Scent of Spices

Prologue

I am still completely intoxicated, in love.
And with this love, I watch the circle.
- Chogyam Trungpa
Yesterday, I took some photos
of my feet at the lake, the camera
did you know?
- it is an ordinary one
Yesterday my feet, you know?
my feet are always wet
from standing in sweet water
Wet from waiting
waiting for you, my love
***
1. Poet’s pyre

In a blindfold world
I go beat the deathless drum
– Bhikku Nanamoli
This is not the first poem
I have taken out from the dusty old file
there are a number of poems which are still
fresh and smell of new earthen pots
Agnaye swaha!
it is the primary offering for the pyre
the journey into your being
and not being
You were here till yesterday
and in the yellowness in the corners
of leaves you now stand as a pen in my hand
in its scratches on paper
you are the rolling wind through my fan
I smell you as I smell sharp spices
Agnaye swaha!
thist is the second offering I make
for your pyre
The boat is in the sea
the net is in the boat
the fish is in the net
the fisherman is killing the fish
blue is a shade that fades
a boat is the one that sinks
I am fish for you
Agnaye swaha!
you are
in the verses of this poem’s remains
we wrote them together, remember?
the words
the melody
the hum of our breaths
you are in here
in the threads of my thoughts
in the endless infinity of my love
for you
Agnaye swaha!
and for ever and 4 days
you will remain with the poem
and the empty box
and the fallen leaves from trees
and the smell of spices as it fades away

2. Marks of deterioratation on New Moons Day
When I meet the right consort
my thoughts become clear
- Chogyam Trungpa

This time again
you have given yourself up to prison
you have build the walls yourself
and now you live in the heavy dungeon
even cracks won’t allow entry
A draft, but inside I see you smile
you shine like the light of the sun
oh what glow your name still have!

This time you have cheated on me!
I whom has given you warm kisses on your feet
and stroked your whole body with my eyelashes

Last night, on my window sill
I saw the marks of deterioration
and of creeping death
of my poems endings
the corpses, and my fingers are stiff
with pain in my neck
and shoulders
the crack’s inside
inside my body ache is at war
I am turning from river to blood
3. I am afraid of thunder
Sesame oil is the essence.
Although the ignorant know that it is in the sesame seed,
They do not understand the way, effect, and becoming.
- Chogyam Trungpa
For long while a smile is coming to me
like the butterfly
it flutters to lips
but I am still afraid of thunder
What will happen when thunder
awakens me?
The pathways are disappearing
and in the undergrowth, shadows of Pipal trees
there’s a thousands deaths waiting
on every branch
never a nightingale!
Oh, shall I clap my hands
and see how they scatter away my fear?
Fly away, come away with the sound
of the clap of my hands!
I am the vulture preying on the bird
of love
I am dipping my fingers into its broken feathers
searching for vermin to scatter them
into the holes of snakes
Oh look at you, a half broken branch
about to fall!

You are an illusion in my hallucination
- but I knew this for a long time now -
you are selfless selfishness!
I have learned that from your company
I have discovered how you are my myth
I cannot leave you

Because your love is sweet honey
on my lips
your nectar, the nectar
dripping into my neck
its from the lotus
it comes from Udaipur
oh do not leave me!
The pen on my desk
its inscriptions and strokes
I will not write!
Just shelter me and hide me
in the eye of a needle
in the threads of things I have left alone

4. Amberiod flower

The birds warble their glad songs.
Spring blossoms in the treetops.
- Louis Nordstrom.
A long time ago, I
but then my amberoid flowers
oh my sari
it was the fragrance I send you
through the cracks in the walls
hoping to cover
the distance towards you

5. You are mehandi, the henna of Full Moon's Day
How much more so when perpetually diseased
By the manifold evils of desire?
- Shantideva
I have discovered my feet
and after walking almost half of the way
to where you are
Oh what is that strange!

And now on the road to red lotuses
where my heels had treaded
there are blossoms between my toes
red Valentine for good luck!

I adore my feet
they have faces
What is this, your fingers
are you stroking
touching
feeling my faces?

My dost lovely friend
you are mehandi, the henna
to decorate my feet
I draw flowers for you on my feet.
Vasant spring is already here!
the sun is shining
take off your sweater, my love!

shishir is when ice fall from the heavens
greeshm summer is green
and on my shoulders
I am ready for running
just put a finger tip on a toe
and write your name onto it
my journey is flashing pink
more red than ever
- my journey towards you

6. Tickle and dance
The trees and also the great woods
All are made splendid in the 10 directions
– Edward Conze
This is not a river, so it doesn’t need
the mountain to shoulder against
it is a lake! The sweet Lake Udaipur!
The honey lake in the lap of the marusthal desert
it’s kokh womb never gets dry
it never goes from here to menopause

no, no my dost lover! My lover!
You can’t lit the pyre with or on it
neither on my sari pallu’s end
that’s reserved for my children
to play on
to tickle me on
- hear them laughing and dancing

Look! Oh look! I am not dried up water reservoir
I am the lake, my womb is the water
This world is inside me!

7 -Cuppan chuppi- Hide-and-seek
In the sea of my mind the words as waves have risen
In recollection of the Great Queen
- Chockyam Trungpa

Lake! O dear Lake! Play Cuppan chuppi
hide-and-seek with me!
I turn and run away from Udaipur
I hide myself behind a coconut tree
Where is that girl?
where she is?
where is my playmate?
oh this is—chooooooo!

Time passes by, days.
I have forgotten to show myself, forgotten it!
like I have forgotton the way in which I
had come to you first
my dear lake! My dear lake!
you changed your sari’s colour!
You wear no veil!
Why is there a teardrop in your eye?
Is it because of me?

