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HARE KRISHNA
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7 October, 2007 at 4:52 am
To see a world in a grain of sand
and heaven in a wild flower –
to hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour
(William Blake)
29 December, 2008 at 5:15 am
IN A DARK WOOD
The atmosphere is peaceful
in Goloka Vrindavan –
The flute-song passes
over courtyards where
young girls stand still as stone
The trees are ripe with metaphors,
Novel scenes, poetic words,
Whisper secret revelation
Of young love in separation
For these are the Crying Girls of Vraja
And this is the state, the state of Divine Love
‘It’s late at night My dear girls,
Late at night in this dark grove,
Wild animals come out at night,
Please go home. Leave this place behind you’
For these are the Crying Girls of Vraja
And this is the state, the state of Divine Love
Lord Krishna loves the Crying Girls of Vraja
aslisya va pada ratam pinastu mam
adarsanam mama hatam karotu va
yatha tatha vidhato lampato
mat prana-nathas tu se eva naparah
All alone, here in this Dark Wood,
‘Where did You go?’
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
18 July, 2009 at 1:44 pm
‘The gopis are so fortunate that they can see and think of Krishna 24 hours a day, beginning from their milking the cows or husking the paddy or churning the butter in the morning. While engaged in cleaning their houses and washing their floors, they are always absorbed in thought of Krishna’ [p.395]
Krishna, out of affection, told the gopis: ‘You were accustomed to loving Me from the very beginning of your lives’
How the inhabitants of Mathura, Nanda and Yashoda, the gopis, the gopas and the devotees remembered Krishna: ”Here Krishna was playing in this way. Here Krishna was blowing His flute. Krishna was joking with us in this way, and Krishna was embracing us like this’. This is called lila-smarana, and it is the process of associating with Krishna. Those in the most exalted position of devotional service and ecstasy can live with Krishna always by remembering His pastimes. Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura has given us a transcendental literature entitled Krsna-bhavanamrta, which is full with Krishna’s pastimes. Exalted devotees can remain absorbed in Krsna-thought by reading such books. Any book of krsna-lila, even this book, Krsna, or our Teachings of Lord Caitanya, is actually solace for devotees feeling separation from Krsna’ [KB p.416]
29 December, 2008 at 5:21 am
RUKMINI’S DETERMINATION
Rukmini is young
and fine –
the child-bride
of Lord Krishna
She was prepared to die
of austerities to achieve Lord Krishna
She went to the Temple of Durga
to win the favour of Lord Krishna,
‘O, let Krishna be my husband!’
Rukmini’s determination
So hard to define –
Grave as eternal time,
the child-queen of Lord Krishna
Ornaments
and beautiful jewels.
Who could ever describe
the beauty
of Rukmini?
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
29 August, 2009 at 3:23 pm
‘Princess Rukmini, the daughter of King Bhismaka, was actually as attractive as fortune itself because she was as valuable as gold both in color and value’
(A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Srimad Bhagavatam 3.3.3 purport)
‘She was the reservoir of all transcendental qualities: intelligence, auspicious physical features, liberal-mindedness, exquisite beauty and righteous behaviour’ [‘Krishna Book Vol 1’, p.495]
‘My dear Uddhava, kindly let us know whether Krishna sometimes thinks of us while in the midst of the highly enlightened society girls in Mathura. We know that the women and girls of Mathura are not village women. They are enlightened and beautiful. Their bashful smiling glances and other feminine features must be very pleasing to Krishna. We know very well that Krishna is always fond of the behaviour of beautiful women. It seems, therefore, that He has been entrapped by the women of Mathura. My dear Uddhava, will you kindly let us know if Krishna sometimes rememvers us while in the midst of other women?’ [KB, p.439]
On the gopi’s love for Krishna:
‘Uddhava minutely studied the transcendental abnormal condition of the gopis in their separation from Krishna, and he thought it wise to repeat again and again all the pastimes the gopis enjoyed with Him’ [Krishna Book 1, p.441]
‘Uddhava’s messages and instructions saved the gopis from immediate death’ [KB, p.44]
7 March, 2009 at 2:29 pm
DANCE OF THE RAIN
“Never was there a time
when I did not exist,
nor you, nor all these kings;
nor in the future shall any of us cease to be”
Her iron fist
beats my face,
with pride of lions,
aggressive grace –
In the heartland of love’s
bittersweet memory
Bittersweet, Bittersweet
Ever heard the wild beasts
running on the plains?
Dance of the Rain,
nostrils and manes –
In the heartland of love’s
bittersweet memory
Bittersweet, Bittersweet
Have you heard the wild beasts
running on the plains?
Of aeroplanes,
mortal remains –
and I’m lost in the womb of bhum-bhum-bhumi
I’m lost in the womb of bhum-bhum-bhumi –
I’m lost in a world of lovelessness
“Never was there a time when I did not exist,
nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future
shall any of us cease to be”
I’m lost in the womb of bhum-bhum-bhumi
In a desert
hardened by age:
blood, sweat, idolatry
A show of conventions:
the circus tents
collapsed on us,
white alabaster palaces
And I’m lost in her world
She laughs softly
as she glances
over the berg-top
O, the Dance of our Sister!
the Dance of the Rain!
She is our sister,
our silvery sister,
our watery sister,
our heavenly sister
The Dance of the Rain
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
4 June, 2009 at 2:12 pm
DEAD SOULS
Someone take these dreams away,
That point me to another day –
A jewel of personalities,
That stretch all true realities
They keep calling me, keep on calling me
When figures from the past stand tall
And mocking voices ring the halls –
Imperialistic House of Prayer,
Conquistadores who took their share
They keep calling me, keep on calling me
Another day, another time –
These dreams won’t stop or rectify –
They pour into a living sea,
Which draws me and keeps calling me
Calling me, calling me this time…
(From the song lyrics of ‘Dead Souls’, words written by Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division. The third stanza is from an unreleased version of the song. Did he get the title from Nikolai Gogol’s novel ‘Dead Souls’?. Anyway quite an intense, interesting song. Still remember the lyrics. I’ll put ‘Passover’ in next time. In her biography ‘Touching From A Distance’ his widow, Deborah, mentions that Ian was interested in studying History and Divinity. This interest manifested in interesting ways in his poetic song lyrics.
23 April, 2010 at 11:09 am
THE RAGE OF ACHILLES (From Homer, ‘The Iliad’)
‘Rage – Godess, sing the rage of Peleus’s son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles’
17 June, 2009 at 5:01 pm
SOME/ONE
You’re not high-heeled,
custom-made
in Paris
eloquent, elegant, second-guess;
star-struck, out-of-luck,
out on a limb –
Luis Vuitton
animal skin
some/one
a person,
not void –
you’re a person,
not void
you’re someone
who knows
someone who feels
You’re not dead-beat, dead-meat,
dead-or-alive, dead-on-arrival,
full fathom five –
You’re not carefree,
careworn, couldn’t care less –
a spiritual person
clothed in warm flesh
Gritty Milan,
spacious Paris,
someone
You’re
some/one
some/one
someone like you,
like me…
some/one
one/some
someone
you’re a person,
not void –
a person,
not void
some/one
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
17 June, 2009 at 5:07 pm
WITHIN
True love lies within,
The core of your heart –
It was always there –
But you never cared…
True love lies within
Is this where the tables turned?
Is this where the lyres burned?
Where they dressed Christ like a king?
With a sceptre, crown and ring?
True love never ends
and never begins –
True love never ends
and never begins
Dressed in blue silk,
Mary holds her son –
Naked and bruised:
‘Oh, what have you done?’
Within
True love lies within,
The core of your heart –
When rightly reposed,
love houses a rose
Within
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
26 July, 2009 at 4:16 am
nitya siddha krishna-prema,
sadhya kabhu-naya,
sravanadi suddha-citte,
karaye udaya
‘Love of God is eternally situated in your heart. It is awakened by the process of chanting and hearing His glories.’
It was always there, but you never cared…
27 April, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Love of Krishna is not something to be gained from another source. It is awakened when the heart is purified by hearing and chanting.
23 June, 2009 at 3:33 pm
‘Avenues all lined with trees/
Eden’s garden left for thieves’
(Ian Curtis, unpublished lyrics)
27 June, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I NEED TIME
Twenty-four hours is not enough
Time for me, my lotus-eyed Lord –
Twenty-four-seven three-sixty-five,
Eight million four hundred thousand lives
I need time
Time I am destroyer of worlds –
Destroyer of worlds
Seven days on the Ganges shore,
Seven dog-days I need more –
Seven years times seven times
Seven million billion lives
I need time
Don’t waste my time
Time I am destroyer of worlds –
Destroyer of worlds
I tried rhyme
I tried crime
Lyrical lines
You’re just in time,
You’re just in time,
You’re just in time…
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
(This is a song about Maharaja Parikisit and his meeting with Sukadeva Goswami on the Ganges shore)
18 July, 2009 at 1:28 pm
DEAD MAN WALKING
Received notification
August 5th
The doctor’s answer,
diagnosis cancer –
tough love manifesting
as God’s gracious gift
I can’t seem to distinguish
the wood from the trees
I see your army
is coming for me,
I try to run,
but I freeze
Woke up this morning
from the strangest dream
I saw a poet
in a forest,
he spoke to me
about heavenly things
‘Just try to love God,’
is all that he said:
‘You’re a dead man walking
amongst the dead’
Fools rush in
where angles fear to tread
‘Follow your angels’,
the words that he said
‘You’re a dead man walking
amongst the dead’
I’m – a – dead man – walking
amongst the dead…
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
18 July, 2009 at 1:34 pm
ADVENT
Earth was confused –
Demoniac kings
Had misused
Her
She took the form
Of a cow,
With tears in her eyes,
She approached Brahma
Who sat at the shore of the Ocean of Milk,
Who sat at the shore of the Ocean,
The Milk Ocean
Reciting the Ancient Prayers,
From the core of his heart,
Lord Vishnu Appeared
Transmitting the message
From the core of his heart –
Transmitting the message
From the Spiritual Sky
To our ear drum…
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
12 February, 2011 at 8:32 am
Calm as I walk
under the trees
this fine Summer’s
day
Scars spin around
on their tracks
Stations of the Cross
21 July, 2009 at 9:55 am
Hare Krishna
Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna
Hare Hare
Hare Rama
Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Hare
22 July, 2009 at 10:04 am
‘The vase, reconstructed, houses the elusive rose’ (Sylvia Plath)
22 July, 2009 at 10:19 am
JOURNEY OF THE HEART
Better than mother’s love,
a voice whispers, ‘Listen.
Listen to the promptings
of your heart. Listen to
the voice that you forgot’
Listen
From the valleys
to the cities
of the plains,
I remain
a wanderer,
just following my inner call
(following the will of God)
Of rapine and the ever-swelling
scourge of crime –
I have a problem with you,
Oh, I have a problem with you
Embezzlement, embattled president,
your face is everywhere –
Tell me have you got a heart?
I am looking, but I don’t see your heart
Oh, I have a problem with you
I have a problem with your kind
25 July, 2009 at 8:32 am
LORD DESPAIR (A GOTHIC FAIRYTALE)
Let us go, then,
you and I –
the city-limits
never seem to end
No one is here,
just you and I, dear,
see the heart
behind the face
of lord Despair
We’re moving fast,
red-brick and empty lots –
our vizors reflect
a world of derelicts,
everywhere
Every dog has his day,
everyone has his price,
his way to make you pay,
in this place
Fools rush in
where angels fear to tread,
I see dead men walking
amongst the dead
Let us go,
you and I,
to that most dreaded place:
the heart behind the face
of lord Despair
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
12 February, 2011 at 10:46 am
Let us go then, you and I,
to the heart of our emotions
29 July, 2009 at 5:40 pm
THE WHITE GODDESS
Sink or swim in the light of pure love of Godhead
We were so close like best friends or brothers,
We were so close and from different mothers –
Exult in the light of pure – love – of – Godhead,
Sink or swim in the light of pure love of Godhead
I’m just a man sitting in a corner,
hoping to pass just one glass of water –
I’m not a bear sitting on a dark ledge,
Or a fake flower in the hands of the Goddess
Why did you let me go?
Why won’t you let me grow?
The path of love is superior to knowledge,
You left your father’s house, entered spiritual college –
Seeing my weakness, seeing my failings,
Tying me down and hurting my feelings
I am an eternal servant of Krishna –
Hoping to get just a little bit closer,
I’m an ax handle in the hand of my Master –
I’m not this body which is made up of matter
Why did you let me go?
Why do you hurt me now?
17 May, 2012 at 4:11 am
Keeping me in your tow
Prostitute-minds on the altar of science
Your soul’s become a kitchen appliance
Is this what you wanted? Is this your eden?
Strip-malls and cars and consumable freedom?
14 August, 2009 at 7:36 am
CHRYSALIS
Look out of the darkness, now,
It’s a new day, friend –
Dreams out of the darkness, now,
Into a newborn day, you see,
He wants to get out, somehow –
These prison walls must break,
He wants to get out, somehow –
These dreams must end
Trapped, in a cage, somehow –
There seems no escape from it –
Entombed, in a chrysalis,
when will his day of freedom come?
