Buoyantville

Ghazal - Momin Khan Momin

aqss — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:24:38 GMT

The harmony that was in you, and was in me, perhaps you remember it, or not
That to which we were to be faithful, perhaps you remember it, or not

Those overtures in general, those hands of kindness over mine,
Everything I remember, a little - perhaps you remember too, or not

Once there was desire in you and me, just as once there was a road between us
Once we were completely lost in each other - perhaps you remember this, or not?

Translated, approximately, from the Urdu

Watch Nayyara Noor's searing performance of this famous ghazal

A Fragment In Response

aqss — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:03:47 GMT

"......No longer the
core of each other’s waking
(or sleeping) hours." ~ from here

... and so the days are given to a travelogue
of insignificances - that they were born,
that they lived in that house once, loved
and were on occasion loved back - none
of this a cause for a tragedy - barely
a squeak under the great whirling wheel
of time (or as revolutionaries would
have it, Historical Imperative) - yet

how would it be, if the arts of memory
were denied to them? And they couldn't mourn
those faces that must have changed, or all
those completely forgotten? Or even worse
stay up late in the nights, not able to hear
loved voices, in the far distance, singing
softly, what appear to be dirges or lullabies?

Lunch Time Notes

aqss — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:30:23 GMT

These past few lovely summer days, Africa on my mind: first there was Salif Keita's dazzle in a Brooklyn dusk, and last evening, Orchestra Baobab's Senegalese spin on Cuban rumba, by the shores of Hudson River.

And to complement such musical feasting, two writers, previously one known and one not, inflaming an old scabby hunger (grown passive with time etc) for literature: this past week witnessed consumption of two novels from the roof of the world, Halldór Laxness's "The Fish Can Sing" (from Icelandic) and Knut Hamsun's brilliant "Growth of the Soil" (from Norwegian)

Down In The Grass

aqss — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:28:38 GMT

Cottonwoods send white gowned
emissaries to the grass - where I try
To overhear the word that passes
Between the nodding stalks of berries
And the wind - now embroidered by
The flight of skylarks, and dragonflies

Dusk Took Me In...

aqss — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:26:19 GMT

As I let go of Adrienne's hand
On that foreign veranda -
As foreign as she claimed
I was to her, and as foreign
As that once native ground
Had become. So a foreign
Dusk took me in, by the hand.

And in that hand left a hunk
Of dark bread. I gnaw and
Gnaw on it, with a hunger
(which doesn't seem to abate)
For that evening I last tasted
Stardust from Adrienne's mouth -
Before dusk took me in,
Before darkness fell.

Morning Music...

aqss — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:11:55 GMT

on repeat...

Salif Keita's "Tomorrow"

Trompe-l'oeils

aqss — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 16:25:33 GMT

The schooner of separation, with its cargo
of words is nearly at vanishing point. Waves break
over driftwood beached here at my moonlit feet.
No stars, not even the hiss of nebulae falling
away from our planet - with its distant cities,
you in one, I in another - in the whitewashed sky.
All those June days of green heat & evenings we spent
watching thunderstorms to the Great American Songbook-

Were those deeps we reached, Adrienne, trompe-l'oeils
rather than moments of a lived summer, I wonder?

Excerpts From A Newspaper Article

aqss — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:45:03 GMT

[1]
"The basis for the new accusations, some of which were classified, was not disclosed at the hearing. Tribunal members acknowledged they were just as confused as the detainees about the origin of some of the allegations.

"At this point, we don't know why you are being accused of being a member of the XXX Group," one military officer, whose name was redacted from the tribunal transcript, told B. "Do you have any idea why you are being connected with this group?"

"I don't know," B replied. "I've been here for three years and these accusations were just told to me.""

[2]
"One detainee was judged a threat in part because he was a karate expert and had taught martial arts to XXXian orphans, tribunal records show. He was also classified as potentially dangerous because he was familiar with computers.

Another detainee was flagged because he had performed mandatory service in the YYYian army more than a decade ago, as a cook."
....

Aren't these excerpts from Kafka's novel "The Trial" rather than from a newspaper article¹?

[1]from this WaPo article, which I looked up to understand the background of this fundamentally redeeming US Supreme Court decision.