Where is that girl?
where she is?
where is my playmate?
oh this is—chooooooo!
Will they come look for me?
I am sitting in the shrub of thorns
8. Hands on shoulders
I go to Kasi’s city now
To set the wheel of law in motion
– Bhikku Nanamoli

Rivers run and can meet each other
but sakhiyan friends never meet again in life
after their marriages, when they have left
with their love ones
they never come back
Come, put your hand on my shoulder
I’ll keep mine on yours.
Come let us gossip, that neighbouring girl
she fell in love
between the earthen walls
separating the fields
let us weave the thread of gossip
as long as the threads of memories


9 . Anklet bells on Protector's day

Dancing in space
Clad in clouds
Eating the sun and holding the moon,
The stars are my retinue.
- Chocyam Trungpa

Come swim in me, come
do your washing in me!
come and clean your dirty dresses
because how much dirt can you carry
on your journey towards life’s end?
Come to meet me at lake Udaipur
come and spill your holiness in me
into my womb
when night falls
A thousand narataki dancers come out
to dance for me
Let us dance, my love!
dance with our breasts touching
dance with our colourful feet
full on the lotus bloom
Hear! anklet bells ring
chann-channn-chanan chann
Your diamond toe ring, white lily
play with my breasts
touch my nipples with your toes
play-run your feet over the valley
of my tummy
I have a thousand lotuses
for your hands and feet,
my feet, see how lush red
I am
blushing now!

Do not worry, my pilgrim!
Do not worry, my poet!
I have discovered all of my feet
again and again
and many, many years ago
I danced like a Raj Nartaki
Will you dance with me now?
I will teach you the journey of how feet
Charevehi! Chareveri!
keep on running
faster and faster
walking into arms of lovers

10. Small flowery marks of lotuses

Rain, sleet, snow, ice - as such
they may different, but when melted,
they're the same valley stream water.
- Thomas Cleary
That evening
at godhuli, when the cows were there
and the Temple bells rang
she came out from her hiding
Behind the mango tree, she – There!
A baby girl dangling from her arms
A baby girl pockmarked with small buts
of flowers
lotuses tied to her feet
Where will I take my child?
hush! do not cry!
look at Udaipur, the mother and father, sigh
What shall I do with a baby girl?
Drown it?
Why are a thousands baby girls wasted
on the shores of lake Udaipur?
Why every year thrown away
like poisoned sulphuric sand?

Look at the bird, it’s beak is yellow
that is my baby girl with a ribbon
she’s in the tree
she flies
she sings
and when she dives through the sky
her beak turns blue
blue like the Holy Blue Shrine
at the entrance of Lake Udaipur
It was a yesterday that she picked a berry for me!
today she picked two blue black ones
and offered it to my folder nest
for poetry, a papaya piece
she gave me
and a mango bite - so sweet
11. The singing mother on Dakini day

In the sea of my mind the words as wave have risen
In recollection of the Great Queen.
- Chockyam Trungpa

All the palaces and pearls in the world is for you
my son
oh mother, for me your departure
do not send me away!
do not send me far away, oh mother!

She was singing on the banks
of Udaipur
at the wide open lake
send me away not!
do not send me far away, oh mother!
I will be the parrot in your garden
I will live in your golden cage
you can seal it tight with a song of yours
do not send me away oh mother
why did you send me away?
I am your daughter
I am your singing daughter
12. Pain like a blanket
Eating the sun and holding the moon,
the stars are my retinue.
- Chogyam Trunpa
The aroma of spices
The crosses over the lake
The crosses over the sea
The boundries across the sky
The day - is it
your gift to me or
mine to you?
A yellow day
but why when I am happy
pain rolls over me like blanket?
13. Tale of the rain girl
May the Ocean benefit
Those who sail beyond the great sea.
- Chockyam Trungpa
The farmer girl sings
Give me rain, Black Cloud!
wet me completely, Black Cloud!

my crops are dry
Black Cloud, give me rain!

She begs for happiness
and love for her brothers
and her father
and her cow
and across the forest her voice
reaches the sea

But when she is living in the city of rain
her body is wet
and her heart goes
to where the peacock dances
on her thigh
to where the lilies grow
where she walks
Let my beloved come into my home
oh my beloved come to my house
I am a farmer's girl dressed
in gagara black
come to me my beloved
come to my dream
come with loosened hair and oared eye
come tonight!
but oh, please do not get lost
lost like sleep
lost like a far away lover
that’s never there
lost in the rain

no body knows the story after Pralaya, the doom
not even lake Udaipur
but me



14. Letters to my love

In the waters of the mind.
Even the waves break against it
And shatter into light.
- Achaan Chah.
I write letters to my lover
and letting them float on the water of Udaipur
I can see him dancing fishing them out

My letters are little lighting lamps
floating in the night on palms
of Banjarin street dancers

I wrote the words of the letters
on black papers
using black ink
will my beloved be able to read them
in red?

I wrote in the languages of love
Sanskrit – the only one I know
but what do I know not
will he read my letters in love
too?

He is my lover
he isn’t my lover
he loves me
he loves me not
oh daisy flower of love
make my love true for him!

invisible as the black worlds
in colourful Samsara,
Nirvana written on white
with white ink
no! he is red as the night!

O my dear lake
help me, where are you?
Udaipur come rescue me!
15. Aroma of love
Hears the limitless laughter of transcendent joy,
The poisonous snake becomes amrita
- Chogyam Trungpa
What is this, when I kept
3 ilayachi cardamoms on my palm?

We say farewell
the journey will be safe

you will come home
with the aroma of love!
***

Epilogue
Didn’t I tell you it was there?
You could have found it without trouble, after all.
- Louis Nordstrom.

