A Studio Production (after Silence Day)

Is it invariably Central Casting
(on this quaint side of the Om Point)
that trots out its dramatis personae
all itching to assume angular places
in scenarios cooked up to burst forth
centerstage or out yon in left field

while Peripheral Casting unfolds space
& available light lends a dim metier
time ticking morse code? the hourglass
has been turned & every scintilla
of fine sand fell gravity pulls through
could whisper  time awaits Everyman

and is it then Medial Casting that
behind the scenes with its account books
flipped open to arcane karmic traceries
weighs the possible against its opposite?
do we scurry just to flesh out a plotline
of banality? are miracles permissible?

off the rails unscripted in grand improv
Mr. Whim now raises his megaphone

"The rose without its thorn" [sonnet]

The rose without its thorn is not a rose
the heart without its ache is not a heart
the stream's no more a stream unless it flows
the plum's hardly a plum except it's tart

that mirror is a mirror which displays
whatever face or form you place before it
the mirror of the heart likewise arrays
a floral vision when you fetch a floret

the path of love seemed easy   quoth Hafez
at first    until the obstacles kicked in
who hasn't felt the truth in what he says?
who doesn't know the tumult of the spin?

when heart goes reeling in its twirl of trouble
the dream of easy love pops like a bubble
 

"Pomp and Circumstance" [sonnet]

Another day appears in which to love you
another day emerges from the deep
the sky again (that canopy above you)
is ready when you waken from your sleep

the earth beneath is ready for your footfall
the atmosphere awaits to your every word
the field is ready either for your football
or (if you're feathersome) your song O bird!

O bird! O fish! O deer within the thicket!
O heart within the pulchritude of night!
O theatre! we've arrived & here's the ticket!
a thousand times we strive to get it right!

another day (the curtain's now ascending)
I love you! at another poem's ending

"Dumb luck" [a sonnet]

If the purpose of my existence is to love you
is it dumb luck that you've appeared before my eyes?
with rich earth beneath your feet & blue sky above you
do you need dramatics of sunset & sunrise?

there are suns & moons in my heart & many a star
there's a universe that I haven't yet quite explored
I can wend the roads of the world since I've got a car
but what vehicle's apt to plumb the ways of the Lord?

if the heart is the key for walking the path of truth
while yet God's unknown & unknowable! tell me this
if one earnestly seeks to quaff the fountain of youth
is it nonetheless pathetic to think of your kiss?

says an ignorant oaf before the gate of the queen
"though my head be dappled in dust my heart is serene"

The Elements of Attar [sonnet]

If I were to write a poem to celebrate
what delight befills my heart in your gentle gaze
which has thankfully fallen on me in my life late
what materials ought I fetch to construct that praise?

should I travel first to Himalayan heights & pluck
rustic blossoms that shine beyond pedestrian sight?
should I visit next Bhopal lakes where from soft muck
massive lotus-flowers emerge in dawn's gold light?

if I mix the essence of lotus with scent of blooms
from the heights would this suffice? or should I add
subtle tinctures gleaned at a thousand Sufi tombs?
must I hasten to Mehera's garden at Meherazad

for stray petals of roses she nurtured in God's joy?
should I mix in the morning-glories I saw as a boy?
 

Majnun's November Soliloquy [sonnet]

Can I pass a whole week   not seeing mashooq?
how many days flee   without her lilting voice?
O gentle voice   yet puissant & determined
O delicate form   yet strong & curvaceous
 
am I a mere cipher   in her dreamlife equation?
or could I hold for her   the frisson of a lover?
are my warblings too copious?  my hairs too gray?
my poetry too ponderous?  my heart too fraught?
 
do I spawn too many puzzles   all the while destiny
lightly laughs in the face of the cliché of human folly?
do I set myself up   for lugubrious dark footpaths
blindsided by absurdity   & an unrequited love?
 
O does my rhymeless sonnet   lack balance & reason?
so dazed & senseless   in entanglements of ishq

Sunrise Ceremony [sonnet]

What if I should write a quaint poem worthy of you?
would the world survive the astonishment of its lines?
what if each unpredicted phrase shone deep & true
would you instantly grasp what heart flirts in its signs?
 