Hijr

aqss — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:28:42 GMT

[1]
His mind - a bone-lantern, a skull hammered
into a stone-spine, above a hearth that is
always stone cold - dreams of Adrienne's
red tresses. It was caressed once by them -
A while back - softly like smoke billowing
from memories burning now, in his mind.

[2]
Adrienne lies in a stanza - room
in Italian - she is still, sleeping.
He is outside of her, a movable
language written and lost when
Wind sifts shadows of tree leaves
Over her naked body - which is now
being loved by another. The stranger's
arms are dipping into the river
that is Adrienne's waist.
He wonders - are shadows as forlorn
as this when bodies move, and leave
them behind, without a thought?

To the Gods of Summer - Debora Greger

aqss — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:17:28 GMT

Dandelion, isn't it time?
Dark was the British winter, and dank,
and what passed for spring
just more of the same. When will you
show your face around here again?

Mayfly, who live for just a day,
when will you take the time
to drag your larger, longer shadow
down from the sundial?
May we be granted the sight,

if not of sun, then of a yellow
so luminous we gray souls look
and then look away:
let acres of oilseed rape bloom,
acidic as your grace.

Swift and swallow working your way
toward heaven on the wind,
let it rattle the scarecrows' rags.
But not enough to scare the rooks
picking at the field left fallow,

not bothering to beg your indulgence.
May the wild plum keep its flowers
just two more days, that it set fruit,
though, come summer's end,
the yield prove largely stone, and sour.

Consider the blackbird, beak full of straw:
who has no nest builds one now.
Who has a house wanders out of it, forgetting
where she was going in a sudden snow
of cherry petals, so fine their fury.

Note: Loved that resonance to Rilke's "Autumn" in the last stanza - "who has a house wanders out of it" - as I had done earlier this morning, ending up walking back home, in pouring summer rain.

Night Music - Illu

aqss — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:19:52 GMT

As a long lost friend was on my mind this evening, and we both loved the Great Ilaiyaraaja's (Illu for us) music passionately, I was searching for the Telugu version of this song but couldn't find it - so the Tamil version should do.

Herr. Kafka Meet Herr. BLU

aqss — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:49:50 GMT

h/t Lost At E -Minor

Above The Gravel Pit

aqss — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:26:28 GMT

"It's like a villanelle, this inclination of going back to events in our past, the way the villanelle's form refuses to move forward in linear development, circling instead at those familiar moments of emotion. Only the rereading counts, Nabokov said." ~ Michael Ondaatje in "Divisadero"

Remember that whorled sky, Adrienne? Its blue,
I said, matched your eyes. We were indoors.
Outside, summer was making an appearance
at the tail end of a long Northern winter.

You had written me a villanelle - something
buoyant, not hewing to the nature of that quite
coiled form, appropriate for something more
sombre - sadness or loss. Rage even, but not love.

I remember pointing to the two short green alders
in the foreground. I then remember saying, "like these
I too will awake, become verdant" - perhaps this
is not true, for I am unused to speaking much.

We gave each other - what exactly was it? now hard
to say - perhaps an inkling of sap that flows
in human bodies, and a slow awakening of instinct
that makes birds home across continents to nest.

That sudden wild is ravaged now. Headstones of tree trunks,
for that afternoon under a willow we spent dozing,
And for the past that is lodged in this summer
like long splinters of cedars axed to leave a gravel pit.

Note: Titled after Emily Carr's painting "Above The Gravel Pit"

Header Change

aqss — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:02:03 GMT

In keeping with the change in seasons, a header change: detail from a photograph I took of a sunset over Vernazza, Italy. This is the actual photograph; makes a pretty screensaver, if I may say so myself.

Further North

aqss — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:31:26 GMT

He takes trains and planes, always with a book
of poems in his pockets, for there is a great need
for talismans in this time of post-time.

Like the rain that had falls equally on
the thorns and the roses of the century,
history corrodes secreted personal memory.

It is for this reason, perhaps, Paul and Primo
had left this world via the Seine, via the stair,
leaving a flowering axe, and a periodic table.

Sunday Music

aqss — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:15:08 GMT

For a complete audio-visual feast go watch Hemia - The Complete Film - Sigur Rós's concert movie; 100 minutes of your life will be redeemed.