Yesterday

Yesterday, I took some photos
of my feet, my running feet
the camera, you do know!
- it is an ordinary one


( This poem is edited by Greek poet Argo Spier)
Scent of Spices

Prologue

I am still completely intoxicated, in love.
And with this love, I watch the circle.
- Chogyam Trungpa
Yesterday, I took some photos
of my feet at the lake, the camera
did you know?
- it is an ordinary one
Yesterday my feet, you know?
my feet are always wet
from standing in sweet water
Wet from waiting
waiting for you, my love
***
1. Poet’s pyre

In a blindfold world
I go beat the deathless drum
– Bhikku Nanamoli
This is not the first poem
I have taken out from the dusty old file
there are a number of poems which are still
fresh and smell of new earthen pots
Agnaye swaha!
it is the primary offering for the pyre
the journey into your being
and not being
You were here till yesterday
and in the yellowness in the corners
of leaves you now stand as a pen in my hand
in its scratches on paper
you are the rolling wind through my fan
I smell you as I smell sharp spices
Agnaye swaha!
thist is the second offering I make
for your pyre
The boat is in the sea
the net is in the boat
the fish is in the net
the fisherman is killing the fish
blue is a shade that fades
a boat is the one that sinks
I am fish for you
Agnaye swaha!
you are
in the verses of this poem’s remains
we wrote them together, remember?
the words
the melody
the hum of our breaths
you are in here
in the threads of my thoughts
in the endless infinity of my love
for you
Agnaye swaha!
and for ever and 4 days
you will remain with the poem
and the empty box
and the fallen leaves from trees
and the smell of spices as it fades away

2. Marks of deterioratation on New Moons Day
When I meet the right consort
my thoughts become clear
- Chogyam Trungpa

This time again
you have given yourself up to prison
you have build the walls yourself
and now you live in the heavy dungeon
even cracks won’t allow entry
A draft, but inside I see you smile
you shine like the light of the sun
oh what glow your name still have!

This time you have cheated on me!
I whom has given you warm kisses on your feet
and stroked your whole body with my eyelashes

Last night, on my window sill
I saw the marks of deterioration
and of creeping death
of my poems endings
the corpses, and my fingers are stiff
with pain in my neck
and shoulders
the crack’s inside
inside my body ache is at war
I am turning from river to blood
3. I am afraid of thunder
Sesame oil is the essence.
Although the ignorant know that it is in the sesame seed,
They do not understand the way, effect, and becoming.
- Chogyam Trungpa
For long while a smile is coming to me
like the butterfly
it flutters to lips
but I am still afraid of thunder
What will happen when thunder
awakens me?
The pathways are disappearing
and in the undergrowth, shadows of Pipal trees
there’s a thousands deaths waiting
on every branch
never a nightingale!
Oh, shall I clap my hands
and see how they scatter away my fear?
Fly away, come away with the sound
of the clap of my hands!
I am the vulture preying on the bird
of love
I am dipping my fingers into its broken feathers
searching for vermin to scatter them
into the holes of snakes
Oh look at you, a half broken branch
about to fall!

You are an illusion in my hallucination
- but I knew this for a long time now -
you are selfless selfishness!
I have learned that from your company
I have discovered how you are my myth
I cannot leave you

Because your love is sweet honey
on my lips
your nectar, the nectar
dripping into my neck
its from the lotus
it comes from Udaipur
oh do not leave me!
The pen on my desk
its inscriptions and strokes
I will not write!
Just shelter me and hide me
in the eye of a needle
in the threads of things I have left alone

4. Amberiod flower

The birds warble their glad songs.
Spring blossoms in the treetops.
- Louis Nordstrom.
A long time ago, I
but then my amberoid flowers
oh my sari
it was the fragrance I send you
through the cracks in the walls
hoping to cover
the distance towards you

5. You are mehandi, the henna of Full Moon's Day
How much more so when perpetually diseased
By the manifold evils of desire?
- Shantideva
I have discovered my feet
and after walking almost half of the way
to where you are
Oh what is that strange!

And now on the road to red lotuses
where my heels had treaded
there are blossoms between my toes
red Valentine for good luck!

I adore my feet
they have faces
What is this, your fingers
are you stroking
touching
feeling my faces?

My dost lovely friend
you are mehandi, the henna
to decorate my feet
I draw flowers for you on my feet.
Vasant spring is already here!
the sun is shining
take off your sweater, my love!

shishir is when ice fall from the heavens
greeshm summer is green
and on my shoulders
I am ready for running
just put a finger tip on a toe
and write your name onto it
my journey is flashing pink
more red than ever
- my journey towards you

6. Tickle and dance
The trees and also the great woods
All are made splendid in the 10 directions
– Edward Conze
This is not a river, so it doesn’t need
the mountain to shoulder against
it is a lake! The sweet Lake Udaipur!
The honey lake in the lap of the marusthal desert
it’s kokh womb never gets dry
it never goes from here to menopause

no, no my dost lover! My lover!
You can’t lit the pyre with or on it
neither on my sari pallu’s end
that’s reserved for my children
to play on
to tickle me on
- hear them laughing and dancing

Look! Oh look! I am not dried up water reservoir
I am the lake, my womb is the water
This world is inside me!

7 -Cuppan chuppi- Hide-and-seek
In the sea of my mind the words as waves have risen
In recollection of the Great Queen
- Chockyam Trungpa

Lake! O dear Lake! Play Cuppan chuppi
hide-and-seek with me!
I turn and run away from Udaipur
I hide myself behind a coconut tree
Where is that girl?
where she is?
where is my playmate?
oh this is—chooooooo!

Time passes by, days.
I have forgotten to show myself, forgotten it!
like I have forgotton the way in which I
had come to you first
my dear lake! My dear lake!
you changed your sari’s colour!
You wear no veil!
Why is there a teardrop in your eye?
Is it because of me?

