April Poetry Lounge
April is National Poetry Month and that’s because of an initiative by the Academy of American Poets beginning in 1996. As a group we want to use our opportunity of meeting in our POETRY LOUNGE to explore our favourites and most memorable collection of poems covering different continents, cultures, and languages of the world..,
One Week by Jan Ejsymontt – Croatia
Pure energy fuses the soul
Flying high screaming through the skies
Landing belly up in a pool of uncertain hope
Red hot plans wavering in one moment of doubt
Through a rollercoaster of poised confusion
One mercurial dreamy day
Lost the next in dark unknowledge
Beaming lights of fragile desire
The universe reflects its awesome power
I am miniscule, I have no chance
I dance the dance and smash remnants of the past
In a celebration of nothing stays the same
All of this in seven fine days
Caroline Street • I would not be creative at all if it were not for the beauty of creation, this is my inspiration for my art and poetry, and as I do not have the time to paint and write about it all, I now take photographs of it as well. I love the abstracts in nature, the colors, the light, the beauty of my almost botanical garden and my surroundings, wildlife, sunshine, forests, deserts, trees, rocks etc. I also love the solid shapes of still-life, the forms of portraiture and figures. There is so much to paint and I love each and every form of life from tiny creatures to human beings from a ray of sunshine to a mountain and my art encompasses all these creations. I have written this poem about my art which I would like to share:-
THE GIFT OF MY ART. © A poem by Caroline Street. Nelspuit area, South Africa.
Gifted by the greatest Creator – God:
The talent of my art,
such a wonderful craft:
Sometimes I wonder –
where do I start –
my mind in a swirl,
a dull white canvas
a few brush twirl’s;
Brown’s, red’s, blue,
rainbow colors,
or just a monochrome?
Balance, foreground,
light and background,
colored shadows, focal points,
all of these must be found;
But now I see the light,
spiritual guidance
ends my plight;
The rest is just a colorful journey
and the end is in sight,
a completed painting
which I pray is a delight. ❤
Amy Catherine Lamenzo • Bolgna area, Italy
I am encircled with your spirit
Yet far you are,
Never yet touched you,
Yet here you are,
Embracing my soul.
-ACL
Caroline Street • Thank you for the welcome Sunil and as you suggested, here is another poem. This one is about artist’s (as I see them). It is a long poem but fun to read and I am sure all the artists will see something of themselves in this poem.
PORTRAYAL OF AN ARTIST. © A poem by Caroline Street. Nelspuit area, South Africa.
Brush in hand
at the old wooden easel they stand,
shut out from the world
in their own creative whirl.
A coarse glaring white canvas
will be transformed,
from mere internalized thought,
to something tangible, something hand-wrought.
A composition, vibrantly colored,
balanced with form and well textured.
All the colors of the universe in tubes and pans,
lovingly mixed on palettes by the artists hand.
Painting knives, brushes, soft and coarse,
flats, rounds and filberts.
A mahl stick to steady the hand,
smells of mediums, oils and solvents.
Dipping buckets of silver, glass or stainless steel,
rags of linen and paper towel –
capture smudges and spills out of hand.
Paint splattered overcoats, headbands.
Books of Masters and guidelines strewn about,
color wheels and references to help them out.
Maybe a field of flowers,
a foreboding bank of storm clouds –
rain showers.
Cerulean seas or hills of green,
maybe a set-up –
a bottle of wine, a tureen.
A delicate patterned plate,
a light reflected glass or two,
a figure, portrait or a bayou.
And so their imaginations run wild,
subjects from teacups to wildlife –
landscape to portrait.
A crazy abstract –
that only the artist will understand.
Imagination flows,
sometimes faster than the brush allows.
Certain struggles come to the fore,
the artist has made a flaw –
but is intent,
the challenges quickly met.
Color moves everywhere, some structured,
some dared,
sweeping strokes, dabs or pointillism, lovingly placed –
vision materialized.
The moment of the end is near,
just the signature of some color the same,
a swirling script, to state who has been here –
a claim to fame?
The creation is at it’s end, the artist ecstatic –
steps back –
a piece of his soul forever ingrained in shapes and color.
The image will have no interest to some,
but will fill an admirer with joy in the days to come.
The artists of this world are bold
their sensitivities are untold,
criticisms they stoically bear,
but ultimately their visions sprout –
they are the world’s creative fount.
Some bemoan the price of art,
it’s just a picture, they don’t see the artist’s heart.
They overlook the hours, knowledge and experience
and last, not least the soul and essence.♥
Johnny Johnston • San Antonio, Teaxas, USA.
Wrapped In Old Sheets, Waiting
Was that a wink and then the piano began playing an old gospel blues song from so long ago, so far in my past and down a lonely dirt road in a place where sour weed we chewed and the cicada sang in the shadows of hibiscus and flowering myrtle.
