ofthisandthat Poetry |
The snow shrinks away
from the widening pathways --
The birds are singing.
.... Arshad M Khan
Since it's spring and raining,
could we have a little different expression,
oh owl?
.... Issa
FLOWER ME A WREATH ...
Flower me a wreath
but bring a basket of kisses.
Promise me the moon
and I'll take the moonlight.
Steal away the days
but hold close the nights.
Flower me a wreath
but forget not ... a basket of kisses.
.... Arshad M Khan
Since no voice here can promise you tomorrow,
Content yourself, my mortal Moon, with bowls
Emptied by moonlight -- one fine night the Moon
May search the world for us, but find us gone!
.... Omar Khayaam [ Rubai 106 ]
[ translated ] by Robert Graves & Omar Ali-Shah
DOG ALONE BARKING ...
Dog alone barking --
barking to still the quiet,
barking to quiet the lonely ...
The old widow
turns on TV soaps
The widower --- s-l-o-w-l-y ---
pushes a shopping cart home,
talking to himself.
Dog alone barking --
barking to still the quiet,
barking to quiet the lonely ...
.... Arshad M Khan
SQUEEZE THE HOURGLASS
The heart cries for the calm of the lake --
The mind turbulent in its wake,
the boat draws closer to shore.
The call of the hunter
beckons ------------------ once more.
Squeeze the hourglass then -
let time stand still - and
cut the portions in
digestible --------------- slices.
.... Arshad M Khan
YOUNG MAN PICKING FLOWERS
All at once he is no longer
young with his handful of flowers
in the bright morning their fragrance
rising from them as though they were
still on the stalk where they opened
only this morning to the light
in which somewhere unseen the thrush
goes on singing its perfect song
into the day of the flowers
and while he stands there holding them
the cool dew runs from them onto
his hand at this hour of their lives
is it the hand of the young man
who found them only this morning
.... W. S. Merwin
AMERICAN INDIAN LAMENT
Barking dog, why you bark no noise?
No noise 'cause I hear no noise ---
----------- No noise -------------
No brother buffalo to thunder in the night
No jumping fish in sister stream
No father tree to whistle in the wind
And mother lake is barren ---
Howling wolf ... I hear you howl ...
---------- the silence -----------
.... Arshad M Khan
CLIMATE CHANGE
The streets are empty now --
all emotion drained away --
the Politicians are gone
They have eaten and drunk and
drunk in their words
they have gone
The sky weeps and
the rivers carry
the tears to sea
The earth sobs and
shudders in pain
cracking bits and pieces
And little children
march to school
bearing flags of hope
in their hearts
as the sea inches
closer in the Maldives
and Tuvalu and ...
We, have we earned
their trust?
... Arshad M Khan
Silent sentinels
shedding tears of acid rain --
The trees cry unheard
............ Arshad M Khan
WASTELAND 2009
I live in a cocoon of comfort laced
with the dried tears of the South
I live in a cocoon of luxury webbed
in the anguish of this earth
I live in a cocoon of waste
-------- unsustainable ----------
in any future I can see
I am chained with others to
a wagon rolling fast, faster ... faster
towards a precipice.
............ Arshad M Khan
From “The Wasteland”
.... He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot
spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain ....
........ T S Eliot
INTO SPRING
Earth! Let me study the contours
of that jagged smile -- opening
a chasm to swallow our sins whole.
Let me float as a cloud, light
in my expectations, and fall
gently as spring rain swelling
deep within, turning to rivulets of life.
The heavens let be, and let me lie
in the quilted warmth under
a green meadow -- wildflowers,
a lush carpet of colors, bringing
joy to passersby in the scented
longings of their dreams. And
sinless earth to begin a new journey of
compassionate man, caretaker of it all --
for the winter's tale must end in spring.
....................... Arshad M Khan
THE SWAN
This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.
And to die, which is letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave,
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each minute more fully grown,
more like a king, composed, farther and farther on.
.........................Rainer Maria Rilke
I rest my head against the night
and dream of worlds that cannot be ...
Heat rises in ripples --
a septic sepia haze shrouding
the suffocating stench
My eyes begin to follow a
rivulet of dried blood ...
a cawing of crows heralding
welcome to the feast --
early guests pecking and gouging
the eyes of a man lying dead
by the side of a road
An old woman in
a ragged pink dress
bending against her age,
her gnarled hands holding
a short broom, stirs
the dirt in front of
her tiny little shack cleaning
with a woman's
genetic determination
Is it a world left long, long ago to
return now in haunting spectacle?
No, I am dreaming of worlds that can not be --
Yet, I saw it all on the magic picture box --
its cost would feed the old woman for a year or more --
the old woman who they said was barely thirty-three
The man - twenty, or less - dead for all to see
... Arshad M. Khan
CROMWELL
After the celebrated carved misericords
And various tombs, the amiable sexton
Shows you by St. Mary's door the stone
Where Cromwell's men sharpened their swords.
Was it not a just, a righteous, war
When indiscriminate Irish blood
Flowed for the greater glory of God
Outside St. Mary's door?