Where is that girl?
where she is?
where is my playmate?
oh this is—chooooooo!
Will they come look for me?
I am sitting in the shrub of thorns
8. Hands on shoulders
I go to Kasi’s city now
To set the wheel of law in motion
– Bhikku Nanamoli

Rivers run and can meet each other
but sakhiyan friends never meet again in life
after their marriages, when they have left
with their love ones
they never come back
Come, put your hand on my shoulder
I’ll keep mine on yours.
Come let us gossip, that neighbouring girl
she fell in love
between the earthen walls
separating the fields
let us weave the thread of gossip
as long as the threads of memories


9 . Anklet bells on Protector's day

Dancing in space
Clad in clouds
Eating the sun and holding the moon,
The stars are my retinue.
- Chocyam Trungpa

Come swim in me, come
do your washing in me!
come and clean your dirty dresses
because how much dirt can you carry
on your journey towards life’s end?
Come to meet me at lake Udaipur
come and spill your holiness in me
into my womb
when night falls
A thousand narataki dancers come out
to dance for me
Let us dance, my love!
dance with our breasts touching
dance with our colourful feet
full on the lotus bloom
Hear! anklet bells ring
chann-channn-chanan chann
Your diamond toe ring, white lily
play with my breasts
touch my nipples with your toes
play-run your feet over the valley
of my tummy
I have a thousand lotuses
for your hands and feet,
my feet, see how lush red
I am
blushing now!

Do not worry, my pilgrim!
Do not worry, my poet!
I have discovered all of my feet
again and again
and many, many years ago
I danced like a Raj Nartaki
Will you dance with me now?
I will teach you the journey of how feet
Charevehi! Chareveri!
keep on running
faster and faster
walking into arms of lovers

10. Small flowery marks of lotuses

Rain, sleet, snow, ice - as such
they may different, but when melted,
they're the same valley stream water.
- Thomas Cleary
That evening
at godhuli, when the cows were there
and the Temple bells rang
she came out from her hiding
Behind the mango tree, she – There!
A baby girl dangling from her arms
A baby girl pockmarked with small buts
of flowers
lotuses tied to her feet
Where will I take my child?
hush! do not cry!
look at Udaipur, the mother and father, sigh
What shall I do with a baby girl?
Drown it?
Why are a thousands baby girls wasted
on the shores of lake Udaipur?
Why every year thrown away
like poisoned sulphuric sand?

Look at the bird, it’s beak is yellow
that is my baby girl with a ribbon
she’s in the tree
she flies
she sings
and when she dives through the sky
her beak turns blue
blue like the Holy Blue Shrine
at the entrance of Lake Udaipur
It was a yesterday that she picked a berry for me!
today she picked two blue black ones
and offered it to my folder nest
for poetry, a papaya piece
she gave me
and a mango bite - so sweet
11. The singing mother on Dakini day

In the sea of my mind the words as wave have risen
In recollection of the Great Queen.
- Chockyam Trungpa

All the palaces and pearls in the world is for you
my son
oh mother, for me your departure
do not send me away!
do not send me far away, oh mother!

She was singing on the banks
of Udaipur
at the wide open lake
send me away not!
do not send me far away, oh mother!
I will be the parrot in your garden
I will live in your golden cage
you can seal it tight with a song of yours
do not send me away oh mother
why did you send me away?
I am your daughter
I am your singing daughter
12. Pain like a blanket
Eating the sun and holding the moon,
the stars are my retinue.
- Chogyam Trunpa
The aroma of spices
The crosses over the lake
The crosses over the sea
The boundries across the sky
The day - is it
your gift to me or
mine to you?
A yellow day
but why when I am happy
pain rolls over me like blanket?
13. Tale of the rain girl
May the Ocean benefit
Those who sail beyond the great sea.
- Chockyam Trungpa
The farmer girl sings
Give me rain, Black Cloud!
wet me completely, Black Cloud!

my crops are dry
Black Cloud, give me rain!

She begs for happiness
and love for her brothers
and her father
and her cow
and across the forest her voice
reaches the sea

But when she is living in the city of rain
her body is wet
and her heart goes
to where the peacock dances
on her thigh
to where the lilies grow
where she walks
Let my beloved come into my home
oh my beloved come to my house
I am a farmer's girl dressed
in gagara black
come to me my beloved
come to my dream
come with loosened hair and oared eye
come tonight!
but oh, please do not get lost
lost like sleep
lost like a far away lover
that’s never there
lost in the rain

no body knows the story after Pralaya, the doom
not even lake Udaipur
but me



14. Letters to my love

In the waters of the mind.
Even the waves break against it
And shatter into light.
- Achaan Chah.
I write letters to my lover
and letting them float on the water of Udaipur
I can see him dancing fishing them out

My letters are little lighting lamps
floating in the night on palms
of Banjarin street dancers

I wrote the words of the letters
on black papers
using black ink
will my beloved be able to read them
in red?

I wrote in the languages of love
Sanskrit – the only one I know
but what do I know not
will he read my letters in love
too?

He is my lover
he isn’t my lover
he loves me
he loves me not
oh daisy flower of love
make my love true for him!

invisible as the black worlds
in colourful Samsara,
Nirvana written on white
with white ink
no! he is red as the night!

O my dear lake
help me, where are you?
Udaipur come rescue me!
15. Aroma of love
Hears the limitless laughter of transcendent joy,
The poisonous snake becomes amrita
- Chogyam Trungpa
What is this, when I kept
3 ilayachi cardamoms on my palm?

We say farewell
the journey will be safe

you will come home
with the aroma of love!
***

Epilogue
Didn’t I tell you it was there?
You could have found it without trouble, after all.
- Louis Nordstrom.

