Related quotes: from 'Ragas For Krishna' Part...

from 'Ragas For Krishna' Part 2

I have been encouraging Krishna (which is a funny thing to say, Krishna being a bold, blue God) to find a language coach to help him with his accent, to tone it down while keeping the wonderful music/lilt of it...he complains of tilting his head as he talks 'as all Indians do' but I insist he merely speak and let his head and hands speak, too, in their own way. If he does more public events he will need to be understood clearly when he speaks while preparing his magnificent dishes from his country, his rich feasts of stories of the chilies from his mother's garden entwined by morning glories, the morning cock already at quarrel with the world just beyond the tin reaching in to take some spices too enticing to refuse...

I always feel as if he is, or will soon be, bored with me and my humble 'ministrations' but he sweeps into my little room like a Raj, a young prince beaming, brimming full of stories to tell me, usually some food spicy hot he has prepared for me offered with a grin. Then he strips instantly down, lays upon the down pallet in easy, unabashed nakedness - it catches my breath, I do want to see! I hurriedly 'hide' my Ganesha, the prominent statue of the god I have in front of my useless fireplace; this hiding I half understand...but still, naked, he has a fresh and beautifully made tattoo of Ganesha on his shoulder, he wears a Ganesha necklace, a Ganesha bracelet, and a Ganesha waist scapular, the image of which is just below his navel. So why, I ask only myself and Ganesha, never Krishna, why must I hide my large wooden Ganesha statue? But I do hide Him in deference to Krishna's wishes and meanwhile have intercourse with the god-in-miniature, scraping a necklace trunk with an ear, a tongue, receive a scapular kiss of the image upon my forehead as I trace those wonderful hairlines of the male body on my way to other deities.

Ah! give me all the cabbages in the world in all my poverty! Am I not, too, a Raj of floors and scented pillows, this beaming god beneath me thrusting utterly to reveal his secrets, his desires, his pleasures to me who am not, when all is done, a god?

Life, dear Valdosta, over all, is good, yes? I wish it no ill. But, agreeing with the cock, I will quarrel, even fight, with life when young men still leap too soon from bridges because I have learned (and relearn it hard lesson by hard lesson at a time) visionary company insists its tracings in many forms, man to man being but one holy expression, those sons, burning mother's hands upon them demanding, insisting to life that each her sons is a rajah, a Sleepy Bee.

So please the intemperate humanity, in the face of patient deities the burning ones are leaping still and I am ill with grief, with prayer, their dead bodies gone, their now emptier hands.

And he leaves me.

I return to my poems.

The room is filled with Krishna, aromas of rose oil in his hair, pungent spices in his sweat and upon his hands and skin, and sex.

I retrieve Lord Ganesha out from his little sanctuary of hiding (it seems I am always retrieving deities) and we both laugh richly. I remember to sprinkle some cologne upon Him, to pour out some milk into His votive bowl, to rub His belly, to light another candle (the other extinguished, panting, while we were busy bees exchanging knees and sighs, diffusing male spices into bracing air, fingers upon oily chilies thickening in always morning hunger) .

I light more incense and thank Lord Ganesha in all his forms, appearing both large and small, His adornment of Secrets, though one cannot easily hide an Elephant, man-love, and more in such a small universe whose toes I seek to tickle then gather for a shoe as tides shrink and swell, grow and diminish depending upon the worshipers, those who will do so in spite of those who would kill delicate or manly infidels whose worship, forever babies breath, is all the more meaningful.

Be damned the trellises. The petals shall reach, shall extend outward.

The violin's throat is cut.

'Do not ask me to see it! '

poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sleepy Bee, He Is Rising Beneath Me, The Hidden God Is Pleased

for Karthik

Somniculosus Apis, Sleepy Bee
Ascendit infra me, He rises beneath me
Deus absconditus placet, The hidden God is pleased

'...descend and of the curveship lend a myth to God.' - Hart Crane

The boys, seven falling: Jamey Rodemayer, Tyler Clementi,
Raymond Chase, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg

Oh Valdosta,

He is busy preparing a repast for many paying guests who will watch him cook sacred chilies of his Mother's garden born, who will hear him sing their praises...Krishna was over yesterday more radiant than when we first met beside the cardamom and the ghee in the intoxicating basement of the Indian spice and food shop not easily hidden below the sidewalk, such aromas cannot to be tucked away like the shop is beside and below the avenue.

Which flower should I adorn my table with? I ask, approaching shyly beside the spice bins. I buzz inside, a bee for the nectar.

If you serve, said he, If you serve with cardamom and ghee then flowers three are best, the jasmine, the oleander, the anthurium. But if choosing only one, he looks at me, something insistent, responding, in his eyes, I would choose for you the anthurium.

And so we began our time together, the first demur approaches, the blushing papayas, the cooking lessons, then the fires, the chilies harvested, curtains drawn. One day perhaps I to shall fall but in this way:

I shall fling back the curtains
Open the window
Throw cut sleeves for years
gathered, hidden, to the street.
Shouting out names of lovers,
I shall then leap openly into life
land softly upon the Autumn
ginkgo leaves and, golden,
kiss every parked car
on the street leaving
lips like leaves and all
the cut sleeves in love
with all the world and if
not all the world then
all the cars and a fiddle
dee dee for the fall of me

Yesterday I coached him how to slow down as he speaks (his accent is thickly, richly Tamil) , how to enunciate each syllable. He had several stories to choose from which he may relate to the guests, all of which he related to me, a sweet one of him as a little boy waking up at dawn, asking his dear mama for an omelet to eat:

'Sleepy Bee, ' she called to him. 'Go, my Sleepy Bee, to the garden and be sure to smell the jasmine there, touch softly the spices in trembling rows, fetch then some chilies of many colors and I will prepare for you a dish as you wish. When the teacher makes you sleepy by noon reach then your fingers to your face, smell the spices there, remember the touch of smooth skinned chilies whispering of lingering liaisons to come, and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee.'

