A sunset moment The Cauvery bridge, my favourite spot, From where I watch the setting sun; This moment's quiet is what I sought To make me feel as Nature's son. No passersby, except the breeze That gently stirs my tuft of hair; I hold my breath as colours seize The sky and clouds in a radiant flare. The clouds that blush, the trees that shine The crimson ball that falls aground Evoke forgotten time divine, As a hasting wagon brings me around. --ramaNi, 20/01/2015 *****
The following poem employs the metre called amphimacer or cretic, which has the pattern /-/ (an unstressed syllable between two stressed), which is rare. The pattern in the last foot, sometimes, varies to antibacchius (//-). Human God (Tetrameter of amphimacers/cretics: /-/) Who would pray, to a god, who is male, and female? You are both, in your genes, O my friend, male female! Who would pray, to a god, who is null, sans woman? Check the word, O my friend, male-female, man-woman! Who would pray, to a god, who has clad, beastly skin? Check your fur, O my friend, is that not, brutal skin? Who would pray, to a god, dancing in, burial grounds? What is born, O my friend, dies one day, how that sounds? Human god, godly man, sacred word, that's my friend? Human god's human guide; godly man, in the end! --ramaNi, 21/01/2015 *****
Here is a poem I wrote, echoing the creation message in the nAsadIya sUkta of rigveda 10.129. It is also an antAdimAlA. The One and Many (iambic pentameter) The One that was, was all that was, alone. Alone, therefore, the wheel of Time at rest. At rest, the One reflected on a Clone. A Clone arose within and set the Quest. The Quest immersed the One in cosmic dream. The Dream began in primal undertone. The tone dispersed in notes of lives in stream. The stream of lives complains and seeks the One. --ramaNi, 22/01/2015 *****
Thoughts on my Teacher Keen to impart, he taught me how to write, Ensured my rhyme and beat and shined whatever I brought to him. His pants and shirt were tight; Tobacco stained his lips; in class, wherever He saw chatter, his chide would be gentle, light! ... 5 Much about this man was decent, gentle, fair, And yet in a college play on the annual day, This man amazed on stage, disheveled hair, Torn shirt, a desperate thief who stole the day, Hiding in hearts! If the great St. Joseph's College ... 10 Ensured our future life with skills and knowledge, Whatever spark this teacher gave my mind Sustains the fire that keeps my verse refined! --ramaNi, 28/01/2015 PS: In case you haven't found out, the name of my teacher is in the first letters of the lines. *****
A song on the greatness of a poet: Is there a Way? Is there a way to pen, to carve in ink, Or paint in a reading mind, Those fragrant roses ere they fade as pink Of dawn along the wind? Is there a way to kiss those elves of Muse Who play in dreams serene Before the slightest tides disturb, and fuse That kiss to papers green? Is there a way to catch those fleeing stars Receding fast in mind's Eternal space before they go afar Assigning void behind? If thou could carve those roses sweet If thou could kiss those fairy elves Or catch those fleeing stars, we treat Thee as the Poet Supreme and yield ourselves. --Verseworth, sometime in 1970 *****
Life is a precarious journey up the mountains in the hope of a spring at the summit which we try to reach amidst trials and errors: The Mountaineer I resolve to try again Whenever I fail in a thing This trial and error makes Me move towards the Spring. But the Spring is far away And the road is sloping high To the very summit That lips the azure sky. Even as a snail on the pole I climb a foot but fall by three. Even as a child I topple down And need the hand of Thee. Thus I plan and fail that makes me frail; I sob and sigh that makes me dry; You smile and smile and time beguiles I hope and hope and hold the rope-- Before me creep the greyish stones, Beneath me waits the vale for bones. --Verseworth *****
