came with the Southwest monsoon.

I'm not afraid. The storm is my brother, too.

We only sometimes disagree'.

I stay quiet, I don't have to speak out loud.

He knows my reply; has a simple opinion

on nearly everything.

Not like me, who tries to reason

with the complicated mind of man.

That's why I cherish meeting the tree,

early, each morning.

Sermo II

'A storm is brewing

out at sea and across

the screen on my TV.

I come to ask you if the two

are one I cannot see'.

'You whip and bend, but keep

your spine erect as unconcerned.

While I'm about to weep,

seeing children battered and burned,

you just drop your weakest leaves'.

'What's wrong with you or is it me,

you wise old tropic almond tree?

I miss your pity and your empathy

when hope and beauty are destroyed

as if they had no value?'

'My leaves they are replenished

long before they tumble down.

Those that fall and those that grow are one.

So I can't lose and silently can laugh

when the storm gets really rough'.

'As for beauty and for hope, 
they constantly surge in my sap 

and then branch out.

They're the essence and the frame

of all my falling leaves. 
Unjoined, they remain a part of me’.

'Not we cause hope and beauty.

It is that they reveal through us

the lasting message of existence'.

Sermo III

'Some of our scriptures tell us,

we are the blessed of the Earth,

assigned to subdue every living thing,

from vegetation, fish and bird

to everything that moves'.

'Aren't you afraid of me,

my ax and its inherent power?

You live and grow on borrowed time,

depending less on nature then on every whim of mine.

Should I want  a wider view,

a mindless moment could thus spell the end of you'.

'It's not your ax I have to dread,

it cannot harm 

what is much grander by design'.

'It is your mind, we both must fear,

the most destructive power here,

geared for global suicide’.

'For  millions of years we lived in slow and ordered change

until you came, some 50 000 years ago

 - a minute on my watch -,

with a brain, just slightly bigger than a chimp’s.

Pray, that slow and ordered change

will eventually remove 
this menace from our midst'.

Sermo IV

‘Your wisdom puzzles me.

I've studied all my life

and traveled the world a hundred times

to find out who, what and where I am.

Looking for answers in love,

in science and in history,

the philosophers of old

and the dreamers of the future.

Now I end up understanding

that all this is not more than junk food

for elusive thoughts’.

‘I fed my mind

with a million bits of information

hoping that they'll turn into

the big picture, explaining all’.

‘I traveled the world

with open eyes and an open mind

while you just stoically had your roots

buried in a tiny piece of soil.

How come that made you wise?

Sermo V

‘I communicate with creation, ongoing,

through the air, the water,

the minerals and through light.

They have become part of me and I of them.

There's no division, no thought in-between’.

‘It's you and your mind,

that when you look at me,

just see a simple almond tree.

You'll have to train your vision

to see beyond your senses.

There you’ll find yourself in me’.

‘I hear you say that you believe

being the cream of the creation.

I'd giggle, if I could.

There are the beavers who build dams,

lions that hunt lame gazelles

and ants in their dominions.

They constantly change their environment,

but don't destroy it'.

'You can't do more, just the same,

merely on a larger and more destructive scale.

While everything evolves

creative and harmoniously,

your reason has no part in it,

it's out of balance

as sometimes some parts of nature are.

What makes it ineffective

is the scope of time in which it is embedded.

The universal clock runs on another pulse.

But don’t despair, there still is hope

 your reason might one day just leap

into true consciousness,

which overlays the universal oscillation

and your static interference’.

‘Though you don't see it, I, the tree,

reached that pivotal insight long ago.

From my perspective, you thus lag

behind in nature’s evolution’.

‘This earth on which we all root and roam

and fly and swim is our mother,

we have to protect, not to exploit her.

We all know this instinctively

only your mind tries to dispute

this common certainty.

Your unchecked haughtiness

entombs this simple truth'.

‘On this earth, you've just scratched the surface.

Winging your land-bound feet

makes you think you are omnipotent.

At least, you act as if.

On my watch, I see you like an infant

gambling absent-minded with survival’.

Sermo VI

‘You talk about things you do not know.

You never learned to laugh and love,

to dance, to turn and jump,

to playfully exist.

You don’t know what it means

to mirror the world in your mind

and play its elements;

being a happy, swiftly learning child’.

‘What do you know about the joy of exploration,

 construction and of aggregation

parallel to nature on your own account?

We, too, are touched by the wind and by the sun,

we, too, nourish our body joyfully,

but we don't just have to take what comes’.

‘What do you know of feeling independent,

relying on your own potentiality

and if it's only for a short sojourn'.

'For you, love is the grand design

on which the universe is built.

For us, love is a touch, a glance into bewitching eyes,

an immediate and heavenly intimacy with being,

which gives sense to what we do’.

‘What I would like to know from you

is how we can embed these our extraordinary gifts

into the matrix, the design you speak of,

in which you rest so self-assured, oblivious

to the world we suffer, enjoy and endure’.

‘We cannot become a tree,

as you cannot become a man,

but there's a plane

on which we meet and where we can appreciate

in what we both partake,

each one in his specific way.

If you help me to better understand

that cauldron of your consciousness,

then we could one day become the global gardener,

protecting you and ourselves,

though not from supernal galactic forces,

but from the exiguous vicissitudes of nature,

those playful pranks,

creating all too often needless suffering’.

‘You could guide us from the cage

we proudly have named reason

that doesn't let us mingle with and trust

forces beyond our self-proclaimed confines’.

Sermo VII

‘Your self-willed mirror-image,

centered on a food-dependent body

does not want to acknowledge

that the wind, the water, the minerals and the sun

let me know all without self-reflection.

I bury my roots into the soil

and I stretch my branches into the sun

I'm open to the wind and to the rain.

They teach me about the omnipotence

of which I am a part’.

‘Eloquently I hear you speak of love

and of compassion while you kill your brethren

by the millions, heartlessly’.

‘You build your perfect shelters,

you fly and drive and move,

harnessing energy by force,

which, anyhow, abounds

for all the members in the game.

It's there in an infinite variety

for every living being that exists

since everything there is,

is energy converted into form.

Into form and beauty and intelligence’.

‘It’s your kind of wit

that makes you singular among the living things

and for that I admire you at times.

But I would never trade it for the peace

and all-embracing joy that seep

through every of my verdant veins’.

‘You tell me that you’re flying to the moon,

create rain and drought at your discretion.

Uncontrolled, you pierce the ionosphere on which

the protection of all life on earth depends

and split the smallest items of the form

beyond which only energy and waves exist.

You do all this without consensus among your peers’.

‘So your individual billions of differing minds

end up fighting, using what I could also call

the universe’s most stupid version of intelligence’.

‘The one I subscribe to brings me daily joy,

it nourishes and it protects.

I live in concord and in unison with all there is.

For this, I need no brain to think, no ears to hear,

no mouth to taste, no nose to smell, no eyes to see’.