A chili omelet she would make, a side of yogurt to soothe the burn, and milk from the cow drawn before dawn's first udder swelled against the press of distant hills where even the Temple soundly sleeps so very full and pleased with itself. Mother, each morning as he stumbles, rubbing his eyes, into the garden, tells him,

You may shout if you wish to wake

the Temple for the cow cannot speak -

Wake up! Awake! Make haste!

Lord Indra comes! Prepare the wicks,

the incense sticks for His Holy Fire!

Hasten! Hurry! Quicken!

There beside Lord Indra's captured fire in the little grate her Bee awakens watching her slow movements, the slicing of chilies, the removal of seeds, the washing again of plump hands, the cracking of eggs, beating them with the whisk, spreading ghee upon the hot flat stone, the enchantment of liquid whites and yokes becoming firm, becoming food. She turns them in round rhythms as she rhythmically prays.

After eggs and chilies are eaten comes the rose oil poured upon his raven hair smoothly brushed back to reveal his shining face, his smile. She prepares him for school with kisses, his uniform freshly cleaned, ironed, smelling, too, of rose-flavored soap. Then off to school with a lunch, a string of chilies of all colors sewn together, sewn when he was still in a waking dream.

'The chilies may burn, ' he tells me, speaking slowly, enunciating each syllable, practicing through smiles, returning to my gaze. 'But not like the touch of my mother's hand. She is far away but I can feel her burning hands on me now.' He smiles. I stammer. How can one enunciate such wonder?

Visionary company, Krishna, his mother, and me.

I have been encouraging Krishna (which is a funny thing to say, Krishna being a bold, blue God) to find a language coach to help him with his accent, to tone it down while keeping the wonderful music/lilt of it and he's going to do that...he complains of tilting his head as he talks 'as all Indians do' but I insist he merely speak and let his head and hands speak, too, in their own way. If he does more public events he will need to be understood clearly when he speaks while preparing his magnificent dishes from his country, his rich feasts of stories of the chilies from his mother's garden entwined by morning glories, the morning cock already at quarrel with the world just beyond the tin reaching in to take some spices too enticing to refuse...

I always feel as if he is, or will soon be, bored with me and my humble 'ministrations' but he sweeps into my little 'box-doir' - you recall how tiny my expensive studio on the 5th floor is! - like a Raj, a young prince beaming, brimming full of stories to tell me, usually some food, spicy hot, he has prepared for me, offered with a grin. Then he strips instantly down, lays upon the down pallet in easy, unabashed nakedness - it catches my breath, I do want to see! - checks his Blackberry for the latest cricket scores while I hurriedly 'hide' my Ganesha, the prominent statue of the god I have in front of my useless fireplace; this hiding I half understand...but still, naked, he has a fresh and beautifully made tattoo of Ganesha on his shoulder, he wears a Ganesha necklace, a Ganesha bracelet, and a Ganesha waist scapular, the image of which is just below his navel. So why, I ask only myself and Ganesha, never Krishna, why must I hide my large wooden Ganesha statue? But I do hide Him in deference to Krishna's wishes and meanwhile have intercourse with the god-in-miniature, scraping a necklace trunk with an ear, a tongue, receive a scapular kiss of the image upon my forehead as I trace those wonderful hairlines of the male body on my way to other deities.

Ah! give me all the beans in the world in all my poverty! Am I not, too, a Raj of floors and scented pillows, this beaming god beneath me thrusting utterly to reveal his secrets, his desires, his pleasures to me who am not a god?

Life, dear Valdosta, over all, is good, yes? I wish it no ill. But, agreeing with the cock, I will quarrel, even fight, with life when young men still leap too soon from bridges because I have learned (and relearn it hard lesson by hard lesson at a time) visionary company insists its tracings in many forms, man to man being but one holy expression, those sons, burning mother's hands upon them demanding, insisting to life that each her sons is a rajah, a Sleepy Bee.

So please the intemperate humanity, in the face of patient deities the burning ones are leaping still and I am ill with grief, with prayer, their dead bodies gone, their now emptier hands.

And he leaves me.

I return to my poems.

The room is filled with Krishna, aromas of rose oil in his hair, pungent spices in his sweat and upon his hands and skin, and sex.

I retrieve Lord Ganesha out from his little sanctuary of hiding (it seems I am always retrieving deities) and we both laugh richly. I remember to sprinkle some cologne upon Him, to pour out some milk into His votive bowl, to rub His belly, to light another candle (the other extinguished, panting, while we were busy bees exchanging knees and sighs, diffusing male spices into bracing air, fingers upon oily chilies thickening in always morning hunger) .

I light more incense and thank the Lord Ganesha in all his forms, appearing both large and small, His adornment of Secrets, though one cannot easily hide an Elephant, man-love and more in such a small infinite universe whose toes I seek to tickle then gather for a shoe as tides shrink and swell, grow and diminish depending upon the worshipers, those who will do so in spite of those who would kill delicate or manly infidels whose worship, forever babies breath, is all the more meaningful.

Be damned the trellises. The petals shall reach, shall extend outward.

The violin's throat cut.

'Do not ask me to see it! '

Then, Ganesha restored to His rightful place; good-natured about being hidden, it is back to the kitchen, the slicing of the onion, the crushing of the garlic, the pouring of the wine, the selecting of the greens and washing them of the clinging sand and grit they kindly bring, then to the pot to cook them in, the meat to go with, and begins the fire, O Indra, more aromas extend into, entwine with what Krishna has left to me and the god and I am grateful, full of heart, for each time he is here is a miracle. A grace. Mother India with hot hands gifts me one of Her Raj's who graces me with his presence evoking praise bestowed from oft bitter lips and tongue made the more bilious by aging, aching joints, laxer muscles, and yet the encroaching decrepitude is bent and stretched, the better for the wear from Krishna's 'half nelsons' and yogic overreaches. More the better for me.