Melodies blossomed in the humid Carolina night and then blew through the screens of someone’s, somewhere back porch resting place where a newly stained battleship gray pine board porch graced a seaside home within this heart burning memories deep beneath my soul of a past now gone where innocence from another time remained lost.
It was almost like I was somewhere, maybe here before, but alone, without pretensions.
Looking,
Looking,
Knowing that she was near and hoping that this time I had arrived in destiny, on point and with a spirit willing,
But the music still played and everyone in this moment still danced.
Like the heartbeat that kept Ms. Holiday on stage, her morphine holding her slender body draped in black, steady but slurred tonight was a mystery to those who went down to the river to pray leaving past sins in waters washed towards God’s sea seeking salvation promised by the pounding fist of our pastor and cleansing souls from sin committed just today,
Or the night before.
1920 was the year and that pimp banged out tunes on ivory from some place in the sunrise which lifted crushed hearts of lovers soon one and then abandoned in this nightly ritual.
Now when was least expected silence drifted past the wide yawning birth in life’s harbor releasing savage thoughts and horrid memories from the past which melted dark moonless nights where a thousand searing white stars fell from heaven in silence.
Tonight like every night the whiskey poured freely on Duval Street and we watched as he-she’s pranced by outside, hoping some unexpected soul might mistake their nightmare concealed in obscurity and dime store face paint, as something of beauty.
Private cues held in chalked hands, razors in socks for safety, we bonded within the darkness of our souls and the history of our ancestors long forgotten and turned centuries before into dust.
Vigilance was our soul mate and we held our families close, tight and in guilt, huddled in that one room, roach infested shotgun staged shack called home.
Hungry when work was short and alone for those who mates and children had left in frustration or through death they sat, staring at the stars in the sky each night asking God to all souls the pain, taking them from this place into a dreamland filled with honey and promise, safety and opportunity.
A place where the waters of the spirit cleanse minds and wash all that is evil into ditches of mud drying beneath the hot bright golden light of July.
“Can’t you see the water” she asked as I pulled her from the fires of hell? “Can’t you see in those windows, His people asking for me to stand up and come?” J 1.10.13
Vered Terry • Israel
I went out for a soft walk
Looking for liberty
Evening sun’s fingers tenderly stroked
Then I met face to face
The sour fire of love.
It chucked a dark shadow behind me
And I did not see
Struck with happiness
I burnt
Vered Terry
Jan Ejsymontt – Croatia • A poem for April:
Space and Time
A rippling shiver of attention
to the fragile silver thread.
Guideline to the ethereal kite
That rolls on unseen energies.
Whipped into a maelstrom one moment
Hovering on a gentle gust another.
Grounded by the anchoring clay of content
Unfired earth shifts and rebalances
As the strata of change ripples and roams.
Spaceless energies ricochet off invisible walls
And battles to balance the yin and yang.
The artist of life and the chemist of being
Barter over substances unknown.
The alchemist thriving on time and patience
Pursues the aim for that illusive thread of gold.
Jan Ejsymontt
Anaïs aka Harriette Laurent • Bren area, Switzerland
The garden is silver,
A twist of moonlight In sparkling water…
© Nyuka Anaïs Laurent 07.04.2013
Sunil Vilas • England UK –
APRIL 2013 – Thursday 11th April in the CREATIVE LOUNGE Meeting of wonderful minds around the globe.., following the path of creativity.., sharing of precious timeless moments with one another.., and making new friendships!!
Good Morning everyone .., Hello, Namaste! Bonjour!, Salute!, Shalom! And Nǐ hǎo
Our poetry month has added yet another dimension in our creative lounge to appreciate and share with all the members. Most of all to uplift everyone spirit to start the day, we should not loose sight of using these opportunities to keep in touch, may this new buzz and revitalized energy continue beyond April.
This is a poem by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Noble prize for literature 1913 Poetry / Music / Art – The first Asian to receive the honours. He wrote poetry, fiction, drama, essays, and songs; promoted reforms in education, aesthetics and religion; and in his late sixties he even turned to the visual arts, producing 2,500 paintings and drawings before his death.
UNENDING LOVE
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it’s age old pain,
It’s ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –
And the songs of every poet past and forever.
(His poem “Unending Love” is his famous works.., Audrey Hepburn love this to be
her favourite.., is believed to be the favorite poem, often read and recited by actor and humanitarian.)
Clouds And Waves by Rabindranath Tagore
Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-
“We play from the time we wake till the day ends.
We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon.”
I ask, “But how am I to get up to you ?”
They answer, “Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your
hands to the sky, and you will be taken up into the clouds.”
“My mother is waiting for me at home, “I say, “How can I leave
her and come?”
Then they smile and float away.
But I know a nicer game than that, mother.
I shall be the cloud and you the moon.
I shall cover you with both my hands, and our house-top will
be the blue sky.
The folk who live in the waves call out to me-
“We sing from morning till night; on and on we travel and know
not where we pass.”