Sermo VIII

‘I see’

===================================

The Fortress

Each morning before the sun rises

I slip out of the fortress

Through a secret exit.

And while the guards are still asleep,

I watch - from far afield -

the man-made palisades

appearing with the day’s first light.

For not to lose my bearings

The citadel remains a place of reference.

When I then return for the day

To spend the noonday hours in the fort,

Catering nourishment

For the body and the mind,

My frame walks inconspicuously

Amid my fellow citizens.

We share movies, facts and fairy tales

That tell of impure and of sacred places

And I help to build the entertaining stages

For the dramas that are taking place.

But when I roam through the far fields

I can be my holistic self

And not that effete material being

Whose egocentric heart

Pounds in cramped confines.

A naive copy of my quantum self

Walking in continuous circles,

Enclosed by the perimeters of the mind.

If I just could take some fellow residents

Along on my outings. But it cannot be.

For their puffy and prolific selves,

Their voluminous cloaks and pouches,

Properties they identify with,

Packed in skimmed words and actions,

Do not allow them to silently slip out

Through the hidden exit

In the fortress' mighty wall.

Afraid that beyond the high stockades

They’d lose themselves, lose their uniqueness

And their priced esteem, in becoming One and All.
They rather sleep in their bequeathed bastion.

Blinded by the dazzle of the town,

They do not see the penetrating light

In the cracked murals of their lives.

They don't see that the glare that captures them

Is just a ruffled reflection

Of the light that comes from far beyond,

From the fields where nothing is impossible

And where they would be part

Of the majesty for which there are no words

In the parlance of the town.

The glitz of the Ritz,

The Times-, the Trafalgar- and the Red Square,

The fashion shows in Milan, Paris and New York

Are, as the car salons in Frankfurt and Geneva,

Just rough extraneous demands

Of their uncaught prurience.

Sometimes in stormy weather

And in the naves of their cathedrals

They see the far fields and feel a yearning,

But back in the comfort of their world

That yearning tends to be forgotten.

------------------------------------

Mirror of the Ages

Have I ever traded grain in Mohenjo Daro,
Been an Altiplano peasant
During Atahualpa's reign,
Or an Aborigine, proudly riding
The orbit of Universal Time?

Do I know of the suffering of slaves
In the fetid bellies of the trading ships,
Of the ancient Chinese soldier's fear
When he was sent to Barbary?



Can I recall the pristine joy of spring
In the days of T'ang,
And Paris' and Adonis' hedonistic bliss
When their bodies surged with life?

If all this is and has been part of me,
Why then this foolishness,
This getting lost in shallow joys,
Hounded by the fear of death?

The ancients knew better:
On the surface of mottled mirrors,
Only ignorance is seen.
Our true face in disguise.

=======================================

A View of History

It's only a few hours flight
From the Mughals to the Ming,
From Rome to Cape Canaveral.

It's not the engines' potent thrust
But the power of the mind
Which makes you land in yesteryear
And walk amid the remnants
Of our ancestors' ambitions.

While I stalk this nowhere land,
Floating in a universal flux,
I wonder what it is
That wanders and that moves?
Is it man or his perennial ideas,
Or are they both ephemeral illusions
Continuously changing
In the transient turmoil we call time?

Laughter from the Pataliputra court
Rings in my ears in unison
With the coarse and crippled cries
From Carolina's cotton fields.

In the final analysis Auschwitz and Shangri-La
Are both mere dreams of the survivors.

Words, stowed away and thus
Preserved on parchment and on papyrus
Spring back to life in our souls
Forcing us to take a stand,
While those who lived them there and then
Are long since gone and long forgotten.
Only the fragrance of their time lives on in our mind.

It seems the only force persisting
Throughout that unit we call time
Is an eternally revolving scheme
Whose perishable perpetrators we became.
Stumbling, falling, standing, running;
Moving from joy to anguish
Forth and back.

We carry a strange and alien flame
Across the orchards and the wastelands
We call history,
Burdened with a nameless purpose,
Driven toward an unknown aim.

=======================================

Gil Eannes

When Gil Eannes returned
From Cap Bojador and beyond,
He brought back a bushel of rosemary
And removed the fear of far-off hells
From the heart of man.

When Vasco da Gama returned
From Malabar and Calicut,
He brought pepper and gold
And wove another thread of greed
Into God's generous benevolence.

When Magellan’s ship returned
From the end of the world,
It brought back a sphere
And abolished forever
The idea of heaven.

When Neil Armstrong returned
From the far side of the moon,
He carried a handful of sand
After planting a flag
Still sprinkled with the blood of unbelievers.

How many ventures
Into the unknown will it still take
Before we find the answer,
That relieves us
Of haunting and persisting fears,
From living in an enigmatic world.

We'll need to ponder
Beyond the images in our mind,
To leave behind, once and for all,
The garnished tales of history.

The journey that unlocks
Our true potential
Waits to be dared.

=======================================

Cruising

At the edge of the stratosphere,
The reality of cold aluminum
Gets hold of me.
It makes me comprehend
The essence of love.

Transparent layers of clouds
Veil the face of the earth.

Looking down,
An inappropriate sense of homeliness
Fills this speeding capsule,
As if we were as such
A permanent part of the universe.

Love, I know,
Is the shared
Instantaneous insight
Into premeditated doom.

Cruising protected
By this fragile skin,
A speck of dust at the edge of the void,
We love and we quarrel,
We build and destroy,
With permanence
Embedded in our mind.

Touching the cold shell of the plane
Is to realize,
Is not to forget.

=======================================

The Mynah

Have you seen that mynah bird,
How happy and how gaily
It chatters and it hops along the gate?
No thoughts are needed for such bliss:
They’d but obliterate the source.

That sunset with its raging colors,
That crumpled leaf of yesteryear,
All manifested in your mind:
Are they what they seem to be?
Their form, a shell
Hiding the essence?

The sunset
And that withering leaf
Have always been within,
Present all the time.
Their nature, as is yours -
Utter gladness, chaste and pure.
Your true self shining forth.
Your source, your being
And your destiny.

Walking the bridge
Of clear and calm consciousness
The mynah in you rises,
When you meet yourself
Beyond the word,
Beyond the hollow argument.

=======================================

Of Particles and Waves gone Wild

Recently, while walking through an autumn forest,
I learned Neutrinos travel faster than the light.
Golden leaves were tumbling. The end of summer.
I kept my pace, even though my world was fast disintegrating.
A life lived under false pretenses,
If there wouldn't be the leaves tumbling;
The autumn wind brushing my face.

Recently, while walking through an autumn forest,
Copernicus and Newton walked by my side
And we discussed half a millennium
And is that short or long, until Niels Bohr
Came joining us. But driven by a wave of wind,
All of them disappeared, leaving me with my Neutrinos
and the rustle my feet produced in particles of leaves.