Yet I remain bitter, too, from the senseless loss of young men who could not endure, no fault of their own, for sure, who leap from bridges, forced to by killing edges broken open within and by hateful, fearful others forgetting, if ever had, those restorative burning constancies of a Mother's hands upon them

I have placed your picture, dear Valdosta, upon my altar beside Lorca's portrait, and Hart Crane's young face, the image of a sweet Christ holding a lamb en perpetua, and the yellowed newspaper clipping from Spain of the Matador's death, along with photos of the young men in the past two weeks who have joined Hart becoming ghostly visionary company. They now remain forever chaste not having lived long enough to be wasted, emptied of love from loving deeply out into love for more love, endlessly bleeding out like our Lorca, a corrida of laurel encircling his head no longer remembering but remembering only one sound, guns exploding outward, extending, bullets, petals, one by one beyond the wall where he stood stunned, 'how young and handsome are assassins' faces', he flew backward in the wall graced with his brave shadow then his blood until he fell. I believe he fell hard for life demands it as does death which will continue its duende.

Love, as Hart and all hearts love, is still a vision not yet fully, solidly formed in spite of stones and walls forgetting noble shadows, but there are foolish Krishnas, restoring Krishna-moments, patient hidden gods though human hearts and bodies remove themselves from the potter's wheel too early, too broken, too tired, too alone to try to shape love from Love from the tiny shard, the remnant bone of the ancient mastodon, the last one, dreaming within each heart of that Love which all Nature yearns for.

I pray for my inherited brood of brothers, and remember to be gay for all the gray afternoons in this sad but forgiving confessional, while not forgetting mine and the cock's quarrel with life, in the booth by the cracked window near the corner of 7th and Second.

I am yours, bleating, sometimes crowing, but almost always bestowing praise. I am loved, Valdosta, and I love you.

N. Nightingale

poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Ragas for Sleepy Bee

for Krishna, both of them, god, man

And so we began
the cooking lessons
the first demur approaches
the blushing papayas then
the fires the chilies harvested
curtains drawn

1

Dawn.

Slow him down.

He speaks
his accent thickly
richly Tamil
enunciating
each syllable

a child's story
stutters a boy
waking at dawn
asking for something
to eat

Sleepy Bee - she calls to him -
Go my Sleepy Bee to the garden
smell the jasmine there touch
softly the spices in trembling
rows fetch then chilies of many
colors I will prepare for you a
meal as you desire

when teacher makes you drowsy
by noon smell the spices in finger rows
upon your hand there remember the touch
of chillies smooth whispering of lingering
liaisons to come and you will brighten
my Sleepy Bee

A chili omelet she makes
a side of yogurt to soothe
the burn and milk from the
cow drawn as dawn's first
udder swells against the
press of distant hills where
the Temple soundly sleeps
so very pleased with itself

Mother each morning - rubbing his eyes

as he stumbles into the garden - sings

You may shout if you wish to wake

the Temple for the cow cannot speak -

Wake up! Awake! Make haste!

Lord Indra comes! Prepare the wicks,

the incense sticks for Holy Fire!

Hasten! Hurry! Quicken!

There beside Indra's captured fire
the little grate her Bee awakens
watches slow movements slicing of chilies
removal of seeds washing again plump
hands cracking of eggs beating them
bent spoon spreading ghee sings upon
hot stone enchantment of liquid becoming
firm becoming food she turns in rhythms
round she rhythmically prays

After breakfast the rose oil is
poured his raven hair smoothly
brushed his shining face his smile
reveals prepares him for school
kisses his uniform clean ironed
smelling too of rose scented soap

lunch a string of chilies many colors
sewn together when still in a waking
dream smell of chapatis fresh from
palms to stone

Chilies burn - he speaks slowly
each syllable enunciating practicing
through smiles -

but the touch of her
hand is fire She is far away
but I can feel her burning
hand upon me now

He is quiet

It is I who stammer

How can one enunciate such wonder?

2

Krishna complains of tilting
his head when he speaks
while his hands speak
too in their own way of
entwining morning glories,
the morning cock already
at quarrel with the world
head tilted too just beyond
the tin roof reaching in to
steal too enticing to pass
the untimid spices

3

He will soon be bored with me, I fear,
my humble 'ministrations' but still he
sweeps into my small room - the candles
lit, the incense rich - a young prince
beaming, more stories to tell, and food,
spicy hot, prepared for me, an offering.
Smiling, he strips instantly lays upon the
pallet in easy, unabashed nakedness
a proud new tattoo of a god on his shoulder
he wears an amulet a sacred bracelet
and a waist scapular the image of which
is just below his navel

So why - I ask only myself and the god,
never Krishna - why must I hide my large
wooden statue of the god? I hide it in
deference to Krishna's wish thus become
willing consort to the god-in-miniature,
scraping it with an ear, a tongue, receive
a scapular kiss its image upon my forehead
as I trace the wonderful hairlines of his
body on my way to other deities

4

Ah! give me all the cabbages
in the world in all my poverty!
Am I not, too, a Raj of floors
and scented pillows, this heaving
god upon me thrusting utterly
to reveal Himself, His mystery
to me who am not a god?

5

So please the intemperate
humanity in face of patient
deities burning I am ill with
grief with prayer into now
emptier hands the sea
I am when he departs
the wax hardened long
sputtered without form

the stories to me return

I reach then beggars fingers
to my face smell his flavors there
remember chilies smooth skinned
touches whispering of lingering
liaisons finally come

'and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee'

In my sputtering darkness O return

6

The room fills with Krishna
aromas of rose oil in his hair
pungent spices and sweat
upon his hands, his skin, his sex.

I retrieve the god from his little
sanctuary of hiding - it seems
I am always retrieving deities -

and we are both laughing
anointing cologne upon Him
pour milk into the votive bowl
rub His belly light another candle
the other extinguished panting
while busy bees exchange knees

and sighs diffuse male spices
to vapor migrant fingers upon
chilies thickening in always
morning hunger

7

More incense then

thank the god in all his forms
appearing both large and small
His adornment of secrets though
one cannot easily hide such deity
man-love and more in such intimate
universe whose toes I tickle shoes
abandon as tides shrink swell
grow diminish upon worshipers

those who will do so
in spite of those who would kill
delicate or manly infidels whose
worship - forever babies breath -
is all the more meaningful
because forbidden

Be damned the trellises
the petals reach
shall extend outward
the violin's throat cut

Do not ask me to see it

Then - deity restored to rightful place
good-natured from obscurity
again revered - return
to the kitchen onion slices garlic crushed
wine poured then begins fire O Indra
more aromas extend into

entwine

He leaves me the better for the wear

more the better for me.