On Watching The Staten Island Ferries

aqss — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:22:47 GMT

Like prophets who come foretelling
the doom of Sodom, and whose words
fall on to the deaf ears of carousing mobs,
these ferries, painted the color of sunsets,
cross and recross the foam flecked bay
in the rain - a warning appropriate to our
brief time on earth that sunlight like grace
is limited, and that paradise, like the ripe
mouth of a woman when loved, passes much
too quickly, leaving us with few poetic images
(as if to increase our torments): green Ulyssean
isles in spring air, the scent of heavy lemons,
lovers crossing a palazzo sharing a gelato.

Afternoon Music

aqss — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:34:53 GMT

This nice article on Bach's farewell to eternity "The Art of Fuge" made me revisit Gould's recording of it:

Here Gould essays Contrapunctus 14 - the last (& incomplete) fugue

On Home Ground

aqss — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:36:59 GMT

after a 9 hour flight from Rome, after being away for about 3 weeks, with Dante smoothing my way through the dreaded gates of INS at the airport. While I will miss (and recall) the Mediterranean azures (apart from days in Rome and Florence, the communion with the sea was continuous), it feels good to be back to a cloudy Jersey spring day.

And before I forget, my favorite art moment from this Italian sojourn (remembering Italy bleeds art): the discovery and the conquest of breathing by Caravaggio's "The Calling of Saint Matthew"¹ - this, after randomly walking into a church in Rome to rest tired feet for a bit before continuing on to the Pantheon, and discovering this painting (along with two other masterpieces) hanging in an innocuous alcove! I have, since then, been haunted by that extended hand of Signor Jesu.

[1] For more detailed description of the painting look here

Training Paradiso

aqss — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:10:39 GMT

Somewhere in the Austrian Alps

In the Morning You Always Come Back*

aqss — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:38:03 GMT

Dawn’s faint breath
breathes with your mouth
at the ends of empty streets.
Gray light your eyes,
sweet drops of dawn
on dark hills.
Your steps and breath
like the wind of dawn
smother houses.
The city shudders,
Stones exhale—
you are life, an awakening.

Star lost
in the light of dawn,
trill of the breeze,
warmth, breath—
the night is done.

You are light and morning.

*original title by Pavese in English, written for his lover, the American actress Constance Dowling

Notes: As I looked out into the foggy vistas, here - somewhere in the Austrian Alps - my mind went back to this poem

Tulipland Snippets

aqss — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 08:55:35 GMT

A) How to feel poor? Hand $100 to the sharply dressed Dutch lady at the ABN Amro counter, and get €55 back - how the mighty have fallen! Self is also reeling from sticker shock: a dozen tulips (quite lovely, in the deepest blue) some €20. Don't they grow these things here by the millions?!

B) Europe Airport Modern: is there an architectural school by this name? While American airports are quite heterogeneous in the details of their style, European airports, admittedly in far fewer transits, seem to be more stylistically alike: in the layout of shopping areas and moving walkways, as well as a more sleeker signage. Oh, and the Yanks should import these super comfortable lounge chairs (in which I am lounging, here at Schipol) right away - seating sucks in most US airports.

C) Glaring in its absence here, is that ubiquitous marker of an country where the state (like Nazi Germany) has gotten to playing mind games with its citizenry, false warnings: "The Department of Homeland Security advises that the current threat level is Orange"

What kind of threat? Threat from whom? How scared should we be? That dude is wearing a t-shirt with Arabic on it. He is making me nervous. Holy cow, someone arrest him quick!

Reading Kafka on planes makes one notice these things.

D) Amateur statistics: Eye scans the passing throng, and detects a missing element: what happened to the morbidly obese in Europe?! Didn't they know WW-II is long over, and they can eat all they want. I miss me some obese folks.

Journeymen

aqss — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:14:51 GMT

Dante, Kafka, Hesse and he
Will wander about in the lands
Of Visigoths and Romans* for
The next three weeks, in which
There will be much drinking,
much eating, and perhaps more reading
- some documentary evidence
Of which may surface here.

* in Asterix's formulation

Going There - Jack Gilbert

aqss — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:31:49 GMT

Of course it was a disaster.
The unbearable, dearest secret
has always been a disaster.
The danger when we try to leave.
Going over and over afterward
what we should have done
instead of what we did.
But for those short times
we seemed to be alive. Misled,
misused, lied to and cheated,
certainly. Still, for that
little while, we visited
our possible life.

Haiku

aqss — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:29:08 GMT

The color of Radhika's skin
Enflamed with desire - skyline
at horizon just before daybreak.