Recently, while walking through an autumn forest,
A voice from high above kept asking if I wouldn't
consider St. Augustine as my companion. In vain,
Instead, I already had chosen an elder friend,
Socrates, and his logic, to guide me through
The stormy times ahead.
A patriarchal God didn't yet fit the equation
Of particles and waves gone wild.

----------------------------------------------------

Shiva

For how long have I been searching?
With eyes wide open,
Looking and listening
Into the horizon,
Into the light and the night,
Above and below?

Through thoughts and
Through my senses.
I scanned my feelings.
With the mind, without,
And out of my mind.
Even searching the searcher. In vain.
I stood beyond, to measure and to scale,
Withdrew into myself, trying to grasp -
It wasn't there.

The blind man in a beam of light,
Trying to taste brightness.
I gave up searching. A charade,
A silly game of thoughts, I thought. Discard it.

Time passed,
I hadn't been moved in spite of all the movement.
I gave up moving and there it was:
Motion in the midst of stillness.

It was neither above nor below,
Neither inside nor around.
Blinded by my senses I couldn't comprehend
That the moving, immovable was I myself,
The wonder of being before and after - throughout,
A solid rock in the center of all storms,
Coated with moss of pleasure and of fright.



While Shiva’s footstep destroys without mercy
His rhythm discloses the answer:
In the climaxing cadence of his dance
Lies utter compassion,
Here the windstorm subsides.

In the wake of his stunning appearance
The mind starts veering. Astonished,
Confined to space,
It cannot comprehend the void.

While turning anxious somersaults
It is deaf to the rich rhythm around.
The trusted body, crushed time and again
Under the stampede of dancing feet
Remains but ageless dust.

=======================================

Future Man

Have you ever thought
How future men will judge you?
In the eyes of your children,
You are a barbarian of the past!

Why always look back,
Innocently suckling the milk of yesterday!
History doesn't stop here.
Look ahead, live the future
Now, today,
Be parent of the inevitable.

Close the circuit.
Between ancient and future men,
You are but the intermediate result
Of an ongoing search.
An infant still
Appearing from the labors of birth.

Don't drift.
See the perspective
Of souls evolving.
Where we come from is where we go
It's the path
Along which we all move.

=======================================

Walk Steady

Walk steady,
Let the runners pass you by,
Walk steady,
Timeless values are your guide,
Your objective and your goal.
Pause at proper intervals,
Feel the strength, fathoms deep,
The raison d'etre is with you.

You are the way, the walker,
And the world.

You cannot lose nor can you win,
True nature knows no duality.
Constant strife, without resolve forever,
Regulates and rules the irate race.
Mere vagaries, caprices,
Inflammations of the mind,
Customs set the values of the time.

Walk steady
Along the parcours we call life.
When the runners reach the finish line
They'll find an empty stadium,
No one to cheer accomplishments
That fade like raindrops
On the surface of the sea.

Walk steady,
The finish line
Is an abandoned way point of the mind.
The walker is the walking,
The lacking cheers, the silence,
All in one.

=======================================

The Surfer

With a steady wind
He dashes along the crest of waves.
Handling his craft skillfully and unafraid
He steers through storms and doldrums,
Aware of the depths below
And the vacillation of the wind.

Gusts of thoughts keep him going
Across a sea of ever changing events.
Sometimes he wonders why
He gets buried under breaking waves
And why, sometimes, the crest
Lifts him up as if he were a part of it.

Knowing about the relationship
Of thought and pure essence,
He learns to anticipate the movements
Of the waves
Ahead of their appearance.
While the wind is a passing distraction
The surfer becomes part of the sea.


=======================================

The Power of Facts

The power of facts pollutes our minds,
Forms our thoughts
And fills our fortified cells with reason
While despair and desire, sadness and sorrow
Feed us on our daily rounds.

Thought is an inappropriate tool
to break the confines,
It’s the very substance the walls are built of.

From beyond where the light of pure being
Penetrates the mental murals
Of our mystified minds,
We can see
That dark shadows of simple illusions
Hide the exit
Of the prison we perceive.

Light, as we know,
Has the power to dissolve your shadow
If you are awash in the core of its radiance.

=======================================

Spoken Words

Spoken words
Gain purpose and gain sense.
To be aware of here and now
They are too crude,
Mere handicaps, unfitting.

In love, which thrives beyond the spoken word
The truth appears in pristine clarity.
Had love purpose, had it sense,
It would be coarse and crude and rude,
Could not reveal itself
In silent words of poetry.

Its heart, we know, is revelation,
The wordless state of bliss.

=======================================

My Soul

My Soul,  I've been told,

You are here somewhere.

That you are the true Me,

Which I have to find

For not to get lost

In the wilderness that is constantly changing.

Yes, I live in a wilderness,

Sometimes under sunny fragrant orange trees

And sometimes storms are raging

Devastating the spring valleys

Through which I wander

Moving between sad and happy encounters.

My Soul, I've been told

You are here somewhere.

A last refuge,

An eternal constant of bliss,

Where I can be Myself

Unmolested  by sweet fragrances and storms.

I already know, you are not in  orange trees,

And that the raging storms

That let  me search for shelter

In hidden caves,

Will neither let me find you.

You are somewhere else.

My Soul, I've been told,

You are here somewhere.

But until you come and touch me

With your  breath

That lifts me from the valleys of my life

You're just a mirage that gives me strength.

My Soul, I've been deceived

Too often in your name.

False flag ideas and promises abound.

I have no name for you.

While I cross the undulating valleys of existence,

You are just a mirage on the horizon.

-------------------------------------------------------

It is said ...

It is said that there's not one,

but that there are three bodies

that make us whole.

If we just focus on the one

with limbs, with brain

and with a liver and a heart,

we will never know who we are.

What are the other two

that accompany the body

that's walking in straight circles

across this globe and across time?

There is a module we call mind

with it's subconscious,

emotionally driven children;

they are the poles

staked in a wilderness,

to give meanings and directions

along which the body navigates

in our self-sculpted habitat.

Without it, we'd be just another form

of biologically determined matter.

And then there is the third one,

prana, the breathing light, the energy,

the inexplicable force of life itself

that has no boundary and exists

beyond the body and the mind

embracing all while being all;

transcending time and space.

This third force then

is our ultimate true self,

without it, mind and matter

would be futile nothingness.

Since long we've tried to name it,

some call it God or consciousness,

for others it is the soul

or the dark energy that holds

the universe together.

Since we cannot think and grasp

what we cannot definitely name,

it remains in the realm of postulates,

open to every kind of definition.

In a tangled way of grasping, though,

we know it must be there,

in its resplendent wholeness,

beyond partitioned comprehension,

eluding the world of physicists,

neurologists and mundane churches.

It can't be traced in seminars

nor by accelerating particles.

It is in each one of us,

instantaneously present

as in every blade of grass.