I ask, “But how am I to join you?”
They tell me, “Come to the edge of the shore and stand with
your eyes tight shut, and you will be carried out upon the waves.”
I say, “My mother always wants me at home in the everything-
how can I leave her and go?”
They smile, dance and pass by.
But I know a better game than that.
I will be the waves and you will be a strange shore.
I shall roll on and on and on, and break upon your lap with
laughter.
And no one in the world will know where we both are.
Peter Filzmaier – Florida, USA
My heart entwound
In love’s feelings
Through her eyes
My passion reeling
I search her thoughts
In hopes devine
To find that dream
That’s her’s and mine
My thoughts of her
This world has changed
The sky, the trees
In song arranged
Change she will
I know for sure
Love’s understanding will endure
My yearning soul
Finds rest at last
In her deeds
My future clasped
Our words our touch
Must surely be
Expressions of love’s honesty
I’ve searched this world
So much in life
To rid my soul of conflict’s strife
And now I find
In heart’s caress
My thoughts of her
Bring happiness
And when fear’s tears
Did touch my heart
She did not laugh
She did not part
She holds my hand
In sweet caress
And thoughts of he
Bring happiness.
Johnny Johnston • San Antonio, Teaxas, USA.
It’s refreshing this talk of love so I figured I’d re-post this piece about a spiritual encounter of love in New Orleans. I hope you can hear the soft piano playing gospel blues in the hall.
LAST DANCE
New Orleans.
Hot and wet.
Warm sulphur filled breezes from some distant small town paper mill,
Blew through cracked slats in time,
Long past life’s faded worn gray shutters.
It was our last night,
The last place life mattered to me, anyway.
It was Savannah’s time.
And she had slayed another dragon’s heart,
Confident that nothing would breach the dark chasms cast between broken souls,
Where hearts crushed in silence,
Simply surrender to the inevitable.
One hers,
The other mine,
It was our last dance……….
Mysterious, enchanting and lonely her past thrown upon ancient seas,
Where vapors stale,
Rise upon winds existing, no longer.
It’s was Savannah’s time,
My final memory sealed for eternity,
Her soft sun bronzed skin which smelled of confederate jasmine young in summer,
Permeated the aired sounds spilled upon this night in the Old Square.
Outside the massive arched window,
Overlooking this decadent city of sadness, love, sounds and sorrows,
A single leaf twisted,
Whipped in the breeze of the pre-dawn light,
Soon lost to a summers past glow.
Long weathered grey shutters,
Sealed for centuries,
Towered beside this ancient southern monument to a glorious past,
Rattling.
As trade winds blew in gusts through the narrow breezeway,
Sweeping last moments,
Quickly,
Down the allies and lonely streets of time now surrendered.
Tavern hags,
Whose muted shouts echoed in the near distance,
Stumble down ancient stone allies,
Their voices in laughter muffled,
Seeking home,
In an evening,
Now lost to the sweat of another dawn.
Then turning,
As I sat upon the massive four post Victorian bed watching,
She dressed,
Her white cotton shift tightly draped, clinging, caressing her body in the humid tropical air,
She stood
.
Transfixed and motionless in front of the floor to ceiling mirror leaning against the charred rose colored fireplace,
The new dawn lightly glowing through the transom illuminating her hair, radiant in its softened light.
For a moment she paused, searching in absence of thought as an actor might, having momentarily misplaced a staged point during a performance,
Still,
She turned motionless peering at my image painted in mirrored reflection.
Her eyes sultry in the broken light,
Appearing as polished stones of light grey and lapis blue,
Searing my soul.
A smile now faded,
Her stare fixed,
She seemed to pray that new memories had never existed,
And that they would vanish in the dew of the summer’s pre-dawn light.
Then turning my way,
She stood in silence,
Wishing she could be as I,
Once again.
It was time,
Ethereal dreams fading,
Hearts crushed in the weight of silence,
It was Savannah’s time,
Centuries long past,
She had travel these halls of another age,
In visions taken to whispered winds and points unknown.
It was our last kiss,
Our last night,
Our last dance.
Anaïs aka Harriette Laurent • Bren area, Switzerland
Dust Ball Word Games
I used to play with words,
like the cat played with the dust kitties
under the bunk bed in the summer cabin.
Light hearted, but ever so seriously,
because play is mighty serious business,
a test for future hunts that might mean life or death…
I rounded them up and patted them together,
trying to make them stick one to the other, like clay
into a permanent sculpture, forgetting that
the earth has a memory of where it has been cut
and forever breaks at the same place,
even once it has been baked… strange…important ?
Dust balls, like words, can be made into something other
than separate worlds, each with its own detailed characteristics.
Both have that terrible tendancy to cling in my mind
like the pieces of old magazine articles, torn and chewed
into little balls of ill-digested news I longed to share,
so I glued them onto a collage with a very serious theme,
that no one but I seemed to chafe at to the point of scar tissue,
and that seemed so primordial to me at one time.
