Posted in Art Scene, Books, Literature, Memoirs, Nature, Philosophy, Poetry, Relationships, Religion, Social Commentary, Society, Travel, tagged age, amidst, aristocrat, ash, ask, attend, awaken, away, bail, bed, before, being, belly, birds, blade, blood, blossoms, body, bombs, born, bullet, burn, caged, cats, change, cherry, chew, chorus, circumnavigate, cloud, coconut, cold, commentary, conceal, corpse, course, cowardice, crimson tide, cruelty, dead, decipher, deluge, dense, despair, devoid, dirge, discontent, distant, divine, dogs, door, down, dreams, dying, earth, elegy, empty, endless, enemy, engulf, enter, equality, existence, extinguish, faint, fall, Far East, fight, find, fire, flame, flood, floor, fog, fool, foot, forever, forget, freedom, funeral, God, graveyard, great, gunfire, happen, haunt, head, heal, hear, heaven, here, history, hole, homeland, hope, horizon, house, hum, hypnotism, immortal, impose, incessant, inherit, inward, island, join, justice, knife, knock, know, lacerate, land, language, leaves, letters, life, light, lilac, limbs, line, linger, little, live, lonely, love, lullabye, made, march, meaning, memory, men, middle, might, misfortune, moon, morning, mourn, naked, name, native, neon, night, offer, old, opium, other, outside, Pablo Neruda, pain, patch, pavement, persistent, pieces, piety, pilgrim, place, poem, poetry, poor, pot, prayer, presence, prey, promise, pulpit, purchase, quest clue, question, rain, reach, redemption, repose, river, roof, room, root, rose, sad, sand, scattered, scorch, sea, seek, severe, shattered, shelter, shore, short, shred, sign, sing, sky, slice, smell, smoke, sojourn, sold, soliloquy, someone, song, sonnet, soul, south, speak, springtime, stain, stars, stiff, still, stomach, stop, storm, stranger, street, strive, stubborn, tears, things, time, tin, tomb, tomorrow, tonight, touch, Travel, traverse day, tree, tunnel, unaswered, unfasten, unfold, unheard, vain, verses, voice, volcano, wail, wait, wane, way, west, westerly, where, whisk, whisper, why, wind, window, women, wonder, words, world, wound, write, writhe, you on April 24, 2010|
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I write these letters in smoke. They are fog
to the starry night of the south where you existed,
circumnavigated the world, then extinguished
as a flame, long before I was born.
You said you had lived in the springtime
among the cherry blossoms of the west. While
here on this island, I had lived humming
lullabye amidst the scorched patches of sand.
I cannot sit still and my memory was filled
of your presence here. I can hear your voice
from a distant time and place. Your voice has traveled
and finally touch down inwardly and it lingers.
Tonight, the sad lines of your verses haunt me forever,
“love is short and forgetting is so long”.
I chewed the words on my empty stomach
as the light from your waning moon fills my room.
I have no windows, they are shattered. There is no door to enter,
so you don’t need to knock. Inside my house is fire left by bombs
and gunfire. And on my earthened floor are scattered pieces
of limbs and severed heads of dead dogs and cats devoid of shelter.
I have seen the heaven through the bullet holes on my tin roof.
And the fire is still burning from within. I have seen the clouds
unfolding and unfastened as I became the enemy of the gods,
pot-bellied in the pulpit- imposing cruelty to fools purchasing piety.
I have been an inheritor of misfortune, like a stubborn root
of an old dying tree, digging the earth to its graveyard, a tomb.
I seek to find in this endless tunnel, a repose for my corpse-
stiff, in pain and left there naked, writhing in the cold.
I can no longer find the stars in the night sky, Pablo.
And the tears begin to fall like rain on the tin roof.
Outside, you wailed a storm, flooding my being,
persistent, engulfing me with the soliloquy of the night.
This bed I made out of the coconut tree, lacerating my body
of little knives, that have sliced and shredded my soul. And I
smelled of the blood through the blade of your words
as I whisked them away to the westerly winds to reach you.