Once we shed the blinkered vision

of language and conditioning

it can fleetingly be touched

when we have understood

that each one of us is sharing

what we have always been

and will be with or without our body.

-------------------------------------------------------

Pebbles of Rishikesh

Singing the Ganga’s perennial song,
The rolling pebbles at Rishikesh
Turn with the beat of my heart,
Filling the void we call time.

The pebbles at Rishikesh
Reveal the real rhythm of life.

When I immersed myself
In the Ganga's sacred waters,
At Gaumukh, Haridwar
And at Allahabad,
I sank into a force
That has been gently leasing life,
Since cycles immemorial:
Since the Himalayas thrust skywards
Through the surface's virgin crust.

You needn't be a Hindu
To tremble in the glory of creation.

=======================================

Talking to Nisargadatta on the Terrace

The other day you said,
The 'true I' harks from far beyond the flesh,
Beyond proud and admired consciousness
From beyond the word, beyond the scientist's approach.

When consciousness thence disappears
Chained to the body's frail construction,
The 'true I' retrogresses back home to Brahma,
Whence it once appeared.

The air is soft this morning,
Touching my skin in friendship,
It tells me that I'm just an equal part,
Not more, in the natural equation.

In its foreign language,
The murmur of the river
Speaks of everlasting bliss
That envelopes the moment.

The fragrance of the early dawn
Touching my nostrils,
Translates the calyx's welcome
Of an ever self-renewing day.

Joyful, with a decent heart,
My senses and my consciousness
Receive the message,
That life is beautiful.

The other day you said,
That if I want to grasp the source,
I should abandon the body's joys,
The illusion that resides in consciousness.

Instead, just let them run their way
And concentrate on the 'true I',
The witness, that you truly are,
Untouched by hatred and by love.

I see the glory of the rising sun,
I hear the river, smell the blossoms
And I am carried by the wind.
Do I have to forsake them for the search?

The void, in which the 'true I' does reside,
From whence it harks with virgin concepts
And whereto it will return, as you say,
Is everlasting.

The warmth, the wind, the flowers
And the river's flow are not.
Nor is the simple notion
Of a conscious 'I'.

These, though, are my true companions
That sweeten the search,
That soften the path
I'm bound to trod without escape.

Thus, sometimes, in starry hours,
After I have managed
To cave into and then emerge
From my true identity, I am glad
To meet again, these comrades in mortality.

=======================================

Abandoned Realms

Sighting over ruined realms
Whose force of being has withered away,
Weeping over the beauty of fallen leaves
That nourish the ground,
Makes you aware
Of the soundless murmur in the river
That carries your ramshackle raft.

=======================================

Lent time

Moving aimlessly on the journey through lent time
You might be hit without warning
By beams of transcending light,
Borne by a world beyond your reach.
The shutters that bar you from its constant presence
Are to heavy to be lifted by frail mortals.


=======================================

Homo Ludens

Homo ludens, they call the playful man.
That's all he is, all he can ever be,
Even in his solemnity he's but a heroic puppeteer.
Playing Russian Roulette,
With every barrel of his gun loaded.

=======================================

Born to Burn or Be

I’m riding on a falling star,
In the center of a mortal flash,
Which keeps the empty nights
Hidden from my searching eyes.

The empty nights
Which still are there
And which already
Are embracing me anew
When the light is dead tomorrow.

Until I catch another falling star,
I’ll know
That humans are not born
To think and see,
That they are born
To burn and be
Riders on a falling star.

=======================================

Poetry



It's poetry
That sets me free
That takes away
As if I pray
The aching pain
Of fights in vain
Diverts my being
Into seeing
The world apart
From a new start.

Without anger without fear
In silence then, the view is clear
The soul starts searching
And submerging
Behind the veil of wrongs
To which daily life belongs.

There then I feel secure
Bathed in sunlight pure
Of strength which knows to cope
With memories and with hope
From further down than sadness
My soul climbs up to gladness
To joy and brotherhood
Toward the valid and the good
Which deep within humanity
Cleared of glitter and vane vanity
Rests like a solid diamond
An echo of the truth beyond.

=======================================

Departure

Suddenly we became quiet
By saying too many things,
Suddenly we were paralyzed
By moving too fast,
Suddenly we didn't know what do say
Because mere words couldn't recall
The vanishing sounds of yesterday.

Poems are now our manuals
And paintings the lost blueprints
Of a life serene
In the realm of perennial chores.
While songs still fill the atmosphere
Marching boots
File out through heaven's gate.

In the hustle and bustle around us
There is still a trace of the sun
Under which the peaches ripened,
That gave them their enticing taste
In that far off never-ever land
Whose keys we have no more .

There are poems and paintings
Stamped into our souls
Since the beginning of time,
There are vibrations and pictures
Newly engraved in our mind
That will stay with us
For what time there is left.

=======================================

Memories

From the deep bowl of memory
Past encounters rise above the tranquility
Of their refuge.
Like the dew on the petals that open at dawn,
They carry a secret into the new day.
While everything temporal changes,
Memories water what must blossom and bloom
For us, ere we wither away.

=======================================

Fragrance

The fragrance of a certain time
Is like the taste of wine,
Mellow, tangy or sublime
Like shivers down the spine.

It's you who puts the stars above
Whose lotus opens wide,
It's you who fills the cup with love,
You need no mundane guide.

The fragrance of a joyful life
Is like a halo bright
You have it without fight or strife
If you're in the Thatagatha's light.

=======================================

The Ultimate Silence

We know the silence of the forest

The calm on mountain heights,

We know the stillness of the waters,

The hush that follows storms.

They penetrate us from beyond

All on their own.

The silence of the soul though, 

Is of our making,

A sphere we need to fill

With expressive nothingness,

With peace that voluntarily lacks words,

And with profound solemnity.

This taciturnity,

When shared and if for moments only,

Between two souls, inhabiting

A common space of bliss

Contains all languages of men,

All sounds the universe emits.

If you have ever shared

This core of stillness, of the void,

In such an heavenly expanse,

You no more need to travel far,

You've reached the center and the verge

Of love.

What other destination do you know

that's then worth to journey to.

=============================

Himalayan Morning



Beyond the wanton whims of our mind,
The solemn summit of the soul,
Shines a bedazzling light
That keeps us all suspended.

It permeates the bends and bows of creeks,
Crowns crests and soaring massifs,
Lauds land and living creatures
With its blessed touch.

When the peak of Kachenjunga
Wears Aurora's morning gown,
Life on this spinning sphere
Celebrates again
The never-ending dawn
Of the eternal day.

=======================================

 The Sea

Like the words of a poem
That touch the unspeakable
The surface of the sea is the key
That unlocks the fathomless.

We speak of the quantum soup
Which we cannot imagine
In its formless fullness,
As hard as we try,
But the sea is the key to comprehend
That the drop contains all
And all is a drop in the sea.