The Ritualist Verseworth, Jan 2, 1970 Reading this poem now, which was written when I was on the last year of my teenage, amazes me that today, with no touch with poetry writing over many decades, I cannot write it! Readers I am sure, would find this long poem easy and fast to read, and the blank verse it moves on, is well crafted. They might find the descriptions of Nature simple and fascinating, and the articially ritualistic character of the hero of the poem drawn nicely. This is the background of the poem: When in college, we studied Bernard Shaw's famous politcal play 'The Apple Cart'. In the play, Sempronius, the King's Private Secretary talks to his collegue Pamphilius about his father who was a Ritualist, thus: SEMPRONIUS. Now you have hit the really funny thing about my father. All that about the lonely woods and the rest of it - what you call Nature - didn’t exist for him. It had to be something artificial to get at him. Nature to him meant nakedness; and nakedness only disgusted him. He wouldn’t look at a horse grazing in a field; but put splendid trappings on it and stick it into a procession and he just loved it. The same with men and women: they were nothing to him until they were dressed up in fancy costumes and painted and wigged and titled. To him the sacredness of the priest was the beauty of his vestment, the loveliness of women, the dazzle of their jewels and robes, the charm of the countryside not in its hills and trees, nor in the blue smoke from its cottages int he winter evenings, but of its temples, palaces, mansions park gates, and porticoed country houses. Think of the horror of that island to him! A void! A place where he was deaf and dumb and blind and lonely. If only there had been a peacock with its tail in full bloom it might have saved his reason; but all the birds were gulls; and gulls are not decorative. Our King could have lived there for thirty years with nothing but his own thoughts. You would have been all right with a fishing rod and a golf ball with a bag of clubs. I should have been as happy as a man in a picture gallery looking at the dawns and sunsets, the changing seasons,t he continual miracle of life ever renewing itself. Who could be dull with pools in the rocks to watch? Yet my father, with all that under his nose, was driven mad by its nothingness. They say that where there is nothing the king loses his rights. My father found that where there is nothing a man loses his reason and dies. This passage fired my young imagination and the following poem was born! --ramaNi *****
002. The Ritualist [My first ever exercise in Blank Verse at a time when I was hardly aware of the poetic techniques. 'A bit long!', said by Tutor, but he admired those two 'poetic touches'.--Verseworth] 'O my King, O Magnus, where art thou?', quoth he, 'What is this place? where is my couch? O, waves, Cold waves have washed me ashore! my yacht? my friends?' He rose and said, 'my Lord! but none but me, 005 Thou'st saved! what is this play? how canst I live In this abandoned isle? how could I swim The long way back?' He looked around and walked. The waves with silver surf dazzling in the sun, The shining morning sun, embraced his legs. 010 He hated them and staggered on to take Refuge beneath the trees. The larks and birds That sailed across the dewy drops of pearl Of morning clouds and beaded grass beneath Welcomed the stranger new. But on he went 015 And sat upon a rock. To quench the fire That burnt his paunch he ate the food he had And drank some wine to fire his senses. The monkeys ran along the arms of trees; The squirrels chased one another to get 020 The nuts and creaked as they gnawed; behind The rustling leaves the rats did shriek, or from Their crevice in the earth did peer about; The gentle breeze that blew across the land Took the gentler grass-tops as it went on; 025 The birds and rustling leaves did cheer the ants That stumbled in the wind; the snowy starks With crimson bills and lean legs waited still Ashore to catch their prey; the brawling brook That flowed around the mountain-foot did float 030 Many a silver boat--the swans and ducks; Athwart the bushes crept the silent snake. But all such creatures fairy-like, never Amused the fool, a Ritualist to boot. 'Is there no man throughout this island small?'... 