Yesterday

Yesterday, I took some photos
of my feet, my running feet
the camera, you do know!
- it is an ordinary one


( This poem is edited by Greek poet Argo Spier)
Scent of Spices

Prologue

I am still completely intoxicated, in love.
And with this love, I watch the circle.
- Chogyam Trungpa
Yesterday, I took some photos
of my feet at the lake, the camera
did you know?
- it is an ordinary one
Yesterday my feet, you know?
my feet are always wet
from standing in sweet water
Wet from waiting
waiting for you, my love
***
1. Poet’s pyre

In a blindfold world
I go beat the deathless drum
– Bhikku Nanamoli
This is not the first poem
I have taken out from the dusty old file
there are a number of poems which are still
fresh and smell of new earthen pots
Agnaye swaha!
it is the primary offering for the pyre
the journey into your being
and not being
You were here till yesterday
and in the yellowness in the corners
of leaves you now stand as a pen in my hand
in its scratches on paper
you are the rolling wind through my fan
I smell you as I smell sharp spices
Agnaye swaha!
thist is the second offering I make
for your pyre
The boat is in the sea
the net is in the boat
the fish is in the net
the fisherman is killing the fish
blue is a shade that fades
a boat is the one that sinks
I am fish for you
Agnaye swaha!
you are
in the verses of this poem’s remains
we wrote them together, remember?
the words
the melody
the hum of our breaths
you are in here
in the threads of my thoughts
in the endless infinity of my love
for you
Agnaye swaha!
and for ever and 4 days
you will remain with the poem
and the empty box
and the fallen leaves from trees
and the smell of spices as it fades away

2. Marks of deterioratation on New Moons Day
When I meet the right consort
my thoughts become clear
- Chogyam Trungpa

This time again
you have given yourself up to prison
you have build the walls yourself
and now you live in the heavy dungeon
even cracks won’t allow entry
A draft, but inside I see you smile
you shine like the light of the sun
oh what glow your name still have!

This time you have cheated on me!
I whom has given you warm kisses on your feet
and stroked your whole body with my eyelashes

Last night, on my window sill
I saw the marks of deterioration
and of creeping death
of my poems endings
the corpses, and my fingers are stiff
with pain in my neck
and shoulders
the crack’s inside
inside my body ache is at war
I am turning from river to blood
3. I am afraid of thunder
Sesame oil is the essence.
Although the ignorant know that it is in the sesame seed,
They do not understand the way, effect, and becoming.
- Chogyam Trungpa
For long while a smile is coming to me
like the butterfly
it flutters to lips
but I am still afraid of thunder
What will happen when thunder
awakens me?
The pathways are disappearing
and in the undergrowth, shadows of Pipal trees
there’s a thousands deaths waiting
on every branch
never a nightingale!
Oh, shall I clap my hands
and see how they scatter away my fear?
Fly away, come away with the sound
of the clap of my hands!
I am the vulture preying on the bird
of love
I am dipping my fingers into its broken feathers
searching for vermin to scatter them
into the holes of snakes
Oh look at you, a half broken branch
about to fall!

You are an illusion in my hallucination
- but I knew this for a long time now -
you are selfless selfishness!
I have learned that from your company
I have discovered how you are my myth
I cannot leave you

Because your love is sweet honey
on my lips
your nectar, the nectar
dripping into my neck
its from the lotus
it comes from Udaipur
oh do not leave me!
The pen on my desk
its inscriptions and strokes
I will not write!
Just shelter me and hide me
in the eye of a needle
in the threads of things I have left alone

4. Amberiod flower

The birds warble their glad songs.
Spring blossoms in the treetops.
- Louis Nordstrom.
A long time ago, I
but then my amberoid flowers
oh my sari
it was the fragrance I send you
through the cracks in the walls
hoping to cover
the distance towards you

5. You are mehandi, the henna of Full Moon's Day
How much more so when perpetually diseased
By the manifold evils of desire?
- Shantideva
I have discovered my feet
and after walking almost half of the way
to where you are
Oh what is that strange!

And now on the road to red lotuses
where my heels had treaded
there are blossoms between my toes
red Valentine for good luck!

I adore my feet
they have faces
What is this, your fingers
are you stroking
touching
feeling my faces?

My dost lovely friend
you are mehandi, the henna
to decorate my feet
I draw flowers for you on my feet.
Vasant spring is already here!
the sun is shining
take off your sweater, my love!

shishir is when ice fall from the heavens
greeshm summer is green
and on my shoulders
I am ready for running
just put a finger tip on a toe
and write your name onto it
my journey is flashing pink
more red than ever
- my journey towards you

6. Tickle and dance
The trees and also the great woods
All are made splendid in the 10 directions
– Edward Conze
This is not a river, so it doesn’t need
the mountain to shoulder against
it is a lake! The sweet Lake Udaipur!
The honey lake in the lap of the marusthal desert
it’s kokh womb never gets dry
it never goes from here to menopause

no, no my dost lover! My lover!
You can’t lit the pyre with or on it
neither on my sari pallu’s end
that’s reserved for my children
to play on
to tickle me on
- hear them laughing and dancing

Look! Oh look! I am not dried up water reservoir
I am the lake, my womb is the water
This world is inside me!

7 -Cuppan chuppi- Hide-and-seek
In the sea of my mind the words as waves have risen
In recollection of the Great Queen
- Chockyam Trungpa

Lake! O dear Lake! Play Cuppan chuppi
hide-and-seek with me!
I turn and run away from Udaipur
I hide myself behind a coconut tree
Where is that girl?
where she is?
where is my playmate?
oh this is—chooooooo!

Time passes by, days.
I have forgotten to show myself, forgotten it!
like I have forgotton the way in which I
had come to you first
my dear lake! My dear lake!
you changed your sari’s colour!
You wear no veil!
Why is there a teardrop in your eye?
Is it because of me?

Where is that girl?
where she is?
where is my playmate?
oh this is—chooooooo!
Will they come look for me?
I am sitting in the shrub of thorns
8. Hands on shoulders
I go to Kasi’s city now
To set the wheel of law in motion
– Bhikku Nanamoli

Rivers run and can meet each other
but sakhiyan friends never meet again in life
after their marriages, when they have left
with their love ones
they never come back
Come, put your hand on my shoulder
I’ll keep mine on yours.
Come let us gossip, that neighbouring girl
she fell in love
between the earthen walls
separating the fields
let us weave the thread of gossip
as long as the threads of memories


9 . Anklet bells on Protector's day

Dancing in space
Clad in clouds
Eating the sun and holding the moon,
The stars are my retinue.
- Chocyam Trungpa

Come swim in me, come
do your washing in me!
come and clean your dirty dresses
because how much dirt can you carry
on your journey towards life’s end?
Come to meet me at lake Udaipur
come and spill your holiness in me
into my womb
when night falls
A thousand narataki dancers come out
to dance for me
Let us dance, my love!
dance with our breasts touching
dance with our colourful feet
full on the lotus bloom
Hear! anklet bells ring
chann-channn-chanan chann
Your diamond toe ring, white lily
play with my breasts
touch my nipples with your toes
play-run your feet over the valley
of my tummy
I have a thousand lotuses
for your hands and feet,
my feet, see how lush red
I am
blushing now!

