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Sunday, January 09, 2022

Dark Room

 Dark Room January 9th Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم challenge prompt poem by Dr Koshy AV

In the dark room of the
mind - the throne of thoughts
or heart -the seat of feelings and emotions
dwell dark, unspeakable things
In the dark room of the soul
or spirit
these dark ideas and moving images
or words, thoughts and emotions
of evil lusts, desires and their roots
lurk
tempting by taking on fair disguises
to make you fall into
the abyss
that has no floor
Only innocent doves
shrewd snakes
can bypass these doors of temptation
that when you cross them
contain bystanders
who call out to you their wares
and even try to guess your inner name
to make out they have supernatural powers
These are the dark-room dwellers, outside
When you are in the dark-room
or meet the ones who try to lure you in
you come to the awareness
that some have emerged
into the light
from Plato's cave
Either they never acquiesced
to the dark room's enticements
from when they were children
like Samuel or Mary
or when grown-up
realized
the dark-room has/is a trapdoor that opens under your feet suddenly
to the abyss
and it lost its fascination for them
who were till then playing with it
as if it is a toy
when it is a suicidal, slow slope
and so they left
taking along with them
any ready to come
to swell the ranks of the ones
who no longer want to be deluded and plagued
by the dark room's meaningless allurements
and charm.

Friday, January 07, 2022

 on the other side of...

January 8 Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم challenge prompt poem by Dr. Koshy AV
on the other side of midnight...
there is the first streak of the light of a new dawn
and on the other side of doubt
there is rest from feeling torn
broken and always forlorn
on the other side of the grave
is a world without hurt or harm

Fall January seventh Koshur Qalam poetry challenge prompt poem by Dr. Koshy AV
I fall to pieces
I fall into your arms
In the fall
I rise to fall
I fall to rise

Part of my never-ending novel
Come with me, said Jesus, and I will show you...
I met Jesus at the crossroads.
Jesus, I said, I want to follow you. I want to be like you.
He laughed. He had a full laugh. The man of sorrows had a laugh that was different from that title that someone had given him. One more hat to wear and throw away, no one could box anyone in into being only this, that or the other.
Come, sit down here with me, he said.
Then he did a surprising thing.
He took a small needle from the pocket of his robe, the smallest I had seen, and a thread and told me: thread this needle and you can follow me.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle sometimes than a thread. I tried and tried but could not get it to go through the needle's eye. The thread seemed to grow thicker and thicker and the slit in the needle smaller and smaller.
Then he took the needle from me and put his eye to its eye and
laughed. His eye could be seen through it.
Then he threaded it.
Then he stepped through it and vanished.
After a couple of seconds he came back out of the needle.
Do you really want to follow me, he asked.
Yes, I said.
Even after this?
Yes, I said. I want to be like you at all costs.
It's not easy but it is simple, he said. It is a matter of practice.
Learn to do these three things. And you will automatically become like me. Thread the needle. Look through its eye and see what I see. Then go through it and come back.
I shall try, I said.
After trying a lot more times, I managed to thread the needle finally.
From easy to difficult first, he said.
He was smiling.
What did you learn?
To not give up, to never give in, to keep trying, to not get upset or angry at not getting it right the first time, or many, many times, and patience, I said.
Yes, he said and persistence, endurance, long-suffering, and perseverance and... He laughed.
And what?
I don't know, I said.
Humility, he said. You can't even thread a needle, then how do you expect to become like me?
Then I laughed too.
Aye, aye, sir, I said.
Now to the next two things.
Yes, he said. Before you go through a door you need to see what lies behind it. On the other side. Beyond.
I looked through the eye of the needle. The slit was so small but the world beyond was so huge it seemed to stretch away to infinity.
Wow, I said.
He smiled.
If you look, you will see. Alter your perception. And you will get clearer vision. You will see the unseen that others don't see.
I began to understand.
And the last thing?
That will take you some time. But come with me and see. First. Then you will pick it up. God is the God of the impossible.
How long did it take you?
Many years, he replied.
We both smiled at each other and set off. I left everything behind in a flash. No regrets. This was what I had been looking for.
(To be continued)

