O Son of Spirit! My first counsel is this:
possess a pure, kindly & radiant heart
that thine may be a sovereignty
ancient, imperishable
and everlasting.
Baha'u'llah
میرزا حسینعلی نوری
Sunday, November 15, 2009
अल अबोअर्द
Follow the path to the place where you find your voice.
It’s right where the real-religious people hid it
Strangled under a fat white pillow, right where the
Teachers shredded it and threw the match
Over the whole smoking pile.
It’s somewhere in the middle of those mummified manuscripts
Thick with age and the blue crawly dust of insects.
Profane clichés and unfreudian slips
the undergarment articles of
a meaner time, after common ancestors
rough pioneer kids all
spent hard winters stitched into greasy long johns
and huddled their hoarded secret vices
under douvets sewed of ashy flannel pulled off the backs of sheep
and stuffed with straight wheat straw,
when mothers boiled soap to scrub the mouths of brats.
Still, they knew each tool each task required.
They never mistook an axiom for a saw.
Remember the German advices collected from old women:
Keep it simple. Cut the fat --but never the corners. Excise the extraneous.
Follow the steps on schedule, using the proper pattern
(counting stitches like syllables in sequences)
Eclipse the ordinary obvious, when possible,
& in boarding the train, buy a good seat to observe each inch of scenery.
Know when you are nearing your own country
By the color of the grass.
But speak up! if you hear a warning whistle
God knows, it just might be for you.
Along the way decipher shamelessly
Every bottle and bone left strewn by the seemingly random panhandler.
Search carefully for everything you lost along the way and you will find it.
Fly down the trail, breathless on your small excursions.
Observing every detail in the angle of the light.
Follow reverently the broken weeds to the place where your voice hides.
The meadow remembers no child’s temporary footprint
But the train tracks forge full circle every time
with or without their paying passengers.
And in rusted silence where the emptiness is wide,
Be comforted, the seeds left on the ground by squawking birds
making their wheeling spring migration
shall be the rising red flowers, long-necked, greedy, graceful
of a coming generation’s summer,
forever the same and new.
Listen now to the drumming message sent by your own heart.
The voice that you hear next will be your own.
It’s right where the real-religious people hid it
Strangled under a fat white pillow, right where the
Teachers shredded it and threw the match
Over the whole smoking pile.
It’s somewhere in the middle of those mummified manuscripts
Thick with age and the blue crawly dust of insects.
Profane clichés and unfreudian slips
the undergarment articles of
a meaner time, after common ancestors
rough pioneer kids all
spent hard winters stitched into greasy long johns
and huddled their hoarded secret vices
under douvets sewed of ashy flannel pulled off the backs of sheep
and stuffed with straight wheat straw,
when mothers boiled soap to scrub the mouths of brats.
Still, they knew each tool each task required.
They never mistook an axiom for a saw.
Remember the German advices collected from old women:
Keep it simple. Cut the fat --but never the corners. Excise the extraneous.
Follow the steps on schedule, using the proper pattern
(counting stitches like syllables in sequences)
Eclipse the ordinary obvious, when possible,
& in boarding the train, buy a good seat to observe each inch of scenery.
Know when you are nearing your own country
By the color of the grass.
But speak up! if you hear a warning whistle
God knows, it just might be for you.
Along the way decipher shamelessly
Every bottle and bone left strewn by the seemingly random panhandler.
Search carefully for everything you lost along the way and you will find it.
Fly down the trail, breathless on your small excursions.
Observing every detail in the angle of the light.
Follow reverently the broken weeds to the place where your voice hides.
The meadow remembers no child’s temporary footprint
But the train tracks forge full circle every time
with or without their paying passengers.
And in rusted silence where the emptiness is wide,
Be comforted, the seeds left on the ground by squawking birds
making their wheeling spring migration
shall be the rising red flowers, long-necked, greedy, graceful
of a coming generation’s summer,
forever the same and new.
Listen now to the drumming message sent by your own heart.
The voice that you hear next will be your own.