The rock, the sea and the cloud
And us in the midst
Containing a bit of it all.

The rock doesn't move
And the cloud, a chimera
That comes and that goes,
But the sea, like we,
Remains and just changes its cloth.

Like we, it is driven by emotions,
From rage to enchantment,
Like we, it has many faces,
But only one,
Like we, it is ever moving,
But going nowhere.
 
 ----------------------------------

Generous Globe

The peace inside of me
Comes from the vision
Of the gentle Sulu Sea,
The song I hear,
A rhythm born in Porto Alegre.
I smell the scent
Of Ajmer's flower-market
At noontime
And taste a simple scrap
Of breadfruit, steaming,
From an um in Yap.
I think I will remember
The air
On Mt. Kilimanjaro's saddle
For the rest of my life
And keep it blended
Into the lively beauty
This globe so lavishly provides.


All this will stay with me
On sunless northern days
When it seems
That life
Is a man-made madhouse.

=======================================

Climbing Mountains

While scrambling through the remnants
Of past eruptions,
On the Cotapaxi, the Chimboraso,
The Kilimanjaro and the Kinabalu,
I remember the green pastures below.
Before me there is only ice.
Eternal ice, bedded in blue space.

Turning around, the earth is at my feet,
I recognize the curvature of the horizon.
The air is thin up here. I need to catch my breath.
I have left home. This is the entrance
To the abodes of the Gods. This is
From where ashes and rubble tumble down.
This is where mortality ends.

Along the Highway of the Volcanoes
They stand by the dozen
Like upturned udders of Mother Earth
That spill their milk
Violently upon the ground
Thus nourishing its children
Back home from where I come.

On Mount Kailash, I buried
One of my teeth, wanting to leave
A token for when I finally
Come back to Shiva's home as a part
Of the ice that slowly melts
And trickles down to the sea
In the never-ending Samsara of existence.

From Mauna Kea, among the domes
We built to look outwards
Hoping to find out where we are,
I looked down onto the islands,
Green pearls floating on the sea.
I didn't ask, they kindly told me
Not where, but who we are.

When I climb mountains, I set
One foot before the other
Until I reach that point
Where I don't touch ground any more.
From there the mind starts climbing
To where not air nor ground
Limit the ascent.

------------------------------------------

The Road to Pemakoe

It’s not for the faint at heart,
the worldly pleasure seeker.
He won’t find it on a mundane map.
Up in the clouds,
protected by some mighty rushing rivers,
sky-high mountain ridges
and the impenetrable jungles
of your heart, lies Pemakoe.

While plying through these rivers,
the rivers of your daily life,
that bring you floods and droughts,
Pemakoe forever will remain a dream dreamed
during Samsara’s endless nights.

While lodged in cardboard shacks
or splendid villas,
amid the debris the currents bring along,
you know there is a source,
not for the water, that revolves in cycles,
but for your fears, your sorrows and your joys.
Finding it, the fears and joys that haunt and tickle you,
will all merge there, creating the ultimate rapport.
That then is Pemakoe.

Meandering, upriver you will have to go
to find it far beyond the rushing waters.
You’ll have to travel gravel roads
built for tanks and lorries
that carry soldiers, merchants,
and the last remaining tribals
into their erstwhile and now vanished sacred lands.
Once in a while, if you are lucky,
you’ll meet a fellow traveler
who’s also looking out for Pemakoe,
the Pemakoe where you can leave behind
once and for all the pains and hardships
and the many senseless squabbles
that go for authenticity.

It is no easy journey
once you leave the navigable rivers
and the potholed roads
that cross the valleys of your life.
You’ll have to traverse steep,
verdant and muddy jungles
whose protecting canopies
will swallow you into
their fairy-tale like paunch,
where leeches, leopards and langurs
thousand years old slippery mosses,
roots and rocks, recesses and ravines
will test the purity of your heart,
will test the steadfastness you’ll need
to reach your goal up on that platform
underneath the starlit sky.

It’s not a matter of spontaneous decisions
that bring you there.
Compassion, empathy and love
must have grown, flowered and evolved,
must have written the script of your past life.
They will be the torch
that will let you see what mundane explorers
cannot recognize in Pemakoe.

------------------------------

A Tune from Hidden Valley

Beyond the Oxus lies a land
Where grapes and pears and peaches grow,
Beyond the Oxus lies a fabled land
Come with me love, there let us go.

From east of the sun, west of the moon,
From the Indus valley's source,
Begs the sweet sound of a Hunza tune:
Love, it's calling us with force.

When Golden Peak sends day's first light
Bouncing through the Karakorum's core,
It warms a people, handsome, strong and bright,
Come on love, what are we still waiting for.

It's long since I last dreamt the dream
Of a valley of my own,
Far-flung and golden was the scheme,
But love, I don't want it alone.

Beyond the Oxus lies a land
Where grapes and pears and peaches grow,
A precious gift within our hand,
We've been there briefly, love, I know.

If we don't join this timeless search,
If there's no dream within our heart,
If we don't share this begging urge,
Love, the time has come for us to part.

'cause if tomorrow is like today
And you don't see a valid choice,
Without that light, there's only gray.
Please listen to the hidden valley's voice,
Smell the enchanting fragrance in the air,
And love, again, we shall be there.

=======================================

South of Cancer



Somewhere under the monsoon
Where rain pours down eternity
And the ever-blooming bougainvillea
Gives day a never ending noon,
There, a few steps short of paradise,
Aphrodite is hidden,
Behind a ray of light, forbidden
For the mortals' eyes.

In dream alone you may caress,
In sadness, pondering or gay
Bereft of any hope to stay,
This vanishing goddess.

=======================================

The People from Palau

There is a certain gentle way
They use to talk, to move, to walk,
There is a certain shimmer on their skin
Beneath their lightly curled hair
Which shines like gold,
When day turns dim at dusk.
Natures gift,
Wide cheekbones
Span their faces,
They set the eyes wide apart
And give their lips
Much room to play
The symphony
Of men so beautiful.

Like an orchid in the wilderness,
A lagoon in the vastness of the sea
They seem to me,
These incomparable people
From Palau.

=======================================

Lovesong to Rawa



Over deep water
I had to ride,
Through the sun's circle
I had to glide,
Into myself I had to dive
Driven by an overwhelming drive
To find and reach you,
Rawa,
Promise of the east.
I'm here to stay,
I've come to feast.
Natures potion
Unperturbed by time and space
You waste on me
In your winsome grace.
The sounds you make me hear
Are of eternal origin,
The sights I see,
A wealth, I no more have to win.
Protected by your palm-fringed beach
I'm enchanted and charmed
And I'm out of reach.

=======================================

Samuian Evening

The Samuian sun has sunk,
And left us,
Least we forget,
A day without a motive,
A balmy evening.
Pray, come back tomorrow!