How is it that a single word can be so imbued
with perfume and color as to be self-contained?
Take that one, stinking, little, word that seems so frivolous,
innoucuous even, but takes up a whole life’s worth of searching
to catch it – like those light and airy dust balls that refuse to let go
of their freedom to roll about and tease us unremittingly –
what and who give it so much meaning as to make it
King of the mountain, Queen of the hill and Jack of all trades ?
You do. Each time you refuse to give it to me, even in play –
And love becomes a dust ball under my bed for want
of having cleaned house sufficiently of all my memories
© Nyuka Anaïs Laurent 14.01.2013
מה
במקום כל המלים האלה
שאני ממלאת עצמי בהן
מחסנים מפוטמים של מלים
מרתפים מואבסים עד אפס מקום
אולי פעם נצטרך
אני אומרת
אולי פעם נמצא בהן שימוש.
מלים על מדפים מעלות אבק
מלים בארונות מחכות
לחלוף העונה
אולי בזמן אחר –
ועוד חודש עבר
והריק עולה על גדותיו
משתפל עם המתנים
עד האגן
נחבט בתנועות מגשמות
בתקווה חשוכת מרפא
בן לו היה לי
Nyuka Anais poem about words reminded me of this poem I wrote (20 years ago), it may be useless to our friends written so much in Hebrew with hints from other Hebrew w
What
Instead of all these words
I charge myself with
Fattened warehouses of words
Basements – fed to the brim
Maybe someday we’ll need them
I say
Maybe one day we’ll use them.
Dusty words on dusty shelves
Words in closets waiting for
Passing seasons
Maybe another time –
And another month is gone with
Overflowing emptiness
Sloping with waistline
To pelvis
Knocked by clumsy hits
Of incurable hope
If only I had a child
Johnny Johnston • San Antonio, Teaxas, USA.
Awake
Are you awake?
It’s a new beginning and your eyes are filled with the
weight of sleep and fear realizing that the knowledge of a new dawn breaks the
crest of the golden horizon.
What was is,
And what we discover in life is that which was predestined.
Not pinned to you with metal stitching
But integrated,
Binding your soul unto immortality,
With Him.
When did you actually think about your demise?
And then your next step into the beyond?
Was it today or yesterday?
Maybe days in your past,
Or where you sought a future not yet revealed.
Now, let’s look at those visions imagined,
Logically digging deep into the conscientious of your
new beginning,
Searching for tomorrow?
Who are you?
And when, Or should I say if,
You managed to reach that point,
Did you truly know your soul or was it just something
mentioned to you in passing?
Were you true to yourself and if so,
Did you as most, present life with the lukewarm
convictions spoken of in His words?
When walking through nights dark alleys,
Were you asking guidance or was it your own power
sought as challenges hailed upon your canopy?
Did night come quickly in those days?
And when rising each morning,
Did you breathe with gulps as though drowning or in
swift inhalations of self interest and material conquests?
Once upon a time far from today and tomorrow’s yet discovered,
You found that place and stepped over the bodies left
in your strengthening, reaching for the frivolous.
Not gold nor diamonds rough and easily concealed,
Nor grand things horded by apparitions whose pain
hides deep within lost souls,
But somewhere between the point you started and then
traveled,
To an ending in a dwelling only imagined in dreams,
One runs from in the night.
Discovering neither warrior nor slave,
Neither King nor servant,
But simply a man who finds himself drowning in life’s
confusions and truth.
I’ve seen you,
And once asked if I could help,
As you danced among the sadness that crept into your
soul,
Sucking the very spirit from the light immersed within.
But when reaching for you,
Standing in the shadows of ancient wisdom and holy
parables
Doubts confused in misunderstanding caused hesitation.
And you cast Me aside as though I had come seeking
your destruction,
As though I wished to place passions further behind
the darkness.
I reached for you again,
Drifting into the lost,
And you smiled,
Like one begging for assistance in suicide,
Death by cop,
Excuses once again,
Wishing for aid, in achieving successful abandonment
of one’s soul,
As it is heaved upon the unknown night which lies
beyond.
I believe it’s time,
Time to make plans for success in life,
Grasping challenges feared forever.
Time to shed the doubt that held you in chains as a
snake his old skin,
Causing pain and constant dissolution of spirits and
dimensions which real,
Lie far beyond your knowledge and understanding.
Reach for the sky,
Open yourself to believing,
Know that you are not alone and without Hope,
But shrouded in garments of glory and wisdom from
above,
Provided a place in His world, to be,
And become more than you imagined or ever dreamed.
If you only accept His grace for what it is,
Rewards without bindings or chains,
Restraints or ropes tied tight about your body,
Where hopes sense salvation and eternal life given is
granted without uncertainty.
9.29.12 J
Aditi Chakravarty – Guwahati Area, India
About my work: Journey Through Nature
Image grows inside the Brown, Red, green …..