If righteousness be often tipped with steel,
Be rightly tipped, psalm-singing men
Will help themselves to holy stone
To whet their zeal.
So you have both: the mellow misericords
Gracing the choir
And just outside the door
The swords.
... Robert Francis
THE RIVER RUNS FAST
And the river runs fast
rushing to slow --- in
an adolescent hurry
to look and to see
And the river runs slow
slowing the rush --- in
an ecstasy of turns ---
in a frenzy --- to
taste the earth, to touch the sun, to smell the breeze,
to taste, to touch, to smell, to feel, to live ---
And the river runs slow
and time rushes in
And the world rushes by ---
time spreads its cloak
And the river lies flat ---
tiny rivulets
Swallowed by the sea
... Arshad M Khan
Your life is a baby not yet born,
a forest sleeping under deep snow.
In Plato's world, a blank white book
awaiting the birth of someone who'll write it.
Your life is the Tyrrhenian Sea in February,
stormless, inert, where the depths
teem with spawn whose fate
depends on the dark guardianship of the sands.
But every sunset ruffles through the heavens'
unseen calendar, and already the weight appears
--my eyes see far beyond
the day's curtains -- the mysterious
astral weight that tilts the scales
toward summer's celebrations, toward San Giovanni,
when every tendril trembles, listening for
the nearing incandescent plow-beam
that comes to crackle the raving wave
and vibrate the earth's waters
all ablaze.
... Maria Luisa Spaziani
(translated from the Italian by Beverly Allen)
LAMENT LARUM
While wandering in the mist,
I came upon
a cloud of unusual form -
Iridescent butterflies that stroked the air,
in flashes of light and thunderous sound, shed
jeweled tears, to fall
in silence on dry ground.
As I longed for the days when they flowed for joy -
even pain and sometimes sorrow -
When the light was clear and thoughts sparkled true -
not froth, frustrating, surrounding ...
surrounding me in a slow enveloping mist, drawing
ever closer like a foggy shroud.
And the butterflies flutter
and the raindrops spatter
relentlessly, inside my head.
For who is to know where life leads...
when venturers turn countries to dust and despair,
claim motherhood and apple pie, with fulsome lie,
that innocent thousands must needlessly die;
when young flowers cut in their beautiful prime
feed, bleeding, the vanities of the withered old
dying in rotten splendor -
spreading the stench of death
across suffocating earth.
And the raindrops spatter
and the butterflies flutter
helplessly inside my head.
--- Arshad M. Khan
FIVE O'CLOCK
(Colt)
Down the deserted street
goes a black horse,
the wandering horse
of bad dreams.
The breeze of sunset
comes from far away.
A window is weeping
with the wind.
... Federico Garcia Lorca
THE QUIET
It is the quiet of an ocean cave
Silence, and then the roar of a wave
It is the quiet of the rising moon
In the still of the uncertain night
It is the quiet of a lover's smile
Holding the power to destroy
It is the quiet of a hurricane's eye
Readying the knock-out punch few survive
It is the quiet of a sleeping volcano
Predictable in its unpredictable fury.
It is the quiet of the muted masses
Festering anger against the thieving classes
.... Arshad M. Khan
WHITE FLOWER
One flower, my family and I,
And I but a petal.
I grasp a hoe in one hand
Wife and child by the other.
It wasn't I who drove that stake
Into the earth, then pulled it out.
I'm innocent----rather we are.
Like that white cloud above.
I stretch out my right hand: nothing.
I raise my left: nobody.
A white flower opens,
And now I stand apart.
While, above, a bomber soars.
My family and I are buried alive.
I'm a handful of earth.
Untraceable.
... Lucien Stryk
COME WALK WITH ME
Come walk with me amid
the bold autumn blaze - the
bright gold, the magenta,
the setting sun blushing
crimson across the sky.
Come walk with me
through the seasons
But don't talk to me of
winter waiting nigh.
Come walk with me in the
spring - by the cold waters of
the mountain stream, skipping
stones, listening to the whistling pines.
Come walk with me under
the twinkling summer skies,
in the jasmine scented
air heavy with desire.
Come walk with me, time -
thief of youth, thief of beauty,
thief of all but memory -
I'll walk past you tonight.
--- Arshad M. Khan
The cyclic recurrence of sunset and dawn
Daily serves to measure life's decay,
But burdened with his mundane tasks,
Man does not grasp time's fugitive flight.
Seeing old age, pain, and death,
He is not aroused to anxiety.
Drunk on delusion's heady wine,
The world is mad in oblivion.
... Bhartrihari --- (Satakatrayam
translated from Sanskrit by Barbara Stoler Miller)
SOMEWHERE, EARTH
Don't look now
She's fast asleep
Parents shut her when
the soldiers came
in this hidden
confined space ...
The empty stillness of
an empty house --- silent ---
Just the wind creaking windows
and the sobbing ... faint
Don't look now
She's fast asleep ---
curled, resting
forever in
man's own darkness
... Arshad M. Khan
If people do not fear death
why threaten them with it?