=======================================

Samui of Wind and Waves



In a wayward world of wind and waves
That blow and dance around it,
There lies that tropic gem Samui,
I'm glad that I have found it.

Oh blue Samui I long for you,
I miss your untouched splendor
Behind your reef-protected shore
Is where I shall surrender.

When the sun comes up and gently bathes
Chaweng in golden dawning,
I'm up to greet the newborn day;
Another priceless morning.

Above Lamai in my retreat
The days they come, the days they go,
They come and go as does the tide,
As palm leaves swaying to and fro.

While there's hustle and bustle
Beyond the blue sea
I'm this side of the horizon;
Quietly settled where I want to be.

Oh blue Samui beyond the sea,
Your sun drenched beaches beckon,
I hear your call, I'm on my way,
Soon I'll be there I reckon.


====================================

The sidewalk café

People in a sidewalk café, are a homely crowd,
Wrapped in leisure, in comfort and ease.
They are alive and they thrive, though never too loud,
As from a painter’s palette on short lease.

Merging I, too, am a brushstroke,
A memory in nobody's mind.
Thus being the painter, the brush, and the stroke
I’m joining to link, to relax, to unwind.

The café on this sunny boulevard
On an afternoon mild and benign
Yields all that we know, yields all that we are
Enclosed in a carafe of wine.

Randomly thrown sticks of Mikado
In the warmth of the afternoon sun,
Each one a body, a shadow,
Each one a world of his own.

Though the wineglass is empty,
The brush’s stroking on,
Pasting onto yesterday’s fancy
Tomorrow’s yet invisible gown.

=======================================

  Looking over the artist’s shoulder

The sea is too deep, the sky too high

the forests are impenetrable.

I'm stuck in-between them looking

over your shoulder, watching you

as you pick from them drops, scraps

and morsels in blue, in orange and in green,

to create a world, a new perception,

you yet don't know yourself.

The sea is too deep, the sky too high,

the forests are impenetrable,

but you go on creating, structuring

the still invisible, that's there somewhere,

arcane, hidden from the mind.

Your brush's the magic wand

that fishes in the endless sea

of all the possibilities

and thence gives life to the selected.

Your brush, though is just an agent

in your hand. The magic happens elsewhere.

The sea is too deep, the sky too high,

the forests are impenetrable,

you carry a copy within you.

It's there where you take your picks

on this coeternal field of your so very personal,

your own subliminal universe.

Like an innocent child,

but also like some dancing gods,

you play with them until you've recreated

another copy of your soul,

of your soul's ethereal desires,

until, when looking at it, you finally will say:

this is the sixth day and all is good.

----------------------------------------------

Within the Uroboros

He lives his life

enclosed in the uroboros,

his home - deep in the guts
of the eternal beast

that feeds on its own tail

so time can  be arrested.

Yet unknown to him, the serpent
speeds through endless waves

in the spectrum of pure light.

Here, within

his self-created time and space,

seriously looking for a sense,

he prepares himself

for the escape

into the clear, the bright, the true,

the ultimate reality.

------------------------------------------------------------

The Rose Hedge

Enmeshed in the rose hedge of our emotions
We live our lives.
In the thick of fragrance and thorns.
We love and we suffer,
Constantly scratching and dressing
The wounds,
Breathlessly gasping, swamped by the sweetness
We lose touch with the ground
While bathed in the odor of life.

Enmeshed in the rose hedge of our emotions
We barely see the far fields beyond.
Scared by the swish and the crack in the shrubs
We cuddle and hug in our cradle,
In joy and in pain.
While uttering murmurs and cries,
It's the breeze in the leaves
That composes the ongoing song.

Stomping, the bull charges
And meekly the dog whines
Since what is called the beginning of time.
And forever
The wheel goes on turning and churning.
No beginning, no end.

Ambitions fulfilled,
Are empty pages in history's book
Written on leaves
That tumble with
The autumn's first storm.

Enmeshed in the rose hedge of our emotions
We cannot hear the serenity
That sings voiceless.
Sound with no ear to listen
Is on the wavelengths of silence
And light with no eyeball to hit
Is darkness,
The volume of a brilliant void.

Mountains grow old
In a twinkle of time,
So do oceans;
They fill and they drain
While we ride on the crest oft their waves.

Trying to cut a tunnel
Through the thorns and the roses
Is the Jnaina's terrain
While the rest of us mortals remain
Enmeshed in the rose hedge of our emotions.

=======================================

Aboard



The train is moving through the night,
The compartment's door is closed.
We are swallowed
In a void that encompasses
The train
And us within.

Remains
An empty bottle of Chablis
In the brass waste paper bin
Whose spirit fills the vacant space
With passion and desire.
No energy is ever lost
Changing its garments along the way
And so do we
Like Shiva and Parvati
Who are all and who are none.

In the glow of a glance
The dormant energy
That keeps the planets circling
Around their primeval ageless source
Comes instantly alive.
The void shows face,
Has texture, warmth and fragrance
And Buddha smiles.

The Lingam and the Yoni
On the ghats of Pushkar's lake
Are guarded by a sacred cow.
No one is to disturb
The weaving of the umbilical cord
That holds the universe
In an intricately fine spun web.
The sisters who lovingly induced you
To touch Christ's body
With your soul
Still threaten you
Not to speak out loud
About the Spirits of the Forest.



While God looks on in sternness
The spirits are alive,
The hidden knife
Into which priests and scientists
Eventually will stumble.

For an instant
The train has stopped.
Where should it go?
It had arrived
Before it ever started to depart.
Ultimately, however,
It will move on,
Passing way points,
Names and dates,
Yet in the speck of time
The moment of timelessness
Lives on, enclosed,
Giving sense and volume
To what is nameless,
What we grasp
In the best of our moments.

=======================================

Children of Our Time

Children of our time
That’s what we are,
Driven by seductive wands
Creating mad modernity.
Each generation
Perceiving a different world.
The mind swerves and swings
Like an unsteady pendulum,
Dazed by the unchanging rhythm around.
We perceive monsters and angels,
Heavens and hells,
We love and we hate
We cheer and we grieve
What is presently in vogue.

Children of a mind-born world
That’s what we are
Following the inescapable routine
Of the changing rules of survival.
Sometimes though,
With both feet on the ground
But the mind detached from this virtual world
The pendulum swings even
And time stands still
And so does justifying reason.

Then we are able to communicate understandably
With our progenitors
And our unborn offspring.
Across oceans and divides,
Blood and gender, caste and class and time.
The You and I dissolve
In a sea of love and compassion.
Silently we share a universal language
Without the handicap of words.
Conversing through the raindrops that dissolve
In the warmth of the late-morning sun.

=======================================

A day like every other

Sometimes the new day starts as if packed in cotton wool,
with the sky being crisp, the air still holding the warmth
of a night under feathers.