Dancing image speaks to wind…
Layers of feelings creates surface…
Between silver lines of rain drops
Memory sleeps…
I test the red of flowers…
I sleep inside the green…
The blue of the sky,
The blue of the river
Touch each other
Kiss the blue…
Memory of unseen landscape….
Talks of light…
Talks of wind…
Talks of image…
Grows inside layer…
Creates the texture…
Struggle with movements
Struggle with forms
Image comes out one by one….
Image I lost
One by one…..
Aditi Chakravarty
Anaïs aka Harriette Laurent • Bren area, Switzerland
A poem for the till…
Home Again
I have come home after being too long away.
I know this feeling of reveling in reclaimed skin
After shedding layers of accumulated travel dust.
I have come home again; I can feel it in my bones.
I open all the doors and windows so unwelcome guests
Can find a new home without my aggressing them.
I shake out the covers that lay in cedar chests
At the ends of empty beds that have grown cold.
Each gesture is as familiar as the objects
I touch, caress, anoint with my tears of joy.
I have celebrated this ceremony so often
It has become a part of me and enjoyable.
Walls that were stripped naked like the souls
Of mountain tops laid bare of snow
Shiver not from cold but in anticipation.
Paintings stored in attic trunks under the eaves
Come out of hiding to reclaim their respective nails.
Pots and pans stored under the counter fill
With savory odors of a first, welcome-home meal.
Burnish them first, run to the garden to find chives,
Turn on the water and check the oil levels.
With each step or gesture I am re-hanging
Bits and pieces of who I am around me,
Reclaiming and filling what was somehow empty.
Walls that have newfound color and soft vibrations
Expand to encompass and comfort me; home again.
At the touch of a friend, protective walls crumble:
Such walls are best set aside so love
And compassion can dissipate the chill.
Distance and absence are laid to rest
Along with a sigh in an old fashioned bed
Under layers of home made quilts
Tucked under my chin and warmed by a brick.
The unnerving hiccough of time lost splutters,
Then starts ticking again in more natural rhythms.
Life resumes its spiral growth, retrieved,
Accepted and acknowledged; home again.
© Nyuka Anaïs Laurent April 6, 2006
Sunil Vilas England UK
Kotaro Takamura and the Chieko Poems
The Chieko Poems by Kotaro Takamura, published in 1941, have historical significance as they are regarded as some of the first Japanese poems to successfully break free from the conventional moulds of the haiku or tanka forms.., His works immediately became the best seller that they remain today.
After the Second World War, Takamura exiled himself from Tokyo and lived as a hermit in a small village in Yamaguchi in northern Japan.
His earlier influences that change his path to becoming a poet.
Takamura was born in 1883, his father was a famous sculptor employed by the Meiji court. Following in his father’s footsteps, Takamura studied for eight years at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. He then went abroad to further his studies.
At the age of 23 in February 1906 he was in New York, in June 1907 he moved to London and, most importantly, from June to May 1909 he lived in Paris. It was there that Takamura became influenced and deeper impression of understand Rodin as a sculptor and as a poet.in his bronze sculptures. On his return to Japan, Takamura promoted
Western art and poetry.
He died in 1956
Fear
No, no!
Don’t touch this silent water,
Let alone toss in a stone,
Even the
tremor of a waterdrop
Wastes a thousand ripples.
Revere the silence of
water,
Value its stillness.
You musn’t speak another word,
Just to
open your mouth would be shattering
And letting a sound pass your lips
Would be like a lightning strike,
You are a woman,
Though they say
you behave like a man, you are still a woman,
You are the sweat-soaked full
moon in a blue-black sky,
You are the moon that leads the world into dreams
Making the transient eternal.
That’s fine, yes,
You musn’t
return those dreams to reality
Or the eternal back to the transient,
And, more than anything else,
You musn’t toss anything harmful
Into
this crystal clear water.
My stillness is a jewel bought with blood,
You
can’t imagine how much blood I sacrificed for it.
This stillness is my
life,
This stillness is my god,
And it’s an irrascible god at that,
It can be provoked into a vicious frenzy
By even the slight hunger of a
summer’s night,
Dare you even touch ever so lightly?
No!
You
must value stillness,
Or else
Be sure you’re ready
For the ripples
from that stone
Could overwhelm you, drag you into their whirlpool,
Slam
into you a hundred thousand times,
You are a woman
You’d have to draw on
all your strength to withstand this,
Could you?
You musn’t say another
word to me,
No…
Look!
Doesn’t even that smoky, oil-stained
railway station
Shimmering in the moonlight
Seem like a treasure-house
full of shining jewels?
The distant green and red signal lamps
Now in
silence, now sending off trains,
Perform their important role
In harmony
with the mood of this moonlit night.
