Michael Brown

From the Archives: 27 November 2014

Michael Brown

He died somewhere far away
and I only came to know when I stumbled upon
the picture of his mother on my computer screen:
a single tear frozen as it was about to roll down,
her eyes muted by the shock
as she stood unaware of the camera that projected her sorrow all over the globe.
Eyes would scan and minds would concentrate , or perhaps pass her by in apathy.
He died somewhere in Missouri
and I flipped through the pages of history
to find the cause that brought about
this catastrophe.
Caught up in the irreverence of a historic antipathy
which a century of resistance could not reverse
in a land that was possessed by diverse cultures
before the land could give them the language of a common ancestry.
It is by an absurd logic that we come to this world
and before we can  make any sense of our life
we are thrown into the battlegrounds of our isolated struggles.
Images of lives blown apart,
Cameras swirling all around,
conflicting parables of the right and the wrong,
whisk away the youth before it reaches the precarious adolescence.
The world is being handed down
in the simple binary categories of 'Us' and 'They',
The battle-lines are drawn , furious and blind, with a decisive fatality and a dark force; it's always the young whose blood is spilled
as the mothers die in agony.
Fear and cowardice grips all.
Whatever has happened may not happen to my kins,
because I am on this side of the fence, one may say;
though the heart knows the wheel of fortune turns.
The eyes on all sides view the moment
with a silent and fearful prayer.
The mind in its moment
of unspeakable paranoia
gathers analogies around.
History, wake up, will you?
Erase your past and sow a different seed
for your own children, the batons of new humanity!

A Starry Starry Night Again

The Starry Starry Night Again

A starry starry night again
with the moon reaching the ultimate,
the light  flowing out to the rim of my earth,
I do not walk alone!
The starry starry night
has dimmed all else.
It's the moon who reigns
and will reign till the end.
The starry starry night
feels my tremors all over again;
her silver melting into songs of grace.
I do not stand still.
I do not look back.
The starry starry night
holds the secret of my dreams.
I have not left anything behind.
The starry starry night has gathered
the universe in the silent wave;
a silent, gentle wave
which spreads over me ;
holding aloft the single bloom--
her silent moon
breathing her truth over the earth and the sky.
After a spell of dark
I find the trail of the moon and her stars.
A starry starry night again!
Ripples grow,
tides will flow,
the even-tide and the moon-tide and the trail of stars coming in tow
until the flood-gates open and take them all
in a wide embrace of a silent glow.
The starry night may not whisper again,
"Forgive, and accept and merge in me.
The long hours of  patience will not come to try me again."

Sushama Karnik

tanya dimitrova originally shared the image

The Book of Life

The Book of Life,
I fell asleep while reading you.
I knew you were lying open by me
as I glanced at you through sleepy eyes
half aware and half in sleep
while your pages flipped by gently
one after another in a quiet rhyme.

Sushama Karnik

tanya dimitrova originally shared: the image

A Breath of Freedom

A Breath of Freedom

Wish it were a blank sheet

of paper virgin white

and I could write

my story all in a different light.

The sad songs would not be frowned upon;

neither would the timber of the life be drowned

 nor would the losses and defeats be crowned.

Wish it were not a lonesome song to be sung alone.

Piles of paper lay before

and I loaned them to the alien scribe,

and they paid me to sing their ballads

as I dug the grave for my own demise.

I made my deities out of the clay and rags

hidden in the nooks and corners of the darkness of my heart

and like the dolls of childhood

stowed them away

to be sunned and refreshed at a later day.

A voice that was heard and was destined to be heard

when I was least aware that there was a spring throbbing in me,

woke me up to a different day.

There are words I still cannot speak, a language that I still not dare to learn;

But I breathe a fresh air, and my breath, suspended between the moment gone and the one to come,

is the breath of freedom.

   

Alice Thinking of Lewis Carroll and the Vanished Wonderland

A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky
By Lewis Carroll

A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?