Do not worry, my pilgrim!
Do not worry, my poet!
I have discovered all of my feet
again and again
and many, many years ago
I danced like a Raj Nartaki
Will you dance with me now?
I will teach you the journey of how feet
Charevehi! Chareveri!
keep on running
faster and faster
walking into arms of lovers

10. Small flowery marks of lotuses

Rain, sleet, snow, ice - as such
they may different, but when melted,
they're the same valley stream water.
- Thomas Cleary
That evening
at godhuli, when the cows were there
and the Temple bells rang
she came out from her hiding
Behind the mango tree, she – There!
A baby girl dangling from her arms
A baby girl pockmarked with small buts
of flowers
lotuses tied to her feet
Where will I take my child?
hush! do not cry!
look at Udaipur, the mother and father, sigh
What shall I do with a baby girl?
Drown it?
Why are a thousands baby girls wasted
on the shores of lake Udaipur?
Why every year thrown away
like poisoned sulphuric sand?

Look at the bird, it’s beak is yellow
that is my baby girl with a ribbon
she’s in the tree
she flies
she sings
and when she dives through the sky
her beak turns blue
blue like the Holy Blue Shrine
at the entrance of Lake Udaipur
It was a yesterday that she picked a berry for me!
today she picked two blue black ones
and offered it to my folder nest
for poetry, a papaya piece
she gave me
and a mango bite - so sweet
11. The singing mother on Dakini day

In the sea of my mind the words as wave have risen
In recollection of the Great Queen.
- Chockyam Trungpa

All the palaces and pearls in the world is for you
my son
oh mother, for me your departure
do not send me away!
do not send me far away, oh mother!

She was singing on the banks
of Udaipur
at the wide open lake
send me away not!
do not send me far away, oh mother!
I will be the parrot in your garden
I will live in your golden cage
you can seal it tight with a song of yours
do not send me away oh mother
why did you send me away?
I am your daughter
I am your singing daughter
12. Pain like a blanket
Eating the sun and holding the moon,
the stars are my retinue.
- Chogyam Trunpa
The aroma of spices
The crosses over the lake
The crosses over the sea
The boundries across the sky
The day - is it
your gift to me or
mine to you?
A yellow day
but why when I am happy
pain rolls over me like blanket?
13. Tale of the rain girl
May the Ocean benefit
Those who sail beyond the great sea.
- Chockyam Trungpa
The farmer girl sings
Give me rain, Black Cloud!
wet me completely, Black Cloud!

my crops are dry
Black Cloud, give me rain!

She begs for happiness
and love for her brothers
and her father
and her cow
and across the forest her voice
reaches the sea

But when she is living in the city of rain
her body is wet
and her heart goes
to where the peacock dances
on her thigh
to where the lilies grow
where she walks
Let my beloved come into my home
oh my beloved come to my house
I am a farmer's girl dressed
in gagara black
come to me my beloved
come to my dream
come with loosened hair and oared eye
come tonight!
but oh, please do not get lost
lost like sleep
lost like a far away lover
that’s never there
lost in the rain

no body knows the story after Pralaya, the doom
not even lake Udaipur
but me



14. Letters to my love

In the waters of the mind.
Even the waves break against it
And shatter into light.
- Achaan Chah.
I write letters to my lover
and letting them float on the water of Udaipur
I can see him dancing fishing them out

My letters are little lighting lamps
floating in the night on palms
of Banjarin street dancers

I wrote the words of the letters
on black papers
using black ink
will my beloved be able to read them
in red?

I wrote in the languages of love
Sanskrit – the only one I know
but what do I know not
will he read my letters in love
too?

He is my lover
he isn’t my lover
he loves me
he loves me not
oh daisy flower of love
make my love true for him!

invisible as the black worlds
in colourful Samsara,
Nirvana written on white
with white ink
no! he is red as the night!

O my dear lake
help me, where are you?
Udaipur come rescue me!
15. Aroma of love
Hears the limitless laughter of transcendent joy,
The poisonous snake becomes amrita
- Chogyam Trungpa
What is this, when I kept
3 ilayachi cardamoms on my palm?

We say farewell
the journey will be safe

you will come home
with the aroma of love!
***

Epilogue
Didn’t I tell you it was there?
You could have found it without trouble, after all.
- Louis Nordstrom.

Yesterday

Yesterday, I took some photos
of my feet, my running feet
the camera, you do know!
- it is an ordinary one


( This poem is edited by Greek poet Argo Spier)

Final

“Final”
This word fills me
with fear these days
final wish, final moment,
final meeting…

I have no regrets
that I have met none in years
for I believe he lives
and exists
in some corner of this world

I hope , always
that he will come, one day
without warning, smile and grasp my hand
Perhaps even embrace me…

But what if this is our final meeting?
Then the sinews of my throat, like the Koel’s
will cry out and
break free form its cage

Will it flow out in a stream of blood?
This “final” word written with my life,
will it finally be cleansed free?



****

Return Journey of Moonlight

1.

Mother is sleeping in
mortuary’s freezer
closed eyes
hands on chest
ready for purification in fire

Behind the glass cover
her closed eyes are
two butterflies sleeping
We feel as if they will flutter
at any moment
and forget to cry

2.

Geeta takes us
beyond death
After the fourteenth chapter

Mother's bed is empty
Where is she?
Under the glass?
Or sitting here
somewhere
listening to the Geeta
which she asked me to read
long long ago

We are not able to cry
Not even smile
But cannot be quiet
She comes in our talk
In our tears
And sometime in a smile
We feel her presence everywhere

3.