But suppose they did fear death
and this was the fate handed to lawbreakers
Who would dare to do the killing?
There is always a Lord of Death
He who takes the place of the Lord of Death
is like one who cuts with the blade
of a master carpenter
Whoever cuts with the blade of a master carpenter
is sure to cut his own hands
Verse 74 --- Tao Te Ching
.... Lao-tzu
(Jonathan Star translation)
SUMMER EVENING WITH JEAN-LUC
Dappled sunlight through the trees
dancing shadows on the cedar deck ---
Jean-Luc lap happy sighs with the breeze.
The giant elm, no longer full
after its recent prune and trim;
its reign challenged by the upstart pine ---
a mere sapling a quarter century past.
The flowers ablaze in the gold shafts and
shade of early evening summer light,
The red birds, successful this year,
busy with the fledglings' lessons in flight ---
Old wine in a new decanter
being allowed to breathe ---
All is contentment in suburbia.
Yet nature's whims are its own ---
Until a bare half-dozen years ago
the elm was contested territory ---
a flock of crows and a flock of blue jays in
interminable squawks and shrieks
all summer long in a history
spanning at least thirty years ---
The West Nile virus came a sudden
and in a whiff quelled the squabble.
No crows, no blue jays but now there are
robins, blackbirds, doves and songsters ---
Nature fills the void.
.... Arshad M Khan
.... No weekends for the gods now. Wars
flicker, earth licks its open sores,
fresh breakage, fresh promotions, chance
assassinations, no advance.
Only man thinning out his kind
sounds through the Sabbath noon, the blind
swipe of the pruner and his knife
busy about the tree of life ...
Pity the planet, all joy gone
from this sweet volcanic cone;
peace to our children when they fall
in small war on the heels of small
war -- until the end of time
to police the earth, a ghost
orbiting forever lost
in our monotonous sublime.
.... Robert Lowell --- (1967)
Death came knocking today
It missed
It came yesterday and the day before,
the day before ... and ...
It missed
It comes tomorrow and the day after,
the day after ... and ...
What matter
Galaxies are swallowing galaxies
Our Milky Way waiting its turn
What matter
Eons before, eons ahead
What matter
Why? How?
What matter
--- Arshad M Khan
Far down within the dim West
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie. ...
--- Edgar Allen Poe
Let us all
live the lie
When truth will not suffice
For memories that fade away
In distant mists and nighted summer skies.
The last waves of fall upon us
In final muted blaze to
Eyes dimmed in silence
In a silence that cries.
Hear the silence
Hear the silence
The deafening silence
In the deep chasm
of history.
--- Arshad M. Khan
The essence of my teachings is this:
See with original purity
Embrace with original simplicity
Reduce what you have
Decrease what you want ....
Verse 19 --- Tao Te Ching
.... Lao-tzu
(Jonathan Star translation)
We do not inherit the
land from our ancestors; we
borrow it from our children.
.... Native American proverb
FUTURE TENSE
Chaos lights the daylight hours, as
death defines the corners of night.
The sun now is not a benign gold orb;
it beats down inflamed angered red.
"Why must I" asks the Indian child
"die for your sins, your profligacy?"---
innocents --- cast aside in nature's
careless cruelty --- animals fleeing
the onrush of flames --- the forests blaze
no rain in the merciless sky, just
the paradox of rising ocean, an
invader swallowing the land. No
dam, no dike in man's tackle box to
stem this relentless tide ... just retreat,
angry retreat, angry regret at this
patrimony of profligates whiling
away a priceless inheritance.
.... Arshad M Khan
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I ---
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
.... Robert Frost
THE RIVER
The river rushes, it meanders, it slows,
Its course carved by early turmoil,
Its force by summer's rain and winter's snows;
Its water drinks the journey's soil,
And we ... we then taste of all it knows.
.... Arshad M Khan
Never think of conquering
others by force
whatever strains with force
will soon decay
Verse 30 -- Tao Te Ching
.... Lao-tzu
BECAUSE IT'S THERE
The snow covers the mountain
In all new Christmas clothes
Shining golden silk in the sunlight
And white satin by the moon.
Gone are the conquerors flags
Buried on the soaring peak
Gone are the wounds and gashes
Gone all the littered waste
Gone are the summer victors
Gone the guided storm troopers
Gone all to do their killing
In some other far-off place.
The snow covers the mountain
In all new Christmas clothes
Shining golden silk in the sunlight
And white satin by the moon.
Will the conquerors come again?
Patience, they'll be gone soon.
.... Arshad M Khan
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain ...
..... T S Eliot
The Spring flower waves a
magic wand
Sprinkling its golden
dust of hope.
A few moments of sparkle ---
And the magician is gone!
..... Arshad M Khan
HAIKU
The seven poems below, some by the Japanese master Basho
(1644-94), employ the haiku form consisting of three lines in 5 - 7 - 5
syllables, and most important the 'cut' or related, yet unrelated idea
to the first line.