035 Glassy tear-drops descended from his eyes. His voice along the ether vanished away. The gulls as though they heard the trembling voice, Flitted above his head and spoke to him In meagre notes which he could never read. 040 'Gulls, mere gulls', he heaved: 'are there peacocks, whose tail with velvet spots spread out could save' My reason dumb?' Meanwhile, a herd of horses, Huge in size, along the grassy wold troted, And began to browse. His weary eyes at once 045 Were lighted up, but soon the fire did swoon. With showering eyes he sobbed, 'O royal steeds! Roaming with bare and rugged backs? barbarous beasts! Where art thine tinsel trappings that thou wear In flowering files? O Nakedness! why do 050 Men call thee Nature great and fair? I do Here find a rough and barbarous earth where all The things are beating in the void!' At once a spark of wit entranced his mind; With eyes that opened wide he glanced at them 055 And spoke: 'O gentle steeds! so gentle in This manless isle? And so behave the rest! Then there should be man in this island'... He walked across the wolds; the sun was up A little more and now it had begun 060 To suck the dewy drops as weasel sucks The eggs of birds. The mountain far away Began to rise up slowly when the snow Around't was sucked. And thus the hill renewed Itslf with glittering green attire around. 065 And through the green the roaring fall of water Descended. It looked like a chain Of beaten silver round the neck of Oread. The horses looked at him and neighed a little; The sparrows twittered seeing him; the hare 070 That came along his way jumped up sideways To seek another way. He walked and walked until He came upon the brook around the hill. With lifeless eyes he looked at the storks and said, 'O dumb, tall, birds! feel hungry still? the fish 075 Are too cunning for thee. So for me Is this little isle devoid of man; no man But I do walk along the lonely paths. Nothing is wild and merciless here. But alas! Who could play cards or even speak to me? 080 Devoid of these I cannot live at all. From birds unto beasts are joyful here. But I?'... The sun was seeking abode in the western sky. What a fine iridescence it had wrought among the clouds! The crimson fall of eve did fall around 085 The surging sea beneath; the waves arose And kissed the clouds above; at once they blushed! And then the waves did slowly drag the sun Caught in the cloudy nets. At this the Royalist said: 'Poor, wounded clouds! how could you face the sun, 090 The triumphant sun! and now the sun hath taken Thee captives to its wester abode in the sea. Our King, too, is a sun in battle fields. But now I am no more at home to view Those splendid royal games. I was behind 095 Those actual scenes and heard the solemn organs And brassy bands and watched their ghastly sports. But now, all these are lost and void, mere void, Hath captured me. I hate this dead and deaf And dumb and blind and lonely island small!'... 100 Thus he spent three lonely weeks in that Unconquered land; the dawns and dusks and birds And beasts and plants--the lingering miracle Of life, ever afresh, did slowly kill His brain and frame. And when the Royal Help 105 Came, they found him mad and sad, dying Of solitude and none could save the wretch! --Verseworth, Jan 2, 1970 *****
Supplication to Shiva I know you are around; I need to dive in mind and feel you, it's awesome! I try an image, offer blossom, and seek a kinship which, in time, will thrive. A flower at your feet to cast I pick, ... 5 and chant, but thoughts arise and shift my mind, and there it goes adrift, like the slender smoke of a burning incense stick! In this stage of vAnaprastha, I'm still worldly; it is alright with me, ... 10 so long as I can always see and feel your grace and have some spiritual thrill! --ramaNi, 18/02/2015 *****
Hermaphroditic God! If Faith's belief not based on proof, then how our faith in God is justified? In spiritual quests, is faith a holy cow that must be held and fortified? The guru said: you know your mother how? By instinct Sir, she is my source! Even your dad, you know from her, and love! Yet we trust a few in daily course. We know only by face and yet we trust the doctor, barber, laundry man! And yet our faith in God we feel it must be kept forever under a scan! Perhaps it's wrong to hold as dad, our God! Shiva, is father half and mother half; as both we trust and pray to him and laud, as mom in bangles, dad with a staff! Our Atmic quest is such a rigmarole: you need to trust and feel to find your soul! --ramaNi, 20/02/2015 Note: A Shakespearean sonnet has three quartrains and a couplet. This poem extends it by a fourth quartrain, which has no precedence. *****