8

He is leaving me

will be returning to India soon

He is departing such as our strange
arrangement has been almost four
years of weekly 'chillies gathered'
Sad I knew as empty hands know
at the start to keep the reins ever
taut while keeping open the heart
for new breaching

how I had to teach him what lovers
give to each how to kiss how to touch
how love is fluctuate fluent in dirty
tongues entanglements with the world

Still I have fluttered mightily in long tangles
of hair black, black his darker eyes shine
his bottom lip petulant hungry for mine and
those his parts smooth rivaling Everest
always beckoning to be climbed

Surprises tenderness on his part
graces unexpected quick disrobing

the easy nakedness the hunger so
clean the affection grown from early
flings to ring heart rosaries

toes fall down to tumbles
grasps and pressing flesh
its own alchemy merging
but let there be two solid
but encroachable objects
together crushed into each

He is soon departed
likelihood of similar rare
the room empties
late afternoon shadows
his leaving leaves ghosts

traces and I am full

yet

emptiness is never fuller but
for beloved's absence felt which
of course is the mystic's launch
the desert dweller and the roof

the longing tooth gnawing
one claws inwardly through
layers to find that Name that
Holier Ones say is written on
the back of the Heart

Thus remain I here in monk cell
soon to be more the monk's than
the once spunk monkey's boudoir

9

I retrieve the god
from his little sanctuary
of hiding - it seems I am
always retrieving deities -

O retrieve thou me my heart

poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Little Ganesha in Toonpura

This story is about tiny city of Toonpura. A little boy named Ganesha lived in this small town, which was located near a river. Daily life was very simple for him as he was very religious and he used to sit near the temple and wait for the morning worship of Lord Ganesha.
Only family member who was left alive of this little boy was his loving grandmother. Every day he prayed for her long life because she was the only one who actually truly loved him. He used to sell beautiful red roses whenever he could find some. With the little money which he could get by selling the roses, with that money the boy used to purchase sweets for his grandmother to eat.
One day he saw a large crowd gathered to visit the temple of Ganesha. He was excited because today he thought that lot of red roses will be sold since so many people are visiting the temple. Ganesha came running with his basket of flowers and started requesting the crowd to purchase his flowers. Some people said to him please go away since we are in hurry as Lord Ganesha is waiting for us. A liitle girl saw the red roses and told the boy please give me a rose. Without worrying about the money, he just gave one rose to her. She smiled back at him and this brought a smile on the face of Ganesha as well.
Then he went further and started asking others to purchase his roses as well, slowly some kind devotees started to buy his roses and this added a smile on the face of the little boy. The little girl whom he gave a rose came with a one rupee coin and said this is for you my friend. He said thank you by asking the reason as to why all of a sudden so many visitors are here. Girl said to the boy, Ganesha is drinking milk today. The little boy said to the little girl, really? To this she replied, yes this is true.
Ganesha got in the line with his basket of flowers. Gradually the devotees started to move ahead and feed lots of milk to the marble statue of Lord Ganesha. To the utter surprise of Ganesha, the statue did drink the milk. He suddenly spoke in his soft voice, please give me milk also to drink as I like it a lot and my name is Ganesha. I am very hungry as I have eaten nothing since the morning. The little girl, whom he met earlier in the crowd, came running with a cup of milk which she took from her mother. My friend Ganesha, the girl said, here is milk for you also so please do not be sad.

poem by Rohit Sapra
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Of Ancient Mastodon, Sleepy Bee & Young Men Who Leap Too Soon From Bridges - Nightingale Confesses Into Straighter Teeth

'...descend, and of the curveship lend a myth to God.' - Hart Crane

Pueri aeterna, septem cadens
Etiam plures ad

The boys eternal, seven falling
Too many more to come

Jamey Rodemayer
Tyler Clementi
Raymond Chase
Asher Brown
Billy Lucas
Seth Walsh
Justin Aaberg

Sub olivae, pacem
Ut vos omnes adoremus orientatio

Under the olive trees, peace
May you all adore this orientation

******

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their
hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once
hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."

- James Baldwin

'Ignacio goes up the tiers
with all his death on his shoulders.
He sought for the dawn
but the dawn was no more.
He seeks for his confident profile
and the dream bewilders him
He sought for his beautiful body
and encountered his opened blood

Do not ask me to see it! '

- Federico Garcia Lorca*

1

Even the pigeons on my stoop are silent now.
One mourning dove coos tenderly for these who
have taken their own lives publicly on our behalf,
for those many gone before them, broken hearts
enraged, no more to engage the unpersuaded
world which, one of them, one of the public ones,
in spite of murmuring wharves, in spite of amorous
dark alleys bitter in the pitch of the last hateful
American Century, Hart Crane, wrote before his leap
from the ship beside the phallic curve where Cuba
meets the lisping sea, took his tongue away which
sang of chill dawns breaking upon bridges whose
spans still freely splinter light returning hungover
from the night wharves, grottoes, and denim World
Wars, industrial embraces crushing every man and
now another one abandons his fingers and fiddling
to scattering light, takes flight from ledges to
edge close to an embrace no longer forbidden -

'And so it was I entered the broken world
to trace the visionary company of love...'

I am at the 'Way of Peace Bistro, ' where the server
Alberto whose cousins are the famous Wolf Boys in
Jalisco, Mexico, hirsute himself, gives me free double
espressos so I may hear his confession, who only just
yesterday came out to me in my confessional booth
here at the perpetually wobbly table in the far corner
at the cracked window rocking with Hart's un-confessed
bones wrapped in soothing silt which he now dreams
to be his silken pall.