Three poems by Basho, including the last, his death poem:
Summer grasses:
all that's left of great soldiers
imperial dreams
Lonely silence,
a single cicada's cry
sinking into stone
Sick on my journey,
only my dreams will wander
these desolate moors
The following five poems are by Arshad M. Khan.
Daffodils trumpet
their yearly cadenza.
Spring rubs its eyes, wakes
In the heart of a dove
beats a gentle, faithful love.
Up high soars, a hawk
On wings of eagles
rest our fragile hopes; and lies
earth naked beneath
Late summer evening
sun, casting a long shadow --
erased in twilight
The dawn quiet breaks ---
Chirping birds singing sweetly
through my sealed window.
__________________________________________________________
As we know, Fitzgerald's famous Omar Khayam translation is often
far removed from the poet's original words. Here is a familiar
quatrain followed by a newer Robert Graves' version, which is
closer to Khayam's text.
FITZGERALD TRANSLATION:
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
GRAVES TRANSLATION:
What we shall be is written, and we are so.
Heedless of God or Evil, pen, write on!
By the first day all futures were decided;
Which gives our griefs and pains irrelevancy.
“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeits
of our own behavior — we make guilty of our own
disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars.”
Shakespeare --- "King Lear"
"The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars,
But in ourselves that we are underlings."
Shakespeare --- "Julius Caesar"
Call the sun not
it won't answer
Too big to feel your pain
too many to heed
Call the moon not
it won't answer
Too many admirers
to spare a glance
Call the earth not
there is no need
It knows your pain
it knows your heart
It bore you remember
now you bear it
Conquer the pain
and you have strength
Surpass your desires
and you have bliss
..... Arshad M Khan
Beat! beat! drums! -- blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows -- through doors -- burst like a ruthless
force
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation
Into the school where the scholar is studying
Leave not the bridegroom quiet -- no happiness must he
have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field
or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums -- so shrill
you bugles blow. .....
-- Walt Whitman
Do not look back
this is a one way track
a lonely road
sometimes soft underfoot
sometimes hard scrabble rock
potholes to swallow a man whole
and grind him to gravel
Don't look back
it's a rising road
to weary the young
and wither the old
Do not look back
no clean pillars of salt
just the wretched stench of human failings
and death.
..... Arshad M Khan
..... The wounds of battle have turned to victory
because of the pain
I did not escape.
I am floating in a sea of nectar,
filled with every delight,
because of the hardships
I did not escape. ......
Rumi --- translated by Jonathan Star
and Shahram Shiva.
IN THE EARLY HOURS
In the early hours
before
the sun has worn out the night
the muse beckons
whispers
a line or two in this scribbler's ear
pours the draft not just once
or twice ----
until the slumberer wakes
to spill her words in
the light.
--- Arshad M. Khan
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
--- Dylan Thomas
I came upon stillness today,
And then ---- it came upon me.
All my cares were washed away
In the fjord's tranquility
--- Arshad M. Khan
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness --
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail--
Assent --and you are sane--
Demur -- you're straightway dangerous---
And handled with a Chain--
--- Emily Dickinson
INAUGURATION
My world, this cage...
Drunk in its stale air
For two hundred years.
Fettered in mind and body,
The soul, the safe escape
To let me breathe the cries
Of my heart singing
Tears of mel-an-choly.
The tears flow free today
Washing the stains of blood
And sweat in brotherhood.
Raise the curtain then an'
Let the world look in
On this promised land --
We breathe free today.... almost.
--- Arshad M. Khan
The Heart asks Pleasure -- first --
And then-- Excuse from Pain--
And then-- those little Anodynes
That deaden suffering--
And then-- to go to sleep--
And then-- if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor
The privilege to die
--- Emily Dickinson
PHOENIX RISING
Phoenix rising
from the ashes
of doom pre-ordained.
Philosophers fail
prophets lie still
where passion swells
as o'erwhelming tide
to squelch reason
at the door.
And little shoots
lie trampled
as giants thrash
upon the ground
in a dance
of deadly scorpions --
their atomic stingers
flying faster than sound.
Death, you started nibbling
when we were born;
Come gorge,
the feast
is almost laid -
Man to perish
in futile hope of...
Phoenix rising...
from the ashes
of doom preordained
--- Arshad M. Khan
Beware!
Kings are ruined by bad advice,
Ascetics by society,
Offspring by indulgence,
Priests by ignorance of scripture,
A family by degenerate sons,
Character by bad company;
Modesty by wine,
Husbandry by lack of care,
Affection by distance,
Friendship by distrust,
Prosperity by dearth of luck,
and wealth by prodigal ways.
--- Bhartrihari Sanskrit text translated by Barbara Stoler Miller
Little flowers bloom in
our soul,
And we kill them
in the daily grind
Of our existence
--- Arshad M. Khan
The cold horror of
'right' and 'wrong'
Whose right?
whose wrong?
Who's right?
who's wrong?
And so it goes on ....
---- Arshad M. Khan
from the widening pathways --
The birds are singing.