I ask you. Why things happened this way? History blood-stained.
And the sea mourns while changing course of the mighty river.
In the horizon, a crimson tide of the many who died seeking the meaning
of their lives. And the night birds still singing their lonely dirge.
I ask you. Where are the lilac? Immortalized in sonnets by men,
those middle-aged aristocrats. And the women becoming birds of prey,
caged and waiting to be sold. Incessantly knocking on the doors
to see some faint hope traversing the day into their neon light.
Where are the language of stars? Deciphered by hypnotized strangers
who quest for clues and signs and wonders. Why does the rain
did not stop from falling? I am bailing out to exist from this deluge,
finding redemption while concealing my cowardice. I cannot fight.
I am poor, Pablo. But I know your name. And the dense earth that
we both lived, became the pavement for marching foot falls
of the many striving to live to see until their dying day- freedom,
justice and equality. Unanswered like prayers, unheard of the divine.
Your verses did not speak of dreams and leaves and great volcanoes
of your native land. Your verses did not promise the opium
that will heal the wounds of time. But your verses have spoken
of the blood in the streets. And the blood in the streets, I have seen.
I will offer an elegy in my homeland. I will sing your song in vain,
hoping for someone to hear and join me singing your immortal chorus.
Your ashes I would want to scatter into the night clouds until tomorrow.
When morning will be awakened by pilgrims sojourning the other world.
And still, I am waiting for the stars to appear in the Far-east. I had
only a rose to your funeral. I will not be able to attend. But I will
whisper to the westerly winds my discontent and the endless despair
you will hear from the shore of this island, questioning existence.
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Who Says Poetry Is A Dying Art?
Posted in Art Scene, Current Affairs, Literature, Philosophy, Poetry, Politics, Relationships, Social Commentary, Society, tagged affection, angst, around, art, beauty, behind, belong, between, brand, brave, bring, buy, carry, centuries, chance, change, childhood, chosen, conversation, corner, country, craft, day, despite, difference, digging, dying, easy, engaged, everyone, exile, express, fail, feelings, four, future, gentle, going, gold, hearts, heavy, hole, hope, impress, interest, keys, leave, life, line, look, lost, loud, love, lyricism, maintenance, masterpiece, men, mind, mine, mysticism, narcissism, never, night, nonchalant, notice, One, otherwise, out, paradise, passing, past, people, pieces, poem, poet, poetry, pretend, rant, reading, recording, reputation, room, self-absorbed, sell, slow, songs, space, speed, spend, stalk, streets, sung, survival, things, time, toil, travails, unfurling, unhurried, walk, walls, want, way speak, window, without, world on July 5, 2013| 2 Comments »
Some say love is never about speed but a slow
unfurling of beauty- gentle and unhurried.
That makes the difference between the passing
of time and the crafting of masterpiece-
not everyone is interested reading about angst.
And you fail to notice that everyone’s engaged
to their own brand of narcissism- they maintain
to survive and keep up one’s reputation.
And if you think that poets spend their lives
holed up in their four cornered walls and a window
looking in from the world changing night and day.
Self-absorbed about feelings or digging of the past
and wanting for love that they never have.
Or won’t have.
Some say about exiles to another country
or to another time or another space would
make people stalk on your mysticism.
Or the lyricism of recording things-
one have chosen to leave behind.
You can be exiled even without a room.
That is easy- while you walk around nonchalant
and pretend you didn’t carry anything.
You must know how heavy it is to bring
one line of a poem and to bravely express it.
Who says poetry is a dying art? I say otherwise.
For centuries, poets mined gold, toiling the minds
of men and keep them going on despite travails.
Ranting about their lost loves, lost paradise
or lost keys of their hearts.
Or lost childhood. Or lost future.
Art that was losing chances and losing hope.
That made poems became songs sung out loud.
It became pieces of conversation. In the streets.
And in the way people speak. To sell. To buy
affection and things people would want
and impress people whom they would want
to belong with. But this will never be.
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