Life is indeed strange above the veiled bottom.
I do receive confessions here where I weekly haunt
for studying, writing, chasing down dreams, waves,
receding horizons.

Why, I wonder, is each window where I sit cracked?

I am the itinerant priest who sits at meager feasts.
Suffering congregants, forlorn over their starfish
and soup, ask about dreams, confess to anguish, ask
what should be done. I consult espresso foam, open
the nearest book at hand willy nilly to see what advice
or wisdom might be gained from That which, we hope,
indiscriminately sustains us all here straining after
some realing thing to keep us going when Hart and
those too recent others obey some impulse to place
at last the final period, reifiying the punctuate
though unrepentant ending of this too too long run-on
sentence of hate. One hopes this period holds fast,
that Logos/meaning is somehow, plates of starfish
with fork and knife beside, true or truing at least.

One serves where needed. And when.
So come unto me you 'sad young men.
All the news is bad again so kiss your dreams goodbye.'**

Here at my confessional I can only plead mercy upon the boys
who have jumped from bridges, hung themselves, cut, sliced their
compulsive hands, exploded hearts, leaping dears eyes ablaze in
thrall of antlers, trembling flanks strong to fly decrying the
violent hunt which always ends in a death bequeathing these
chopped bits to me and to others like me who remain at table,
plates before, to stare at what is to be later scattered, sown,
these pieces in and for Love-without-name still a stain upon
confused local deities and their wild-eyed supplicants.

But there is no stain upon the promiscuous sea.

The compliant sky is not confused.

Neither is all that is between confused,
allowing birth and blessing, passing of
all kinds in all manner of motive and motion.
But in the human world, distressing, there
will be more boys, more men growing up as
from the very beginning where earliest enmity
mythically grew strong before shoes, before
hearts were capable of breaking, before turgid
theological floods spilled blood of brother
by brother turning witness stones toward silence,
echoing lamenting Federico,

'Do not ask me to see it! '

I don't want to see it!

I will not see it!

But I, but perhaps we, who remain to plant these
petaled parts of these unwitting scapegoats whose
eyes are milk now forever, we must bar sentimentality,
must move toward genuine knowing which comes from
the long hard stare beyond Milky Ways at the way
things still inexorably are. 'Nothing gets better -
or changes for the better - until it is what it is.'
But the falling ones, half-way to eternity while
here and eschewed, know what the 'is' is of the matter,
that it is the others, too many of them, who don't
or won't know, who willingly refuse to see 'what is'
in order to reach beyond the collective NOT SEE
solutions' of hetero-normative culture/religion.

Perhaps even in the deepest fault of the ocean that
very visionary company - in league with stuporous
pigeons, a mourning dove, me here who remains-not
-yet-remains, tearful over my espresso looking for
signs, finding only an endlessly fracturing rainbow,
remembering, too, the murmuring secrets of wharves
and co-mingled breath - that very visionary company
traces all the sunken ones, the jumping ones, those
with other means for departure by their own hands
empty now of demands for love.

Here I sit, arthritic living hands still
demanding, remembering full of past and
present griefs the Violin with a cut throat
in a youthful suicide once writ years ago,
hidden, hiding out, refusing to shout my
rage to Almighty 'Nothing-But':

Do not hear nothing but the cabin walls,
do not hear nothing but late summer roses
petal by petal leaping from the still too
white trellises, leaping pinkly, redly,
memory to breezes, overwhelmed by trellises
shagged with cut sleeves.***

But not me. Not yet.

I don't want to see it!

I will not see it.

On the mute page, the Violin refusing to sing

- in love with Garcia Lorca,
the goring horn of the Bull,
the destined cornada -

each and all appalling, commanding 'Write'
in long nights working where the mentally ill
wandered with me, keys ironically in my hand,
the yellowing hallways with even more ironic
EXIT signs brightly RED above the locked doors,
silent companions somnolent but for the jangling
joke of the keys.

Do not ask me to see it!

I don't want to see it!

I will not see it.

Still, I have now these better days in the Village,
broke or near to it, with eggs and beans, cheap but
edible things. An epicurean after all, I do luxuriously
head to the Polish butcher shop nearby to gather meat
but not any of the young butchers want to be gathered
- too Catholic - for Poland is 'passing strange' with
bad teeth, fingers stained with nicotine. Or is it rust
from once Curtains of Iron,

or the Blood of the Acetylene Virgin? ****

I get my meat, cook my greens and things, have good-enough feasts for garlic and the right spice make grander the demanded abstemiousness of current coin. I purloin my pleasure during eats in my dirty yet happy apron with recordings of poetry, lectures or a good aria or two to salt my food with tears, a blubbering fool beside his one low watt lamp, darkness too too comfortable like a pooch or cat at feet. What is that bleating in the darker corner? I shall wait for daylight to see what it can be. And if I can I shall free it from it's trap and in doing so perhaps free me from all this, all this witnessing as life demands I must, of young ones setting themselves free because they are forced to do so by collective psychopathology now rendered even more effective and efficient via technology, via internet, emphasis upon the 'net', where the ills set free from Pandora's Modem have only begun to be revealed.

But I shall use that 'net' and my still goodly paper and goodly pen to dim whatever ill tides there are and to come, as they surely will in spite of low wattage. I'll jangle keys on the night watches reading my mystic books, making my prayers with roamers of wards and wharves glancing up, considering bridges, edges, silty bottoms. The tides are here even now. But right now I wish to sing a lullaby in protest to those hurting departed, even to those coming ills, that I may sing innocence dumbly back to those who may come ashore again more gently having forgotten enforcing depths insisting them toward resistant yet resolved embraces...

...So breech then, waves. Feet first. Heads in the brine. I shall keep time on your wrinkled toes sticking up from the sand, play peek-a-boo. Then while you sleep I shall harvest gently, place them firmly in that old woman's shoe...'there was an old woman who lived in a shoe, had so many children she didn't know what to do'.

She may yet have learned what to by now.