.... Arshad M Khan
Since it's spring and raining,
could we have a little different expression,
oh owl?
.... Issa
FLOWER ME A WREATH ...
Flower me a wreath
but bring a basket of kisses.
Promise me the moon
and I'll take the moonlight.
Steal away the days
but hold close the nights.
Flower me a wreath
but forget not ... a basket of kisses.
.... Arshad M Khan
Since no voice here can promise you tomorrow,
Content yourself, my mortal Moon, with bowls
Emptied by moonlight -- one fine night the Moon
May search the world for us, but find us gone!
.... Omar Khayaam [ Rubai 106 ]
[ translated ] by Robert Graves & Omar Ali-Shah
DOG ALONE BARKING ...
Dog alone barking --
barking to still the quiet,
barking to quiet the lonely ...
The old widow
turns on TV soaps
The widower --- s-l-o-w-l-y ---
pushes a shopping cart home,
talking to himself.
Dog alone barking --
barking to still the quiet,
barking to quiet the lonely ...
.... Arshad M Khan
SQUEEZE THE HOURGLASS
The heart cries for the calm of the lake --
The mind turbulent in its wake,
the boat draws closer to shore.
The call of the hunter
beckons ------------------ once more.
Squeeze the hourglass then -
let time stand still - and
cut the portions in
digestible --------------- slices.
.... Arshad M Khan
YOUNG MAN PICKING FLOWERS
All at once he is no longer
young with his handful of flowers
in the bright morning their fragrance
rising from them as though they were
still on the stalk where they opened
only this morning to the light
in which somewhere unseen the thrush
goes on singing its perfect song
into the day of the flowers
and while he stands there holding them
the cool dew runs from them onto
his hand at this hour of their lives
is it the hand of the young man
who found them only this morning
.... W. S. Merwin
AMERICAN INDIAN LAMENT
Barking dog, why you bark no noise?
No noise 'cause I hear no noise ---
----------- No noise -------------
No brother buffalo to thunder in the night
No jumping fish in sister stream
No father tree to whistle in the wind
And mother lake is barren ---
Howling wolf ... I hear you howl ...
---------- the silence -----------
.... Arshad M Khan
CLIMATE CHANGE
The streets are empty now --
all emotion drained away --
the Politicians are gone
They have eaten and drunk and
drunk in their words
they have gone
The sky weeps and
the rivers carry
the tears to sea
The earth sobs and
shudders in pain
cracking bits and pieces
And little children
march to school
bearing flags of hope
in their hearts
as the sea inches
closer in the Maldives
and Tuvalu and ...
We, have we earned
their trust?
... Arshad M Khan
Silent sentinels
shedding tears of acid rain --
The trees cry unheard
............ Arshad M Khan
WASTELAND 2009
I live in a cocoon of comfort laced
with the dried tears of the South
I live in a cocoon of luxury webbed
in the anguish of this earth
I live in a cocoon of waste
-------- unsustainable ----------
in any future I can see
I am chained with others to
a wagon rolling fast, faster ... faster
towards a precipice.
............ Arshad M Khan
From “The Wasteland”
.... He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot
spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain ....
........ T S Eliot
INTO SPRING
Earth! Let me study the contours
of that jagged smile -- opening
a chasm to swallow our sins whole.
Let me float as a cloud, light
in my expectations, and fall
gently as spring rain swelling
deep within, turning to rivulets of life.
The heavens let be, and let me lie
in the quilted warmth under
a green meadow -- wildflowers,
a lush carpet of colors, bringing
joy to passersby in the scented
longings of their dreams. And
sinless earth to begin a new journey of
compassionate man, caretaker of it all --
for the winter's tale must end in spring.
....................... Arshad M Khan
THE SWAN
This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.
And to die, which is letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave,
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each minute more fully grown,
more like a king, composed, farther and farther on.
.........................Rainer Maria Rilke
I rest my head against the night
and dream of worlds that cannot be ...
Heat rises in ripples --
a septic sepia haze shrouding
the suffocating stench
My eyes begin to follow a
rivulet of dried blood ...
a cawing of crows heralding
welcome to the feast --
early guests pecking and gouging
the eyes of a man lying dead
by the side of a road
An old woman in
a ragged pink dress
bending against her age,
her gnarled hands holding
a short broom, stirs
the dirt in front of
her tiny little shack cleaning
with a woman's
genetic determination
Is it a world left long, long ago to
return now in haunting spectacle?
No, I am dreaming of worlds that can not be --
Yet, I saw it all on the magic picture box --
its cost would feed the old woman for a year or more --
the old woman who they said was barely thirty-three
The man - twenty, or less - dead for all to see
... Arshad M. Khan
CROMWELL
After the celebrated carved misericords
And various tombs, the amiable sexton
Shows you by St. Mary's door the stone
Where Cromwell's men sharpened their swords.
Was it not a just, a righteous, war
When indiscriminate Irish blood
Flowed for the greater glory of God
Outside St. Mary's door?