O but what should the poem declare? might it extoll
how pure happiness in the curve your smile resides?
ought the verse proceed to bewail your injured toe?
might it recollect the gentle wash of Malibu tides?

say we dawdle beside a salt wave that astounds us
can our words nab the exactitude of its grace?
when a universe boasting cotton clouds surrounds us
& in this world what if I glimpse the ravishing face

of a love whom I can address in inadequate lines?
the benighted soul for such perfect poetry pines

Words Overheard in the Parking Garage from a Passerby's Blaring Walkman

". . . a spiritual guide to mastering
the challenges of women.  We'll start
with a quote.  Isaiah says . . ."

Okay but what did Isaiah say?   & what
(one wonders) might be    "the challenges
of women"?   challenges to men? (this must
be the implication    of the opaque phrase)

so would Isaiah    blithely fall in love
with a sweetheart    so young in years?
Biblical heavyweights    of the old race
of my forefathers   may've adjudicated

every point    of the arcane maze of loving
& yet the lost quote    (one must assume
whatever in the world   it happened to be)
was likely geared toward   a different crux

of ancient challenges    on the battlefield
of the love-fraught human    male heart
 

July Selfie Sonnet

Where went my hair?
whence the white musch?
who can repair
Maya's fattoosh?
where went my bangs?
youth that I knew?
life's clamor clangs
who stirs the brew?
where went the days?
moons years slow seasons?
who clears the haze?
who hides the reasons?
time ebbs to naught
what glimpse were caught?

Nightfall on Montana Avenue [sonnet]

When class is over Soha speaks of love
how Ishq is a word describing tendril vines
that cling to the tree more tightly than a glove
& need it more than a tippler craves his wines

she says she went into dance because she sought
to comprehend what's human in our expression
while robotics is another strand she caught
to examine this (and thus isn't a digression)

she reconstructs the gestures of antiquity
and choreographs with freshness & elan
we're told that God has infinite ubiquity
and is himself our breath (our very pran)

can a dance class lend a glimpse of his delight?
might it deepen with the beauty of the night?


===============
 
for Soha Sharif
 
June 24, 2014

Notes:
Ishq (Arabic for "love").  Specifically, Soha (the dance teacher / scholar) explained the word Ishq as cognate to and originating in Ashagheh (the name for the plant we call Ivy).
Pran (Hindi for "breath").
 

The Gadgeted Society [a sonnet]

"Best tea online" reads an ad
yet one cannot drink cyber-tea!
for drinking or peeing we've had
to keep some physicality

computers & Saraswati!
how deep runs the link 'twixt the twain?
mankind's on an electric spree
that principally boggles the brain

at five in the morn I hear sirens
aha! there's a non-cyber sphere!
for wrinkles some still may use irons
for drinking some yet may use beer
 
plugged in & online but we're who?
we haven't computed a clue!

Laptop Requium [sonnet]

My laptop died & so I write
an android verse in solomn shade
I tried recovery tonight
but Mercury is retrograde
it saw me through some years of life
& helped me land a job (God bless!)
it didn't chance to find a wife
but joined in many games of chess
its battery's been long since shot
but otherwise it's served me fine
this good Fujitsu that I bought
way back in two thousand and nine
or was it two thousand and ten?
whatever - fare thee well old friend

========

postcript: the laptop's demise proved to be unwittingly exaggerated; it revived after a visit to the shop.  And this post is being typed on same.

The Superfast Old & Natural Technology: A New Year's Eve Sonner for my Parents

If I would send a letter to my parents
to greet them once again at this new year
might it be carried on the lilting currents
that wisp around the universe?  I hear
the heart & mind are everywhere! no matter
what region of existence one abides in
what lingo one employs for idle patter
what deity one pictures & confides in
the wish or prayer or letter one dispatches
employing one's own heart-mind for the task
flies swift as thought & without error latches
into the loved one's mailbox      we ask
a natural thing when sending our hello
compared with this the internet is slow

Sam & Betty at Summer Camp [sonnet]

