Kabir 1440 - 1518.

Do not go to the garden of flowers 
O friend ! go not there, 
In your body is the garden of flowers..... There gaze on the infinite Beauty.

 Kabir 



Kabir, i've  tried  listening to you
Your words are still shinning, they never stopped....

Your deep enthralling wisdom -- an antidote
for those like us in our toxic world

Somehow I cannot receive it, it evades me.
I cannot ask you to teach it
If not i'd have already learnt.

Too many have spoken.
So much has been spoken
Love, God, Brotherhood, Peace
are words we have turned upside down in all possible ways.

Have we not exploited their meanings in every possible ways.

We have lived on language, thrived on its politeness,
We still live in a world, some what similar.


Hitler laughed politely with his friends,

politely, he barred the sheets of paper, too long ...too long 'quick..the final solution' he said ... exterminate. Exterminate. Men .women and children buried where they stood.
'Too banal' he thought ' a waste of time to keep the scores!'
He stopped to bother.

So he just killed them by communities,
country by country.
All, while politely talking with friends
eating caviar and olives over a glass of apperitifs.

Hitler reinvented murder, with gadgets, salutes, national anthems.

Kabir, how do we talk to these guys.
How do we talk to ourselves?

Kabir, so beautiful are your words....to touch them we have to touch them with our hearts.

Your beautiful mind
is all i've got to help me
forget the greed,
the murders, the murderers ,
the cruel, the cruelties ,
the destroyers, the destructions.

Kabir, Thankyou for helping to keep my spine straight,
By this warm fire where I sit
gathering my heart around you
To listen.

 
This road of silence and bridges of words
has always been mine
for travelling.

After miles of silence
i don't know how far i 've trudged
to rescue myself
from my failures,
misunderstandings , unreconciled emotions,
death anguishes
and upheavals.

Sometimes, i cross others
who have overtaken, walked ahead or came from the opposite sides of the road.
this is the road of silence where we
heal from the madness of life.

this is the road of silence
they 've taken as i, for the right reasons or the wrong urges
Tired of our devils and angels arising
from life's trauma.
We mend our heart on this generous roadside air
by reading the scriptures on each day's horizon.

And, at times ,
salvation comes with meanings, words
came like rain,
in small showers of relief.

And we stood up from where we collapsed, embracing the euphoria
in our pains.

Thankful for the gift of words.

Thankful that each word
kissed our lips like a lover.

When carbon hardens -- it became diamond.
but when the heart hardened -- it became dead.
where is your diamond my Heart
who will be your lover on this road.

this is the road of silence.

This is a road of long silences ,

and,  no one knows where he is till the right word shines
like a lamp,
like an answer,
like a safe zone for the night -- so that we
don't have to hang on to our disgraces
till we
are diverted from whatever diverted us from our
dignity
A dignity -- we retrive from where we had absconded it.



This is the road of silence, and you've to take it
your fathers and mothers, your brothers and sisters,
your friends and lovers
are helpless
Its your  ghost of solitude
It gives you your death call , and howls
like Munch's painting,

Only Issa, only Basho
sat calm in their winters
breaking ice for their tea,
knowing , no tea leaves would tell their future.

Drinking their tea 

they moved on
writing their Haikus.

these warriors armed with poetry
reach out for the highest aims.
with
the little flame in their bodies
barely enough to hold themselves
out of the darkness
holding the lights together
where no sun could ever come in.





Every Haiku written,

tight, under a tug of words,

Every Haiku
a new anointement,

a little light spilled
a little bleeding from the soul, a finger pointing the star in the sky,
a cherry tree at midnight blooming ,
a beautiful victory.

 

For a long time i dug almost into
everything

To get hold of what they called the 'soul'
i dug stones, fallen leaves, old bones, ancient memories
with the spades of my thoughts i dug, i dug.
i dug the stones and silence

i kept digging
i dug through my years
year after year
i dug through dictionaries,
through voices that were mine
and through voices that were'nt mine

i dug through my revolt
i dug through the pain
through the roots of pain
collected a few laughter
a few fragments of freedom

Felt-- i was all
as much as i was nothing

i dug through my crimes, my fears, my guilt ,
my anger , my remorse and shame
to find if there ever was a God looking
A God -- whom i'd meet eye to eye
before i die -- catching glimses
of this thing called ' soul'.


i looked through every window
where they told me you could see Love.
And if you did -  you could see God
And if you did-- you could see this ' soul thing'.

i looked through the window of love
kissed it , drank it

sometimes what love was,
Was in a woman
Was on a leaf on a tree
Was in the pains
within my
own chest as the knives of solitude
ravaged through

This soul was me
This soul was not me
i wish i could ask
but those who died would not speak



With empty palms i begged the sky
if like a coin it could fall into my cup

then nothing.

A butterfly came , sat,

and happily flew away

something smiled
made me smile
and everything stood still for a while
in that smile

Inside
a circle of silence
a tree drinks from the darkness
a light moves through my blood

We loved
then , what were words??

we loved
with tender mouths

ferociously
licked everything.

even more sweeter
than the other

Explored, searched everything beneath the skin
and bodies

Found, pieces of paradises in
each exhaustion

i 'll keep memories

my hands beneath your skirt
on the patch of heaven
smeared with love

small, but big enough to fill forever.

Each night has its perfect body.

Beautiful --- the night sky.

Your delicate limbs on this soft bed
smelt good as life

Your face ached with love

Your moans -- small moans
were pure songs , pure notes

Let the day-break  come slowly
then , you must go
And i will not see you again.