When will he be free?
He wants to see the free light and the spirit –
And the Personality of Godhead with it
Look out of the stasis, now –
It’s a living world, my friend,
Move into new spaces, now –
Safe, in a chrysalis, before
You want to get out, somehow –
These prison walls have got to break,
You want to get out, somehow –
These dreams must end
Trapped, in a cage, somehow –
There seems no escape from it,
Entombed, in a chrysalis,
When will your day of freedom come?
When will you be free?
He wants to see the free light and the spirit –
To see the free light and the spirit –
And the Personality of Godhead with it
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
14 August, 2009 at 7:40 am
‘The need of the spirit soul is that he wants to get out of the limited sphere of material bondage and fulfill his desire for complete freedom. He wants to get out of the covered walls of the greater universe. He wants to see the free light and the spirit. That complete freedom is achieved when he meets the complete spirit, the Personality of Godhead’
(His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, ‘Srimad Bhagavatam’ Canto 1.2.8 purport)
27 April, 2010 at 12:32 pm
If we develop our relationship with Krsna, we will forget so-called friendship, society and love. We want that forgetfulness.
‘Because he realizes that he is spirit and Krsna is the Supreme Spirit, he knows that his intimate relationship should be with Krsna, not with this body’ (Srila Prabhupada, ‘Nectar Of Devotion’, p.32)
How do we get out of the darkness of Maya? In the dark we are scared of snakes and scorpions. As soon as it is light, however, we know there are no snakes and scorpions. We get out of the dark by seeing the light. This is achieved by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra and by hearing about Krishna.
28 April, 2010 at 8:42 am
Seeing The Free Light And The Spirit:
‘The duty of sages and saints is to go from door to door and thus enlighten the householders in spiritual knowledge. Householder life is compared to a dark well. In a dark well the frog cannot see the free light of the open sky. The dark well of householder life kills the soul. One should therefore get out of it so that he may see the light of spiritual vision. Saints and sages mercifully try to uplift fallen souls from the dark well of householder life. An enlightened householder [ie. not in the well] therefore takes pleasure in the appearance of such saints and sages at his house’ (SP, ‘Light Of The Bhagavata’, p.46)
‘The forgetful householder life of the conditioned soul is a soul-killing dark well’ (SP, ‘LOB’, p.51)
(See also: SB 6.1.52 and SB 3.21.31 purport)
14 August, 2009 at 8:00 am
PROTECTIVE FEELINGS (In loving memory of Evelyn Nance Osborne, 1929-2004)
She closed her eyes,
I was surprised,
She left this morning
She closed her eyes,
I’d really like
to have you near me
The house of life’s
lease has expired –
she’ll find another home
Eve went away,
Where to? Can’t say.
She died this morning
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me, Eve?
Can you hear me?
Her eyes are closed,
Her soul’s reposed,
In the hands of Yamaraja
In the end the bus
gets all of us –
feather weighed
against our heart
Everything she ever knew,
Everyone she cared about –
Everything she held as true,
proves false, now, as her time runs out
Our idols crushed,
ideals defeated,
in the web of lies
lifetimes repeated
The state of mind
at the time you die
determines your next life
‘She’s passed away’,
The nurses say,
‘We’re very sorry’
Offered a prayer
beside her bed:
life’s fruitless glory
I want to cry,
we never die:
only the body
28 April, 2012 at 10:10 am
A MESSAGE FROM GOD
I am sick of staring at your miserable face,
This phenomenal world gets me down;
I want to leave this town,
Hey, we just passed the town
It overwhelms me,
And overpowers me,
Turn down the radio,
Internet and the TV,
And dance in my mind
It feels like torture.
I am facing death,
Will the fever go down
When I’ve breathed my last breath?
Hold the hand of the devil
And watch your heart break,
will you watch me burn
At the heretic’s stake?
I had a vision of how things could be,
I had a vision, yeah, you were with me,
I have a vision and Krishna is God,
A most special gift from Prabhupada.
16 August, 2009 at 3:19 pm
LOVE IN A VOID
Someone
please come,
I’m dumb,
lame and
ill-advised
Someone’s
loved ones
died yesterday –
It was the latest news
Where do they go?
Where do they go?
When they die,
Oh my!
Heaven
was fun –
hell was a drag,
Now I’m back
on earth
Where the prophets pray,
the children play,
in a world of their own
I feel high,
I feel light,
I feel loved –
Love in a void
Bliss suns,
Pink suns,
Bright purple ones…
On a mild red, raptured heart
Where do you go?
Where do you go?
When you go away?
Oh,
Up and down,
around around –
I’m here again
I feel high,
I feel light,
I feel loved
How many times
you’ve been around –
the wheel of birth and death?
Death in every breath
Love in a void
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
29 August, 2009 at 3:33 pm
PATHFINDER
I was in a dark wood,
Feeling misunderstood;
One foot on land,
One foot on water
I was in a bad space,
Bereft of Divine Grace,
Just a young man
With no moral anchor
A believer, a believer, a be-lieve-er
Europe or India,
India, America,
I need a leader
With good credentials
My Virgil in the crowd,
With laurels on his brow:
‘You’re a good boy
I think you’ve got potential’
A believer, a believer, a be-lieve-er
Oh, when will you give me your answer?
I’m hoping,
I’m waiting,
I’m waiting.
And hoping.
I am hoping
and waiting
for your answer
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
3 September, 2009 at 3:18 pm
SPIRITUAL FIELDS
Lost and found,
underground –
sunflower fields
shine in the sun
He lived
in this little hut –
Spiritual Fields
Matchless gifts,
Twenty-six,
Second Avenue,
New York City
He lived in this
little room –
Spiritual Fields
Fields of opportunity,
Fields of self-discovery,
Fields of immortality,
Fields of true recovery
He looks through the grid
at the sunflower fields –
Spiritual Fields
Come and play with us,
Come and stay with us –
Spiritual Fields
Death is the seed
from which we grow
Spiritual Fields
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
11 September, 2009 at 8:37 am
FORCEFIELD
Yes,
You are lost in this world
Friend,
Time will beat you
in the end
Forcefield
(behind the glass)
Forcefield
(a mirror-mask)
Watching life
before
a forcefield
And you think you are so clever now –
And you think you have it all worked out
Friend,
you’re so wrong,
detached,
yet dragged along
Watching the world through a forcefield
12 September, 2009 at 12:59 pm
CXXIX
Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action lust
Is perjur’d murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme,
A bliss in proof, and prov’d, a very woe,
Before, a joy propos’d; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
William Shakespeare – Sonnets
12 September, 2009 at 1:16 pm
RESTORATION OF THE ICON
An eternal affair of repeated birth and death;
of warm delights in nature’s arms,
and no reprieve for the condemned
souls who’ve entered her networks
of desire: vaulted, ushered in,
souls under skin, a blazing cage of fire.
And I’m with you
(and I don’t know what to do)
Did she murmur something?
A prayer for the condemned?
He sleeps in his lover’s arms,
mimicry of heaven’s charms.
And I don’t know if I can make it, hmm, on my own;
no, I don’t known if I can fake it anymore.
I’m here with you
(and we don’t know quite what to do)
I guess all good things must end,
the road to hell is paved with good intentions, dear friends;
conditioned souls who’ve entered her networks of desire,
leaving us no choice: follow the angels or fry in the fire!
And I’m with you
(it’s our moment of truth)
This body’s a beautiful combination of ugly parts,
just a beautiful combination of ugly parts;
it was a beautiful conversation,
a real work of art.
And I don’t know if I can make it anymore;
no, I don’t no if I can take it the further I go,
the further I go, the less I know,
the higher I go, so narrow the road seems
for a soul entangled in her networks of desire.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,
I’ve learnt my lesson, now, in this wasteland of regret;
conditioned souls who’ve entered her networks of desire:
enjoyer and enjoyed, eternal victims of that witch called Maya.
Hey, we don’t know what to do
Just a beautiful combination of beautiful parts,
the restoration of the icon,
the lost form of God
And what if all these fantasies were real?
What if all the suffering was part of the deal?
And the cancer ravages his body, but not his soul;
and the caretakers minister his body, but not his soul.
This is the end my beautiful friend,
this is the end beautiful friend,
the end of our affair…
of repeated birth and death…
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
Schlegel (preface to the ‘Philosophy of History’): ‘The most important subject, and the first problem of philosophy, is the restoration in man of the lost image of God; so far as this relates to science.’
3 October, 2009 at 3:26 pm
IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD
I want to love You like a lover
loves her paramour
and holds You in her anxious arms
forevermore
I want to love You like a mother
loves her child
and if, one day, You stole the butter,
I’d just smile
A convict,
A convert,
In the world of pain,
the world of hurt,
take me away,
to a better place,
of love, love, love
You have a face
that mirrors could not describe
You have a form
that chisels could not divide
I want to love You
like the most cherished friend,
and play in childish fields
that never end
A convict,
A convert,
in the world of pain,
in the world of hurt,
take me away,
to a better place,
a world of love, love, love
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
3 October, 2009 at 3:36 pm
In Krishna consciousness, it is possible to love God as a friend, parent or lover. Krishna is the perfect lover who can reciprocate with our soul’s innermost desires. Therefore He is called ‘akhila-rasamrta-murti’, ‘the perfect embodiment of all loving relationships’.
‘All the relatives of the Lord are His devotees only, and they are situated in different transcendental mellows as friends, parents and lovers. The Lord derives transcendental pleasure by accepting services from His various grades of devotees, who are situated in various grades of rasas. These transcendental rasas are pervertedly reflected in the material atmosphere, and thus the spiritual living being, out of ignorance only, vainly seeks the same bliss in matter’
A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami – Light Of The Bhagavata p.71
The living entity is ananda-maya bhyasat, naturally pleasure-seeking. Real pleasure exists in spiritual rasa. In material existence, however, we seek pleasure in matter and do not experience the higher taste or spiritual rasa.
28 October, 2009 at 4:04 pm
In a desert, hardened by age,
surprised if I can do anything at all
31 October, 2009 at 1:24 pm
SECRET
a secret to keep,
like time,
dark and deep –
where do we go?
who really knows?
a deathless dream,
a sleepless sleep –
in birth and death,
O weep and weep!
17 May, 2012 at 4:07 am
I’m not a stone –
I have a voice
I’m spirit-soul
made up of choice
Love or lust?
Who really knows
in this world
of soft death-blows?
31 October, 2009 at 1:30 pm
A MODEST PROPOSAL
An eye for an eye,
A tooth for a tooth,
A claw for a fork,
A foot for a hoof,
Some animals were human,
In their past lives –
You are what you eat,
In the future desired
“Absolute is sentient,
Thou has proved,
Impersonal calamity,
Thou has moved”
An eye for an eye,
A tooth for a tooth,
A modest proposal:
Children for food?
It might be better
If the whole world were blind –
Who wants to see
through jaundiced eyes?
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
31 October, 2009 at 1:37 pm
The English satirist Johnathan Swift wrote a satirical essay called ‘A Modest Proposal’. In this essay, he proposed a satirical solution to the famine in Ireland – children for food. We are allowing the wholesale slaughter of animals to go on without considering the consequences – to the animals and ourselves. In this way, we are killing our own souls. Hare Krishna.
24 November, 2009 at 6:33 pm
HATS
1996. Another dream. I was standing on a beach. The water was blue, that deep blue colour of toilet freshener (for want of a better description). Some horses were dancing in a circle on the tide-line. A woman, somewhat older than myself, in a rain-jacket, was watching the scene. There were a whole lot of hats in the sea, being washed onto the shore by the tide. One hat was a soldier’s hat, one hat was a Mad Hatter’s hat etc. The hats all represented some designation, some kind of label in this world. It seemed that I had a choice of which hat to wear (or how to identify myself). I chose none. I was not going to be pigeon-holed into a designation.
In so doing, I was realizing my dharma as an aspiring devotee of Krishna. That goes beyond these temporary designations or upadhis. Only I didn’t know that at the time.
24 November, 2009 at 6:41 pm
‘Candy says:
I’d like to know completely,
What others so discreetely,
talk about
I’d like to watch the blue bird fly,
over my shoulder –
I’d like to watch them pass me by,
maybe when I’m older –
What do you think I’d see,
If I could walk away from me’
Lou Reed – ‘Candy Says’
9 December, 2009 at 5:06 pm
PURGATORY
I love you still,
even as you are –
watching the boys through my window –
estranged, in the car.
I love you still,
even as you are –
shattering tumult
that sprays and chills –
bloodied heels under evening-star
Doctored these seams,
beginning to cut,
tried to sever the cord,
our viaduct –
A device I could not resist
They go deep, now, deep;
as waves effervesce –
shouldered in shades
beneath the green –
senses scattered and scarred,
young hearts pristine…
Still estranged…
in the car –
and our dormant love
bleeds still,
even as you are
9 December, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Wrote that when I was fifteen or sixteen. It’s about isolation, death, youth, my mother, teenage angst and whatever you, or I, or anyone else, would like to read into it.