Such mornings contain a promise without substance.
It could be joy, it could be fear or just plain boredom.
The beeches, the oaks and the birch trees
in their springtime green speak the same language.
The wind has still to levitate bringing movement
into the dawn's silvery stillness.

Resting in the center of the circle, life is a heartbeat,
a sap slowly rising in the stem. The mind, not agitated,
watches the birds preening their feathers before they fly off
into another day of picking seeds and insects.

A day like every other.

It has been so since eons, seen from the center of the circle,
on whose periphery leaves are greening and tumbling in the wind
that comes and goes like wane ideas
that have risen and vanish in their season.

Let me rest here for another instant in the no-time
where meanings, forms and actions are born
by a mind still as calm as the trees
and the morning birds at the day's dawning,
while colors emerge slowly
on the empty canvas of the coming day.

A day like every other.



===================================



The Placid Pond of the Morning Mind

The placid pond of the morning mind
Mirrors a mirage of myths come true
Of souls, sincere, compassionate and kind
Of life, colored in a hue of pastel blue.

On the waters of this placid pond
The light is solemn and sublime
Boats glide along without command
Circling within the feeble breath of time.

The still water of the morning mind
Knows no nerve snapping task,
To noonday's verity it's blind
Its secret concealed in a fairy's flask.

Onto the waters of this placid pond
Kindred souls, honest and pure
Descend from abodes beyond,
They come to bath, to heal and cure
Hurt hearts, neglected and perennially shunned.


=======================================

There must be more - but what?

The E-train comes from Queens,
Five minutes interval, on platform B,
The crowd in T-shirts and blue jeans -
Each one alone and struggling in a human sea.

The office on the 7th floor
By elevator from beneath the ground,
Body tides squeeze through the door
Their bristling breath, the only sound.

What happened to Mary-Joyce?
Her make-up seems so vulgar,
And the department chief's calm poise
Shows lines of outright anger.

Four hours have already gone
Just 20 more till Friday,
Then she'll see Jack, or maybe John
A weekend, dance, the usual lay.

The E-train leaves for Queens,
Five minute interval from platform A,
Squeeze into it with every means,
Rush it boy, no time to play.

A two-room condo in a low-cost zone
By elevator from the train,
A well done House-and-Garden clone
No reason boy, for your disdain.

Perpetually tired after 20-years
In this mole's monstrous mega town,
The subtle feeling frequently appears
Of being the copy of a pirated clone.

There must be more - but what?

=======================================

The Apologetics

Whence comes the apology of genocide?

Whence carpet-, saturation bombing?

Guernica? Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo?

Yes, Sir.

Done, Sir.

Call it collateral.

Sweet dreams.

Thank you, Sir.

Genocide? War crimes? The law of the victor!

Read your heart, instead of papers.

They dress up culprits and list victims.

How insensitive has the public become?

How apologetic!

Yes, Sir, no, Sir,

As you say, Sir.

How insensitive have you become?

How apologetic?

Drowning your heart

In black ink from coldly wrangled words.

It is not a question of who is wrong and who is right,

Not a question of reasonable or unreasonable response.

The cutting sword is forged from your response,

Your attitude.

Facing genocide, ghettos, gulags and Gazas,

The august crimes of war parties,

Humanity stares at you in disbelieve.

At the Genghis Khans

From West Point, Harvard, Yale

And you,

While the Twin Tower lunatics

Smile in relieve.

They are back home,

Among peers.

See your passive face

In the blaze of the next explosion.

Bombs and shells carry your name.

Delivered by the force of your silence.

Without it, they'd be mere metal containers.

Your lack of compassion explodes them.

-------------------------------------------------

The Swan's Last Song

Swans glide in pairs
Through a world that is theirs,
Across the pond they move composed
Theirs is a world, a world that's lost,
Lost to the world the swans thus drift
Unaware and unconcerned about the rift
That divides them from the world beyond
Their placid and protected pond.

The hunter gets into full gear
When he sees that shy and hiding deer
When he sees that flock of fowl
For whom he'll let the bells soon toll,
When he sees the pair of swans
In their last and joyful dance.
Then, when his gun resounds,
It states and it expounds
That he's the master of them all
Of life around, from spring to fall.

Within the hunter's heart the dying swans sing on,
Their song drowned in the explosion of the gun.
They sing about the world apart
Lost, when the hunter aimed at his own heart.

=======================================

Unity of Souls

We are born from a mother's womb
Exchanging the unity of blood
For the loneliness of solitary cells.

In permanence we thence
Chase this unity again,
In vain, except for starlit moments,
When we grasp that what we really seek
Is the transcendental oneness of our souls.

In its light we are preborn,
In an all-enclosing womb
Where life vibrates in blissful silence.

Once there, not death nor being born again
Matters anymore,
They are but transient reflections
Of the imprisoned Self
In rippled, muddy waters.

=======================================

Kings and Serfs

Knights, Rajas, priests and sorcerers,
Not to forget collectors and the chieftains of the clans
Wear resplendent robes.
Bards and genealogists, chroniclers and sculptors
Praise the supremacy of their blood
And are well rewarded.

Peasants, serfs and commoners
Of low castes and class
Weave the gowns and then applaud,
Those who wear and tear in splendor
What they had sewn, sown and harvested
Sobbing in sweat.
The robes have changed, so has the regimen
And the domains.
The game, we see, indeed, remains the same.

The crowd is fed with food of short-lived joys
From which it then appears
With bending heads that dare not
Look into the stern and slavish eyes
Of oppressors and their courtiers.

The penetration of the mind supplanted
Swords and gallows of times past
And while the tyrants
Sacrifice compassion,
Believing in what they have to do,
Slaves find solace in the myth
Of a fair and clement after world.
Thus in revolving chess-mate, history goes on.

Lifting the dazzled gaze
From the game board's sparkling glitz,
The mandala comes into view
Where here and now
Neither kings nor serfs exist.
Only the shared beauty of a life serene
In which those who come
And those who once have been
Are pearls on a string,
Woven together
With the water, earth and sun
Of which we are a part.

=======================================


The Sacred Mountain

The sacred mountain which our heart
Ascends when the moon is blue, has many layers.
And as you say my friend, that once you start,
It is the many steps, the words, that make a prayer
That bring us happiness.

Halfway onto that sacred mount
Is where the Demigods reside,
Is where rapture can be found
In a sacred ebbing of the tide.
Halfway, thus, we still depend on our soul,
To discard it, though, should be our goal.

Beyond that sacred mountain, washed in timeless mist
Even the soul then ceases to exist.
There, happiness turns into everlasting bliss.

=======================================

Those who know

Then there are those who know and those who don't,
Those whose flicker of life lasts an eternity
And those who grow old without having ever rejoiced
In the split second that was stolen from time,
In which loving compassion was born.

No, it's not a question of above or below, of more or of less,
Neither of here nor of there.
What I speak of is the fullness of the void
And the fear that vibrates in loud laughter across history.