Friday, November 13, 2009
जोनाह'स Song
Jonah’s Song
Like Jesus himself he was three days in the whale
It seemed a lot longer down there
For a man on the run who wanted a gun but just needed some space
To flee to a dark place where no daylight
Plunged to give him up or change his destiny
A place to hide the very soul
That the damaged fists kept free.
He went down whole and locked inside
He knew he was in for a very wild ride
But what is a boy to do?
Jonah did not want to go to Ninevah
But he had to do what he had to do.
Just to tell those sinners to move it back
& return to the promised way
The Lord ain’t never gonna bless a household here
Til Jonah has his say.
Sitting at the table with the dark glasses on
And the black leather jacket too
Elusive and vague but insinuating
Before the night judge and the talk show king
Spitting out clues on the eve before
the Day of Reckoning.
Jonah himself was not a great man
Who could withstand scrutiny
On close inspection he was failed and scared
Angry at the closing deal.
But when the bell rang he took up the scroll
And he headed out to the floor
A purpose became a mission, the dove is over the river now
It’s all about who could be saved and how the peace can be won
Between the mother and father now, the holiness is in the son
He knew the only choice was how much distance he could put
Between himself and the door
But he could not ever run far enough
from her face or from his own
To take the reflection that he saw in the mirror
And sink it in the lake like a stone
So he warned the others and he kept his word
Or he tried to anyway
And he used his words to bring the truth
Of that great and mournful reckoning day.
Sitting at the table with the dark glasses on
And the black leather jacket too
Elusive and vague but insinuating
Before the night judge and the talk show king
Spitting out clues on the eve before
the Day of Reckoning.
Like Jesus himself he was three days in the whale
It seemed a lot longer down there
For a man on the run who wanted a gun but just needed some space
To flee to a dark place where no daylight
Plunged to give him up or change his destiny
A place to hide the very soul
That the damaged fists kept free.
He went down whole and locked inside
He knew he was in for a very wild ride
But what is a boy to do?
Jonah did not want to go to Ninevah
But he had to do what he had to do.
Just to tell those sinners to move it back
& return to the promised way
The Lord ain’t never gonna bless a household here
Til Jonah has his say.
Sitting at the table with the dark glasses on
And the black leather jacket too
Elusive and vague but insinuating
Before the night judge and the talk show king
Spitting out clues on the eve before
the Day of Reckoning.
Jonah himself was not a great man
Who could withstand scrutiny
On close inspection he was failed and scared
Angry at the closing deal.
But when the bell rang he took up the scroll
And he headed out to the floor
A purpose became a mission, the dove is over the river now
It’s all about who could be saved and how the peace can be won
Between the mother and father now, the holiness is in the son
He knew the only choice was how much distance he could put
Between himself and the door
But he could not ever run far enough
from her face or from his own
To take the reflection that he saw in the mirror
And sink it in the lake like a stone
So he warned the others and he kept his word
Or he tried to anyway
And he used his words to bring the truth
Of that great and mournful reckoning day.
Sitting at the table with the dark glasses on
And the black leather jacket too
Elusive and vague but insinuating
Before the night judge and the talk show king
Spitting out clues on the eve before
the Day of Reckoning.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
fantasies
When you are young, indulge no fantasies.
they'll corrupt the perfect dream you carry deep inside.
Intact, strong, purposeful as an arrow, don't let
the drag of smoke resist yr freedomflight, just
smirk when strange others confide their fantasies to you.
Live in the real world of yr perfect dream, breathing
nobody's sloppy second breath slow over your shoulder
in the dull dreamy snore of fantasy's warm seduction, keep your eyes
wide open on the roaring rushing racing road- the perfect dream
requires every secret centimeter of the summoned focus of
yr perfect world.
When you are middle aged, allow your fantasies to co exist.
The dream has faded, it is monday's laundry left out
to stiffen in the cold breeze of tuesday night, forgotten
arrow shirts and linen suits and underwear--so let the fantasies
remain, and let them in with gentle smiles. The man you married
still looks good from a distance, the girl you chose
still sounds sweet on the telephone, reminding you of other girls.