15 April, 2010 at 5:44 am
CONDITION
The sunlight taunts me more –
not for that you know the sadness
of your predicament, but that you care
Immutable congress of friends:
a lyric that lasts for ever,
sequential to all ends
Matters of state are matters of weight:
Leaning over the balustrade,
I seek not shade nor display
Innocence is the absence of tragedy;
tragedy is the absence of innocence;
Innocence of Eternal Absence is Tragedy
The sunlight taunts me more,
not for that you know
(Another high school poem. I think I read a little Eliot then, black. Harrison Ford, ‘Presumed Innocent’, the courtyard scene – was added later)
14 December, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I WOULD DIE FOR YOU
I’m not a woman, I’m not a man –
I am something you will never understand
I’ll never beat you, I’ll never lie,
And, if you’re evil, I’ll forgive you by and by
For you, I would die for you –
Darling if you want me to
I’m not your lover, I’m not your friend,
I am something you will never comprehend –
No need to worry, no need to cry –
I’m your messiah and you’re the reason why
Coz you, I would die for you
You’re just a sinner I am told,
Be your fire when you are cold –
Make you happy when you’re sad,
Make you good when you are bad
I’m not a human, I’m a dove –
I’m your conscience, I am love
Prince Rogers Nelson
14 December, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Lyrical lines by Prince. My mother gave me the album ‘Purple Rain’ for Christmas, in 1984. She really liked the song ‘Purple Rain’. I liked ‘Take Me With You’, this one and ‘When Doves Cry’. ‘I Would Die 4 You’ seems to have a more conscious message than the others. The words are great.
14 December, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Favourite passages in western fiction. I like James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ beach episode: ‘ineluctable modality of the visible: thought through my eyes’. Wonderful stream-of-conscious imagery of the beach and his impressions thereon. I visited Sandycove and saw the Martello Tower in 1991. Also, Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’, especially the chapter called ‘Riddles In The Dark’. Bilbo defeats Gollum at riddles with the simple question, ‘What’s in my pockets?’ ‘What’s in my pocketses?’, Gollum hisses back. But he can’t answer (even though it is his precious ring that is in Bilbo’s pocketses), and he is defeated. Then, of course, ‘Winter Trees’, ‘Ariel’ and ‘The Colossus’ by Sylvia Plath. And Nikolai Gogol’s desk-clerk in the short story, ‘The Overcoat’. The protaganist is robbed of his one-and-only valuable possession in an empty town square at night. What else? Hamlet’s soliloquy in the graveyard. Or, Ophelia’s madness. Or Eugene Marais’ ‘Winternag’ or ‘Die Dans Van Die Reen’ or Ingrid Jonkers ‘Ek Loop Met Hulle’. Or the wonderful period prose of JM Coetzee’s ‘Foe’. Or the fearsomeness of ‘Lord Of The Flies’ or ‘The Wasp Factory’ by Iain Banks. I think all of these writers, and more, have helped shape my own writing, perceptions and expression.
Existential Writers:
Camus, The Outsider; Dostoevsky, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, and Crime and Punishment; Yukio Mishima, The Sea Of Fertility, Sun and Steel, Thirst for Love and Forbidden Colours; Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Farewell Party; James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Dubliners, Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake; J.M. Coetzee, Foe, Waiting For The Barbarians, The Master of St. Petersburg and Age of Iron; Sylvia Plath, Crossing The Water, Ariel, Johnny Panic and The Bible of Dreams, The Bell Jar and Journals; Schopenhauer’s Essay on Suicide; Nabokov’s biography of Nikolai Gogol. Robert Graves, The White Goddess. Most of these writers had problems.
Western Philosophy:
Plato, The Republic; Diogenes, Kant; Nietsche, Genealogy of Morals, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Twilight of the Gods and Beyond Good and Evil; Wittgenstein, Tractatus logicus-philosophicus; Foucault, The Order of Things, Madness and Civilization, Ethics and Discipline and Punish.
Satire:
Juvenal. Pre-established congruence between Classical Rome and present-day western world (post-modern view).
Swift. ‘A Modest Proposal’ and Gulliver’s Travels.
Burroughs.
14 December, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Oh, I stopped reading fiction when I joined the Temple in 1997. A strict diet of Srimad Bhagavatam and Caitanya Caritamrita. I did, however, read Hamlet around 2001. Interesting and philosophical, but it gave me a headache (same applies if I try to listen to Joy Division or any other ‘mundane’ music).
14 December, 2009 at 12:36 pm
They are all like ink drawings.
Restoration of the Icon required, I’m afraid
18 December, 2009 at 9:32 am
EMBASSIES (Hatfield, Pretoria, 28 October 2005)
I walk down streets
coated with soft, purple
flowers, well-kept lawns –
pavements of dawn
Avenues of the wealthy
who represent the poor
Nice cars and servants,
steep driveways
and fences
A cur,
foraging through
the dirt-bins
It occurs:
we are living
in a garden
with walls
separating us
from each other
ALL SYSTEMS IN PLACE
I want to take over your country.
Is it about being aggressive enough
and having a little money?
Or popular support?
I want to. But I’ll have to wait
until the systems are in place:
study abroad, live in a resort
and patiently, patiently wait…
18 December, 2009 at 9:37 am
UNCOMMON STREETS (To Srila Prabhupada)
Are the common streets of Calcutta any less potent than the halls and places where you preached abroad?
I guess they have significance
and potency because here
is where you chanted
under a tree; or here
is where you practised
severe austerity
in a dim-lit, grimy loft
in New York City slums;
here is where you banged the drum;
or danced to the beats of one you taught
Are these halls and scholar’s desks of more value than the confidential streets and homes of your childhood?
Your glories are unfolding
in a weave of divine symmetry,
O, Prabhupada! Are the uncommon streets of Calcutta any less than these?
18 December, 2009 at 9:46 am
From THE FALL OF EAGLES (Robert Graves)
‘Who groans beneath the Punic curse
And strangles in the strings of purse,
Before she mends must sicken worse.
Her living mouth shall breed blue flies,
And maggots creep about her eyes.
No man shall mark the day she dies’
19 December, 2009 at 3:14 pm
PRAYER TO LORD NRSIMHADEVA (from BTG article, I do not know who the author is)
My faith is in Your feet and the nails of Your toes, Lord Nrsimhadeva; Please protect me.
My faith is in Your pillar-like legs and lotus petal-like chest, Lord Nrsimhadeva; Please direct me.
My faith is in Your arms and Your razor-sharp claws, Lord Nrsimhadeva; Please destroy my obstacles.
My faith is in Your mane and roaring red mouth, Lord Nrsimhadeva; Please vanquish my fears.
My faith is in Your gnashing teeth and Your burning golden eyes, Lord Nrsimhadeva; Please give me strength.
I am confused, Lord Nrsimhadeva;
I place myself beneath Your feet.
Please dispel my confusion.
I am sad, Lord Nrsimhadeva;
I beg You to stamp out my sadness.
I am frightened, Lord Nrsimhadeva;
I beg You to take me in Your lotus hands
and destroy my fears with Your all-powerful claws.
I am in illusion, Lord Nrsimhadeva;
Please let Your glaring effulgence
Destroy my illusions.
My dear Lord Nrsimhadeva, I am afraid;
I depend upon You, I take shelter of You,
Without You I cannot exist.
Let me take shelter under Your feet,
Let Your roar tell me what I should do,
Protect me with Your slashing claws.
Only You can help me.
My faith lies only in You.
7 January, 2010 at 11:56 am
STORM THROUGH THIS
Shift
breathe
dance
Storm
through
this
9 January, 2010 at 11:23 am
PASSOVER (Ian Curtis song lyrics)
Moving along in our God-given ways,
safety is sat by the fire –
Sanctuary from these feverish smiles,
left with a mark on the door
Is this the gift that I wanted to give?
Forgive and forget’s what they teach –
Or, pass through the deserts and wastelands once more
and watch as they drop by the beach
30 January, 2010 at 6:06 pm
So this is permanence –
Love shattered pride,
What once was innocence,
Turned on its side
It now hangs over me,
Marks every move –
Deep in the memory,
What once was love
(from Twenty Four Hours, Ian Curtis)
31 January, 2010 at 5:07 pm
WORLD LEADER PRETEND (Michael Stipe, REM)
I sit at my table
and wage war on myself –
It seems like it’s all, it’s all for nothing;
I know the barricades,
and I know the mortar in the wall breaks,
I recognize the weapons,
I’ve used them well,
fitted them myself.
Chorus:
This is my mistake,
Let me make it good –
I raised the wall,
and I will be the one to knock it down…
I’ve a rich understanding of my finest defences;
I proclaim the claims are left unstated,
I demand a rematch,
I decree a stalemate,
I divine my deeper motives –
I recognize the weapons,
I’ve practiced them well,
I fitted them myself
It’s amazing what devices you can sympathize (empathize)
Chorus
This is my world…
and I am world leader pretend;
This is my life and this is my time –
I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit –
It’s high time I razed the walls that I’ve constructed
It’s amazing what devices you can sympathize (empathize)
Chorus
You fill in the mortar,
You fill in the harmony,
You fill in the mortar –
I raised the wall,
and I’m the only one…
I will be the one to knock it down
1 March, 2010 at 5:20 am
Jaya Sri Krishna Caitanya
Prabhu Nityananda
Sri Advaita, Gadadhara,
Srivasadi Gaura-bhakta-vrinda
12 March, 2010 at 6:28 pm
YOU AND I
I’m the fool,
You’re the prudent –
You’re the teacher,
I’m the student
You are meek,
I’m defiant –
I am rigid,
You are pliant
I’m trying,
You’re sighing –
You’re the law,
I’m the crime –
I’m the jester,
You’re the king,
I’m the hand
You’re the ring
You are virtue,
I am weakness –
You’re the cure,
I’m the sickness
I say black,
You say white –
You’re the day,
I’m the night
You are rich,
I am poor –
You’re the room,
I’m the door
I am iron,
You are gold –
You were bought,
I was sold
27 March, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Instincts that can still betray us,
A journey that leads to a sun,
Soulless and bent on destruction,
Struggle between right and wrong
‘Heart and Soul’- Joy Division
6 April, 2010 at 1:33 pm
TURN UP THE SOUND
tonight
it’s quiet –
white noise around
the lights –
they flicker –
and they fade
the lights –
they flicker –
and they fade
tonight
tonight
it’s quiet –
no-one around
she slows
her breath –
she holds
her ground
the slightest noise
reveals your mind –
subtle realms –
that leave us blind
tonight
it’s cold –
it’s dark –
gunfire –
a shot –
a shot –
in the alley –
blue lights –
assassins
in disguise –
no police
tonight
tonight, tonight
the lights –
they flicker –
and they fade
oh, turn off the sound –
turn up the sound,
moving round,
and round,
and round…
tonight
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
7 April, 2010 at 1:15 pm
MADHURASTAKAM (Sri Vallabhacarya)
adharam madhuram vadanam madhuram
nayanam madhuram hasitam madhuram
hrdayam madhuram gamanam madhuram
madhuradhi-pater akhilam madhuram
vacanam madhuram caritam madhuram
vasanam madhuram valitam madhuram
calitam madhuram bhramitam madhuram
madhuradh-pater akhilam madhuram
venur madhuro renur madhurah
panir madhurah pado madhurah
nrtyam madhuram sakhyam madhuram
madhuradhi-pater akhilam madhuram
gitam madhuram pitam madhuram
bhuktam madhuram suptam madhuram
rupam madhuram tilakam madhuram
madhuradhi-pater akhilam madhuram
karanam madhuram taranam madhuram
haranam madhuram samitam madhuram
vamitam madhuram samitam madhuram
madhuradhi-pater akhilam madhuram
gunja madhura mala madhura
yamuna madhura vici madhura
salilam madhuram kamalam madhuram
madhuradhi-pater akhilam madhuram
gopi madhura lila madhura
yuktam madhuram bhuktam madhuram
hrstam madhuram slistam madhuram
madhuradhi-pater akhilam madhuram
gopa madhura gavo madhura
vastir madhura srstir madhura
dalitam madhuram phalitam madhuram
madhuradhi-pater akhilam madhuram
27 April, 2010 at 2:22 pm
The ‘Madhurastakam’ is a beautiful description of the sweetness of Lord Krishna:
His lips are sweet, His face is sweet, His eyes are sweet, His smile is sweet, his heart is sweet, His gait is sweet. Everything about my Lord of Sweetness is sweet.
His voice is sweet, his character is sweet, His attire is sweet, His speech is sweet, His movements are sweet, His wandering is sweet. Everything about my Lord of Sweetness is sweet.
His flute is sweet, His foot-dust is sweet, His hands are sweet, His feet are sweet, His dancing is sweet, His friendship is sweet. Everything about my Lord of Sweetness is sweet.
His singing is sweet, his drinking is sweet, His eating is sweet, His sleeping is sweet, His beauty is sweet, His tilak is sweet. Everything about my Lord of Sweetness is sweet.
His deeds are sweet, His acts of deliverance are sweet, His stealing is sweet, His amorous play is sweet, His yawning is sweet, and even His chastisements are sweet. Everything about my Lord of Sweetness is sweet.
His garland of gunja is sweet, His garland is sweet, His Yamuna River is sweet, and her waves, water and lotuses are all sweet. Everything about my Lord of Sweetness is sweet.