Today's meditation: It says "Jesus was faithful as a Son over his household" in the book of Hebrews.
Today morning Reuel came and knocked on the door. He cannot have his tea made for him or make tea for himself. I rubbed the sleep kinks out of my eyes and went down and said "ok Reuel make your chai." He was so happy being impatient as it being a Saturday we were all tardy to get up. He has no such tardiness being young and full of joie de vivre and not knowing what day it is probably. So we made chai together with the usual ups and downs. Then he made his egg by himself. I went upstairs and when I came down he was making his next dish the way he likes it and has been taught to. However it got a bit burnt and to my surprise he threw it all out as he did not find it to his satisfaction. Then I made him the same kind of thing. While I was watching him the verse about Jesus came to my mind. Reuel does what he has learned from Anu, Danie and Jo and Abi, and others, quite well even if by himself when no one is watching and is true to the spirit of what he was taught. He does not forget and does not regress and tries to be perfect at it, does the best he can, though he does not always succeed. He does this when supervised but even otherwise.
Jesus was faithful to God in the same way as Reuel is to his mentors, in God's presence he was faithful in heaven before he came down and in God's seeming absence on earth as an invisible being, and it is this hidden life of his, in his thoughts and unrecorded actions and deeds and works and reactions that pleased God to make him who had been made a little lower than angels for a time on earth the only human being to have the power to resurrect himself from the dead even after three nights and crowned with glory. Hindu yogis know a dead person can be resurrected after a few hours, if only a few have gone by as Jesus did, but none know anywhere in the world how to bring themselves back to life, especially after such a long period and proving it by doing it. Jesus is the only one who did it. We know that that was God's reward to him for his faithfulness to make it clear to all men that he was His Son who had been faithful over all his household in heaven, over God's celestial beings we call angels and over all who came into touch with him on earth, and even when he went into paradise after his death and Sheol or hell to preach the gospel to those there who had not heard it in Noah's time and to get the key to hell and to eat of the fruit of the tree of Paradise, mystical truths only those who understand things of the Spirit will understand even as I say them. A whole lifetime of being faithful to God in the hidden life gave him all authority and power from God over all in heaven and on earth. Down the ages, he has shared this glory with a few in each time and place and country and from each creed and language and ideology or philosophy or worldview who like him are faithful even to the death in obeying God accepting their sonship or daughterhood as of the family of God. To want to be in that number is not pride but good sense. The difference between him and others is that he wanted to be like "God who is light in whom there is not darkness at all" whom he knew as His Father but not through any shortcut or robbery as others want but by making himself of no reputation, when found in fashion or appearance as a human being, and humbling himself even to the point of death, death on a cross as someone cursed by mankind and as a common criminal of his time. Thus, it became a symbol of salvation, of the crossing out of the ego, not before man but God, a total refusal to do one's own will and only God's will instead, and bear God's yoga which makes one meek and lowly and learn of God bringing rest. This rest will also lead to resurrection not just spiritual in that your name will live on forever (even though you did not want it) but physical, not after three days but in the first or second resurrection and it was this hope that made St. Paul, for example, strive on relentlessly to see if he too could somehow lay hold of it, a kind of insanity to all, but not to ones who understand the inner life it calls one to as it leads to blessings for millions of others on earth as they suffer by lessening the suffering of others.
I have come a far distance from where I started which is about Reuel but to sum up my desire is very simple, to learn from Jesus and Reuel to be good in my inner life, thought life, and hidden life when no one is looking and not even or only when others are and one is forced to conform to society and so is not a bad person. Reuel does it naturally but I need to learn it. To not seek the honour of men but the honour that comes from God only.



Thursday, January 06, 2022

Poem: I never want to die.

 I never want to die (January sixth, Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم challenge prompt poem by Dr. Koshy AV)

"I never want to die"
is the last tempter
but after one crosses
him/it too
the fourth one
portrayed by Eliot well
and overcomes him
Satan or Mara
or the one Nanak wrestled with
portals open
Rose petals strewn on the path
raining down from heaven
the sole of the foot in touch
with mother earth
mindful in the here and now
where you are with the wild animals
and angels come and minister to you,
playing the music of celestial, cosmic tunefulness
Thanks to Thich Nhat Hanh for the influence.

Wednesday, January 05, 2022

Twigs and Do not be ashamed of your ugliness. (2 poems)

 A companion poem to "Do not be ashamed of your beauty."

Do not be ashamed of your ugliness*.
It is the only thing of yours
people won't fight you for
to take away from you.
It is not like the ugliness of youth
that passes away like spring
when acne and freckles no longer sting.
"Age cannot wither nor beauty stale"
your ugliness.
Guard it as what it is:
treasure
from the dragon's hoard
that is the most precious piece
for behind it may be hid
as in the case of Pope
a startling poem like 'The Rape of the Lock'
or as in the case of the Hunchback
of Nortre Dame
the only heart made of pure gold.
* Thanks to RAVINDRA ARORA for the inspiration.

