this poem must be shared with the world: "As If" by J. Allyn Rosser

As If

BY J. ALLYN ROSSER

How do you explain why elephants

appear to move their unwieldy hulks

with greater dignity than most humans do

in their finest moments,

as if they had evolved beyond wanting

anything but what they have?

Why does the field begin to ripple

before the wind arrives in whispers,

as if there were a communication,

as if the landscape were poorly dubbed,

and we weren’t expected to notice?

What butterfly does not dart away from us

as if it could sense our latent cruelties,

and yet return to check and double-check?

Has the night not gotten recently darker,

as if to insinuate that we have squandered

the light that was there?

Have we made too much of our own?

And did you notice afterward the dawn

opening up with a tentative eagerness

as if there were something crucial to illumine,

as if we would wake up early just to see it?

I imagine you reading this now

with an expression of quiet trouble

itself troubled by currents of hope,

as if you imagined me here with you,

as if I might be able to see your expression,

and at least answer it with mine.

Source: Poetry (November 2011).

I had to share this poem. How can one not be affected by its charm, how can one ignore the question he raises on humanity from a butterfly's point of view... and how can we ignore that sadly not so universal query, "Have we made too much of our own?" This poem is an introspection into what we are and hopefully, what we should be. Hope you'll share your views on it as well :) -adee

I caught a train that passed the town where you lived.

I caught a train that passed the town where you lived.

On the journey I thought of you.

One evening when the park was soaking

You hid beneath trees, and all around you dimmed itself

as if the earth were lit by gaslight.

We had faith that love would last forever.

I caught a train that passed the town where you lived. 

-Brian Patten

such an ache. when love is lost, when what you feel was the truest love of your life is lost, nothing matters anymore. i've been through that. and slowly, gradually i realize my part of the mistake in letting it end. but as the universe says, everything happens for a reason, and everything happens for good...so one love was lost, but one, truer love was gained. though this time, i won't be able to let her go...

"आंसुओं से धुली ख़ुशी की तरह, रिश्ते होते हैं शायरी की तरह" a gazal by Bashir Badr

अजनबी शहर नहीं है कोई

अजनबी शहर नहीं है कोई
कौन-सा शहर है वो
जिसमें कभी
चाँद निकला न हो दिलदारी का
ज़िक्र होता ही न हो, जिसके मसीहाओं में,
दिल के बीमारों का या इश्क की बीमारी का

अजनबी शहर नहीं है कोई
कौन-सा शहर है वो जिसके गली-कूचों की दीवारों पर
कोई अफ़साना लिखा ही न गया हो अब तक
जिसके बाज़ारों से सेहरा की तरफ़
कोई अपने से जुदा ही न गया हो अब तक

अजनबी शहर नहीं है कोई
कौन-सा शहर है वो जिसने कभी
अपने तरह-दारों को,
कज-कुलह वालों को,
फनकारों को
फूल की तरह सजाया न हो गुलदानों में
शमा की तरह जलाया न हो बेहोश तरब-खानों3 में
मय की मानिंद उड़ेला न हो पैमानों में
और गिराया न हो पैमानों से

अजनबी शहर नहीं है कोई
कौन-सा शहर है वो
जिसने कभी
अपने दीवानों के कँधों पे सजाई न सलीब

अजनबी शहर नहीं है कोई
शाम जिस शहर में हो
हम उसी शहर के हों
और काँधों पे सलीबों की जो तहरीरें हैं
शहरियत के वही परवाने नहीं
अपने अफ़साने उसी शहर के अफ़साने नहीं
हम उसी शहर के दीवाने बनें
अजनबी शहर नहीं है कोई

-राही मासूम रज़ा, ‘ग़रीबे-शहर’

Dust

Someone spoke to me last night,

told me the truth. Just a few words,

but I recognized it.

I knew I should make myself get up,

write it down, but it was late,

and I was exhausted from working

all day in the garden, moving rocks.

Now, I remember only the flavor —

not like food, sweet or sharp.

More like a fine powder, like dust.

And I wasn’t elated or frightened,

but simply rapt, aware.

That’s how it is sometimes —

God comes to your window,

all bright light and black wings,

and you’re just too tired to open it.

Dorianne Laux, “Dust” from What We Carry.

Copyright © 1994 by Dorianne Laux

December Evening 1972

Here I come, the invisible man, perhaps employed
by a Great Memory to live right now. And I am driving past

The locked-up white church—a wooden saint stands
smiling, helpless, as if they had taken away his glasses.

He is alone. Everything else is now, now, now. The law of gravity presses
                us
against our work by day and against our beds by night. The war.