His gopis are sweet, His pastimes are sweet, His paraphernalia and ornaments are sweet, His food is sweet, His delight is sweet, His embrace is sweet. Everything about my Lord of Sweetness is sweet.
His gopas are sweet, His cows are sweet, His staff is sweet, His creation is sweet, His defeating of demons is sweet, and His bestowal of fruits is sweet. Everything about my Lord of Sweetness is sweet.
Madhuram, madhuram, madhuram, madhuram
Madhuram, madhuram, madhuram, madhuram
Madhuradhi-pater akhilam madhuram
15 April, 2010 at 5:54 am
THESE DAYS
Morning seems strange
almost out of place,
searched hard for you
and your special ways
these days,
please stay
‘These Days’ – Joy Division
16 April, 2010 at 3:25 pm
‘This is the way the world ends:
Not with a bang, but a whimper’
‘The Hollow Men’ – T.S. Eliot
17 April, 2010 at 4:17 pm
RODIN’S CATHEDRAL
Close your eyes –
What do you see?
What would you say
if you could speak
to the whole world?
Twist your wrists
and turn your fingers –
your hands have formed
Rodin’s Cathedral
Something you can sense –
Some things don’t make sense,
Things you see and touch,
things within your grasp
Arches and spires,
angels and windows –
The language of silence
stops with each heart-beat
Close your eyes –
What do you see?
The bronze turning wrists
of Rodin’s Cathedral?
Block your ears –
Turn off the sound –
A voice in your heart
mouths a prayer for the whole world
27 April, 2010 at 8:00 am
Metal blinds steel
rooms razor wire
admission contrition
Lotus-like
breathless arches eyes
hands cathedrals
Wounded world
candle light
sanctuary
23 April, 2010 at 11:24 am
A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM (Edgar Allan Poe)
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow –
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand –
How few! Yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep – while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
23 April, 2010 at 11:25 am
One of my favourites when I was in high school.
27 April, 2010 at 7:40 am
CORRUPTION OF VIRTUE
I’m lord Despair in the never-ending night,
You’re my only hope when all my hope is gone –
I’m a patchwork man in a dreamy neverland,
You’re my saving grace when all my grace is gone
I’m lord Despair in the never-ending night,
A blackened rose when all my red is gone –
No hope for love in this gothic paradise,
You’re my only hope when all my hope is gone
I only want to be with you, my Lord –
Yes, I only want to be with you, my Lord
27 April, 2010 at 7:44 am
ETERNITY
light drizzle outside
feeling all sad
in my cage
wish you would express
yourself somehow
separation
of an actor off-stage
O Master!
with your vision I could see
for your vision holds
eternity
(Srila Prabhupada’s Disappearance Day, October 1998)
27 April, 2010 at 7:51 am
THE SEARCH
I searched for You – all over
Through wastes and plains – all over
Ways straight and strange – all over
I searched for You
‘Did your search bear fruit?’
‘Did you find your truth?’
‘Did you find the root?’
All over, I searched for You
27 April, 2010 at 8:03 am
THESE FEET
We’re two travellers
travelling around
and these feet
keep me moving ’round
We’re two travellers
travelling around –
in the hearts of Siva
and Laxmi we are found
We’re two travellers
travelling the earth –
and These feet
keep me free from birth
27 April, 2010 at 8:10 am
NEEDFUL THINGS
“You reckon ill who leave me out
When Me you fly, I am the wings –
I am the doubter and the doubt,
I am the song lord Siva sings”
Appears the dark clouds never lift,
Waiting for you and your special gifts;
Waiting for you and the joy you bring,
This is my prayer for needful things
“You reckon ill who say that Vaishnavas die
When they are living in sound –
Vaishnavas die to live and living try
To spread the Holy Names around”
Appears the dark clouds never lift,
Waiting for you and your special gifts;
Waiting for you and the joy you bring,
This is my prayer for needful things
29 March, 2013 at 3:20 pm
My sky burnt out when my star was rising.
I kissed the dark midnight at the floor of the ocean.
The honey of my success turned to poison.
And I walked away.
Dove off cliffs of material desires.
Walked on water and ran through fires.
And I walked away.
27 April, 2010 at 8:19 am
‘If every man helps his neighbour, then who needs help’
Graffiti on a wall in Salt River, Cape Town
12 May, 2010 at 12:13 pm
VICTIM
Your real intentions
hide behind words
that are cast out easily,
like a fisherman’s net
in the sea
In the sky,
the moon eclipsed
thinks himself
unchanged
It’s the tendency of the victim
to want to shift the blame
Your real intentions
hide behind a wall
of projected thoughts
which you, earnestly,
hold to be true
How could you possibly think
I’d want to share your view?
30 January, 2015 at 11:03 am
This one’s about texting. Some people are braver when they text than in real life – yet they still believe what they are projecting, through written words, is a true representation of themselves. Strange.
4 June, 2010 at 7:59 am
SATI RITE
My heart beats fast,
my husband’s lost –
Sati rite
The lick of flames,
a thousand names –
Sati rite
Everything I ever knew,
Everyone I cared about,
Everything I held as true,
Proves false now as my time runs out
My bones, my hair, my skin
are soon fine ash –
in the Sati rite
21 July, 2010 at 4:37 am
The Sati Rite is no longer applicable in our times, just like the modern-day ‘caste-system’ is a perversion of ‘daivi-varnashram’ or ‘divine social engineering’ in the modern age. Two wrongs don’t make a rite.
29 October, 2010 at 2:16 am
Beautiful poetry Mukunda Charan…did you write most of them?
29 October, 2010 at 6:37 am
Yes. Thank you. The ones I didn’t write I credited the authors.
How are you, Suvarna?
1 December, 2010 at 8:05 pm
HIDDEN SWEETNESS
It’s snowing
and it’s quiet:
from the dark,
undying light
No way of knowing
Your heart –
we wake to a
world of white
On Hell’s darkest night,
kept from you
all violence
Serene and quiet
warm blood melts cold ice
Walk on snow
Watch love grow,
from dark streets
a golden road
O, my love where
are you now?
O, my heart
where did you go?
On Hell’s darkest night,
kept from you all violence
Serene and quiet
warm blood melts cold ice
I’m coming back,
to your Summer smile,
I’m coming back
to your loving arms
Copyright – Mukunda Charan
12 February, 2011 at 8:26 am
WE LIVE IN COLOUR
A world of grey
greets us today –
I’d stay and pray,
But I miss my mother
I live and die
I live in white
I live in black
I live in colour
A world of souls
goes to the polls
In God we trust
but why do our hopes turn to dust?
I live in black
I live in white
I live in grey
I live in colour
My friends are all here with me now
12 February, 2011 at 10:43 am
ONE MORE TIME
One more taste
One more touch
One last peek
And bite the dust
One more time
One more ride
One more trip
One last kick
This is it
One more time
Our lifetime
Smacks of crime
Karmic seeds –
Future deeds
One more time
Now we live
Now we die
Never asked:
‘Who am I?’
One more time
18 February, 2011 at 3:35 am
CONCERNED
I am concerned about you
About the places you might go,
the things that you might do,
as new horizons will unfold
as you begin your life anew
I am concerned
About the choices you might make,
about the pressures that could break –
of each and every mistake
I am concerned about you
15 April, 2011 at 12:06 pm
CRIMINAL
This is the story of my life,
something like The Sorrows Of Werther
This is the story-line and plot,
Charlotte was the lover of Werther’s best friend
(The whole world is a prison:
Who threw away the key?)
Criminal desires won’t set you free
You took me into your game,
I played your game;
I’ll never be the same
Maya is eight-armed;
Yeah, she’s armed and dangerous:
If her weapons don’t get you her tiger will
(Wages of sin for a lifetime of shame)
Criminal desires won’t set you free
29 April, 2011 at 10:12 am
YOU KNOW THE ANSWER
On all sides
betrayal
I ask, ‘Who is?’
All fingers point to me
On all sides
– confirmation –
of former wrongs,
reactions in the world of karma
Why?
Only you know the answer
On all sides
– tests –
– regrets –
– victories –
betrayal
confirmation
tests
I am hoping for the best
12 May, 2011 at 2:16 pm
THE NEW ARRIVALS
Why do you cry,
Why do you sigh?
You are breaking my heart
into pieces
I’m on the floor,
the scene’s in still-pause:
I’ve no will of iron
or deep feelings,
my love
Why don’t you cry,
Why do you lie (to me)
on a bed of nails?
Be happy
We are not rivals,
We’ve arrived
We’re the new arrivals
11 July, 2011 at 3:54 am
I AM YOUR DOG (To Cadby)
I am there when you get home,
waiting for you all alone
I am happy
I am sad
I am good
I am bad
I console you when you’re down
I wait for you
when you leave town
If you leave me, on a plane,
For your return I will remain
I am playful
I am cute
I am sulky
I am rude
I’m excited when we walk
I listen to you when you talk
I am hungry
I am moody
I am loyal
I am broody
Light your candle –
Go to bed –
You are my human
relative
I look to you with liquid eyes,
anticipate your next surprise –
But my instincts make it hard
to know that I’m a child of God
I have no manners
don’t mind me, please –
I’m a connoisseur
of cheeze
I love my bath
and guard my food,
sometimes fiercely –
‘Is that understood?’
‘Where’s your boney?’
‘Where’s your toy?’
Bring it here –
‘What a good boy!!’
I am lonely when you go
I am happy when we grow
I was wild
In my pack before
The little dog
who guards your door
19 August, 2011 at 7:31 am
The Mystic
Leaving the wilderness of desire,
I can feel life getting higher,
On the mountain-peak of your shoulders:
Feeling younger, growing older
Were you here with me this time,
I would be a better person –
You could teach me how to love,
I would be your eager student
In the springtime of our joy,
All my sorrows are destroyed,
Looking outward, turning in –
Your compassion makes me think
I’m the fool
You’re the prudent
You’re the master,
I’m your student
I’m just swimming in your ocean,
Tasting nectar, spewing poison;
In the shade of your green garden
all my troubles are forgotten
This is why I am locked to you
You’re the witness,
You hold the key –
To my heart –
You set me free
This is why I am locked to you
19 September, 2011 at 4:56 am
FORGETFULNESS
We’ve forgotten how to use our hands,
We’ve forgotten the language of the heart –
We’ve lost ourselves in television,
We’ve lost ourselves in competition
We know each other’s net worth,
and we take another birth
I am not being true
if I think I am better than you
19 September, 2011 at 7:30 am
YOUNG LOVE
I am with you.
With my words.
In full force.
I’m your servant.
I am yours.
We could tell lies.
We are emerald-green.
You don’t reply.
I watch the screen.
You tell me all
about your life.
How you lived
and how I died.
A signature
across the sky.
We’re in love.
Watch us grow.
I was meek.
Now I glow.
Yes, watch me now.
Watch me grow.
Grow, grow, grow.
My first love.
My fast love.
My false love?
(Oh no)
9 November, 2011 at 4:42 pm
APPRAISAL
I write
so it counts,
I write
so it hurts
to paint words
I write
to find
my voice –
it’s your call,
and it’s your choice
I write – somebody cut off my hands,
I write – somebody ruined my plans
somebody stole my legs,
somebody gave me pegs
I write
to chronicle
my death –
this writing is
my domino effect
23 August, 2015 at 4:19 pm
Few words but so much meaning
15 July, 2021 at 11:47 am
How are you? Keep in contact.
16 December, 2011 at 8:58 pm
KING OF THE BLIND
I don’t know you.
Do you know me?
I am king of the blind, Blondie.
Hey, I am king of the blind!
Do you think I am being unkind?
Have we spoiled antiquity’s name
With hairdye and hairspray?
Have we spoiled you on
third world labour?
Turned you into cannon-fodder?
We’ll meet again,
in due course of time, Blondie.
We’ll meet around a table.
Bourgeoisie. One, two, three.
For I am king of the blind, Blondie.
Oh, I am king of the blind.
27 January, 2012 at 12:40 pm
MACCLESFIELD (HEART OF THE POET)
Dedicated to Ian Curtis (1956-1980) and all Eternals
There is a park near the poet’s house.
A park, with lovely green lawns
and mossy green trees
There is a lake with two giant swans.
I’d like to meet him;
to see his other side,
his emerald-green heart
Watch a parade of fools – wiser than us –
laughing, passing us by the water’s edge
near the lush, green hills of Macclesfield
I would not find him
in the glass walls of the city
No
anguished cries in the red-brick;
in what he wanted to be,
the degradation of his quiet
How nice it would be to take a stroll through the town,
walk the dog on the lawn
and just sit somewhere inside…
and talk
Copyright – Mukunda Charan Das
30 January, 2012 at 7:11 am
ACADEMIC EXERCISE
Love you from a distance,
love you from up close;
when we were together
I took you for a rose
An academic exercise,
a dream that fades away –
I’ll love you from a distance
on another day
31 January, 2012 at 2:35 pm
MINUTE OF SILENT (BROADWAY SHOPPING CENTRE, BEXLEYHEATH)
I cast
with my eyes of Adam
a hopeful look
to the entrance of the mall
love centre dawn
disaster attaining forgiveness
promised culminated happiness
in your rainstorm
anaesthetized,
packed pack packing
glass wall
electronic door
minute of silent
packed pack packing
hanging clothes
panty ho’s
bhs
new look
as I look
with my eyes of Eve,
outcast,
at the entrance of the mall
5 April, 2012 at 2:08 am
DREAM
stone angels sleeping are aware
smooth mountain marble ledges
‘you are one of us’
as if I’d side with evil
6 April, 2012 at 5:26 am
The novelty of writing an MA wore off. It became a job, just like anything else. Since most of the archival material were government records, it felt like I was studying law all over again – but in retrospect. I was struggling to synthesize my philosophical readings with my project on the slave trade. It was also very difficult to come up with a thesis – an argument or theory – based on the source material I was studying. I was breaking my head trying to figure out what it was I was trying to say. It took three months for my MA proposal to be accepted. My supervisor was encouraging, but exacting. Every meeting with him seemed to suggest starting everything over again.