Let us not argue with a breaking voice
When petals opens to receive the dew of a new morning,
When the flute’s vibrations reach the end of the universe
There is a language in the air, as old as time itself,
Fearless and joyful; creation’s eternal jubilation.


Not you nor I will ever know the petal’s joy,
When on it's lip
The night's dew is caressed by the sun.
But with proper humility,
It will make us comprehend.

=======================================

Poets and Bards

Suspended between heaven and earth
Poets and bards are banished from both.
While they drag their frail bodies
Through the sludge of their time
They starve on the diet
Of their unyielding quest.
Sometimes, though, they soar
With the birds in triumph,
And relish in the soul's tranquil nooks,
Then, bedewed with the grace of the gods
They find heaven on earth.
Worth their exile from both.


=======================================

The Nomad




The nomad is a child of the stars,
Like they, he wanders across endless plains, like they,
His soul is steady.
Out with his flock in the solitude of thorn-bushes,
He is a fellow of the valiant plants
That defy noonday's scorching inferno.

He cannot, but face the root of truth.
At his fireplace he creates his own humble universe,
Rekindles the sun's life-spending power.
Simply dealing with his fears,
He has balanced the moon's and the sun's influence
On his soul. The nomad is a child of the stars.



When wind and rain and lightning reduce him
To his feeble form, he hides and sees the gods
Go through a bout of drunkenness.
He waits with patience
Until the stars, his brothers, appear again.
The nomad is a child of the stars.


=======================================

Of Demigods and Men

Shuttling between heavenly estates and
Earthly dwellings has been the prerogative
Of mythic demigods, the ideals of our formative years.
Now older, I know about their weaknesses,
Their desires, know about the affliction
They thus endured.
We, too, are not born innocent organic entities.
Between mundane stipulations
And the proliferation of our souls
We suffer and thrive in their wake.

Once stillness rides on the beat of our heart,
Gods have welcomed us in their abodes.
A clement moment, limitless,
Lets us taste the sweet abandon
Of the world dissolving, as we remain.

Where else is there to go
Once you've been there?


=======================================

The Still Point

Striving, with hatred and remorse
Against themselves during the fullness of time
They fret with Christ, Krishna and the Mother Goddess.
And in confusion whisper sweet words of relief
During the moon's pregnancy
And in both they believe and they relish,
Filling the white pages of their ledgers,
With bleached ink, day after day
And not once do they ask the question,
Do they stop the train that carries them in circles
Around that still point where time comes to a halt
And a breath contains the universe's entire movement.

This is the place to share what has been theirs
Unknowingly throughout.
Only there and then, between before and after,
When time curves into itself
Can two lovers perceive their true being.
Their embrace faradizes the void
From whence they appeared, into which, eventually,
They will vanish again.

An apparition, a dissolving nebula
Tinted with the color of joy.

=======================================

The Silent Companion



A silent companion, yes
That’s what you are, in my waking hours,
And, maybe, that magic dervish
That dances through my nights
When darkness reigns.
A silent companion with whom I share
My fare of thoughts
And more often then not the very source
That lets them spring forward.

Wandering across the slope
That blends the far horizon with the unknown,
I know that you are waiting there for me.
Entering deep forests, you are there
Opening the canopy of the trees to let the sun
Penetrate and illuminate a world
That is hidden from the fainthearted
In fear of fairies.

A silent, lightweight companion
That has nestled in my heart is what you are,
Sweetening the flow of life
That circles through my body.
The square shaped buildings
In the city’s jungle become
Chiseled mansions of art
When I see them through your eyes
The people I meet become transparent
Revealing their fears and desires,
Asking silently for compassion where
Coarse words poison the air.
It’s in my eyes, too, where you have settled.
Your presence is undeniable
Though you know when to fade
Giving me a chance to compare
The sacred with the profane.

Since when do you travel with me? Maybe
You always did, maybe you
Have already been there,
Entering me through the umbilical cord,
To balance the kiss of mortality with divine joy
For what's the span of my life.
You were with me already when
I didn't know of your existence
Until that day when like a chimera
You appeared and became visible,
Telling me its time to wake up
And acknowledge the divine,
see the boundless beauty
That permeates the crude.

For how long will you be with me?
A question only the uninitiated could ask.
Even when my bones have turned to dust
You’ll still be there. I have inherited you
From the ancients and I will bequest you
To my offspring.
Hoping that they'll be as fortunate as I am
To meet you, face to face, of knowing that you are
Embedded in a glance, in a touch
And in casually uttered words.
Hoping that they, as I, will be blessed
To walk the sacred mountain and drink the ambrosia
Of its creeks knowingly.

Who is that silent companion about whom I write,
That nameless spring of joy that sways supreme above the ordinary?
All I know is that a muse cannot be tempted
With all the treasures of the world to reveal itself.
Sometimes, though, when the constellation
Of the stars of fortune so arrange,
A transcendental light shines forth
In the eyes of someone and links you
With the abode of the eternal.

On that abode which spans across time,
Where space is not an empty, dividing landscape,
Union is the universal language
And oneness is the body that speaks silently,
There, the crude and flipping desires of the world
Transform and are anointed
With the sacred first dew of the day.

It is there, where my silent companion waits patiently,
Residing in the near and far,
Beyond and within the boundaries
That shackle our bodies, our lives,
Forever, just a magic chirp away
When my soul needs flying with the swallows.

==========================================

Orchards of Eden

When spiked on barbed wire,
Your vain words decay,
When they burn on a pyre
There's no more to say.

It’s the hour of trial, it’s the hour to pray.
Eat the bread, drink the wine
This is the end of your way,
Salvation lies beyond its confine.

Communion is to know to be helpless,
Is to know that we all know the same,
To be players and pawns on a table of chess
In an ever revolving game.

Tired frustrated, forever possessed,
With a new goal behind every bend,
It's there where we start our quest,
Where, indeed, our journey must end.

Wine, dance and the will to forget
Are the rays of the passing day’s light,
In them we are drenched without much regret
When we stagger into the night.



Despite the wolves’ frightful howling
We grasp there's a promise in view,
Its sweet begging, an endless calling,
An objective we have to pursue.

While we weigh words with our memory's lens
There's a covert language around.
We yearn to learn its syntax, it’s sense,
Stunned by its magical sound.

It's in the night when the muezzin’s singing
And our soul shines in the light of the moon
That this language emerges, soothing and swinging,
A mantra, an Arcadian cartoon.

We seek solace, safety and peace,
Which the senses can not provide.
Our longing goes toward release
Towards union and an ebbing of tide.

We find it in the arms of our companion
Who shares with us the dark of the night,
Two minds and two bodies, in sacred communion
And the dark is converted to light.

Thus finally grasping what’s hidden
For a moment of wonder, a moment of dream,
The sweet fruits from the orchards of Eden
Release comprehension supreme.




==========================================

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