HALF MOON (Dedicated to Robbin Williams)

Seeker of gold in dying dusks,

lover of happy endings,

trupet blower of positive thinking.

You whom I’ve tickled

till you cried.

My tears are different,

and only I know of their acid taste.

Demons dance in her shadow,

but to you I will bring only

the lit half of the moon,

so your tears become soft pearls

if only for a night.

Do you know of the churning of sorrow?

Each cell wrung like a wet towel,

becomes a serpent dripping venom.

The cup is full but I hold it in me.

You hear only the laughter,

clear and pure like church bells.

Come let’s celebrate!

Let’s go for a walk in the soft sunshine

holding hands, singing silly rhymes.

Grief becomes tired sometimes,

hides behind the sofa like a scared kitten.

Then it roars and pounces

it merciless claws, its blood-thirsty teeth

mauling sweet pleasures of daily living.

But forget him for now!

We’ll sip poetry slowly around flames

we’ve lit with our hearts.

Dead poets will love alive

in the sparks of our eyes!

We’ll disguise our differences,

I’ll become a face you can finally love.

Wear patient wisdom that you cannot doubt.

Yet it is the passion to be with ones you love

that fires these facades.

Do we lose ourselves in them or

do we find ourselves?

Which face is real?

The puzzles can wait!

Let’s patch up for a while,

let’s laugh together till we heal!

We do not know when

the curtain will fall

or how...

Mad, moon mad...

 You think it is only me,

who’s mad for the moon?

That treacherous, intoxicating

lump of clay

entrancing the unwary wanderer?

An unsteady, carefree lover,

who will not provide or even remember...

Do you think it is insane

to drench in delight

in silvery showers

that appear and disappear?

Well then let me tell you

I know the longing of the moon.

I know what ripples in his heart

when his rays melt in my eyes.

I hear whispers that only lovers can hear.

Look, it is not just me.

Thirst is a sign.

It is a thread that connects me to you.

It is a road that takes us home.

It is a love-call.

The river that plays and gushes,

secretly longs for lips

that are thirsty for her waters,

for a mouth that knows her sweetness.

When I am quenched so is the river.

No, it’s not just me.

When I swoon in the silver of the moon,

the heavens shiver with delight.

Moon drunk

I confess I drink with my eyes,

I gaze at you and crumble

into bits of delight,

I who can never touch you,

pull you into my dreams.

Joy writhes like a snake in my spine.

I don’t care for the morning

I’m content to look at you and die.

Such is your presence,

that breath is forgotten.

Whoever thought joy couldn’t kill,

should gaze at you, the way I do.

A moment so complete

that one needn’t live another.

Only a love so ridiculous could be true!

The love cliche

What can I say

that you don’t already know?

So, I

wrap the shawl warmly

around the curve of your shoulders,

watch you drink water

your lips not touching the glass,

gaze at you without reason,

sit beside you quietly,

make tea just as you like it,

listen to you breathing,

catch your curl and hang it in a poem,

draw the curtain

so the sun doesn’t hurt your dreams...

crack a cliché and release the kernel,

It is better than turning love

into a three worded phrase.

Flakes

The liberated photographer

I’ve often heard this – don’t take photographs when you are out in nature, just soak in the beauty, the camera is an impediment!  Any intense moment is to be experienced and released and cannot be caught in a cage.   I have to say I largely agree. Often when I take workshops in Nature I ask the participants to refrain from photography for a time and simply be absorbed in the activity or experience. It may dilute the intensity.

The reason why the camera is an impediment is because of the ‘capturing’ attitude of the person behind it.  The attitude is the cage, not the camera. When you want to hold on anything, any moment, any person, you block yourself from the total experience.  You don’t absorb it entirely, with all your energy, your sensitivity, your being.  A part is not there – the part that says, I want it to linger, I want to pocket the moment, I want to take it back with me… the way a child may want to take back the ocean in a shell she collects from the shore.  Nice try - doesn’t work!  So, the wise one will say, forget the camera, the totality of the experience is more important, because it is that which will transform. 

However, there is perhaps another perspective we should consider.  Having the camera/tool without the hunger to capture, to see - to simply see, not to hunt!  Whether it is the camera, or the gun, the liberated mind doesn’t go with a purpose to shoot and ‘bring back the meat’.  They simply go for a walk and a beautiful moment may find itself reflected on a film, a poem, a painting… The walk then and what comes through it is like the descent of an art form into the consciousness of the artist, it is about being open, not about ardent seeking.  The artist who paints the sunset, what is he doing?  Is he an idle, imitator or can there be a space where something deeper, nobler can find an expression?

 I’m not referring the the idle chattering mind that has not experienced the deep ecstasy or silence that the experience of beauty brings. There is a movement from silly prattling to a deeper experience that perhaps doesn’t lend itself to words – like love.  But there is also poetry, there is also painting, there is also photography.  If these become forms of art, an ennobled art that captures the suspended silences, the inner alchemy that the outer catalyses, that celebrates the dance of creation, well that shouldn’t be confused with the hollow soda-pop exclamations of, “Oh! how pretty yaar!” 