Twigs January 5 Koshur Qalam challenge Prompt poem by Dr. Koshy AV
She gathered the twigs
for firewood
She wended her way
to her hut
In the big-afar-city
in air-conditioned rooms
they decided,
they fenced her out
She no longer could
collect twigs for her hearth
For them, she didn't exist
For her, she did.





Tuesday, January 04, 2022

Ditty and Two Other Poems

 Do not be ashamed of your beauty.

It won't last long.

It is the beauty of youth that fades away

like a song,

that withers when left

love-lorn,

that like a flower is born

only from the stem

to be torn.


Stitch

Koshur Qalam challenge prompt 4 poem by Dr. Koshy AV
When there was no stitch
left to cover my victimhood
between those who had pawned me
and those who thought me the spoils of their gambling
you stood as a blue cloud
surrounding me
saving me
"Extend the border of your mantle
over me"
be I Draupadi or Ruth amidst the alien corn
listening to the nightingale
be you Krishna or Boaz
in the ancestry of the line of the chosen one
Jesus
"Cover me"

Pebbles Jan 3 Koshur Qalam Challenge Prompt by Dr Koshy AV
My life is a
Handful
Of
Pebbles
That lead me
To their source
My home
The rock
From which they were hewn
The water in which
They were smoothened
Fashioned
Cool to the touch
Fair to the eyes
An imaginary sweet
In the mouth
Memories
Pebbles
Light of God
Refracted bands
My many
Pebbles


Monday, January 03, 2022

Stitch ("Kinsman Redeemer")

 Stitch

Koshur Qalam challenge prompt 4 poem by Dr. Koshy AV
When there was no stitch
left to cover my victimhood
between those who had pawned me
and those who thought me the spoils of their gambling
you stood as a blue cloud
surrounding me
saving me
"Extend the border of your mantle
over me"
be I Draupadi or Ruth amidst the alien corn
listening to the nightingale
be you Krishna or Boaz
in the ancestry of the line of the chosen one
Jesus
"Cover me"

Pebbles

Pebbles Jan 3 Koshur Qalam Challenge Prompt by Dr Koshy AV
My life is a
Handful
Of
Pebbles
That lead me
To their source
My home
The rock
From which they were hewn
The water in which
They were smoothened
Fashioned
Cool to the touch
Fair to the eyes
An imaginary sweet
In the mouth
Memories
Pebbles
Light of God
Refracted bands
My many
Pebbles

Sunday, January 02, 2022

The Sonnet for Beginners: The Last Chapter.

 I would like to end by saying that many sonnet forms are probably out there in the ether now that I do not know of or am not interested in covering, as I have covered the main ones. However, I want to end with the last two that to me seem worth looking at briefly, to wind up this little canter or going over the ground of the world of sonnets, or little songs as the root word meant which is from Italian as I have probably stated earlier, somewhere, already; the word 'Sonneto.'

First, I would like to talk of the anti-sonnet which is not a new form. Shakespeare wrote a really interesting one. It basically meant to rebel against the Petrarchan one which was limited in its meter and rhyme scheme and theme.  By moving on to his own meter and rhyme scheme and changing its form and widening the themes of the sonnet form Shakespeare basically became the first of the anti sonneteers and all who have come later who matter are also not only sonneteers but also anti sonneteers in a sense. But let me quote his best anti-sonnet, according to me and many others.

"

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)

 - 1564-1616

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare. "


It's all there, the iambic pentameter, the closing or clinching couplet, the abab rhyme scheme for the first three quatrains and the cc for the last two lines, and best of all the complete break with the tradition of the Laura poems of Petrarch where the mistress is romanticized to an unearthly level, which irritated Shakespeare enough to make her earthy but no less lovable. Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Sonnet Mondal, I - all ring in their changes to the Petrarchan ideal and thus belong not only to the tradition of sonnets but also to the tradition of anti-sonnets.

I also want to talk of the minison. Introduced to me by my poetry partner in crime it consists simply of, in its purest form, fourteen letters of the alphabet but can be made impure by making it fourteen words or fourteen syllables. A form ideal for twitterature, but it also packs a punch. An example is "tell you a secret." More about it and examples can be read on this site: https://neutralspaces.co/minison/ .

We did a minison in The Significant League's 2021 NAPOWRIMO, as a prompt by Reena Prasad, that brought some 75 of us to write many wonderful minisons.

So let me write one to sign off: "sonnets do dance". 


The END.