If righteousness be often tipped with steel,
Be rightly tipped, psalm-singing men
Will help themselves to holy stone
To whet their zeal.
So you have both: the mellow misericords
Gracing the choir
And just outside the door
The swords.
... Robert Francis
THE RIVER RUNS FAST
And the river runs fast
rushing to slow --- in
an adolescent hurry
to look and to see
And the river runs slow
slowing the rush --- in
an ecstasy of turns ---
in a frenzy --- to
taste the earth, to touch the sun, to smell the breeze,
to taste, to touch, to smell, to feel, to live ---
And the river runs slow
and time rushes in
And the world rushes by ---
time spreads its cloak
And the river lies flat ---
tiny rivulets
Swallowed by the sea
... Arshad M Khan
Your life is a baby not yet born,
a forest sleeping under deep snow.
In Plato's world, a blank white book
awaiting the birth of someone who'll write it.
Your life is the Tyrrhenian Sea in February,
stormless, inert, where the depths
teem with spawn whose fate
depends on the dark guardianship of the sands.
But every sunset ruffles through the heavens'
unseen calendar, and already the weight appears
--my eyes see far beyond
the day's curtains -- the mysterious
astral weight that tilts the scales
toward summer's celebrations, toward San Giovanni,
when every tendril trembles, listening for
the nearing incandescent plow-beam
that comes to crackle the raving wave
and vibrate the earth's waters
all ablaze.
... Maria Luisa Spaziani
(translated from the Italian by Beverly Allen)
LAMENT LARUM
While wandering in the mist,
I came upon
a cloud of unusual form -
Iridescent butterflies that stroked the air,
in flashes of light and thunderous sound, shed
jeweled tears, to fall
in silence on dry ground.
As I longed for the days when they flowed for joy -
even pain and sometimes sorrow -
When the light was clear and thoughts sparkled true -
not froth, frustrating, surrounding ...
surrounding me in a slow enveloping mist, drawing
ever closer like a foggy shroud.
And the butterflies flutter
and the raindrops spatter
relentlessly, inside my head.
For who is to know where life leads...
when venturers turn countries to dust and despair,
claim motherhood and apple pie, with fulsome lie,
that innocent thousands must needlessly die;
when young flowers cut in their beautiful prime
feed, bleeding, the vanities of the withered old
dying in rotten splendor -
spreading the stench of death
across suffocating earth.
And the raindrops spatter
and the butterflies flutter
helplessly inside my head.
--- Arshad M. Khan
FIVE O'CLOCK
(Colt)
Down the deserted street
goes a black horse,
the wandering horse
of bad dreams.
The breeze of sunset
comes from far away.
A window is weeping
with the wind.
... Federico Garcia Lorca
THE QUIET
It is the quiet of an ocean cave
Silence, and then the roar of a wave
It is the quiet of the rising moon
In the still of the uncertain night
It is the quiet of a lover's smile
Holding the power to destroy
It is the quiet of a hurricane's eye
Readying the knock-out punch few survive
It is the quiet of a sleeping volcano
Predictable in its unpredictable fury.
It is the quiet of the muted masses
Festering anger against the thieving classes
.... Arshad M. Khan
WHITE FLOWER
One flower, my family and I,
And I but a petal.
I grasp a hoe in one hand
Wife and child by the other.
It wasn't I who drove that stake
Into the earth, then pulled it out.
I'm innocent----rather we are.
Like that white cloud above.
I stretch out my right hand: nothing.
I raise my left: nobody.
A white flower opens,
And now I stand apart.
While, above, a bomber soars.
My family and I are buried alive.
I'm a handful of earth.
Untraceable.
... Lucien Stryk
COME WALK WITH ME
Come walk with me amid
the bold autumn blaze - the
bright gold, the magenta,
the setting sun blushing
crimson across the sky.
Come walk with me
through the seasons
But don't talk to me of
winter waiting nigh.
Come walk with me in the
spring - by the cold waters of
the mountain stream, skipping
stones, listening to the whistling pines.
Come walk with me under
the twinkling summer skies,
in the jasmine scented
air heavy with desire.
Come walk with me, time -
thief of youth, thief of beauty,
thief of all but memory -
I'll walk past you tonight.
--- Arshad M. Khan
The cyclic recurrence of sunset and dawn
Daily serves to measure life's decay,
But burdened with his mundane tasks,
Man does not grasp time's fugitive flight.
Seeing old age, pain, and death,
He is not aroused to anxiety.
Drunk on delusion's heady wine,
The world is mad in oblivion.
... Bhartrihari --- (Satakatrayam
translated from Sanskrit by Barbara Stoler Miller)
SOMEWHERE, EARTH
Don't look now
She's fast asleep
Parents shut her when
the soldiers came
in this hidden
confined space ...
The empty stillness of
an empty house --- silent ---
Just the wind creaking windows
and the sobbing ... faint
Don't look now
She's fast asleep ---
curled, resting
forever in
man's own darkness
... Arshad M. Khan
If people do not fear death
why threaten them with it?
