O Poetry, Don’t Die…

to L

o,poetry,don’t die
when even barren earth meets beauty of the sky
and willows stop waving their hands unveiling spring
there’ll be no need of eagles on the wing
all hearts will join the immortal light
and gladly outshine the deadly night
there’ll be no death, we’ll fear her not
horizons’ll cease to mark the earthly hump
your throat won’t stifle tears when brought a lump
let there be no imperfection, no fatal flaw
except for one
so boldly reinvented by the young men
while sitting on the glassy sky-lit floor
that’s poetry – don’t die!
take final pains, once more, to teach us,
and let us learn from you
how we should rhyme in heaven
this very word with any of the sort,
like ocean, captain, seven…

I translate

I secretly translate
My lofty dreams and fears
Across the seas that fill
A goblet,
Already full of tears,
Into the language spilt
Over a land of birds
That tweet and chirp my guilt
Into another world,
So alien to me,
But can I, yet, abstain
From voice that beckons glee
With rhymes of that terrain,
Of many species’ nest
Who read my faith with zeal
And sing it to the starry west,
Translated, unconcealed…

Explore

This entanglement
Of branches and twigs,
What a text
To be read in betwixt
Their tight-knotted lines
To unravel the meaning
Of the deep-rooted mines.
Of essential minds
That impetuous urge
All the way through
They grind,
Digging up to a surge -
Come and watch
Revelation emerge.
What a sight -
Bare roots
Well-exposed to light,
Lest the foliage should dry
Then the bark
Like a body dissected
To lie in the dark

Jan 25, 2011

Window

My only window I’m looking through
Seeing the birds scattered
All around the world of snow
Seeing passersby
Amidst the frozen trees,
Myself, unperturbed and elegiac
Walking down that dusty asphalt
Past or present, rain or shine,
Wet or dry,
Walk a mile…
Along with the midsummer wind
Or midwinter mix…
The tip of my shoe
Lazily kicking the balls
Of crumpled yesterday’s papers
And a used can of Coke
Its half silenced tinkle heard
Like a moonlight serenade sung
To this half rubbled town…
And oh, so many things I see
Through my only half blinded window
Which is like one of so many others’
I, of all people; all people, of me.

Febr 1, 2012

Irrelevance

He lingers on, yet not a stranger
To entertain, The Precursor of time
And finales’ countless danger.
One needs a turn albeit on a dime.
It has always been and always will be
Irrelevant all the same, though…
Neither feverish nor chilly
To resort to Ibn Sino.
The wind stirs a tree branch
To let the luminance last
Then a shadow’s cast
Like one below eyelashes, nay –
Under a weeping willow
On a hot summer day.
Pray, it’s premature to miss
Your lips
Untouched by a smiling riddle
Nor the bow
That ravished no fiddle
Or the landscape
Unloved anymore.

April 18, 2011

On Songs, Trains and Rains

some songs’re like distant howling of suburban trains,
evoking memories like pouring summer rains;
you don’t know how,you don’t know why the torrents flow,
they leave right in your heart a dim uncanny glow…

down some intangible rails they go,delivering mirth ,
sad spectres of forgotten faces and what not ,
and afterwards you hate to be awakened back on Earth.
last drop ,i gaze into your eyes ;oh ,please ,don’t go , don’t …

March Ides

So grainy is the air of March,
I let it in with all its salt,
I let it go with all its starch
That clouds are made of, steering cold

Of elements: they meet, the sea, the sky;
Of salt and iodine’s deep breath
I take; on opening the inward peering eye
I see a clearing in the depth.

So far, vast spaces: blue in green,
They stretch beyond myopic sight;
A tiny patch, ultramarine,discerned
Among the clouds pouring light.

I’m circling round my stuffy room,
Atlantic breeze inhaled through Moscow’s March
And watch in disbelief Herculean Pillars loom,
Washed by the foam of tidal starch.