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Sunday, June 30, 2019

Igor Baskin paints


ShortcArt by Igor Baskin

No photo description available.

ShortcArt: 'Poetry of Shortcuts and Headlines'
project by Igor Baskin
Media reports on disclosure of military conspiracy in Germany
2018.11.11 | Riga News

Jack Scott writes

Ratios

Small flowers often hide 

in the shade of larger ones 
seeking safety more than sun.

Small fishes cavort bravely 

in the shadow of the shark 
at home beneath his notice.

Small passions avoid 

the problems of the larger 
by setting their own thermostat.

Some small persons 

reach up for any hand, 
orphaned by their helplessness.

Entourage --  Jen Richards

A. V. Koshy redux

Swapna Sundari (1)
(First Draft.)

Author's note: I have tried to catch/net in poetic ellipsis what cannot ever be trapped so, especially only by words. Only poetry can even try! This poem, composed of these poems, is thus indirect and only tries to invoke, inside one, the sweetness of the experience of a rare transcendence given to a rare, fortunate few on earth to experience, that too, only for a brief while....
The Grecians had three or nine Muses but I think I have only one or ten.

Prologue or Invocation to the three Kharites

Euthymia (2), my love
be always at my right
Thalia (3), be my sole clear light
Aglaea (4), at the centre of my blight
remove this slight stain fallen on my poor sight
May my heart revive with the strength drawn
from your old world of graces
& charities
and I again troth my one dear plight
to my triage of quality: steadfastness bright
persisting, perforce perseveringly
& enduring; all my heart's true delight.
(1) Dream Beauty.
(2) Euthymia is a normal non-depressed, reasonably positive mood. Jollity. One of the three Graces or Charities. More popularly known as Euphrosyne. Grecian in origin but also Latin and Western/Christian. My graces or charities or Muses are Indian, both Christian and Hindu. They are the three facets of truth , namely steadfastness, persevarence/persistence and endurance that lead to victory. Sathyamevajayathe..
(3) Thalia - Festivity, rich banquet, flourishing

(4) Aglaea - also Charis, the most beautiful of the three, meaning splendour or glory.
 FR: Paintings

A. V. Koshy redux

Swapna Sundari
(First Draft.)
In the first place

We were stretched out on the grass of
Kodappanakunnu palace
This was Thiruvananthapuram, in my early days -
on a tree was a van and the van had a drum -
during Rose Day (5) times
your head cradled on my bosom
and you asked me
who are you?
I am a genius, I said
The people who were passing by looked at me
and thought I was mad
talking to myself
No one ever saw you
with me, in those days
but you were the one always
driving me on
hanging over my shoulder
reading what I wrote first
before the ink dried on the paper
my muse
and though you called me Don Quixote
you believed in me
And then I told you
that I would be mistaken for a love poet and Romantic
but the deeper layers would be there
They dig for them only if you come from
UK or USA
I ended
and you looked solemn for just a second
but we were both young
and you too were only growing up, still, actually
somewhere else in Kerala or Calcutta or Delhi or Dum Dum
Fate had not zeroed in on where exactly you came from
and we had no time
to waste
on grief
except what the world gave us
that we could not escape
like, for me, by my sister's death.

(5) Rose Day was a popular event in TVM. (Thiruvananthapuram, or Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala).
The best one in my memory was held at Kodpapannakunnu palace.

 
 Visions of Quixote -- Octavio Ocampo

A. V. Koshy redux

Swapna Sundari
(First Draft.)
Sri Lanka
If you had seen with me
the bombed, shattered glass front of the Esplanade
or those boys with guns in their hands (6)
in Colombo
perhaps we would have rushed back to the hotel
and made frantic love
to overcome the sight
but you were not there.
(6) Refers to the time of the Sinhalese/Tamil civil war.
 

A. V. Koshy redux

Swapna Sundari 
(First Draft.) 
Oslo, Norway 

Orange Street (7) was playing in town.
You were not there
I searched for you 
in the streets of the city
and even in the community
the conference centre
of the sect or cult
Once I almost found you
wearing high leather boots I loved
But it was not you
The fields were beautiful
the skies heavenly
and at midnight it was
bright as noon!
Saw an old house
the bed large and empty
grass on it
saw cable-cars and trams
The sun shone through the windows in the middle of every night
making it all seem what it was, dream like...
but that piece of the heart that was
broken off, missing
given for you and for many
was still not being eaten, being drunk
Love of God
Love of country
Love of a virgin
Love of spirituality
Nothing quite makes up for
that little bit of blood dribbling
out of the corner of one's longing mouth
because one has a bit of the heart, lost
aching, looking for
what it could never find
as it was not meant to search for it, from the start
but only was to let itself be found.

(7) A rock group from India that was then touring Norway and played in Oslo.

William H. Johnson - A View Down Akersgate, Oslo (c.1935). 
A View Down Akersgate, Oslo -- William H. Johnson

A. V. Koshy redux

Swapna Sundari
(First Draft.) 
 
Kollam
In Quilon you receded into the shadows
I met you only at the crowded bus-stops
checking out the magazines that had Shakeela(8) on the cover
and condoms of different flavours from abroad
and one day you were a pretty foreigner
wearing a tiger skin top and shorts, legs showing
lovely and rather bare breasted
reminding me of karadi kali,
We were both on our long distance government run red and yellow buses
You got down, having overshot
and said .."these kind of things always happen only to me"
The ganja scene by then having shifted to Varkala from Kovalam (9)
Those days, you never spoke to me
and I never wrote poetry
Only masturbated thinking of you
Seems I was finished,
you had moved on
I had Jesus left for company
Jesus who was always there
Kollam did nothing for what was brewing
Between you and me
Seemingly
Which was immortal and nameless
And explosive
Should I call it the iron age, or bronze, brass, lead or gold?