I’m now at one
With this
atmosphere,
I’ve succumbed to its mysterious power
And reached a
precious equilibrium,
My soul thinks on the eternal,
My naked eye sees
infinite worth in all things,
Be quiet, shush,
Now I’m communing with
something greater than me
And have forgotten how to speak.
No,
Don’t touch this silent water,
Let alone toss in a stone.
Lucia Gomez Columbia
A fragment from “SAVITRI” by Sri Aurobindo
SAVITRI 4
BOOK TEN
THE BOOK OF THE DOUBLE TWILIGHT
CANTO ONE
THE DREAM TWILIGHT OF THE IDEAL
An air that dared not suffer too much light.
Vague fields were there, vague pastures gleamed, vague trees,
Vague scenes dim-hearted in a drifting haze;
Vague cattle white roamed glimmering through the mist;
Vague spirits wondered with a bodiless cry,
Vague melodies touches the soul and fled pursued
Into harmonious distances unseized;
Forms subtly elusive and half –luminous powers
Wishing no goal for their unearthly course
Strayed happily through vague ideal lands,
Or floated without footing or their walk
Left steps of reverie on sweet memory´s ground;
Or they paced to the mighty measure of their thoughts
Led by a low chanting of the gods.
Nyuka Anaïs Laurent, Franco-American living in Switzerland, poet-artist and gallery director. Someone said old poems… this one is quite an oldie but I still like it… it was for a free spirit friend…
Convert
Stone on stone of Anglican belief,
I laid down foundations for my life, a bulwark solid.
The overlapping tenets of my faith were solid, sturdy, safe.
Their snug fit gave me joy and buttressed my convictions.
I knew right from wrong, truth from lie, good from evil.
A pavilion for my God, these truths rose in protective battlements.
No mortar, chink or crack marred the surface of my walls.
Smooth and tight, they were the armor of my God, impeccable:
His light was my caparison; His shield defended me;
And I, His knight unquestioning, was His sword of truth.
When you arrived outside my hold in desperate need,
I lowered my defenses long enough to succor you;
And though I sought to bring you to His fold,
You enfolded me within your tender mysteries.
Your presence lent its grace to naked walls while
Soft spoken words hallowed these once hollow halls.
Your simple beauty fanned to flame a long cold hearth.
My beloved perpendiculars were softened by your curves,
And daylight thrust its way between stone interstices.
Without waging a single battle, you had won the war.
I still don’t know when or how it happened:
When solid became staid in my eyes, and sturdy, stodgy;
When He became a She, and trees became my tabernacle;
When granite gray corridors became grassy green paths,
And musty smells were exorcised by perfumed flowers;
When embrasures widened into huge bay windows
Embracing panoramic views of splashing waterfalls
I’d overlooked somehow when cloistered in my citadel.
When did open space, fresh air and sunlight suddenly become
As precious to me as my once vaunted, vaulted security?
I hold your broken, wizened body in these arms too strong,
Too vital. Golden brown, they are an affront to your pale fragility.
Yet they are a living testament to all the subtle strength you brought me.
You smile that crooked and endearing smile that says,
I know, but it’s all right. Let me go… and then, you close your eyes.
As suddenly as you had come, you’ve gone – always a step
Ahead of me. My vigil done, I visit Her beneath the towering pine
That still smells so of you, and watch the river rapids break up
The remains of my last, damned walls.
© Nyuka Anaïs Laurent 27/07/96
Ann Geraghty Bath, United Kingdom
The past hurt, the present struggle and the fear of the future mingles, mixes and becomes a new being: one giant shriek in my throat pummeling me with threats of failure, of inadequacy, and what-must-be.
I let out a howl, a tearing hysterical sob meant to vocalize my protest.
Instead, it rips open the wanting place, liberating words that fly with beating wings, escaping through every crack they can find, widening each opening until my soul is laid bare as a canyon, thirsty and ready to be filled.
Let Go, let go , let go… the breaths and the breezes and the raindrops falling to the sea say…
a chant repeated over and over in my body… uncurl your fingers, open your hands, spread your arms wide.
They move in spirals inside my ears, where they took up residence so recently.
Moisture collects on and under my tongue, a sublingual rainfall, where the words of elders sit comfortable and wrinkled, waiting, waiting for me to recognize them.
– Sarah La Rosa
Edgar Plaute – Austria
Hohelied der Liebe
(frei nach König Salomon)
Wenn ich mit Menschen- und Engelszungen redete,
hätte aber die Liebe nicht,
wäre ich gleich tönendem Erz oder rasselnden Schellen.
Und wenn ich prophetisch reden könnte,
wüsste jedes Geheimnis und hätte alle Erkenntnis,
hätte ich jenen Glauben, der Berge versetzen könnte,
hätte aber die Liebe nicht,
so wäre ich nichts.
Und wenn ich alle meine Habe den Armen gäbe
und ließe meinen Leib verbrennen,
hätte aber die Liebe nicht,
so wär’ es mir nichts zunütze.