-from ‘the great enigma’ new collected poems of
Tomas Transtromer (2011 Nobel Prize winner)

translated by Robin Fulton

क़ुरान हाथों में ले के/ Kuraan hathon mein le ke -गुलज़ार/Gulzar

क़ुरान हाथों में ले के नाबीना एक नमाज़ी

लबों पे रखता था, दोनों आँखों से चूमता था

झुका के पेशानी यूं अकीद्त से छू रहा था

जो आयतें पढ़ नहीं सकता, उनके लम्स महसूस कर रहा हो

मैं हैराँ-हैराँ गुज़र गया था

मैं हैराँ-हैराँ ठहर गया हूँ

तुम्हारे हाथों को चूम कर, छूके अपनी आँखों से आज मैंने

जो आयतें पढ़ नहीं सका, उनके लम्स महसूस कर लिए हैं

-गुलज़ार

Kuraan hathon mein le ke nabeena ek namazi

Labon pe rakhta tha, dono aankhon se choomta tha

Jhuka ke peshani yoon akeedat se choo raha tha

Jo aayatein padh nahi sakta, unke lams mehsoos kar raha ho

Main hairan-hairan guzar gaya tha

Main hairan-hairan thehar gaya hoon

Tumhare hathon ko choom kar, chooke apni aankhon se aaj maine

Jo aayatein padh nahi saka, unke lams mehsoos kar liye hain

-Gulzar

when you begin your day with Gulzar, it can take you to places you never imagined existed within yourself.

You and I

You are a warm front
that moved in from the north,
a blind spot bearing beautiful gifts,
a garden in the air, a golden filament
inscribed with the name of God's hunting dog,
a magic heirloom mistaken for a feather duster,
a fountain in a cow pasture, an anachronistic anagram
annoyed by anonymity, a dollar in the pocket
of a winter coat in summer.

And I am the discoverer of you.

"You and I" by Jonathan Potter, from House of Words.
© Korrektiv Press, 2010.

Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light 
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

देखो, आहिस्ता चलो

देखो, आहिस्ता चलो, और भी आहिस्ता ज़रा
देखना, सोच-संभल कर ज़रा पाँव रखना
ज़ोर से बज उठे न पैरों की आवाज़ कहीं
कांच के ख्वाब हैं बिखरे हुए तन्हाई में
ख्वाब टूटे न कोई, जाग न जाये देखो

जाग जायेगा कोई ख्वाब तो मर जायेगा.

- गुलज़ार

Hermes In Retrogression

With fingers—fingertips and edge of nail—
he plots fires with tongues of snakes,
a child yearning for sheer drops, with paper wings on his shoulders,
thinking and thinking of fires and acts of violence.
For years he lives in the basement of his polychrome dreams
where dampness lingers and moldy poison drips from walls.
He devours his scribblings and is never hungry, but only whines for water
which he likes winter-chilled, not cold.
He stubs out his cigarettes on the palms of his hands, and when he is hot and aroused
he whistles to derailment like a train and then, puff! . . . he breathes in smoke as he climaxes,
an orgasmic lunge, and then the plunge.
Here on his decked-out tomb all he feared has come to pass, all that wounded him,
and all he didn’t understand . . . stronger now, smeared in ash, encircled by flames,
he spreads from time to time his paper wings to meet you.

Translation of "Anadromos Ermis." Copyright Yiannis Moundelas. By arrangement with the author. Translation copyright 2010 Peter Constantine. All rights reserved.

मैं नहीं जाता

मैं नहीं जाता
किसी के द्वार
बिना मनुहार
अथवा
समय की पुकार के।

अनमाँगा दंडकारणय भी
फलता है
लंका का स्वर्ण
सिर्फ, जलता है
जलता है।

- शिव मंगल सिंह सुमन

22:52, sunday, december 06, '09

these days am reading a lot of things concurrently. (normally i don't. just finish up one thing and move on the next. but that is difficult to manage with poetry, so read on...)

so on one hand there is Kunwar Narain's collection of gazals i mentioned in the last post, there is the book of Indian literary writings i talked about recently and then there is a Penguin omnibus on Delhi through the ages. apart from that, pickings in-between from the best short stories by Roald Dahl and the promise of reading Agyeya's collection of Hindi stories. my Isla Negra, yeah that blessing by St. Neruda, has been booknapped by Dee and as she is in the middle of her exams, i'll request her to return it to me soon. that's a pretty neat bunch of varied thoughts and measures churning up in my mind. and this all is apart from the stuff i continue reading (and sharing) on the internet.