Forty-eight hours passed
on the iced bed
She had arthritis
Is this not too much cold for her?

Today she must go
Not by walking, she has forgotten how to walk for years
Not with the support of that stick she never liked
But on four shoulders
as she came in palaki after marriage

Mother is taking a bath
but why on the bed?
Mother is wearing clothes
while sleeping
Mother is getting ready
on the wooden structure

“You still have swelling on your right foot
how will you climb so many steps”?
Asks her daughter


She didn’t stop
She started her journey to make
fire more pious

Don’t cry mother asked us
This time rain came early
Sky did not know perhaps

4.

Mother's horoscope
in the lap of Geeta
old and crumbled
falls down as soon as
someone touches the paper
Every daughter has her own experience
And her own smell of memories
of mother
I am trying to peep in the corners
which are broken down
and find the life she lost

5.

Knots are open
Pot is broken
Wood is laid around
Grandson has given his offering to her fire

“May the doors of heaven”
elder daughter asked her god
Youngest one cried for
her lost nest

“Mother of daughter
is a queen”
Father's saying became
alive

6.

Mother liked the river
and its banks
the boats on banks
the swing of boats
a bath in river
and her own Krishna deity

Mother who is hidden in a small bag
was so happy to meet her friend river

There came a moon shadow
and then a bubble
Life is over

7.

She was the story
which is finished

She was power
which is diminished

She was moonlight
which went back

She was a chapter
which is closed

Tongues

My mouth teems with tongues
of myriad hues and flavours
and turns of expression

At first there was
just one with me, just one
that I put on early in the mornings
and gave over to the care of sleep at night

I never realized when
the thing grew like the Aloe plant
began to divide
into two, then three and four sections

Sleep even now would take part in talk
with the help of tongues
days would lose their count
and dreams world be struck dumb
Yet in the midst of so many tongues

I have none of my own

Reincarnation

Reincarnation

I placed my genes
On the table of laboratory
And thus began my search
For my past life’s story

My genes fluttered, but did not fly
Too well I understood
I was never butterfly
Never the bird
My wings never had that verve.


My genes lay still
Did not even crawl
I never lived the earthworm’s life

Forget the tales of ants and honey bees
I never could join the queue

I saw my self as table, as chair too,
And then come to know
I was a window
The open wide
The world peeps through
When closed, a number of worries
Behind me

I extend the window
To the floor
And make it a door
Open it and come out

Embrace,

Embrace, it was in the last line in the letter
Embrace, I read as it is the only word

Exact in the middle of my head, sleep alighted
Sleep by sleep I burned and turned in to ash: entered
in to dark coolness

Embrace, Embrace - the pain wake up
Embrace, the sleep murmured
Embrace, the death smiled
Embrace, and
nerve by nerve I blossom in to white lily

She with out dreem

Her head, tilted a little and
resting on the windowpane
hands folded, chest bent forward
Within the vibrating half open lips
peeps the tongue behind the cage of teeth

On this careless body only those two were alive
the half-closed eyes, so beautiful as they are open wide
I see very clearly a dream fly over them
It sits and flattens its wings and then flies away
Comes again with more colours, dances again like a peacock
She sleeps like an elephant is holding her in his trunk

Train was moving, so her body
trees, plants, homes and meadows, leaving them behind
a thud, train stops? her eyes are open
dream disappears,

how ordinary a woman she is?
I look at her without a dream

The hymn of lost slippers

The hymn of lost slippers


The taste is very bitter, from tongue to throat, up to the intestine, bitterness everywhere
everything is bitter, the toothpaste in the tube, the broken brush. everything
till nightfall everything was fine, a good sleep and endless dreams . . .
most of the dreams disappeared with night, but they came with me up to the morning
and stuck to my eyelids till the eyes opened
there were a number of slippers and I was searching for mine
there my flight is ready to fly, here my slippers are missing
why should I give up my journey because of slippers? I told myself
but a journey without slippers, that also by air, is out of the question
how many steps can I walk without slippers?
these slippers are my foot, my legs and my knees
and my legs? Oh, they are only sticks
which cannot walk without slippers
slippers are my identity, they are my personality
they are my height, on which I can touch the sky
they are my present and future
they are the beauty of my dress
if a jewel is missing, no one will notice
but if the heel of a slipper is broken, the whole world will turn to you
in this case losing slippers is losing oneself
my journey is strarting and I am searching for my slippers
my flight is ready , but I am in search of slippers
my future is crying but I am in search of slippers
slippers are my Mantra, slippers are my Dharma
they are not missing, I am loosing my self

All those sins

All those sins

All those sins
I am trying to forget,
piled on my back
growing as mountain

Now I am
a snail
slow, slow and slow
*

Time is changing
I look at the mirror

The Calendar is
only an echo of figures

*

Embracing the umbilical cord
I want to sleep
in the womb
of eternity

So?
should I pass again through
pangs of pains?

*

Every one in search of
a flute
to entice
all the rats

Chinese astrology
says
this is the year of the rat

*

I offer my karma
to astrologers
now they tell me
all about my
eating, drinking and sleeping

where is my upper part
above the neck?

Time near to me

Time near to me

Today I woke up late,
Ignored the cup of tea,
Started reading an unknown Lithuanian poet.
His poems were open, like cattle
And my words started filling the spaces between them.

Today I ignored the unclean utensils in the sink,
Did not bother to fold the washed cloths.
I turned on the TV, changed the channels
And let my room fill with many voices.

Words took flight from my fingertips,
Fingers on the keyboard
When a poem took birth on my computer.
The time was wandering around me
Like my tame dog.

time table

Give me a time table
Without my own time there.

Then give me a time table
In which only my time exists.

I will drink both time tables
Like a Mango shake.

My time will be inside me
And I will be out of it.

The frames of pictures...

I always wish to
Fix myself
Inside the frames of pictures,
To become friends with
The walls.