The positive side of this experience was that it was sharpening my intellect and improving my ability to analyze. I started an exercise regimen to help me cope with the long hours in the archives or in front of the computer. I was trying to eat more healthily too. I wanted to kill my old self, in the Nietschean sense. I wanted to become a better person. I had studied ethics in order to understand why people acted in certain ways. Now I was beginning to establish a code of ethics for my own existence. I was like a Spartan, living myself out of history. Context and place were becoming very significant to me in terms of living in the present. I also felt that I was developing a better understanding of my past and my own life.
The professors were always saying, ‘Write! Write!’ I wanted to get the MA over with, so I obliged them. My spiritual awakening and my ethical approach to life gave me the strength to face that mammoth task. I would set my uncle’s shamrock rosary above my bed. It was from the six months he had spent in the seminary, training to be a Catholic priest. I was slowly becoming aware of my spiritual purpose. I had certain God-given abilities and it was my duty to work according to my talents, rather than pursuing things that were not really in my nature.
16 April, 2012 at 4:38 pm
POETIC
I don’t know why these feelings hurt so much.
To place so much importance in one person.
To feel so much with the heart.
I don’t know if I want to go on.
I have come so far.
I don’t care anymore.
Love me, if you will.
Love my little world.
21 April, 2012 at 10:53 am
re the novelty of writing an MA : you have expressed it very succintly. i have been through the same self-negotiation, many times, defining re-defining…
17 May, 2012 at 3:35 am
TRUTH AND BEAUTY
Where are you now God’s beautiful child?
Where are you now my beautiful one?
You went away…and I don’t know what to say
Down in the depths of some infernal dream –
Caught in the cogworks of a soulless machine
You went away, you went away
Where are you now this treacherous night?
Where are you now so silent and shy…in the rain?
(Yeah, I missed you, once again)
Where did you go? Where did you go?
Crossing the water,
Climbing the walls,
La belle dame sans mercy
has thee in her thrall
I guess you know
And I’m left spare to wonder
17 May, 2012 at 4:32 am
HERE AM I
Here am I sitting in the sun –
Waiting, I’m waiting –
Will you ever come?
Where are you? Feeling blue?
Hope some day to find you
Laughing in eternal life
Hope some day to find you –
Some things are just so hard to find.
17 May, 2012 at 4:23 am
WESTERN DEEP LEVELS
Western Deep Levels.
City Deep.
Western Deep Levels.
Down to the sea.
City of Gold
Soldier’s keep
Where God
sent torture deep
City green
in a dream
each address
manifests
Relate
take time –
next take –
next time
Seize the fire,
crack the nod –
See the saints
walk with God
Relate
take time –
next take –
next time
30 May, 2012 at 3:30 am
PYRAMID SONG (Radiohead)
I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me –
A moon full of stars and astral cars,
all the things I used to see –
All my lovers were there with me
all my past and futures,
and we all went to heaven in a little row boat –
there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt
3 June, 2012 at 4:51 am
‘I promise not to sell your perfumed secrets –
there are countless formulas for pressing flowers’ – Kurdt Cobain, ‘Scentless Apprentice’
27 August, 2012 at 6:06 am
THE NARAYANA-KAVACA SHIELD:
SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM 6.7.38-40
All of you are my superiors. Therefore although accepting priesthood is sometimes reproachable, I cannot refuse even a small request from you. I agree to be your priest. I shall fulfill your request by dedicating my lie and possessions [38]. Sri Sukadeva continued: O King, after making this promise to the demigods, the exalted Visvarupa, surrounded the demigods, performed the necessary priestly activities with great enthusiasm and attention [38]. The opulence of the demons, who are generally known as the enemies of the demigods, was protected by the talents and tactics of Sukracarya, but Visvarupa, who was the most powerful, composed a protective prayer known as the Narayana-kavaca. By this intelligent mantra, he took away the opulence of the demons and gave it to Mahendra, the King of heaven [39]. Visvarupa, who was most liberal, spoke to King Indra [Sahasraksa] the secret hymn that protected Indra and conquered the military power of the demons [40].
PREPARING TO CHANT THE NARAYANA-KAVACA
sri-rajovaca
yaya guptah sahasraksah
savahan ripu-sainikan
kridann iva vinirjitya
tri-lokya bubhuje sriyam
bhagavams tan mamakhyahi
varma narayanatmakam
yathatatayinah satrun
yena gupto ‘jayan mrdhe [1-2]
King Parikisit inquired from Sukadeva Gosvami: My Lord, kindly explain the Visnu mantra armor that [a] protected King indra and [b] enabled him to conquer his enemies, along with their carriers, and [c] enjy the opulence of the three worlds. Please explain to me that Narayana armor, by which King Indra achieved success in battle, conquering the enemies who were endeavoring to kill him.
sri-badarayanir uvaca
vrtah purohitas tvastro
mahendrayanuprcchate
narayanakhyam varmaha
tad ihaika-manah srnu [3]
Sri Sukadeva Gosvami said: King Indra, the leader of the demigods, inquired about the armor known as Narayana-kavaca from Visvarupa, who was engaged by the demigods as their priest. Please hear Visvarupa’s reply with great attention.
sri-visvarupa uvaca
dhautanghri-panir acamya
sapavitra udan-mukhah
krta-svanga-kara-nyaso
mantrabhyam vag-yatah sucih
narayana-param varma
sannahyed bhaya agate
padayor janunor urvor
udare hrdy athorasi
mukhe sirasy anupurvyad
omkaradini vinyaset
om namo narayanayeti
viparyayam athapi va [4-6]
Vivarupa said: If some form of fear arrives, one should first wash his hands and legs clean and then perform acamana by chanting this mantra: om apavitrah pavitro va sarvavastham gato ‘pi va/yah smaret pundarikaksam sa bahyabhyantarah sucih/ sri-visnu sri-visnu sri-visnu. Then one should touch kusa grass and sit gravely and silently, facing north. When completely purified, one should touch the mantra composed of eight syllables to the eight parts of his body and touch the mantra composed of twelve syllables to his hands. Thus, in the following manner, he should bind himself with the Narayana coat of armor. First, while chanting the mantra composed of eight syllables [om namo narayanaya], beginning with the pranava, the syllable om, one should touch his hands to the eight parts of his body, starting with the two feet and progressing systematically to the knees, thighs, abdomen, heart, chest, mouth and hed. Then one should chant the mantra in reverse beginning with the last syllable [ya], while touching the parts of his body in the reverse order. These two processes are known as utpatti-nyasa and samhara nyasa respectively.
kara-nyasam tatah kuryad
dvadasaksara-vidyaya
pranavdi-ya-karantam
anguly-angustha-parvasu [7]
Then one should chant the mantra composed of twelve syllables [om namo bhagavate vasudevaya]. Preceding each syllable by the omkara, one should place the syllables of the mantra on the tips of his fingers, beginning with the index finger of the right hand and concluding with the index finger of the left. The four remaining syllables should be placed on the joints of the thumbs.
nyased dhrdaya omkaram
vi-karam anu murdhani
sa-karam tu bhruvor madhye
na-karam sikhaya nyaset
ve-karam netrayor yunyan
na-karam sarva-sandhisu
ma-karam astram uddisya
mantra-murtir bhaved budhah
savisargam phad-antam tat
sarva-diksu vinirdiset
om visnave nama it
[ ] [8-10]
One must then chant the mantra of six syllables [om visnave namah]. One should place the syllable “om” on his heart, the syllable “vi” on the top of his head, the syllable “sa” between his eyebrows, the syllable “na” on his tuft of hair [sikha], and the syllable “ve” between his eyes. The chanter of the mantra should then place the syllable “na” on all the joints of his body and meditate on the syllable “ma” as being a weapon. He should thus become the perfect personification of the mantra. Thereafter, adding visarga to the final syllable “ma”, he should chant the mantra “mah astraya phat” in all directions, beginning from the east. In this way, all directions will be bound by the protective armor of the mantra.
atmanam paramam dhyayed
dhyeyam sat-saktibhir yutam
vidya-tejas-tapo-murtim
imam mantram udaharet [11]
After finishing this chanting, one should think oneself qualitatively one with the SPG, who is full in six opulences and is worthy to be meditated upon. Then one should chant the following protective prayer to Lord Naryana, the Narayana-kavaca.
THE NARAYANA KAVACA
om harir vidadhyan mama sarva-raksam
nyastanghri-padmah patagendra-prsthe
darari-carmasi-gadesu-capi
pasan dadhano ‘sta-guno ‘sta-bahuh
The Supreme Lord, who sits on the back of the bird Garuda, touching him with His lotus feet, holds eighth weapons – the conch-shell, disc, shield, sword, club, arrows, bow and ropes. May that SPG protect me at all times with His eight arms. He is all-powerful because He fully possesses the eight mystic powers [anima, laghima etc.].
jalesu mam raksatu matsya-murtir
yado-ganebhyo varunasya pasat
sthalesu mayavatu-vamano vyat
trivikramah khe ‘vatu visvarupah [13]
May the Lord, who assumes the body of a great fish, protect me in the water from the fierce animals that are associates of the demigod Varuna. By expanding His illusory energy, the Lord assumed the form of the dwarf Vamana. May Vamana protect me on the land. Since the gigantic form of the Lord, Visvarupa, conquers the three worlds, may He protect me in the sky.
durgesv atavy-aji-mukhadisu prabhuh
payan nrsimho ‘sura-yuthaparih
vimuncato yasya mahatta-hasam
diso vinedur nyapatams ca garbhah [14]
May Lord Nrsimhadeva, who appeared as the enemy of Hiranyakasipu, protect me in all directions. His loud laughing vibrated in all directions and caused the pregnant wives of the asuras to have miscarriages. May that Lord be kind enough to protect me in difficult places like the forest and battlefront.
raksatv asau madhvani yajna-kalpah
sva-damstrayonnita-dharo varahah
ramo ‘dri-kutesv atha vipravase
salaksmano ‘vyad bharatagrajo ‘sman [15]
The Supreme indestructible Lord is ascertained through the performance of ritualistic sacrifices and is therefore known as Yajesvara. In His incarnation as Lord Boar, He raised the planet earth from the water at the bottom of the universe and kept it on His pointed tusks. May that Lord protect me from rogues on the street. May Parusurama protect me on the tops of mountains, and may the elder brother of Bharata, Lord Ramacandra, along with His brother Laksmana, protect me in foreign countries.
mam ugra-dharmad akhilat pramadan
narayanah patu naras ca hasat
dattas tv ayogad atha yoga-nathah
payad gunesah kapilah karma-bandhat [16]
May Lord Narayana protect me from unnecessarily following false religious systems and falling from my duties due to madness. May the Lord in His appearance as Nara protect me from unnecessary pride. May Lord Dattatreya, the master of all mystic power, protect me from falling while performing bhakti-yoga, and may Lord Kapila, the master of all good qualities, protect me from the material bondage of fruitive activities.
sanat-kumaro ‘vatu kamadevad
dhayasirsa mam pathi deva-helandi
devarsi-varyah purusarcanantarat
kurmo harir mam nirayad asesat [17]
May Sanat-kumara protect me from lusty desires. As I begin some auspicious activity, may Lord Hayagriva protect me from being an offender by neglecting to offer respectful obeisances to the Supreme Lord. May Devarsi Narada protect me from committing offences in worshiping the Deity, and may Lord Kurma, the tortoise, protect me from falling to the unlimited hellish planets.
dhanvantarir bhagavan patv apathyad
dvandvad bhayad rsabho nirjitatma
yajnas ca lokad avataj janantad
balo ganat krodha-vasad ahindrah [18]
May the SPG in His incarnation as Dhanvantari relieve me from undesirable eatables and protect me from physical illness. May Lord Rsabhadeva, who conquered His inner and outer senses, protect me from fear produced by the duality of heat and cold. May Yajna protect me from defamation and harm from the populace, and may Lord Balarama as Sesa protect me from envious serpents.
dvaipayano bhagavan aprabodhad
bhuddhas tu pasanda-gana-pramadat
kalkih kaleh kala-malat prapatu
dharmavanayoru-krtvatarah [19]
May the POG in His incarnation as Vyasadeva protect me from all kinds of ignorance resulting from the absence of Vedic knowledge. May Lord Buddhadeva protect me from activities opposed to Vedic principles and from laziness that causes one to madly forget the Vedic principles of knowledge and ritualistic action. May Kalkideva, the SPG, who appeared as an incarnation to protect religious principles, protect me from the dirt of the age of Kali.
mam kesavo gadaya pratar avyad
govinda asangavam atta-venuh
narayanah prahna udatta-saktir
madhyan-dine visnur arindra-panih [20]
May Lord Kesava protect me with His club in the first portion of the day, and may Govinda, who is always engaged in playing His flute, protect me in the second portion of the day. May Lord Narayana, who is equipped with all potencies, protect me in the third part of the day, and may Lord Visnu, who carries a disc to kill His enemies, protect me in the fourth part of the day.
devo ‘parahne madhu-hogradhanva
sayam tri-dhamavatu madhavo mam
dose hrsikesa utardha-ratre
nisitha eko ‘vatu padmanabhah [21]
May Lord Madhusudana, who carries a bow very fearful for the demons, protect me during the fifth part of the day. In the evening, may Lord Madhava, appearing as Brahma, Visnu and Mahesvara, protect me, and in the beginning of night may Lord Hrsikesa protect me. At the dead of night [in the second and third parts of night] may Lord Padmanabha alone protect me.
srivatsa-dhamapara-ratra isah
pratyusa iso si-dharo janardanah
damodaro ‘vyad anusandhyam prabhate
visvesvaro bhagavan kala-murtih [22]
May the SPG, who bears the Srivatsa on His chest, protect me after midnight until the sky becomes pinkish. May Lord Janardana, who carries a sword in His hand, protect me at the end of the night [during the last four ghatikas of night]. May Lord Damodara protect me in the early morning, and may Lord Visvesvara protect me during the junctions of day and night.