I haven't. But for my one strange harvest here below...

2

Somniculosus Apis, Sleepy Bee
Ascendit infra me, He rises beneath me
Deus absconditus placet, The hidden God is pleased

He is busy even as I write this preparing a repast for many paying guests who will watch him cook sacred chilies of his Mother's garden born, who will hear him sing their praises...Krishna was over yesterday, nervous and excited about it all. Working out regularly at the gym he is now very toned, muscular in a good way, not too pumped in exaggerated lumps, and he is even more radiantly beautiful/handsome than when we first met beside the cardamom and the ghee in the intoxicating basement of the Indian spice and food shop not easily hidden, such aromas are not to be tucked down like the shop is beside and below the avenue.

Which flower should I adorn my table with? I ask, approaching shyly beside the spice bins. I buzz inside, a bee for the nectar.

If you serve, said he, If you serve with cardamom and ghee then flowers three are best, the jasmine, the oleander, the anthurium. But if choosing only one, he looks at me, something insistent, responding, in his eyes, I would choose for you the anthurium.

And so we began our time together, the cooking lessons, the first demur approaches, the blushing papayas, then the fires, the chilies harvested, curtains drawn. One day perhaps I to shall fall but in this way:

I shall fling back the curtains
Open the window
Throw cut sleeves for years
gathered, hidden, to the street.
Shouting out names of lovers,
I shall then leap openly into life
land softly upon the Autumn
ginkgo leaves and, golden,
kiss every parked car
on the street leaving
lips like leaves and all
the cut sleeves in love
with all the world and if
not all the world then
all the cars and a fiddle
dee dee for the fall of me

Yesterday I coached him on slowing down as he speaks (his accent is thickly, richly Tamil) , how to enunciate each syllable. He had several stories to choose from which he may relate to the guests, all of which he related to me, a sweet one of him as a little boy waking up at dawn, asking his dear mama for an omelet to eat:

'Sleepy Bee, ' she called to him. 'Go, my Sleepy Bee, to the garden and be sure to smell the jasmine there, touch softly the spices in trembling rows, fetch then some chilies of many colors and I will prepare for you a dish as you wish. When the teacher makes you sleepy by noon reach then your fingers to your face, smell the spices there, remember the touch of smooth skinned chilies whispering of lingering liaisons to come, and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee.'

A chili omelet she would make, a side of yogurt to soothe the burn, and milk from the cow drawn before dawn's first udder swelled against the press of distant hills where even the Temple soundly sleeps so very full and pleased with itself. Mother, each morning as he stumbles, rubbing his eyes, into the garden, tells him,

You may shout if you wish to wake

the Temple for the cow cannot speak -

Wake up! Awake! Make haste!

Lord Indra comes! Prepare the wicks,

the incense sticks for His Holy Fire!

Hasten! Hurry! Quicken!

There beside Lord Indra's captured fire in the little grate her Bee awakens watching her slow movements, the slicing of chilies, the removal of seeds, the washing again of plump hands, the cracking of eggs, beating them with the whisk, spreading ghee upon the hot flat stone, the enchantment of liquid whites and yokes becoming firm, becoming food. She turns them in round rhythms as she rhythmically prays.

After eggs and chilies are eaten comes the rose oil poured upon his raven hair smoothly brushed back to reveal his shining face, his smile. She prepares him for school with kisses, his uniform freshly cleaned, ironed, smelling, too, of rose-flavored soap. Then off to school with a lunch, a string of chilies of all colors sewn together, sewn when he was still in a waking dream.

'The chilies may burn, ' he tells me, speaking slowly, enunciating each syllable, practicing through smiles, returning to my gaze. 'But not like the touch of my mother's hand. She is far away but I can feel her burning hands on me now.' He smiles. I stammer. How can one enunciate such wonder?

Visionary company, Krishna, his mother, and me.

I have been encouraging Krishna (which is a funny thing to say, Krishna being a bold, blue God) to find a language coach to help him with his accent, to tone it down while keeping the wonderful music/lilt of it and he's going to do that...he complains of tilting his head as he talks 'as all Indians do' but I insist he merely speak and let his head and hands speak, too, in their own way. If he does more public events he will need to be understood clearly when he speaks while preparing his magnificent dishes from his country, his rich feasts of stories of the chilies from his mother's garden entwined by morning glories, the morning cock already at quarrel with the world just beyond the tin reaching in to take some spices too enticing to refuse...

I always feel as if he is, or will soon be, bored with me and my humble 'ministrations' but he sweeps into my little 'box-doir' - you recall how tiny my expensive studio on the 5th floor is! - like a Raj, a young prince beaming, brimming full of stories to tell me, usually some food, spicy hot, he has prepared for me, offered with a grin. Then he strips instantly down, lays upon the down pallet in easy, unabashed nakedness - it catches my breath, I do want to see! - checks his Blackberry for the latest cricket scores while I hurriedly 'hide' my Ganesha, the prominent statue of the god I have in front of my useless fireplace; this hiding I half understand...but still, naked, he has a fresh and beautifully made tattoo of Ganesha on his shoulder, he wears a Ganesha necklace, a Ganesha bracelet, and a Ganesha waist scapular, the image of which is just below his navel. So why, I ask only myself and Ganesha, never Krishna, why must I hide my large wooden Ganesha statue? But I do hide Him in deference to Krishna's wishes and meanwhile have intercourse with the god-in-miniature, scraping a necklace trunk with an ear, a tongue, receive a scapular kiss of the image upon my forehead as I trace those wonderful hairlines of the male body on my way to other deities.

Ah! give me all the beans in the world in all my poverty! Am I not, too, a Raj of floors and scented pillows, this beaming god beneath me thrusting utterly to reveal his secrets, his desires, his pleasures to me who am not a god?

Life, dear Valdosta, over all, is good, yes? I wish it no ill. But, agreeing with the cock, I will quarrel, even fight, with life when young men still leap too soon from bridges because I have learned (and relearn it hard lesson by hard lesson at a time) visionary company insists its tracings in many forms, man to man being but one holy expression, those sons, burning mother's hands upon them demanding, insisting to life that each her sons is a rajah, a Sleepy Bee.