2 Prompt Poems

 Disclaimer: (Prompt from Koshur Qalam - کآشُر قلم January 2, 2022) by Dr. Koshy AV

I do not love your forehead
I do not love your eyes
I do not love your cheek or chin
I do not love your hair and that stray lock that escapes from it often
I do not love your nose
I do not love the colour of your skin
I do not love the shape of your face
I do not love any part of you
I love you whole, or not at all,
right through thick and/or thin.

2. Based on a picture prompt by Gauri Dixit (picture given below)
The cup that cheers
The cup that inebriates
The cup that intoxicates
The cup that invigorates
The half empty cup
The half full cup
The overflowing cup
The cup of the bra
The cup that merry makes
The rum and coke and ice cubes filled cup
The dark as wine cup
The cup of blood
Denoting sacrifice
The cup in the hand
worth two in the bush
The cup in the pic
The cups in this poem
The many a slip
between the lip and the cup
The cup that matters
Or does not







Saturday, January 01, 2022

See-saw (Koshur Qalam challenge Jan 1, 2022.) by Koshy AV

 See-saw Koshur Kalam challenge Jan 1, 2022. by Koshy AV

The playground in the Museum
in Thiruvanathapuram
was my first see-I saw
Then a rocking horse in Bal Bhavan
saw me see-saw
I loved sitting on one end
of the big one
watching the other go up
and then running there quickly
getting on somehow
and watching the other side go up
Up and down, down and up
I did not know, playing alone
it was preparing me for life's vagaries
When it was a girl at the other end
I felt happy
We learn in miniscule
for greater tasks
in childhood
and yaw like a ship on the sea
drunken in the winds of time
and change
stagger to the tune of
what goes up must come down
and are comforted by the fact
that what comes down must also go up
like any see-saw that works
in any children's playground.
See-saw (Koshur Qalam challenge Jan 1, 2022.) by Koshy AV
(edited version)

In the playground in the Museum
in Thiruvananthapuram
was my first see-saw
Then a rocking horse in Bal Bhavan
saw me see-saw
I loved sitting at one end
of the big one
watching the other go up
then running there quickly
getting on somehow
and watching the other - the previous, the first side, go up
Up and down, down and up
I did not know, playing alone
it was preparing me for life's vagaries
When it was a girl at the other end
I felt happy
We learn in minuscule
in childhood
for greater tasks
yaw like a ship on the sea
drunken, in the winds of time
and change
stagger to the tune of
what goes up must come down
comforted by the fact
that what comes down must also go up
like any good old see-saw that works
in any old or new children's playground.


Saturday, August 07, 2021

Photophrastic - nimisha kavitha based on a click by Gauri Dixit

Lovers sat on those benches/ and husbands and wives who quarreled/ on separate ones/ some practiced social distancing/ by leaving the one in between empty/ tired people embraced them/and ones taking a break/then there were those who just wanted/to while away the time/ watching the petals falling/in warm weather or cold times/how many stories they could tell/perhaps this shows lockdown/benches, man-made, oft unused, petals and leaves, natural too, fallen/all subject to the chipping or yellowing wheel of time/ here caught in a moment of abeyance




My second collection of poetry or third one gets reviewed in Indian Literature







 

Friday, August 06, 2021

Repost: Parul Khakar's Shav Vahini Ganga translated by Dr Koshy AV (with a few changes)

Parul Khakkar's Shav Vahini Ganga (Corpse bearing/vehicle Ganga.)


Translated by Dr Koshy AV
Don't be sad but 'rejoice', say the corpses in one voice
O King, in your Ram Rajya!
We see the corpses floating in Ganga
Lord, the trees have all become ash
There is not even a speck of a place in the crematorium
There is no undertaker there or people to carry the corpses to the pyre
No one to sit near and cry
To those of us who lost everything, only the dance of death continues around us, O King
In your Ram Rajya, our corpses float around in the Ganga
Spitting smoke and spitting smoke, even the chimney is panting
The virus has caught us and is shaking us
Our bangles are breaking, and our insides are hurting, burning like fire
While the city is burning, the pandit is playing the veena
O King, in your Ram Rajya corpses floating through Ganga too I see
What pomp and power there was in your get up and style earlier
Now the city sees your real face
Say no excuse now but come out in the open and say loudly, loudly
That you are wearing nothing and have no ability and are lazy
And will not rest now at least but act, show us that!
Smoke rings rise and rise to touch the sky, the city is angry and seething
Don't you know that in your kingdom through Ganga the corpses are floating, at all?




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