When both your parents pass away
within three years of one another
and then another year passes and
it's holiday time & nearly the
new year thoughts might turn
to the afterlife what's it like?

the idea that comes to mind is
it's as if they're off at a new
summer camp even if what's going
on underneath is processing the
experience of the life just past
this happens as it does for us

in dreams through the semblance
of being somewhere doing something
and so they're actually very busy!
a lot of activities (veiled forms
of the one activity) review process
eke out a mite of wisdom from the

long narrative of days of being an
embodied being with a name on earth

Smart Fon Not Quite Smart Enough? [sorta sonnet]

My fon displays the moon-phase
  & instructs me where to drive
how manifold this boon! praise
  it earns each day I'm alive
My fon brings me my friends' news
   & the global news as well
it can sound out Johnson's blues
   & GPS Dante's hell
My fon spans seven planes &
   fathoms Brahma-Vishna-Shiv
it submits to Allah's plan
   in its heart (I so believe)

Yet it dumbly refuses to spiel
Baba's silence-breaking! what's the deal?

Certain Late Questions For Margaret Miller (a sonnet)

Is it only because we use words   to get at meaning
that our words may become   the medium of our tale?
what if grief is a kind of inverted awe?   is keening
laughter inside-out? whereas when we allow   words fail

do we mean   our feelings exceed   our frame of reference?
or do we but vaguely confess   verbal inability?
words of saints & masters   stealthily win our deference
do they hold   a secret of subtlety   & fragility?

or a thing more weighty than gold   more shining than flame?
and what of the Silent Master?   who will explain how
even he packs words?   there's gunpowder in that name!
if an A-bomb blasts   does one-fourth really remain   while

in a trice   three-fourths of a never-was world   are gone?
could a novel horizon   limn  unambiguous dawn?

"Pulling the page from the platen" [sonnet]

Nostalgia for long-lost days of manual typewriters
I belong to a gen    that still amid memory knows this!
sans internet or PC    we raised upon typewriters
were such innocents (though we didn't perchance suppose this)

you could clank out & mail a letter   affixing a stamp to it
OMG!  to receive such a missive   out of the distance!
and the feel of the keys   the resistance   bring a lamp to it!
for it wouldn't (screen-like)   self-illuminate its existence

and the ribbon   and the return!   with a knell so lyrical
hear it ring   from out the depth of your cogitation?
if it's true as they say   perfection itself is spherical
might we circle about   in an act of imagination

to that instant when pulling the page from the platen  look!
every line etched with sober demeanor    just like a book

Sonnet responsive to a proscription attributed to Linji

‎
"When you meet a master swordsman, show him your sword.
When you meet a man who is not a poet, do not show him your poem."
-- Línjì Yìxuán (臨濟義玄) [circa 9th century AD]

When you meet a man who isn't dead
don't share with him your mordant thoughts
when you meet a man don't give him bread
if he's not given to baking lots

When you meet a man who's not a mouse
you might allow you're not a cat
when you meet a man forget your house
if he wears no architectural hat

When you meet a man who doesn't swim
why show him you can plumb the deeps?
when you meet a man disclose no whim
if he doesn't dig whimsical peeps

When you meet a man who's not a poet
if you've got a poem decline to show it

Ode to Plankton [sonnet]

A hidden green protects the world at large
far-distant oceans freshen air & land
life follows laws of chemistry & charge
the vast schematic intricately planned

from plankton oxygen is formed & freed
it flows into the atmosphere afresh
replenishing a hidden vital need
a factor requisite within the mesh

of myriad forms that constitute our world
a lok we share through cyclic birth & death
see how the mass of green is kindly curled
its amplitude sustaining human breath!

how widely spread life's wonderments of design?
on primal seas does Lord Naràyan recline!

The Blue Bus

When the blue bus rode the road
and the quest for masts was on
in his blue mobile abode
dwelt the whimsical God-Man

when the blue bus traveled far
and the quest for masts grew fierce
from his bus this Avatar
could adjust the cosmic gears

when the blue bus moved around
and the hunt form masts ran deep
bus-borne Meher spoke no sound
wide awake amid deep sleep

now it rests on bricks museumed
like an artifact blue-dreamed