I place myself into a
Picture from the eighteenth century.
Now I have only two colors
And one pose
But no butterflies on the flowers of
My blouse.

I walk way ahead of my time
Reaching into a twentieth century frame;
All of a sudden so many colors start jumping to me
That my first colors fade.

I don’t think that I can be a friend to the walls,
They only cross my ways.

Pictures, please wait,
Your frames are smaller than my height.

I wish to grow words

I wish to grow words
unlike fruits
unlike Vegetation
or flower pad
Like jungle

Tall---short
Crooked--- banded
Weak - strong

Words

Grow as tress
Spread as grass
Climb as
climber
Bloom as flowers
Ripe as fruits

I

A bird
with yellow beak
will fly - will hop
will sing-will dance
until I change in to

WORDS

Not jungle

kritya2010

This is the evening of the 5th of February 2010, the curtain of the Poetry Festival Kritya 2010 has just been dropped and we are all together, but in a mixed mood.We have been blessed by the golden glows of the most powerful poetry expressed. We are all bound by a feeling of fulfillment and bliss. We are all ready to journey back to our nests. Though we come from different parts of India and even the world, speak different languages, are torchbearers of diverse cultures, we are bonded as though we are one.Israel's Diti Ronen and Shyamla Nair from India are conversing as if they are long lost friends. I patiently tell them there are other people too from other places, to which Norway's Bjorn smilingly replies, "They will talk until world's Peace is resolved". The young Tibetan, Tenzin Tsundue, had claimed at the beginning of the festival that he was Tibetan not Indian, but he changed his thinking pretty soon. He said, "I belong here, I cannot leave this country." His pain hurt us also:"When I was bornMy mother saidyou are a refugee.your tent on the roadsidesmoked in the snow.On your foreheadbetween your eyebrowsthere is an R embossedmy teacher said.I scrubbed and scrubbed,on my forehead I founda brash of red pain.I am born refugee.I have three tongues,The one that singsis my mother tongue."Tenzin TsundueAlicia Partnoy's experience was not different from Tenzin's, she had her own land, but it was snatched away from her. She said-"They booted my home landOut from under me-what they call exile-That is- all of a suddenThe ground was goneAnd distance laid every where before me"But she herself got energy from this pain"And yetI still remember the day the military Put my home land behind barsOn that day, I had too much courageAnd the fear was goneThat's where it all began"In poetry, exile is not only from land, but even from life. Kabir Das has already said-"Rahane nahi des paraya he", I don?t want to lie here, this place does not belong to me."Zingonia of Italy created for us a distinct aura of exile ?"Birth:Mother faithThat trusts the worldA generous womb.The small cryAnnouncesThat from light,Slowly comes death;Every age arrivesPunctual,Celebrating the remembranceThat stillness approaches."The most senior poet of Costa Rica, Osvaldo Sauma says-"do not fearas soon as you cross the passage of lightthe houris will restore your child heartyou?ll play again in the sun of the departedand I will give my Fatherthe embrace I could not give in his deathto my Father who lies nowalone in Port Father"Blessed with poetry we are like honeybees, a little tired but very fulfilled. In this journey we had poetry films from Sadho from Delhi, and from Odveig Klyve. These films gave a different angle to the whole idea of the festival.In another part of CIIL, talented young artists were giving colorful expressions on canvas to the poems that had captivated them, in an art camp organized by Pranjal Arts. Friends, this is a common issue for February and March as we are providing a lot of poetry to be read.
You can read the very inspiring speech of our chief guest Mahesh Elkunchwar in the section 'In the Name of Poetry' and lose yourself in the timeless, beautiful poems of the Dalai Lama in "Our Masters.' Besides, we offer a feast of poetry in our segment 'Poetry in Our Time'--this time highlighting the poems of the poets who partook in the poetry festival.Hope to see you at our coming festival in Nagpur.





best wishes
Rati Saxena

Pagliarani, Matarrese and Saxena, poetry has no boundaries

Pagliarani, Matarrese and Saxena, poetry has no boundaries

A full day dedicated to the contemporary poetry, last saturday.
In the Binario 7 theatre was organize the CReO, an international symposium with discussions, readings, peformance and video-poetry.
The day began at 10 in the morning with an alternation of examples of teaching poetry, especially at the local level, continued in the afternoon with a sigh more international and ended in the evening with “CReO international voice”.
Intruduced by Dome Bulfaro, the evening began with an interview in video, realized by Luca paci and [A]live Poetry, to Elio Pagliarani (born in 1927), one of the poets who most shake up the world of italian contemporary poetry. And, for sure, he shakes up from video the souls of the people that was there saturday evening. A man who tells you about himself reading his poems, especially from the book “La ragazza Carla” (The young girl called Carla), an experimental poem became his masterpiece. But also when he reads “Canto d’amore” (Poem of love) or the poems dedicated to his favourite poet: Pier Paolo Pasolini. A man who could have known through his wrinkles, his grimaces, his house submerged in books.
The evening goes on with a reading by Eleonora Matarrese with music by Ryck Valli: a long poem called “Die Welt”, that the young poet (born in 1976, with origin from Puglia) read with music. A “memento mori” disquieting and powerful, made even more touching to the intensity of the music.
At the end, guest of honor of the evening, the indian poet Rati Saxena (in the picture), introduced and traduced by Federico Federici. Rati Saxena dressed an elegant black sari and she read her poems in the original language. Poems in hindi, that are music, placidity, levity, quiet. And life. Poems, traduced by Federico Federici, that are words of love and friendship. The love and the friendship that we can find in the small things, for example insects and objects. This joyful poetry from Rati Saxena made the international also the evening of CReO: “An important evening – said Dome Bulfaro –that draw, through the English language, a bridge between Italy, United Kingdom and India”. An important evening ad the end of an important day that made global the local reality.
The day of CReO was organized by Mille Gru cultural association curated by Eleonora Matarrese, in collaboration with the city of Monza, the Binario 7 theatre.
www.poesiapresente.it