so this sunday night, while 'a love struck romeo' plays in and around my ears, i take you to the enchanting world of Vikram Seth's poetry collection on Penguin titled, rather unimaginatively, 'The Collected Poems'. as the publisher mentions in the note, "This volume contains the definitive text of all the poems which first appeared in Mappings, The Humble Administrator's Garden, All You Who Sleep Tonight, Three Chinese Poets, Beastly Tales From Here and There, and Arion & The Dolphin." Vikram Seth has also written a novel in verse - Golden Gate which is not included in this collection. (i've that, a birthday gift by Dee, but haven't managed to read it yet!)

as of now i've reached only the first few pages of this collection's first book, 'Mappings'. and i must say, am hooked baby, this guy is making me fall in love with English again, (it has happenned previously, but only twice, one while reading 'the god of small things' and the other while uncovering 'the heart of darkness'. and i digress again!) okay, i was talking about his language skills, the way it melts and moulds in his hands, the way he picks up the most mundane of things and makes them shine like stars on an moonless night. these first few poems talk about tomatoes and departure lounges, about grand canyon and hawks soaring soundlessly above in the sky, above lovers separated in different time zones and a young impressionable guy returning home after a stint abroad, neither here not there. these poems have words addressed to a sister and those reserved for a fellow traveller, a sonnet to the poet's "generous and exuberant love", to thoughts on death's role in dying and the first thoughts that come to him when 'getting up he sees rain quietly dripping down on a grey ,"sublit" dawn.' what i like most about these poems is that he is not using any heavy words, or deepset imagery, just words and images from our daily lives and coming up with startling pieces of life-giving verse. today i share a peom i felt was amongst the most beautiful i've read so far, with an apt and startling end. do tell me if you liked it and if you ran for this book right after finishing the poem :)

Home Thoughts From The Bay

Down Highway 101 the van
Hurtles with all the speed it can
And all the passengers but one
Have jolted off to sleep. The sun
Strikes long apocalyptic lines
Of corrugated sheds, the tines
Of Sutro Tower, billboards, wires,
The airport, scrap, discrded tyres;
And i who must commute each day
Along the grimy-margined Bay
Dizzied by each high-octane breath
And tired of work and bored to death
And sick for home decide i ought
To check that surrogate for thought,
The Highway I-Ching - which today
States 'Yield.' 'Keep Right.' 'Go Back. Wrong Way.'
Should I fly home? Why am I here?
And yield to what? To whim? Fate? Fear?
Keep Right... My eyes obey and there
Pursue a jumbo-jet to where
This afternoon high in the sky
A half moon loiters absently by,
Incognizant of why or what
Or where it ought to be or not.

- Vikram Seth

मापदंड बदलो

मेरी प्रगत या अगति का
यह मापदंड बदलो तुम,
जुए के पत्ते सा
मैं अभी अनिश्चित हूँ।
मुझ पर हर और से चोटें पड़ रही हैं,
कोंपलें उग रही हैं,
पत्तियां झाड़ रही हैं,
मैं नया बनने के लिए खराद पर चढ़ रहा हूँ,
लड़ता हुआ
नई राह गढ़ता हुआ आगे बढ़ रहा हूँ।

अगर इस लड़ाई में मेरी साँसे उखड गयीं,
मेरे बाजु टूट गए,
मेरे चरणों में आंधियों के समूह ठहर गए,
मेरे अधरों पर तरंगाकुल संगीत जम गया,
या मेरे माथे पर शर्म की लकीरें खिंच गयीं,
तो मुझे पराजित मत मानना,
समझना-
तब और भी बड़े पैमाने पर,
मेरे ह्रदय में असंतोष उबल रहा होगा,
मेरे उम्मीदों के सैनिकों के पराजित पंक्तियाँ
एक बार और
शक्ति आजमाने को
धूल में खो जाने को या कुछ हो जाने को
मचल रही होंगी।
एक और अवसर की प्रतीक्षा में
मन् की कंदीलें जल रही होंगी।

ये जो चाँद से फफोले तलुओं में दिख रहे हैं
ये मुझको उकसाते हैं।
पिंडलियों की उभरी हुयी नसें
मुझ पर व्यंग्य करती हैं।
मुहँ पर पड़ी हुई यौवन की झुर्रियां
कसम देती हैं।
कुछ हो अब, तय है-
मुझको आशंकाओं पर काबू पाना है,
पत्थरों के सीने में
प्रतिध्वनि जागते हुए
परिचित उन राहों में एक बार
विजय-गीत गाते हुए जाना है-
जिनमें मैं हार चुका हूँ।

मेरी प्रगति या अगति का
यह मापदंड बदलो तुम
मैं अभी अनिश्चित हूँ.