The children you bore becoming giants now, familiar
only in some nontouchable and distant way
but in their eyes are echoes of some early stardust, perhaps left over
from someone else's fantasy. and what of dreams--the screen door
screeches in the wind, the weekend's gone, the dream you chased is
chasing you, the fantasies will giggle in the clouds, it's monday morning
roaring up to pick you up -yet again.
But when you're old, bid, no, beg! fantasy to enter by your side.
Beckon & cajole the softness of the sidelong glance, look sweetly at the
crone you married, once your blushing bride and kiss her hand, some
dulcinea princess from far fantasy's bold landscape of the blind
and court the fantasies that tease from dusty corners where they fell.
Recall the ancient stooped man next to you as don quijote, comic knight
of all faith imagination love and high nobility, not this fainting
farting clown who rescues pillows as his favorite companions in the night
but all your own in this gentle kingdom of the kind, and hold his hand
next to your heart where sweet accordions once played poetic melodies
and tangos wild and mad, embrace the fantasy with all that's left inside
the magic throbbing dreaming core of soul, & heart & mind.
No, when you're young, don't let the fantasies that flirt take hold
and carry you far from the bold hallucination of the greatness of the personal. Don't let them show you all you are and all that you can never be, for that in middle age and elder hood and fantasy is still to learn,
& will be learned & must be sadly learned
all in the plenteous wisdom of the passages of other fantasies,
and whirling flow, relentless time. But blessed you'll be if after
all & all you still remain, with breath & bone
to indulge in life's most final passing stage: abandoned
to the child's own game, the knowledge that every step of every stage
along the way was even then and even now
yet but another breath of fantasy.
they'll corrupt the perfect dream you carry deep inside.
Intact, strong, purposeful as an arrow, don't let
the drag of smoke resist yr freedomflight, just
smirk when strange others confide their fantasies to you.
Live in the real world of yr perfect dream, breathing
nobody's sloppy second breath slow over your shoulder
in the dull dreamy snore of fantasy's warm seduction, keep your eyes
wide open on the roaring rushing racing road- the perfect dream
requires every secret centimeter of the summoned focus of
yr perfect world.
When you are middle aged, allow your fantasies to co exist.
The dream has faded, it is monday's laundry left out
to stiffen in the cold breeze of tuesday night, forgotten
arrow shirts and linen suits and underwear--so let the fantasies
remain, and let them in with gentle smiles. The man you married
still looks good from a distance, the girl you chose
still sounds sweet on the telephone, reminding you of other girls.
The children you bore becoming giants now, familiar
only in some nontouchable and distant way
but in their eyes are echoes of some early stardust, perhaps left over
from someone else's fantasy. and what of dreams--the screen door
screeches in the wind, the weekend's gone, the dream you chased is
chasing you, the fantasies will giggle in the clouds, it's monday morning
roaring up to pick you up -yet again.
But when you're old, bid, no, beg! fantasy to enter by your side.
Beckon & cajole the softness of the sidelong glance, look sweetly at the
crone you married, once your blushing bride and kiss her hand, some
dulcinea princess from far fantasy's bold landscape of the blind
and court the fantasies that tease from dusty corners where they fell.
Recall the ancient stooped man next to you as don quijote, comic knight
of all faith imagination love and high nobility, not this fainting
farting clown who rescues pillows as his favorite companions in the night
but all your own in this gentle kingdom of the kind, and hold his hand
next to your heart where sweet accordions once played poetic melodies
and tangos wild and mad, embrace the fantasy with all that's left inside
the magic throbbing dreaming core of soul, & heart & mind.
No, when you're young, don't let the fantasies that flirt take hold
and carry you far from the bold hallucination of the greatness of the personal. Don't let them show you all you are and all that you can never be, for that in middle age and elder hood and fantasy is still to learn,
& will be learned & must be sadly learned
all in the plenteous wisdom of the passages of other fantasies,
and whirling flow, relentless time. But blessed you'll be if after
all & all you still remain, with breath & bone
to indulge in life's most final passing stage: abandoned
to the child's own game, the knowledge that every step of every stage
along the way was even then and even now
yet but another breath of fantasy.
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