It's okay

There is no need to prove myself.

To breathe is enough.

I don’t have to stretch and strain

for a badge,

a car,

a lover.

I cannot hurry my heart,

or anyone else’s.

I am not obliged to rescue the world.

I know this will make

do-gooders squirm.

Let them squirm.

I’m not here to live up to

another’s philanthropism.

To breathe is enough.

I am not here
to offer my life

to a cause, an ideal.

My time is not 
a sacrificial lamb.

I don’t wish to appease any god.
To breathe is enough.

I don’t have to leave behind

a school,

a culture,

a religion,

a child,

of my own.

If some, all or none of this happens

as I breathe, it is okay.

But, for me,

To breathe is enough.

Still photograph

Still photograph.  It is a meditative moment frozen. It is mind-free. It catches your face in its two warm, tender, invisible hands and makes you look ‘there’, pointing its subtle finger at the beauty you would have missed. It makes you see. Really.

It stills racing thoughts and makes you alive through what your eyes can touch. In that sense to see is to be transformed. When you are moving or it is moving you can miss it, but not when it has been stilled and distilled into a frame. Then you see. You see the mist enveloping the stark, leaf-less tree. You see the half shut, dreamy eyes sunk in wrinkled folds of an aged face. You see the glowing smile as it gazed upon freshly bloomed flowers. You see the smoke arising from the flame as she cooks on the earthen stove. The pigeon’s beak becomes an object of art appreciation. You can't miss it.

A still picture is an opportunity for transformation. Frozen frames of ordinary life become beautiful, because now you notice. A space is reached in you which is beyond the conditioned mind that has ready ‘notions’ of beauty. Beauty is what you notice in ‘mind-less’ moments.

a moment

This is how I want you.

Irrationally.

Like the last wisp

of orangy light at dusk.

Shadows melting

till they become

starlight.

No, no lofty thoughts.

A suspended moment,

holding desire,

beauty,

you,

me.

I look over your shoulders

not touching

yet.

Holding togetherness

in a breath

not let out,

yet.

Light

quivers on your hair,

like a secret glance.

A moment becomes

a legend.

                        -hk

inky

Inky loneliness.

Dusk, spills over

my heart

like a mistake.

              - hk

Worship

Behind closed eyes

In the tender passion 

of a dream,

I behold

the breathing beauty 

of stone bodies

fleshing 

the walls of temples,

Gods wearing bodies 

of painted stone,

worshipped by men

...  men?

Or Gods in flesh,

with forgotten memories?

For, who can tell

the difference, between

God and man and stone?

Carve the iconoclast’s face in a rock,

And the passing years

make him a God,

And who knows

If the prisoner’s stripes

are not holier

than the sage’s saffron?

I worship all

I blaspheme all.

                   - hk

The Wheel

A door left

half open ---

to come? to go?

...turning...whirling

round and round

we go, we go.

Reaching anywhere?

While in the wheel

we cannot know...

                -hk

The end of a scene

leads to the beginning

of another.

When will the story end?

Will the story end?

Tears flow

into the cup of a smile,

The smile points

to brimming eyes.

Where is the cloud?

Where the sunshine?

From a distance

The mountains and the valleys

fuse into one patchy plain.

  

The gift of meeting

becomes

the gift of parting

by the time

arms stretch

to give, to receive...

Or,

who knows?

The wheel turns,

the river flows,

the mountain stands,

the sky watches...

Round and round

we go, we go.

Turning senselessly

in dizzying fear?

Or spiralling upwards?

…while in the wheel

we cannot know.

breathe deep

Breathe deep.

The match has struck.

Incense like,

my soul burns.

The breath that

tied it

to the flesh,

is released.

It wafts

into your nostrils,

and mingles in your blood.

I am you now.

I have no identity.

Only be-aware

the original spark -

now vapour,

has melted

in your blood.

Breathe deep.

                -hk

junk

Piles of junk -

your words and mine,

without the

silence of our eyes.

                        -hk

snowflake

The snowflake

of the past,

melts,

under your touch.

Now-ness is drenched!

                  -hk

hooks

Upside down

questions,

aching for answers…

My mind hangs uncomfortably.

                   -hk

rainwater

Rain water falling

from the ledge -

like bird shit

from the sky.

Lots of it!

    - hk

sunset

Like the sun setting

his back turns

on me.

Now golden, now gone.

                             -hk

ringtone

The rare ringtone

of

your memories,

shocks my silences.
                      -hk

crows

Crows cawing,

     Or your voice,

        telling me to go?

                         -hk

bucket

Drip, drip, drip,

Images fall from my mind,

My poem is one hell of a bucket!

                           -hk

broken glass

Melting butter,

frozen ice,

broken glass…

Your heart is

so hard to know!

                  - hk

clock

It ticks

undisturbed,

by hate or storms,

So unlike my heart.

             -hk

specs

I've changed them

so many times -

my specs.

You’re still made of stone.
                               - hk