(8) Malayali soft porn actress and starlet. 
 (9) Referring to the hippie scene.
 
Michelino-Dante 
 
La Commedia Illumina Firenze -- Domenico di Michelino

A. V. Koshy redux

Swapna Sundari
(First Draft.)

 
Bangalore

a) Epistemology

You were Nature first
and then the influence of my mother
You whispered sweet nothings in my ear
and every time you made me your channel
it was nothing but girl; all woman power
I realized the pattern was not created by me
The third time you wore the face of death(10)
but then I searched for you anxiously in face after face

Each face holding a piece of the puzzle
But never matching or making the whole
Only hints and clues and life no Holmes
Or Watson but the search goes on in the bones and marrow
In the blood and joints and in the subterranean fields unborn

Found three or four almost matching or five, six or seven -
Each time the fix was not yet the right mix
When you are an addict you keep playing with the doses
trying, against all hope, to get hold of the purest

b) Second coming.

Bangalore was the place for hardcore junkies like me
I almost found you in it. My veins were easy to find.
I did not need a rubber to make them stand out, unlike Jeet
The stuff went in through my eyes and I od'd
Chemical romance gives rise to beautiful visions

I had Renaissance on my mind in those days
Dante, Florence, Italy, Milan, Naples, gondolas, Venice, Beatrice
Rome? - it could not hold a candle to your nipples
outlined against the thin fabric of your striped shirt
You were young and stylish then and no film star could match
you, in your new avatar
the you from whom I stole nothing
except two kisses
but on a beach in Libya
I had to write your swan song
after staying away from you in Jeddah

Marriage took you away
or was it just that you grew old
mature and suddenly  realized
poems and people are not telephone calls

You did not die, you always returned 
in the advancing nights
as someone else, being sought
like those flocks of rain birds
that in formation would fly
across foreign skies
near the beach opposite Malta, across the deep blue Mediterranean
while I grieved for the light of family, friends and missing or dead/dying muses
stranded, far away from me
In Bangalore - dark and bright.


(10) Refers to my sister Tina's death. She was seven months old and I ten and I wrote a lot of poems to get out of the anger I felt at life or God or science then. She is also referred to in the last line of the section "The first place."
Image result for addict painting
The Addict -- Rupali Motihar

A. V. Koshy redux

Swapna Sundari
(First Draft.)
Jeddah
Was it when standing by the low granite wall
bordering the Red Sea
watching the sun set
orange
with my friends and beloved family
and hearing the waves lap gently against the shore
or sitting on the floor alone
after they had left
in my room
with only the naked tubelight and the internet for company
that I knew
I would never be able to escape my only strength and weakness
you, yakshi and devatha
as without you
I could not write
poetry
having nothing and no one else to turn to
to inspire me
always, again and again
afresh and anew
 
 
 
http://www.spencerwtart.com/Pics/Originals/20-5KH%20ST.%20IN%20OLD%20JEDDAH.JPG   http://www.spencerwtart.com/Pics/Originals/21-5KH%20ST%20OLD%20JEDDAH.JPG
 Street in Old Jeddah [two views] --  Spencer W. Tart

A. V. Koshy redux

Swapna Sundari 
(First Draft.)
Turkey: An Interlude: Internal Realism/ Flight Stop-over/Turkish Delight



It was not about Istiklal Cadessi's (11) meaning
or the ideas behind 'cold turkey'
or having no turkey for Christmas day



Beethoven interpreted by my friend
Turkish percussion used in the ninth
suggesting the possibility of living together in peace
It was not that interpretant, either!



It was at the point of the theatre backdrop
being rolled in my life away from Jeddah to Tripoli
in the darkness, with a rumble in the wings
as Eliot said, while the children wait excited
for Act two, three or four to begin
and Freedom Ave. was the right intersection
as a setting for me to find Nabokov's lepidopterist's shop



Where you gave me a butterfly -
referring back to three or four attempts, to write a story
and to another flash fiction -
the Tiger Moth (12) from Kerala
and I did not have to pay for it
though it was a magic shop



It was no longer the time of
magical realism
but we still let it go free
and you never gave me any other
and you never were a nymphet
though I was the non-native English Professor



One, you said was enough for me
As for me, honey, I am still paying the fee


(11) İstiklal Avenue or Istiklal Street (Turkish: İstiklâl Caddesi, French: Grande Rue de Péra, English: Independence Avenue) is one of the most famous avenues in Istanbul, Turkey, visited by nearly 3 million people in a single day over the course of weekends. Located in the historic Beyoğlu (Pera) district, it is an elegant pedestrian street, 1.4 kilometers long, which houses boutiques, music stores, bookstores, art galleries, cinemas, theatres, libraries, cafés, pubs, night clubs with live music, historical patisseries, chocolateries and restaurants.
(12) Long flight to mate, and then dies immediately.


Image result for togermoth josephine moth
Tigermoth -- Josephine Moth

Saturday, June 29, 2019

Robert Lee Haycock shoots

Undercover Devil


Brian Rihlmann writes


THE SOPHIST

in the daytime melodrama 
of my imagination 
you appear frequently
like a Shakespearean device
a witch or a madwoman
whispering asides to the audience

acting as the mouthpiece
of the protagonist’s doubts
about the validity
of his selfspun myth
his reasons and excuses

the words on your lips
are straight from the shadowed corners
and crevices of his soul
maddening in their cruelty
and truth

onstage
he slays your arguments
with superior rhetoric
whittles them down
to useless nubs
as you slink away

but soon return
with newfound confidence
and a knowing smile
Image result for sophist paintings
The Sophist --  Richard T. Scott