Die Liebe ist langmütig,
sie ist freundlich und eifert nicht,
die Liebe treibt nicht Mutwillen
und bläht sich nicht auf,
sie verhält sich nicht ungehörig,
sie sucht nicht das Ihre,
sie lässt sich nicht verbittern,
sie rechnet das Böse nicht zu,
sie scheut Ungerechtigkeit,
sie freut sich aber an der Wahrheit;
sie erträgt alles, sie glaubt alles,
sie hofft alles, sie duldet alles.
Die Liebe hört auch dann nicht auf,
wenn prophetisches Reden aufhören wird
und das Zungenreden aufhören wird
und die Erkenntnis aufhören wird.
Denn unser Wissen ist Stückwerk,
und prophetisches Gehabe ist Stückwerk …
… wird aber kommen das Vollkommene,
so wird aufhören das Stückwerk.
Als Kind redete ich wie ein Kind,
und war klug wie ein Kind;
als ich aber dann ein Mann ward,
tat ich ab, was kindlich war.
Ich sehe durch einen Spiegel ein dunkles Bild
stückweise von Angesicht zu Angesicht.
Jetzt erkenne ich und werde erkennen,
wie ich erkannt bin.
Uns ist gegeben Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe –
diese drei –
aber die Liebe ist die größte unter ihnen.
Herminia Haro – Peru
Lying
on clouds of doubts
down, the uncertain minds mess
different languages sparkly appear
while the shine of knifes jumps
from the bottom of my deepest fears
dance of pink, red and blue
with purple lights and lemon green
spreading babels of desired hopes
in the flesh of our souls.
Johnny Johnston • San Antonio, Teaxas, USA.
Ok, here’s a culture shift into a hip hop genre
Dimes to Dollars NEW (To be read very fast in a hip hop rap cadence)
Entire planets collapsing and combusting in time as inhabitants fly through the darkness we once referred to as a Quote, “A politically correct” cosmos.
Brass bellows jazz fusion as bamboo quivers in octave squeals of passion and anger, like this cities lonely streets tonight and every night. Junked, plunked strings wrenched and bent in tension scream long, loud and sharp, bleeding in sorrow, erupting into a crescendo igniting a cacophony of life in this city,
Then drops with sounds sinking slowly, ever so softly beneath a sturdy smooth rhythm, ethereal in a sense but aware of those things which lurk in the night.
This is Detroit, a once was but now lost in despair wasteland. Trampled under greed and social engineering, a city where few who gave and the ones who took parted ways.
Where laws preached by political thieves invested in life’s dead ends, leached upon he who struggled, taking and feeding a city of sluggards. Burned out cars, abandoned children and bodies dumped, in empty streets, dark alleys and open fields, a city rotting and abandoned.
Glass, steel, concrete, axils, engines and generations of proud workers once noticed and revered, now looked down upon, ignored, pushed back in the shadows of ruin and abandonment,
Where ceramic pipes charred black, works bent or busted and skunk scented blunts inhaled, transport youthful children of this workers proud past and hard fought respect into toxic dreams of riddled destruction, lost hope and lives with no substance, desires or future.
Big D, a King Kong from decades past, city of design and innovation, creator of Motown mastery and automotive excellence, no longer, no more, now sits in a puddled wasteland unseen, unfit and unwanted even by those who once intoxicated with power and arrogance crowed at the world of their dominance, now resides in dark ashes of success no more.
Triple down, was what was heard, as bets were placed in times of glory, chances taken and fortunes made, wealth pulled from hoods where asbestos shingled factory houses lined every pot holed street in this city of American ingenuity,
And the lives of a few, changed through raw perseverance and backbreaking determination, struggling, fighting, and ever seeking that mythical American Dream,
the Red, White and Blue of accomplishment and the discovery of personal potential deep within to expose, if lucky, if in the right place, a path where open doors and talent offered an escape.
Little by little, time after time, rules changed, lost pride glistened of mediocrity, wages, now sucked up by unions who threatened destruction, took treasures from those who had trusted and walked away fat.
Detroit, a boomtown Motown city, full of dreams, built on hope, spirit and substance, driven into the dirt by unions and political pimps who sucked the marrow from its bones and moved on.
A city, maybe like a country, where masses followed false hope and citizens in blindness failed to see the deception, broken promises and lies because they became truths.
A place like any other place that took the obvious and turned it in to what they wished, only to discover that they too had been listening to the horns confused cacophony, and not waiting for the sturdy smooth rhythm to follow, that those few had seen.