THE SUDARSHAN CHAKRA
cakram yugantanala-tigma-nemi
bhramat samantad bhagavat-prayuktam
dandagdhi dandhagdhy ari-sainyam asu
kaksam yatha vata-sakho hutasah [23]
Set into motion by the SPG and wandering in all the four directions, the disc of the Supreme Lord has sharp edges as destructive as the fire of devastation at the end of the millenium. As a blazing fire burns dry grass to ashes with the assistance of the breeze, may that Sudarsana chakra burn our enemies to ashes.
gade ‘sani-sparsana-visphulinge
nispindhi nispindhy ajita-priyasi
kusmanda-vainayaka-yaksa-rakso-
bhuta-grahams curnaya curnayarin [24]
O club in the hand of the SPG, you produce sparks of fire as powerful as thunderbolts, and you are extremely dear to the Lord. I am also His servant. Therefore kindly help me pound to pieces the evil beings known as Kusmandas, Vainayakas, Yaksas, Raksasas, Bhutas and Grahas. Please pulverize them.
tvam yatudhana-pramatha-preta-matr-
pisaca-vipragraha-ghora-drstin
darendra vidravaya krsna-purito
bhima-svano ‘rer hrdayani kampayan [25]
O best of conchshells, O Pancajanya in the hands of the Lord, you are always filled with the breath of Lord Krishna. Therefore you create a fearful sound vibration that causes trembling in the hearts of enemies like the Raksasas, Pramatha ghosts, Pretas, Matas, Pisacas adn brahmana ghosts with fearful eyes.
tvam tigma-dharasi-varari-sainyam
isa-prayukto mama chindi chindi
caksumi carman chata-candra chadaya
dvisam aghonam hara papa-caksusam [26]
O king of sharp-edged swords, you are engaged by the SPG. Please cut the soldiers of my enemies to pieces. Pleas cut them to pieces! O shield marked with a hundred brilliant moonlike circles, please cover over the eyes of the sinful enemies. Pluck out their sinful eyes.
yan no bhayam grahebhyo ‘bhut
ketubhyo nrbhya eva ca
sarisrpedbhyo damstribhyo
bhutebhyo ‘mhobhya eva ca
sarvany etani bhagavan-
nama-rupanukirtanat
prayantu sanksayam sadyo
ye nah sreyah-pratipakah [27-28]
May the glorification of the transcendental name, form, qualities [] protect us from the influence of bad planets, meteors, envious human beings, serpents, scorpions, and animals like tigers and wolves. May it protect us from ghosts and the material elements like earth, water, fire and air, and may it also protect us from lighting and our past sins. We are always afraid of these hindrances to our auspicious life. Therefore, may they all be completely destroyed by the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra.
garudo bhagavan stotra-
stobhas chandomayah prabhuh
raksatv asesa-krcchrebhyo
visvaksenah sva-namabhih [29]
Lord Garuda, the carrier of Lord Visnu, is the most worshipable lord, for he is as powerful as the Supreme Lord Himself. He is the personified Vedas and is worshiped by selected verses. May he protect us from all dangerous conditions, and may Lord Visvaksena, the POG, also protect us from all dangers by His holy names.
sarvapadbhyo harer nama-
rupa-yanaydhani nah
buddhindriya-manah-pranan
pantu parsada-bhusanah [30]
May the SPG’s holy names, His transcendental forms, His carriers and all the weapons decorating Him as personal associates protect our intelligence, senses, mind and life air from all dangers.
yatha hi bhagavan eva
vastutah sad asac ca yat
satyenanena nah sarve
yantu nasam upadravah [31]
The subtle and gross cosmic manifestation is material, but nevertheless it is nondifferent from the SPG because He is ultimately the cause of all causes. Cause and effect are factually one because the cause is present in the effect. Therefore the Absolute Truth, the SPG, can destroy all our dangers by any of His potent parts.
yathaikatmyanubahvanam
vikalpa-rahita svayam
bhusanayudha-linghakya
dhatte saktih sva-mayaya
tenaiva satya-manena
sarva-jno bhagavan harih
patu sarvaih svarupair nah
sada sarvatra sarva-gah [32-33]
The SPG, the living entities, the material energy, the spiritual energy and the entire creation are all individual substances. In the ultimate analysis, however, together they constitute the supreme one, the POG. Therefore those who are advanced in spiritual knowledge see unity in diversity. For such advanced persons, the Lord’s bodily decorations, His name, His fame, His attributes and forms and the weapons in His hand are manifestations of the strength in His potency. According to their elevated spiritual understanding, the omniscient Lord, who manifests various forms, is present everywhere. May He always protect us from all calamities.
vidiksu diksurdhavm adhah samantad
antar bahir bhagavan narasimhah
prahapayal loka-bhayam svanena
sva-tejasa grasta-samasta-tejah [34]
Prahlada Maharaja loudly chanted the holy name of Lord Nrsimhadeva. May Lord Nrsimhadeva, roaring for His devotee Prahlada Maharaja, protect us from all fear of dangers created by stalwart leaders in all directions through poison, weapons, water, fire, air and so on. May the Lord cover their influence by His own transcendental influence. May Nrsimhadeva protect us in all directions and in all corners, above, below, within and without.
maghavann idam akhyatam
varma narayanatmakam
vijesyase ‘njasa yena
damsito ‘sura-yuthapan [35]
Visvarupa continued: O Indra, this mystic armor related to Lord Narayana has been described by me to you. By putting on this protective covering, you will certainly be able to conquer the leaders of the demons.
etad dharayamanas tu
yam yam pasyati caksusa
pada va samsprset sadyah
sadhuvasat sa vimucyate [36]
If one employs this armor, whomever he sees with his eyes or touches with his feet is immediately freed from all the above-mentioned dangers.
na kutascid bhayam tasya
vidyam dharayato bhavet
raja-dasyu-grahadibhyo
vyadhy-adibhyas ca karhicit [37]
This prayer, Narayana-kavaca, constitutes subtle knowledge transcendentally connected with Narayana. One who employs this prayer is never disturbed or put in danger by the government, by plunderers, by evil demons or by any type of disease.
imam vidyam pura kascit
kausiko dharayan dvijah
yoga-dharanaya svangam
jahau sa maru-dhanvani [38]
O King of heaven, a brahmana named Kausika formerly used this armor when he purposely gave up his body in the desert of mystic power.
tasyopari vimanena
gandharva-patir ekada
yayau citrarathah stribhir
vrto yatra dvija-ksayah [39]
Surrounded by many beautiful women, Citraratha, the King of Gandharvaloka, was once passing in his airplane over the brahmana’s body at the spot where the brahmana had died.
gaganan nyapatat sadyah
savimano hy avak-sirah
sa valikhilya-vacanad
asthiny adaya vismitah
prasya praci-sarasvatyam
snatva dhama svam anvagat [40]
Suddenly Citraratha was forced to fall from the sky headfirst with his airplane. Struck with wonder, he was ordered by the great sages named the Valikhilyas to throw the brahmana’s bones in the nearby River Sarasvati. He had to do this and bathe in the river before returning to his own abode.
sri-suka uvaca
ya idam srnuyat cadrtah
yo dharayati cadrtah
tam namasyanti bhutani
mucyate sarvato bhayat [41]
Sri Sukadeva Gosvami said: My dear Maharaja Parikisit, one who employs this [] when afraid of any conditions in the material world is immediately freed from all dangers and is worshiped by all living entities.
etam vidyam adhigato
visvarupac chatakratuh
trailokya-laksmim bubhuje
vinirjitya mrdhe ‘suran [42]
King Indra, who performed one hundred sacrifices, received this prayer of protection from Visvarupa. After conquering the demons, he enjoyed all the opulences of the three worlds.
THE END
6 November, 2012 at 8:14 pm
FOLLOWING A FOOTNOTE
You were a footnote
in his story,
a vital link in
the myth
You are flesh and blood,
no fictional character,
hieroglyph
Just following a footnote,
to find out what’s real
Part of it’s myth
part is ideal
6 November, 2012 at 8:15 pm
‘The lady, like a garden fair was kept, that didst slumber in delight’
quoted in a poem on poetics by Edgar Allan Poe
5 March, 2013 at 4:54 pm
COMPLETE
Sweet,
sweeter than honey
Your love’s complete
like the most beautiful jewel –
akila-rasamrta-murti
melt Your steadfast soldier
into a tin heart
So sweet
Sweet,
sweeter than honey
Your love is like
the full Autumn moon
What I wouldn’t give for love or money
My resistance is broken
I am your molten heart
So sweet
Complete
26 March, 2013 at 4:57 pm
Krishna, the Lord, is complete and completely reciprocate with our attempts to love Him.
25 March, 2013 at 4:52 am
WESTERN DEEP LEVELS
It’s just a show
a show of conventions
Johannesburg’s Bazaar
The circus tents
collapsed on us,
white alabaster palaces
It’s just a show,
in a desert
hardened by age
blood
sweat
idolatry
In the underworld
there’s nothing less –
In the underworld,
descent of bliss
Kindergarten happiness,
white alabaster palaces,
every moment is at grace
27 March, 2013 at 9:59 am
I HOPE LOVE NEVER DIES
Where are you now?
Where did you go?
I really need you,
I really do
and I hope you understand (love)
Love’s just a word,
Love’s just a game;
And one we play so well,
You’ll never understand, love
Where are you now?
I see a light.
I hear you calling.
I have a purpose and a wife.
You are the star
In my dark sky,
My ray of hope
And I hope love never dies.
27 March, 2013 at 10:06 am
BY L’AGULHAS ‘N WANDELING
Teen son en skuim loop ek my vas, ‘n ruwe
ontmoeting my loop met wind en see. Stryk
ek aan oor skulpiesand, ek hoor dit guds,
sluk en borrel. Die glinstervloed
is swaar van plankton, dig van mineraal
en vertellings en vermoedens van wrakke
aan rotse onnaspeurbaar vasgehaak.
Langes my die swartvlerkmeeu, sy drag
die van vaarder, visser, kenner, sy oog
op my hierdie sifsagte grens tussen
sand en plant waar ek gespleettoon, hy geweb
gaan, en ek strandrosies bestryk, en hy
hup die moedswil van ‘n golf ontwyk,
steeds die oog op my, my kameraad.
Hy styg op aan toe. Hy laat my agter
met geen verweer teen sy afsydigheid
so skielik betoon. Ek wou nog uitvra,
het gemeen ons was maats darem een
vakansie lank. Ek wou nog hoor op opteken
‘n geskiedenis wat verbyvaar. Wou peuter,
blootle, ‘n laagwater van monsters.
Ek voel die veeg van die lig van die toring
wat lekkende skulpe en die krap wat salueer,
wat in- en uitspoeling en oervereniging,
wat my en die huise en die versamelde waters
in een kort stelling betrek: dit hier,
kaap van naalde, is die aanvang van ‘n afrika
wat nog so vriendelik niks prysgee.
(By Wilma Stockenstrom, from ‘Van Vergetelheid En Van Glans’)
21 October, 2013 at 8:10 pm
TALK SHOW
Talk show
tell me what you want to know
Oh
Talk show
Bubblegum newspeak
New briefs news brief
Talk show
Television
breeds contempt,
Interviewers
innocent
Talk show
Are you real?
Is this my trial?