The image shared by:Hector Merced 

A Young Woman Seated in a Rowboat - Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The Glowing Tree

Sushama Karnik

9:41 AM

The Glowing Tree

The winding road
leads to a glowing tree.
Close your eyes;
but that doesn't end the road.
The feet may ache
and you may have hills to climb;
but that doesn't end the road.
The sky may be grey and cloud your world,
but that doesn't end the road.
The gloom may nudge away the happiness out of your heart,
but that doesn't end the road.
Tired but not lost
you press ahead on the road
wondering how long,
and wondering what ahead.
Is that which gives you strength
when that which you love is out of sight
on this cold and winding road?
It's the glowing tree,
the glowing tree that you cannot see
that leads you on
and gives you strength
to fight for something more.

The Face on the Moon

The Face on the Moon

Why O Moon do you stare at Earth ?
Your sorrow is barely veiled,
and yours are the tears that vanish
before they reach the luminous crust of the Earth.

On a night when you emerge
in your full and glorious robe,
you cannot hide that disconcerting unease
of an heir to a sorrowful throne,
forced to accept the courtesies of a treacherous tribe
who harbor a vile aspiration
to rob you of your secret potion
and turn the elixir into the bloody wine
that rises to the brain and swallows your reign of antique truth.

Some angel it was that fled in terror and trauma
that has still not healed.
The refrain of the dirge she sang,
visits her again and again
every time when her earthly child is sacrificed
to assuage the hunger of the power-lust.

Her presence on your bosom
can be seen from the Earth
when on a clear and cloudless night
you sail forth in our sky--
she who sought refuge in you
and became a curse
sending waves of lunacy and wrath
whenever she remembers
the trauma of the sacrifice of her sons
in the eons past and gone.

She will not believe that her heart can heal.
Take care O Moon, although you are sad;
let the Angel find a quarantine
before she regains her lost reign
and restores the lost Earth to you again.


Only Best Photos (LANDSCAPE / NATURA):

Faisal Hassan's photos

A Mimeograph

A Mimeograph

Fog and rain and the memory of a cat--
The present is nothing but a screen;
An infinite space for a finite dream--
Arbitrary morphing of moments
Marked by edges melting--
Nothing stays in place;
 Insane desires edging out  time
and occupying the space as if space, not time is the ever-present reality, mocking and miming
the awesomeness of eternity.

A bowl of potion
held out by a hand
and whisked away before being possessed and claimed.

Meme is truly the sign of this age--
the life that vanishes before its shadow can touch
the threshold of the heart.

The knowledge of ecstasy stays confined
to the love we watch
being made to violins and guitars and the drums--
The silence of the finale hardly survives the chorus of applause--

that moment of eureka that is forbidden to become
the trance that was meant to seal in silence the rapture of love.

A cave--a cave is where the soul lives; watching the play of shadow on the wall.
Let me wrap my rugs around and sleep
leaving the rest of the world to work out the mystery of space and
time while I work out mine own.

The End of Season

The End of the Season

Dewdrops sparkling down the moist edges
of autumn's leaves
the sunsets turning mauve
the raging storms sinking in silence,
the sky sated:
these are the signs of retreat.

Drink to the dregs your cup of joy.
The winter is not the sound of alert.
It's time to relish every step
as you match it with the stride
of the ocean and the wind
and the river and the rippling circles of time.

There are always endings,                             Image:Courtesy Peter Henze
never the end.......

I
II

EYES

Your eyes

Your eyes:
a universe
pensive and sad.
They throw a bridge for me to walk
I sink in the ocean
but they give me a breath.
I stand on the banks
serene.
The infinity opens
My flight is steep and high.
Your eyes are the brink of ecstasy and tears.
I fly past the sky,
fly past the horizon,
Fly past the earth.
Let your eyes be my light,
my sole light when the night is long and dark.
Let me live in the light of your eyes when the time comes
to leave the shores
leave the anchor
and set sail for that land......