So please the intemperate humanity, in the face of patient deities the burning ones are leaping still and I am ill with grief, with prayer, their dead bodies gone, their now emptier hands.

And he leaves me.

I return to my poems.

The room is filled with Krishna, aromas of rose oil in his hair, pungent spices in his sweat and upon his hands and skin, and sex.

I retrieve Lord Ganesha out from his little sanctuary of hiding (it seems I am always retrieving deities) and we both laugh richly. I remember to sprinkle some cologne upon Him, to pour out some milk into His votive bowl, to rub His belly, to light another candle (the other extinguished, panting, while we were busy bees exchanging knees and sighs, diffusing male spices into bracing air, fingers upon oily chilies thickening in always morning hunger) .

I light more incense and thank the Lord Ganesha in all his forms, appearing both large and small, His adornment of Secrets, though one cannot easily hide an Elephant, man-love and more in such a small infinite universe whose toes I seek to tickle then gather for a shoe as tides shrink and swell, grow and diminish depending upon the worshipers, those who will do so in spite of those who would kill delicate or manly infidels whose worship, forever babies breath, is all the more meaningful.

Be damned the trellises. The petals shall reach, shall extend outward.

The violin's throat cut.

'Do not ask me to see it! '

Then, Ganesha restored to His rightful place; good-natured about being hidden, it is back to the kitchen, the slicing of the onion, the crushing of the garlic, the pouring of the wine, the selecting of the greens and washing them of the clinging sand and grit they kindly bring, then to the pot to cook them in, the meat to go with, and begins the fire, O Indra, more aromas extend into, entwine with what Krishna has left to me and the god and I am grateful, full of heart, for each time he is here is a miracle. A grace. Mother India with hot hands gifts me one of Her Raj's who graces me with his presence evoking praise bestowed from oft bitter lips and tongue made the more bilious by aging, aching joints, laxer muscles, and yet the encroaching decrepitude is bent and stretched, the better for the wear from Krishna's 'half nelsons' and yogic overreaches. More the better for me.

Yet I remain bitter, too, from the senseless loss of young men who could not endure, no fault of their own, for sure, who leap from bridges, forced to by killing edges broken open within and by hateful, fearful others forgetting, if ever had, those restorative burning constancies of a Mother's hands upon them

I have placed your picture, dear Valdosta, upon my altar beside Lorca's portrait, and Hart Crane's young face, the image of a sweet Christ holding a lamb en perpetua, and the yellowed newspaper clipping from Spain of the Matador's death, along with photos of the young men in the past two weeks who have joined Hart becoming ghostly visionary company. They now remain forever chaste not having lived long enough to be wasted, emptied of love from loving deeply out into love for more love, endlessly bleeding out like our Lorca, a corrida of laurel encircling his head no longer remembering but remembering only one sound, guns exploding outward, extending, bullets, petals, one by one beyond the wall where he stood stunned, 'how young and handsome are assassins' faces', he flew backward in the wall graced with his brave shadow then his blood until he fell. I believe he fell hard for life demands it as does death which will continue its duende.

Love, as Hart and all hearts love, is still a vision not yet fully, solidly formed in spite of stones and walls forgetting noble shadows, but there are foolish Krishnas, restoring Krishna-moments, patient hidden gods though human hearts and bodies remove themselves from the potter's wheel too early, too broken, too tired, too alone to try to shape love from Love from the tiny shard, the remnant bone of the ancient mastodon, the last one, dreaming within each heart of that Love which all Nature yearns for.

I pray for my inherited brood of brothers, and remember to be gay for all the gray afternoons in this sad but forgiving confessional, while not forgetting mine and the cock's quarrel with life, in the booth by the cracked window near the corner of 7th and Second.

I am yours, bleating, sometimes crowing, but almost always bestowing praise. I am loved, Valdosta, and I love you.

N. Nightingale

******************

*Opening quote is from Lorca's elegy, 'Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías'

** The Ballad of the Sad Young Men

Music written by: Tommy WolfLyrics written by: Fran Landesman

(best version sung that I know of is by an aged Mabel Mercer in concert, hard to find it now)

Sing a song of sad young men
Glasses full of rye
All the news is bad again so
Kiss your dreams goodbye

All the sad young men
Sitting in the bars
Knowing neon nights
Missing all the stars

All the sad young men
Drifting through the town
Drinking up the night
Trying not to drown

All the sad young men
Singing in the cold
Trying to forget
That they're growing old

All the sad young men
Choking on their youth
Trying to be brave
Running from the truth

Autumn turns the leaves to gold
Slowly dies the heart
Sad young men are growing old
That's the cruelest part

All the sad young men
Seek a certain smile
Someone they can hold
For a little while

Tired little bird,
She does the best she can
Trying to be gay for her
sad young man

While the grimy moon
Blossoms up above
All the sad young men
Play at making love

Misbegotten moon
Shine for sad young men
Let your gentle light
Guide them home again

All the sad young men

***In China homosexuality was referred to as 'the cut sleeve'.

Read an excellent account of this in

Passions of the Cut Sleeve, The Male Homosexual Tradition in China.

http: //www.ucpress.edu/book.php? isbn=9780520078697

****Surrealistic Sutures For The Acetylene Virgin by Warren Falcon

'I think that poetry should stay awake all night drinking in dark cellars.' - Thomas Merton

Look to the body for metaphor

Look to blood, use this word
in relation to dreams or flowers
while silver runs in veins which
are usually streets or vines.

Breasts, male and female,
are stars, have to do with
a handful or feet to span them.

Abdomen, then, is a great
Milky Way gathering,
holding, expelling comets,
caroling colons' humming.

Spleens are bones to
pick teeth with, teeth
which are, of course,
sea horses or gravestones
bearing images of the Flagrant
Heart to tame this spot of
gypsum and flint, to charm
where Violin's cut throat
sings itself awake, one
black breast out of its fold
slapping metal seas against
dropping metal shores in
Sidelight's shadow across
this hand writing now,
slap of waves mute in
this stillness of knees.