Presenter picture
perfect smile
Talk show
tell me what you want to know
12 July, 2014 at 7:52 pm
LIFE
We are trying to build something,
We are trying to build something:
The wind is the bearer,
that sets seeds,
in indifferent stone
Death is the seed
from which I grow
I want to reach you
know your potential,
Oh, I want to reach you
to know your potential
No skyscraper love,
just love residential
12 July, 2014 at 7:57 pm
HIPSTER
Hipster, perfect weather,
I do not have to grieve –
a perfect day in Dublin,
I wouldn’t want to leave
Heirloom, Victorian table,
I wouldn’t want to leave –
Don’t you get the picture?
I never want to leave
Hey Abby, Lucy, Molly,
cousins, bid me well,
I’m leaving on a cheap fare
please pray my flight goes well
I am governor to fancy
and servant of the Blue,
A cloudless day over Butterfield way
brings me back to you!
Hey, Miss Molly!
Hey, dear twins!
Every story has to end
just as it begins
Every storey of your house
sends chills now down my spine,
Here we walked together
down the avenues of time
Look, it’s a perfect day,
I’m waiting for my bus –
No particular direction,
but I know you’re one of us
12 July, 2014 at 8:00 pm
EVERLASTING
Johanna:
train from Porto:
composed, studious,
friendly, fine
curiously lost
in time
30 January, 2015 at 8:31 am
BORROWED AND BLUE
Not only is that love is that instrument going into your vertebrae.
Are you afraid now? Or don’t you like caring?
Like you just a little bumped-up fine, you see.
Two butterflies in the night. Or were they moths?
Bouncing off the light. What keeps us going?
The lines we want but never get. The things we want but never get.
Is this why I fired you? Is this why I find you so endearing?
So enduring? Honeybelle. Miss cutez. Carissima.
Your allure? Your mystery? Deposit in your treasury. Vault for safekeeping.
Old blue title-deeds. Charm? I don’t know. Like a heady,
long-forsaken drug. Grabs me. Compelling as a fine perfume.
Swim before my tardy eyes, like a mirage
in the desert that slakes not my thirst.
Pull I can’t resist. There we go. Lost in the vaults of time.
You’re the only one. You’re one in a million. Good omen.
You’re not the only one. You’re commonplace. Tardy.
We’re all in the same boat, you see.
Hospital, with different wards and diseases too.
The whole world’s a graveyard. All of us must die.
All waiting for our ship to come in. Poor monkeys.
We’ve invested too little. You say I am lucky, but
the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill.
23 February, 2015 at 5:39 am
I LOOKED IN THE MIRROR
We are different, you and I,
like the earth and the sky,
I see the heart behind the face
of a past I can’t replace
I am not sure of the benefit
of turning life into art;
I am not sure if I’ll ever fit
this carefully self-scripted part
I have your back
and you have mine,
in the dreary vaults
of time
Blood course curse
like a coarse black flood
clots and conceals
the pure heart of love
(Searched for rubies
on the Ganges shore;
the sullen Thames
flows past your door)
24 February, 2015 at 11:42 am
BLOOMS OF SPRING (PERSEPHONE’S RETURN)
We say we always like the spring,
her special ways fix everything;
like you better than before,
when life was just an open door
White, blue and yellow flowers,
before the darling buds of May;
no regrets, now, in the hours
that our young selves whiled away
Windswept by the library door,
holds you there forevermore;
In Lisbon the sweetest blooms of spring
are sanctifying everything
15 April, 2015 at 4:24 pm
SILVER STAR
A star fell from my roof,
I waited for some proof:
I waited for a sign.
It tumbled from my sky,
a disc wanting to die:
a bolt out of the blue.
Yes, I made a wish.
I invested hope.
I put my trust in you.
I do not know
what brought me here:
I do not care! I do not care!
‘Oh, tell me
that you care!’
‘Please tell me that
you care!’
‘You have to care!’
‘You have to care!’
Oh, but of course I do!
16 April, 2015 at 3:08 pm
YOU WALK
Quirky, incongruous, feminine, fine,
curious, conscious, capricious, kind
Words fail me,
I cannot describe,
your myriad qualities,
kept here inside
Words find me,
a dictionary
of love:
silvery stars
blue canopies above
(We could do a rain-dance
and tear the skies down!)
2 May, 2015 at 3:21 am
HEART TO HEART
‘Am I here for you?’
‘Are you there for me?’
Our texts are art,
Statuary
Keeps us apart,
Keeps us intact,
I play my part,
You’re fine with that
Crazy desire,
Need so plain:
Never want
to lose you again
‘Am I here for you?’
That’s what I said,
Here in our old world,
Of youthful regret
‘Are you there for me?’
Sure you can see,
You live and move,
You live and breathe
And hearts
to hearts
must go
Hearts beat hard
and hearts beat
slow
She’s coming out of the statuary!
She’s coming out of the statuary!
(Nervous. She thought I’d judge)
(Your never-ending smile
breaks the heart of dawn)
3 May, 2015 at 3:07 pm
GIVE
You give me words
and you give me hope,
You give me string
and you give me rope
You give me beauty
and you give me truth,
you give me smoke-screens,
and you give me proof
You give me love
and you give me pain
You are the sacred
you are the profane
(I might have forgotten you,
but I never got over you)
3 May, 2015 at 3:18 pm
COMPANIONSHIP
A bad poet
in a good bank
Is life worth living
for someone else?
Religious fervour creates
“us-versus-them” institutions, situations.
A strange, savage love.
Tristan and Isolde.
Wisdom, monetized.
Laughing in a cruel, waking dream.
(I am with you.
In life, love and death)
25 May, 2015 at 5:12 am
THE ANSWER QUESTIONED
Small-minded,
but well-meaning
Sincere,
but sincerely wrong
We wait for
our bank-crash,
we wait for our song
The customer
is always wrong
until they are right
The question answered
and the answer questioned
None of this you ever mentioned
30 May, 2015 at 6:11 am
THE SCALES OF LOVE
On the scales of love
one is light,
one is heavy:
one will burn
On the scales of love
one is kind,
one is cruel:
none will learn
You set the scales.
We legitimise love.
You re-set the scales.
We annihilate love.
On the scales of love
there is no justice.
Only kind eyes
that say:
‘Trust us’
29 June, 2015 at 2:39 am
HER LOVE
(4:15am, 29 June 2015)
I judged.
And I broke down
the statuary.
Every one.
To find life.
To find the essence
of what I lost
long ago.
Was this her fear?
Her unnameable doubt?
She lit the torch
of our love.
And that fire
burned the sky.
Burned great cities.
It burned the
shiny, green
field.
It burned and it burned.
It could not burn
the apple tree.
The seed of which
was planted
long ago.
It could not burn
the roots
of
incontrovertible
love.
When poets love
they give new words,
new aspects to the known.
The familiar.
You like Sappho,
who brings
subtlety
to life.
I found the lost pearl
of my youth moving
through the statuary.
Heart beating in the cold, hard stone.
(‘Our love is like the flowers,
the rain, the trees and the hours’)
8 July, 2015 at 3:39 am
QUALITIES (COUNT THE WAYS)
‘Let me count they ways’, she says,
walking to work
Charming becomes psychotic; concerned, controlling;
suave, gauche; patrician, bourgeois;
spiritual, fanatic; creative, contrived;
unassuming, passive-aggressive;
soulful, slurpy; graceful, poser;
open-minded, self-serving opinions;
smitten, creepy; sensitive, bipolar.
Oh, let me count the ways
(in the city lanes)
Handsome, narcissistic; arty, “biggy best”;
pre-empting, stalkerish; romantic, cliched;
refined, effeminate; noble, superficial;
principled, judgemental; strong, self-absorbed;
fragrant, drenched from head-to-toe
(in eau-de-toilette); shy, awkward;
liberal, loose; avant-garde, dysfunctional.
Anyway, I love you to the length
and breadth of my soul.
She shrugs.
I guess.
5 August, 2015 at 3:21 am
HER QUALITIES (CONVERSION)
Beautiful becomes quirky;
avant-garde, office-worker;
communist, private benefit-scheme;
vegetarian, pescatarian; emotional, psycho;
loving, insincere; sweet, sugar-coated;
generous, calculated; elusive, never there.
Engaging conversationalist, personal historian;
thrilling, over-excitable; sexy, angular;
thoughtful, jaded; humane, “champagne socialist”;
simple, dysfunctional; well-read, dabbler;
soul-mate, holiday fling.
Let me count the ways (No! It hurts too much)
8 July, 2015 at 5:29 am
PERMISSION
Do you still hear the bird-song?
Dot-dash of the never-ending dawn?
Do you wear my fragrance (Guerlain. ‘Habit Rouge’)
(With or without my “permission”)?
Do you still visit places where we met?
Count the ways on your path?
Think of me when you rise?
Do you? Do you?
(When I let go, you pre-empt me.
When I hold fast, you fly)
Do you still long for our union?
Or do you go for modern ways?
Would you wear my bangles forever?
You can say! You can say!
(Should I light a candle or just go to sleep?)
20 July, 2015 at 7:00 am
ROSES
My roses just aren’t bearing up,
I feel like such a mucky pup,
I feel like I’m not good enough
for you
My head is in a quandary,
countless days I am squandering,
my wonder-child you’re wandering:
that’s you
You’re back in London, on a plane,
visiting-hours over again:
what’s mine is yours, including pain,
it’s true
My roses are sick and red and black,
they just don’t seem to cut me slack:
I’m fighting fit, I’m fighting back,
for you
(Did you know pink peonies symbolise happy marriage?
We walk through the statuary. Alive. Love is real)
30 July, 2015 at 1:32 pm
SOONEST (30 July 2015)
Felt your sadness Tuesday and yesterday.
Do you feel my strength?
Love manifests in peculiar ways.
The body, ravaged by nature,
houses the rose of who we are, within.
Happiness is relief from suffering.
We are pleasure-seeking, but our
pleasure cannot be found from the body.
Everything in this material world is temporary.
Why can’t we see our true selves?
Suffering is revealing.
Search within your self.
Search for love of God within.
And self-realisation begins.
Happiness begins.
Love of God is the elusive rose.
Love of Krishna gives value to life.
That love is not only familial;
it is universal.
Love of Krishna makes this temporary
and disappointing world bearable.
Even worthwhile.
The essence of love is rarely found.
The essence of who we are is rarely found,
though we sometimes get a glimpse.
The Yaksha riddled King Yudhisthira:
‘What is the most wonderful thing in this world?‘
The King replied: ‘The “most wonderful thing”
is that all around us people are dying,
yet we think we are going to live forever‘.
The whole world is a graveyard.
Every one of us must die.
We are all going to be hit by the bus.
It is just around the corner.
One stop. Two stops. Ten stops.
What difference does it make?
Other than that life is precious.
Life is our opportunity.
The lives of others, including
plants and animals, are precious.
Tread lightly in this world.
I will see you soon.
5 August, 2015 at 3:27 am
PHANTOM LIMBS (June 2015)
Your phantom limbs,
I could name them.
Hang them on a wall.
Place them in a cabinet
for the bitches to contemplate.
Do I have to name them?
Press the button to ‘repeat’?
Your bloody hands, incarnadine,
with a stranger
I will never meet.
Should have sent you hemlock,
in a witches’ treasure-trove.
Peonies came by mistake.
The measure of dishonest love.
Love’s labourer lost.
(I’m through)
13 April, 2016 at 9:03 am
ANGUISHED (St. James’s Park, September 2015)
Where are you?
All the frustrations of worldly love.
Heavy atmosphere.
Undervalued.
Overvalued.
Anguished.
Dissed.
Missed.
Liar! Liar! Lies!
Where am I?
In London
India?
(Sacred rivers. Holy cows. Saints)
Feel unholy.
Heartbroken.
London kills me.
London pulls me in.
London, London.
Broken. Broke. Brokenhearted.
Sylvia Plath’s ‘Ariel’.
My very own ‘Afterthoughts’ (for you).
Searched for you
though I called her name
You called the expressions of
my heart “fiction”
How I hate your falseness!
6 August, 2015 at 5:32 pm
COMMUNION
Far away.
Removed.
Come close.
Come here.
Be loved.
Far away.
Our lot.
Here I am.
There you are.
Want you closer.
Negotiable.
Practical.
Hot-headed.
Ice-cold.
All the frustrations
of wordly love.
Come here.
Go away.
Non-negotiable.
You were so strong before!
You hurt me yesterday.
(Substitute-bench.
New washing-machine.
I come with no manual.)
(Confinement. Insanity.)
24 February, 2016 at 12:39 pm
DOES IT BLEED? (16 January 2016)
Walked through the streets
of London with
my sweet love
today
Held hands and kissed
and wished
it would
always
be this way
24 February, 2016 at 12:40 pm
HAPPILY YOURS (Her reply)
Yellow is my colour, see
your breath too it seems
welsh daffodils.
Prabhu, Mukunda, bru
to Russian girls
Michael to me and you.
Yours true x
24 February, 2016 at 12:44 pm
LEXICON OF LOVE
(London, 2015)
A language of nouns
with few words for love.
Technical manuals,
prescribed in IT.
Industrialised cities
held together by apps.
Paradise, a place for holidays.
Love, an accessory.
Where do we go
when the bills
have been paid?
Where do we go
when the shopping
is done?