But suppose they did fear death
and this was the fate handed to lawbreakers
Who would dare to do the killing?
There is always a Lord of Death
He who takes the place of the Lord of Death
is like one who cuts with the blade
of a master carpenter
Whoever cuts with the blade of a master carpenter
is sure to cut his own hands
Verse 74 --- Tao Te Ching
.... Lao-tzu
(Jonathan Star translation)
SUMMER EVENING WITH JEAN-LUC
Dappled sunlight through the trees
dancing shadows on the cedar deck ---
Jean-Luc lap happy sighs with the breeze.
The giant elm, no longer full
after its recent prune and trim;
its reign challenged by the upstart pine ---
a mere sapling a quarter century past.
The flowers ablaze in the gold shafts and
shade of early evening summer light,
The red birds, successful this year,
busy with the fledglings' lessons in flight ---
Old wine in a new decanter
being allowed to breathe ---
All is contentment in suburbia.
Yet nature's whims are its own ---
Until a bare half-dozen years ago
the elm was contested territory ---
a flock of crows and a flock of blue jays in
interminable squawks and shrieks
all summer long in a history
spanning at least thirty years ---
The West Nile virus came a sudden
and in a whiff quelled the squabble.
No crows, no blue jays but now there are
robins, blackbirds, doves and songsters ---
Nature fills the void.
.... Arshad M Khan
.... No weekends for the gods now. Wars
flicker, earth licks its open sores,
fresh breakage, fresh promotions, chance
assassinations, no advance.
Only man thinning out his kind
sounds through the Sabbath noon, the blind
swipe of the pruner and his knife
busy about the tree of life ...
Pity the planet, all joy gone
from this sweet volcanic cone;
peace to our children when they fall
in small war on the heels of small
war -- until the end of time
to police the earth, a ghost
orbiting forever lost
in our monotonous sublime.
.... Robert Lowell --- (1967)
Death came knocking today
It missed
It came yesterday and the day before,
the day before ... and ...
It missed
It comes tomorrow and the day after,
the day after ... and ...
What matter
Galaxies are swallowing galaxies
Our Milky Way waiting its turn
What matter
Eons before, eons ahead
What matter
Why? How?
What matter
--- Arshad M Khan
Far down within the dim West
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie. ...
--- Edgar Allen Poe
Let us all
live the lie
When truth will not suffice
For memories that fade away
In distant mists and nighted summer skies.
The last waves of fall upon us
In final muted blaze to
Eyes dimmed in silence
In a silence that cries.
Hear the silence
Hear the silence
The deafening silence
In the deep chasm
of history.
--- Arshad M. Khan
The essence of my teachings is this:
See with original purity
Embrace with original simplicity
Reduce what you have
Decrease what you want ....
Verse 19 --- Tao Te Ching
.... Lao-tzu
(Jonathan Star translation)
We do not inherit the
land from our ancestors; we
borrow it from our children.
.... Native American proverb
FUTURE TENSE
Chaos lights the daylight hours, as
death defines the corners of night.
The sun now is not a benign gold orb;
it beats down inflamed angered red.
"Why must I" asks the Indian child
"die for your sins, your profligacy?"---
innocents --- cast aside in nature's
careless cruelty --- animals fleeing
the onrush of flames --- the forests blaze
no rain in the merciless sky, just
the paradox of rising ocean, an
invader swallowing the land. No
dam, no dike in man's tackle box to
stem this relentless tide ... just retreat,
angry retreat, angry regret at this
patrimony of profligates whiling
away a priceless inheritance.
.... Arshad M Khan
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I ---
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
.... Robert Frost
THE RIVER
The river rushes, it meanders, it slows,
Its course carved by early turmoil,
Its force by summer's rain and winter's snows;
Its water drinks the journey's soil,
And we ... we then taste of all it knows.
.... Arshad M Khan
Never think of conquering
others by force
whatever strains with force
will soon decay
Verse 30 -- Tao Te Ching
.... Lao-tzu
BECAUSE IT'S THERE
The snow covers the mountain
In all new Christmas clothes
Shining golden silk in the sunlight
And white satin by the moon.
Gone are the conquerors flags
Buried on the soaring peak
Gone are the wounds and gashes
Gone all the littered waste
Gone are the summer victors
Gone the guided storm troopers
Gone all to do their killing
In some other far-off place.
The snow covers the mountain
In all new Christmas clothes
Shining golden silk in the sunlight
And white satin by the moon.
Will the conquerors come again?
Patience, they'll be gone soon.
.... Arshad M Khan
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain ...
..... T S Eliot
The Spring flower waves a
magic wand
Sprinkling its golden
dust of hope.
A few moments of sparkle ---
And the magician is gone!
..... Arshad M Khan
HAIKU
The seven poems below, some by the Japanese master Basho
(1644-94), employ the haiku form consisting of three lines in 5 - 7 - 5
syllables, and most important the 'cut' or related, yet unrelated idea
to the first line.