So lend a darkness to gardens,
ancient pattern of a breast,
cloth lightly lifting, black on black.

From Her chest reveal a slenderer throat
that nods when she swallows
and names her peace.

The delicate will not pass away just yet.

Great Seamstress of Space

sew, please,

with fingers of dew.

poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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from 'Ragas For Krishna

A little boy waking up at dawn, asking his dear mama for an omelet to eat:

'Sleepy Bee, ' she called to him. 'Go, my Sleepy Bee, to the garden and be sure to smell the jasmine there, touch softly the spices in trembling rows, fetch then some chilies of many colors and I will prepare for you a dish as you wish. When the teacher makes you sleepy by noon reach then your fingers to your face, smell the spices there, remember the touch of smooth skinned chilies whispering of lingering liaisons to come, and you will brighten my Sleepy Bee.'

A chili omelet she would make, a side of yogurt to soothe the burn, and milk from the cow drawn before dawn's first udder swelled against the press of distant hills where even the Temple soundly sleeps so very full and pleased with itself. Mother, each morning as he stumbles, rubbing his eyes, into the garden, tells him,

You may shout if you wish to wake

the Temple for the cow cannot speak -

Wake up! Awake! Make haste!

Lord Indra comes! Prepare the wicks,

the incense sticks for His Holy Fire!

Hasten! Hurry! Quicken!

There beside Lord Indra's captured fire in the little grate her Bee awakens watching her slow movements, the slicing of chilies, the removal of seeds, the washing again of plump hands, the cracking of eggs, beating them with the whisk, spreading ghee upon the hot flat stone, the enchantment of liquid whites and yokes becoming firm, becoming food. She turns them in round rhythms as she rhythmically prays.

After eggs and chilies are eaten comes the rose oil poured upon his raven hair smoothly brushed back to reveal his shining face, his smile. She prepares him for school with kisses, his uniform freshly cleaned, ironed, smelling, too, of rose-flavored soap. Then off to school with a lunch, a string of chilies of all colors sewn together, sewn when he was still in a waking dream.

'The chilies may burn, ' he tells me, speaking slowly, enunciating each syllable, practicing through smiles, returning to my gaze. 'But not like the touch of my mother's hand. She is far away but I can feel her burning hands on me now.' He smiles. I stammer. How can one enunciate such wonder?

\Visionary company, Krishna, his mother, and me.

from 'Ragas For Krishna'

poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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It Is He

Jai krishna jai krishna krishna
Jai krishna jai sri krishna
Jai radh jai radh radh
Jai radh jai sri radh
Jai krishna jai krishna krishna
Jai krishna jai sri krishna
Jai radh jai radh radh
Jai radh jai sri radh
He whose eyes have seen
What our lives have been
And who we really are
It is 'he'
Jai sri krishna
Jai sri krishna . . . . . (as above)
He whose sweetness flows
To anyone of those
That cares to look his way
See his smile
Jai sri radh
Jai sri krishna . . . . . (as above)
He who is complete
Three worlds at his feet
Cause of every star
It is 'he'
Jai sri krishna
Jai sri krishna . . . . . (as above)

song performed by by George Harrison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Lord Krishna

O my Lord! O my Krishna!
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

You are the embodiment of love
you are the divine joy,
you are protector of the religion
all pain and sin, you destroy.
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

Wicked and cruel king Kansa
put your parents in prison.
You released them from jail
appeared as Vishnu's incarnation.
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

As child you led cow herds
had great love for your mother
Grown with magic of your flute
as hero loved by peers and others
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

Kansa sent sinful Putana to kill you
by feeding breast's poisoned milk.
She herself was met to her end
you sucked blood, failed her trick.
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

He was desperate to kill my Lord
So he sent many other demons.
You defeated all of the demons
killed his wicked men one by one.
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

Supported villagers and cattle,
lifted mountain to make shelter,
You killed poisonous snake in river
where cattle used to drink water.
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

Always blessed, who followed your path
taught Arjuna lessons of truth and war.
You turned result of Mahabharat war
into the victory of righteous Pandwas.
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

You come on earth again and again
to save it; in various incarnations.
Without you my Lord! I am nothing
in this universe, nothing can happen.
O my Lord! O my Krishna!
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

poem by S.D. Tiwari
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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You know Ganesha!

Ganesha you are bountiful
benevolent,
generous, so kind,

You give
You shower,
everybody’s prayers

howsoever petty,
You answer,
open-handed.

They rejoice
when they see you,
their faces

and spirits
beam/gleam
in delight.

What I watch
with awe is
when they

carry you on them,
for immersion
after week-long

festivity,
you seem
to enjoy

that ride
reveling…as if you’re
a small child

being taken
on a piggy-back
joy ride,

your face smiles
in each facet
contented and satisfied

looking forward to
the immersion,
happy,

please Ganesha
give me the boon
that I too smile

the same smile
when they carry
me for the final immersion,

they know
that they will
find you back

in the spark of the
sanctum sanctorum
from where they

picked you up,
but you please immerse
me in your Spark

I do not want to return,
Come on this should not
be hard for you,

may be it is
after all amidst all
the delirious screaming

my humble prayers
fail to reach you,
and you do not care

You are happy
to see everyone
but you avoid my eye,
because
in the heart of your hearts
You know

that I am
smiling
but in my

heart there is
despair,
despair!

poem by Chhavi Anupam
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Hare Krishna, prayer

O my Lord! O my Krishna!
Krishna! Krishna!

You are the embodiment of love
you are the divine joy,
you are protector of the religion
all pain and sin, you destroy.
O my Lord! O my Krishna!
Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

Wicked and cruel king Kansa
put your parents in prison.
You released them from jail
appeared as Vishnu's incarnation.

O my Lord! O my Krishna! Hare....

As child you led cow herds
had great love for your mother
Grown with magic of your flute
as hero loved by peers and others