(Chatter. Brown-brick schoolyard. Compressed. Barbwire)
24 February, 2016 at 12:45 pm
You gather me up
with your words
with your arms
(Reply, 21 January 2016)
24 February, 2016 at 12:48 pm
SWEET NOTHINGS
Sweet nothings
are sweet.
Dissolve,
like candy floss
in your mouth,
between your teeth.
Saccharine zeros.
Sweet nothings.
White lies,
black truths.
Cliff-edge sweet nothings.
Autumn leaves
disappear,
down foggy
graveyard streets.
Lived for your sweet nothings.
Hoped for your sweet nothings.
(Black truths. White lies)
Pray sweet nothings come true.
(Not bitter somethings! No bitter somethings, please!)
24 February, 2016 at 12:52 pm
WILDFLOWER
My dear Wildflower
of Rooikop.
Scratched out lines
of a poem in a dream.
Page in my notebook.
In pencil. With scratchings.
My heart is yours, Wildflower!
O, my love! It is yours!
I am yours.
Why do you do this to me?
Change the terms all the time.
(Inconsistency)
I am a sincere lover.
(‘Yes, I know you are’)
(‘You understand me’. So you say)
29 February, 2016 at 6:29 am
You save face
to lose face
(Can’t you see how foolish this is)
There’s no excuses.
Only regret.
What are you going to do about this now?
5 April, 2016 at 10:04 am
YOUR HEART DEMANDS INTEREST LIKE THE BANK
I made your heart my home
You made my eyes
I saw
You offered me a gilded cage
Thought I valued tiles and plaster
How peculiar
You could not be without me or with me now
Anguished
Where did you go?
16 May, 2016 at 2:51 pm
She writes:
14 May [Sketched vase full of daffodils]
Spring flowers
in May;
A poem opened
amongst charity rails
Round loaf in Mem’s
Avocado, Beck’s
Becoming a local
York Hall, coffee shops,
Leila’s, As Nature…
No longer a stranger.
Becoming closer.
15 June, 2016 at 2:51 am
QUESTIONS
Who will write the last page?
Who will have the last say,
when the blossoms
blow away?
Who will trace the pattern to its end?
Resolve the heartbreak,
even mend?
Who will write the story
when all the flowers and leaves
have blown away?
8 September, 2022 at 7:55 am
SYMPATHY AND LOVE
Cruel, crushing circumstance.
Cruel, crushing circumstance.
Sympathy and love.
Sympathy and love.
You are dead:
Dead and damned;
Take a life with your wrong hands.
You played God; but now she’s gone!
Sympathy and love.
And cruel, cold crushing circumstance.
Broken. Unbroken.
You wanted me with you.
Nearby; not there.
In Zurich.
Forsooth, I am here!
(In life, love and death).
Well, let them take your clothes and room!
Let your mirror strip them down!
Let them ponder your wardrobe!
A rape too subtle to call love!
Oh, my God!
In the bright sunrays of Lucibel!
My dear Lord Krishna!
I reach and reach!
But catch only dust!
Dry ice burning bright!
Her presence summoned;
Enters, unbidden.
Divine Love of God and Srila Prabhupada.
O, how can I let you go when I have not held you now?
O, how can I let you go when we are locked in Krishna’s Eternal Time?
“Vanessa! Vanessa!”
“Michael?”
“Yes?”
“You are my love.”
“You always have my duty and love. I have nothing else to say…”
“I love you.”
Sympathy and love.
Sympathy and love.
And cold, cruel crushing circumstance.
(Crushed).
26 May, 2023 at 4:36 pm
AKSHAYA-TRITIYA IN SRI VRINDAVAN DHAMA, 23 APRIL 2023 (May 2023)
1. Deepak picked me up at Delhi airport and took me straight to Sri Vrindavana Dhama.
The gate was barricaded; we hassled, and waited; I eventually walked the three kilometres to my guesthouse.
There I met the moustachioed guesthouse manager, set down my bags and showered.
I took darshan of His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada at His Samadhi, bowed down to Him in the Temple and offered my obeisances to Gaura-Nitai, Krishna-Balarama and Sri Sri Radha-Shyamasundara.
I lingered at Prabhupada’s rooms.
A flower-walla sold me a small bag of flowers and tulasi leaves outside the Temple.
Night fell.
I wandered down the parikrama-marga, behind Prabhupada’s Samadhi, and proceeded for the Yamuna.
My heart lifted on seeing Madana-Mohan in the semi-darkness.
Thereafter, I sought a way down to the Yamuna River. Pilgrims were lighting lamps and floating them on her dark waters. I bought a divya with a ghee wick, roses and marigolds.
I bowed down to Sri Yamuna Devi and sprinkled water on my head.
I lit the lamp with borrowed matches, and placed it on the leaf plate of flowers from Krishna-Balarama and laid Vanessa’s picture on it.
And floated it downstream.
There was a star very close to the moon.
An unusual conjuction.
There I stayed next to a small fire, by the boats,
on the Yamuna shore.
I watched my lamp floating on the inky tide
until it floated out of sight; and prayed for Vanessa’s well-being.
2. I decided, on reaching the road, to perform parikrama (circumambulation) of Sri Vrindavan Town.
Kaliya-ghata, Imli-tal, Keshi-ghata, Temples, tirthas. Bustling with pilgrims, tourists, devotees, cows, police, monkeys.
But quieter along the path.
Somewhere along the path I bought an honorary bunch of bananas, hastily handed out to opportunistic cows and monkeys!
Dhama-seva.
Vanessa would have loved that.
My feet hurt: I haven’t worn chapalas since my Temple days.
I wanted to give in, turn back;
but I stuck it out, performed this tapasya,
this penance, this “austerity.”
Deepak picked me up at Delhi Airport,
and I went straight to Vrindavan Town.
I then went down to the Yamuna.
By Krishna’s Grace it was Akshaya-Tritiya.
Perfect timing.
I lit a lamp for Vanessa, and floated it down the Yamuna on a leaf-plate with her picture on it.
26 May, 2023 at 4:54 pm
YOU’RE THE ADULT (May 2023)
You’re “the adult”
now she’s gone.
Now she’s shrunk into a photograph.
Impressions of what she once was.
Feelings.
Conjuring up her presence,
which dissolves like fog.
Isolated.
Adrift.
You walk into an empty room.
Walk into an empty life.
Full of stuff.
Her stuff.
Maybe I’ll keep this.
Or keep that.
Some little thing,
of no particular value.
Better I just let you go
than be chained by sympathy,
memory.
Alone.
Adrift.
Removed.
You taught me discipline:
a woman’s attention to detail.
Lives on in my daily devotions.
Your devotion!
Yet slowly I let you go.
The triggers came from January
to April:
pressure pulsing in my ears.
Few comforters;
few sympathisers.
Fighting back the tears.
Feelings of abandonment, unfairness:
cut short; cut deep.
You always said you liked to be “fair.”
In all fairness, how is saying goodbye with a dagger being “fair”?
Fair play to you, kiddo!
You did say that you did not love lightly.
And Nietzsche says women can be barbarous in love.
I am forced to agree.
Now I am “the adult.”
All my anchors are gone.
Father, friend, and you, my love.
I walk into an empty room.
An empty life.
And walk out again.
You threw that familiar look, “What will you do when I am gone?”
(I thought it would be much later on)
“If you predecease me,” I said cautiously, “I’ll peace out in India for a while.”
Vrindavana, Karauli, Jaipur.
Our steps retraced
at each holy place.
Char Dhama Yatra:
Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath.
Curative.
Cooling.
Sacred rivers flowing down from the ice.
Holy tirthas of Lord Krishna, lord Shiva,
Hanuman and the Pandavas.
In London the triggers still come.
But they are like serpents without fangs.
I have swallowed the medicine.
The Holy Names.
The Holy dhamas.
India.
Not a stranger to my own life.
Just an open door.
I am “the adult.”
But I am always Krishna’s child.
27 May, 2023 at 3:47 am
LIFE
You were here just a moment ago,
Just a blink.
And now you are gone.
We were singing together,
Laughing, crying,
Close as can be.
Oh, but now I am alone!
I tried to protect you,
but I am a fool!
Who and what can I protect?
Loving the Protector:
Ah! There lies my defect!
Monkeys. Pilgrims. Colourful dress.
Peaced-out Brijbasis. Women crowding,
some lightly, colourfully, veiled.
Saris. Silks.
Madana-Mohana looming over.
Street food. Murtis. The dark
waters of Sri Yamuna.
Devotees. Srila Prabhupada. Sri Sri Radha-Shyamasundara.
Monkeys. Bananas. Cows. Dhama-seva!
And LIFE!!
27 May, 2023 at 3:53 am
TO SERVE SRI SRI RADHA AND KRISHNA
Out of the hard ground of tragedy,
comes life,
Out of the dark night of blindness,
comes sight
I saw you,
I see you,
in my heart of hearts,
I felt the presence of Your Lordships today,
because I am a separated part of You,
part-and-parcel, my dear Lord.
Out of the crushed hopes of ignorance,
comes knowledge,
Out of the rough seas of discontent,
peace
I am a spirit-soul: not this sarire, na sarire.
I am not this body.
Oh, but I am Yours and I am here to serve You!
29 May, 2023 at 5:57 pm
KALEIDOSCOPIC INDIA
I close my eyes.
Kaleidoscopic India
unfolds in black-and-white,
in technicolour
But these are dreams, are magic.
Mayic.
But they have substance too:
samskaras, impressions,
a holy place tattoo:
seen, sensed:
real sentiments.
I don’t know.
But what I do know is this:
I close my eyes and I am on a bus,
rounding a Himalayan hill, climbing a staircase,
or approaching a Temple, approaching
Sri Yamunaji, Gangamayi, Tungnath, Badrinarayana.
Magical or real,
it all feels the same:
kaleidoscopic India.
Like sandpaper rubbing over old paint,
fading images are slowly stripped away.
Not clear by any means,
but closer to the reality
His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada taught us of Krishna.
29 May, 2023 at 6:06 pm
SPONTANEOUS DEVOTION
I went to Sri Sri Radha-Madana Mohana at Karauli:
I had no other place to go.
My heart was black as night; but white enough for yours.
Your smile dawned in my mind.
I had to let you go.
The village ladies were singing, nay, calling!
Calling out to Their Lordships.
Calling out to Sri Sri Radha-Madana Mohana.
Yes, the village women were
singing, clapping, smiling, beckoning.
Aye, beckoning to Him! To our Lord!
“Here we are!”
“Oh, here we are, dear Lord!”
“Come here! Oh, come here, my Lord!”
Yea, here at the Temple of Radha-Madana Mohana!
I thought of you yesterday,
and the day before that,
and the day before that too;
I thought of my girl,
my duty is true
And I waited, like these village ladies,
for Lord Krishna at His Temple in Karauli.
1 June, 2023 at 6:32 pm
TO SRI YAMUNADEVI (5 May 2023)
Perfection doesn’t require flawlessness.
We were flawed,
and I was floored
by you
Dark waters of,
dark turquoise green,
eddy and flow,
from that mighty ice floe!
I offered my homage
to Sri Yamunadevi
at Her shrine,
standing on a turtle
Dark waters of,
circling, swirling
river amongst the rocks,
Himalayan foothills
Clear, bracing air;
clear, racing thoughts,
to Her rippling streams
to Her holy feet
11 July, 2023 at 11:07 am
A ROSE BY A GRAVE
I want to be the rose by the grave.
Not the words carved in stone.
Not the tears in the eyes
of duty now done.
I want to be
the tendril
’round
your tree
no chiselled
words
so melancholy
nor the tears
in love’s lake
of aquamarine
The grave is grey and
hard and dark.
Love’s roses, white and
red, soften the heart
You never turned to wave goodbye!
And neither did I!
11 July, 2023 at 11:22 am
WHITE ROSES RED ROSES
The Rose on the Grave
is a nice thought,
a bright thought,
a light thought,
for you
Red Rose on the Grave
of White Roses I gave
to her
White Rose on the Red
of the hearts that once bled,
bleeds for you
True
My Red Roses,
White Roses;
White Roses,
Red Roses:
In life, love and death
are for you.
27 November, 2023 at 8:53 pm
THE END OF LOVE’S DREAM
And we loved
and held hands,
walked in silence,
walked on air
Walking
through the park
in love
it was the atmosphere.
Tell me, girl,
what was it like?
What was it like
loving Mike?
I loved you
and I love you still –
even after you
fell ill
And we loved and
we screamed
at the
end of love’s dream.
May I love someone else?
It was you who said
so
For loving at times
means letting go…
24 December, 2023 at 3:44 pm
NEED (A Conversation Between Two Seekers)
Though I want you near,
I am not needy;
and though I feel the push,
I am not greedy.
And, yeah, that was one of the
finer moments
in a lifetime of yin and yang;
and, yeah, it was brief,
but beautiful
at the same time.
You are a very talented young
woman,
and to see you here,
to hear your voice,
your ancient words,
your youthful face,
untraced,
unphased.
Through the house,
the garden-maze;
the maze they hide
in plain sight.
And, yeah, I gave you
a candy-stick decoration.
But I was not stealing
from a baby.