JJ newest version 12.8.12
DEAN ILDEFONSE – Geneva Area, Switzerland
This is one of mine:
10:10 PM. It is Valentine’s Day
I’m still waiting for you with 5 hours of delay
You will end up telling me that you were not in Casablanca
But to Long Island with a Casanova
Casanova never had first name or surname
Your first excuse seemed to come out of crazy color dreams of woody allen
And your second because of my emotion for you dealt with me disloyal
et c’est là que tu me reprocheras de ma vie en tourbillon impériale
With my life filled of passion
I always think that our love should be a revolution
Between a master of kiss and a big tender heart
Alone a night of Valentine’s Day is not my best project in Art
That I felt compassion for your biggest secret hours
5 hours of delay, okay! 5 hours of delay without to be totally crazy love totally ours
The first 3 hours I understand it
But double mystery resides in the 2 last. You said me “stop or that’s it! “
Yet ever you will tell me that that was its 2 hours secrets of your life
Finally! Let’s forget all it, we have 1:40 to take advantage of Venetia and stay my wife
And to rob some kissing for Aeternitas …
Unfortunately the following day morning, king conquistador and queen heart beat will never meet again in their Geneva’s villas …
This poem is written on a canvas:
Asgeir Andersen – Montpellier Area, France
Lune,
Fleurs,
Cosmographie,
Univers d’essence
… Ermite, devant ce néant …
J’ai peint cette série avec cela en tête …
Je l’ai appelée mon « Univers des sens ».
C’est ce que j’ai découvert en moi …
et que je livre à vos regards. Cela me laisse perplexe, en attente …
… Eclairé, de vos regards, en échange, pour que le champ de ruines
puisse fructifier les graines, en cette terre aride, de vos sources …
J’ai toujours cette joie enfantine qui me caractérise.
C’est un sentiment qui m’habite, de plénitude,
d’un amour pour l’univers d’aisance …
… fait naître, lavé de tout …
que je partage avec vous :
peinture-sculpture-
musique-poésie-
littérature-
théâtre-
conte.
« L’espace
Efface
Le bruit. »
Asgeir
Nota : Les trois dernières lignes sont tirées du poème “Les Djinns” de Victor Hugo (in : Les orientales)
Sunil Vilas • I was born in Zambia, Africa therefore my strong ties and connection with the development of arts & culture from Africa. Therefore like to share my next poem made famous by Nelson Mandela.
Invictus- A Poem That Inspired Nelson Mandela
This is a Poem ‘Invictus’ (Unconquered, Undefeated) by William Henley. Great South African Leader Nelson Mandela (Madiba) was inspired by the poem, and had it written on a scrap of paper on his prison cell while he was incarcerated for 27 years on RobbenIsland.
I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul
Herminia Haro Peru • CESAR VALLEJO
Santiago de Chuco, Peru, March 16th 1892 – Paris, April 15th 1938.
He was considered one of the great poetic innovators of 20th century in any language.
This month marks the 75th anniversary of his death, let’s remember him. Enjoy his poetry.
THE BLACK HERALDS
There are blows in life, so powerful…
I don’t know!
blows as from the God’s hatred: as if,
the backlash of everything suffered
were to dam up in the soul…
I don’t know!
they are few, but they are…
they open dark furrows
in the fiercest face and in the strongest back
Maybe they could be the horses of barbarous Attilas;
or the black heralds Death sends us
they are the deep abysses of the soul’s Christ’s
of some revered Destiny blasphemed
those gory blows are the cracklings of
a bread burning up at the oven’s door
And man…poor…poor! he turns his eyes, as
when a slap on the shoulder calls us
he turns his crazed eyes, and everything lived
is dammed up like a pond of guilt, in his gaze
there are blows in life, so powerful…I don’t know.
BLACK STONE ON TOP OF A WHITE STONE
I shall die, in a rainstorm,
on a day I already remember
I shall die in Paris – it doesn’t bother me –
Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn
It shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday
As I put down this lines, I have set my shoulders
to the evil. Never like today have I turned
And headed my whole journey to the ways where I am alone
César Vallejo is dead, they struck him
All of them, though he did nothing to them
they hit him hard with a stick and hard also
with the end of a rope, witnesses are the Thursdays,
the shoulders bones, the loneliness, the rain and the roads.
THE ART FOUNDATION
ALL material on this website is protected copyrights reserved by Globalization ICAS / Group Founder Sunil Vilas
Contact us email: info@vilascollection.co.uk / GlobalizationICAS@gmail.com
Anaïs aka Harriette Laurent Bern Area, Switzerland
Tanglewood Hero
She was three, no two, and casually slung
Across her daddy’s hip, a tiny bag of groceries.
She dropped the stub of grass she’d held
Under her nose, sniffing and inspecting it.
Muttering a heartfelt “Oh, oh, oh!” as if
That expressed all the crushing disappointment
In her little world, she turned doe eyes
On Daddy with a sly, unspoken question.
He stooped and plucked his darling daughter
Another wider, brighter, greener leaf of grass,
And crushing her to him between strong arms,
Whistled through it for her clapping joy.
He smiled that he alone could bring her
Such happiness so easily, then gently
Set her on her tiny feet, watching over her.
Heroes are made by such incongruous feats
Of love sung through a blade of grass.
© Nyuka Anaïs Laurent 29/08/02