Three poems by Basho, including the last, his death poem:
Summer grasses:
all that's left of great soldiers
imperial dreams
Lonely silence,
a single cicada's cry
sinking into stone
Sick on my journey,
only my dreams will wander
these desolate moors
The following five poems are by Arshad M. Khan.
Daffodils trumpet
their yearly cadenza.
Spring rubs its eyes, wakes
In the heart of a dove
beats a gentle, faithful love.
Up high soars, a hawk
On wings of eagles
rest our fragile hopes; and lies
earth naked beneath
Late summer evening
sun, casting a long shadow --
erased in twilight
The dawn quiet breaks ---
Chirping birds singing sweetly
through my sealed window.
__________________________________________________________
As we know, Fitzgerald's famous Omar Khayam translation is often
far removed from the poet's original words. Here is a familiar
quatrain followed by a newer Robert Graves' version, which is
closer to Khayam's text.
FITZGERALD TRANSLATION:
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
GRAVES TRANSLATION:
What we shall be is written, and we are so.
Heedless of God or Evil, pen, write on!
By the first day all futures were decided;
Which gives our griefs and pains irrelevancy.
“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeits
of our own behavior — we make guilty of our own
disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars.”
Shakespeare --- "King Lear"
"The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars,
But in ourselves that we are underlings."
Shakespeare --- "Julius Caesar"
Call the sun not
it won't answer
Too big to feel your pain
too many to heed
Call the moon not
it won't answer
Too many admirers
to spare a glance
Call the earth not
there is no need
It knows your pain
it knows your heart
It bore you remember
now you bear it
Conquer the pain
and you have strength
Surpass your desires
and you have bliss
..... Arshad M Khan
Beat! beat! drums! -- blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows -- through doors -- burst like a ruthless
force
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation
Into the school where the scholar is studying
Leave not the bridegroom quiet -- no happiness must he
have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field
or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums -- so shrill
you bugles blow. .....
-- Walt Whitman
Do not look back
this is a one way track
a lonely road
sometimes soft underfoot
sometimes hard scrabble rock
potholes to swallow a man whole
and grind him to gravel
Don't look back
it's a rising road
to weary the young
and wither the old
Do not look back
no clean pillars of salt
just the wretched stench of human failings
and death.
..... Arshad M Khan
..... The wounds of battle have turned to victory
because of the pain
I did not escape.
I am floating in a sea of nectar,
filled with every delight,
because of the hardships
I did not escape. ......
Rumi --- translated by Jonathan Star
and Shahram Shiva.
IN THE EARLY HOURS
In the early hours
before
the sun has worn out the night
the muse beckons
whispers
a line or two in this scribbler's ear
pours the draft not just once
or twice ----
until the slumberer wakes
to spill her words in
the light.
--- Arshad M. Khan
DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
--- Dylan Thomas
I came upon stillness today,
And then ---- it came upon me.
All my cares were washed away
In the fjord's tranquility
--- Arshad M. Khan
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness --
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail--
Assent --and you are sane--
Demur -- you're straightway dangerous---
And handled with a Chain--
--- Emily Dickinson
INAUGURATION
My world, this cage...
Drunk in its stale air
For two hundred years.
Fettered in mind and body,
The soul, the safe escape
To let me breathe the cries
Of my heart singing
Tears of mel-an-choly.
The tears flow free today
Washing the stains of blood
And sweat in brotherhood.
Raise the curtain then an'
Let the world look in
On this promised land --
We breathe free today.... almost.
--- Arshad M. Khan
The Heart asks Pleasure -- first --
And then-- Excuse from Pain--
And then-- those little Anodynes
That deaden suffering--
And then-- to go to sleep--
And then-- if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor
The privilege to die
--- Emily Dickinson
PHOENIX RISING
Phoenix rising
from the ashes
of doom pre-ordained.
Philosophers fail
prophets lie still
where passion swells
as o'erwhelming tide
to squelch reason
at the door.
And little shoots
lie trampled
as giants thrash
upon the ground
in a dance
of deadly scorpions --
their atomic stingers
flying faster than sound.
Death, you started nibbling
when we were born;
Come gorge,
the feast
is almost laid -
Man to perish
in futile hope of...
Phoenix rising...
from the ashes
of doom preordained
--- Arshad M. Khan
Beware!
Kings are ruined by bad advice,
Ascetics by society,
Offspring by indulgence,
Priests by ignorance of scripture,
A family by degenerate sons,
Character by bad company;
Modesty by wine,
Husbandry by lack of care,
Affection by distance,
Friendship by distrust,
Prosperity by dearth of luck,
and wealth by prodigal ways.
--- Bhartrihari Sanskrit text translated by Barbara Stoler Miller
Little flowers bloom in
our soul,
And we kill them
in the daily grind
Of our existence
--- Arshad M. Khan
The cold horror of
'right' and 'wrong'
Whose right?
whose wrong?
Who's right?
who's wrong?
And so it goes on ....
---- Arshad M. Khan
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
Copyright © 2010 ofthisandthat.org.
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
| Questions and Comments backfire@ofthisandthat.org |