THE PLAY

Our beloved Brother Joy

Sounds his sweet call

His boisterous brother

The gusty fire-eater

Is the first to answer

And soon more gather

The busy blame their luck

And go on with their work

The merry little band

March to the grounds

Joy and his brother

Array teams together

The play gets around

Fun and joy abound

... ... ...

Aye, play, brothers, play

But remember all the way

It is all but a play

Play the play for play

Play the play as play

Play the play for Joy

Play the play in joy

If you play for play

Brother Joy will stay

You play not for play

Joy will shy away

And his fierce brother

Will blast you in to `smither'


Inspiration: Volley ball playing at Training Centre

ALL REALS (Or Brahma Satyam Jagad Satyam)

It is not yet.

Or is it ?

I don't know what is `it'.

I don't know if there is `yet'.

Not that I don't know.

I know, but oh, I don't know

It is all so very clear

No puzzle, no despair

... ... ...

... ... ...

Now I shall do a `Real Imagination' act.

It's all true, It's all love,

It's all life, It's all real

It's all here, now.

... ... ...

... ... ...

In the dim shadowy horizon

I seem to see some shadow shapes

Hear some shadow voices

Feel some shadow shadows

... ... ...

... ...

The ink has dried

The seeming eternal moment seems past

I have to quit now

I have to give an imaginary interval

I am back to play acting

But this real image keeps shining

While what seems to be a newfound me

Goes about playacting

It's curtains for now

5.50 p.m.;Hyd. Tea Table

(Srinivas present at times)

THE DEADLY MAUSOLEUM (or Brahma Mithya Jagad Satyam)

It was a hundred and eight years ago

That he died, my Supreme Grand Father.

But he was a freak

He was a show-piece, case

Special doctors descended on him

One said, `it is a heart death,

Body's hot, current' flow's on'

But it didn't last

Body was burnt to dust

But the specialists didn't give up

They said,`it's a body death,

But he lives'

They conferred, they debated,

Then they presented

A dressed up decorated vegetable

They prescribed a set of motions

For us to pretend before him

They told us some psycho tips

That will bring back the dull drab

vegetable

To some sort of life.

We are at it still.

You must admire our stubbornness.

We carry on the daily drill

In this stupid mausoleum

It doesn't have a corpse even,

But some miscast metals, ill shaped stones,

And some silly shadows

That has some pathetic maudlin links

With that whipped up dead corpse.

Pity us, pity us, we are at this game

A thousand of us have left

All our valuable works

To play this morbid game

Thousand thousands more

Give vital parts of our lives

For this shadow-play.

I cannot let go now.

I am hooked, I am done with,

There is a fatal charm

In this diabolical dead man

Not him, his dead body's shadow does that.

Imagination soars, dreams throw up, joy abounds.

Devil perhaps knows how it happens,

How a long dead repulsive

Half-naked, rustic, unkempt, stale vegetable

Drags us all, bright and beautiful

To his place, the doomsworld.

10.15 a.m.

16 March 1995

Temple Siddha peeth

Holy Hyd'bad

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS !

Words, words, words !

Words given birth by me

Words nurtured in my womb

Words nourished at my breasts

My bouncy, beautiful, baby-girls, all.

... ... ... ...

They are not always bouncy

Nor are their beauty for ever

This is my grief

One exhilarates now

Yet she exasperates the next moment

She fills me with strength and surety now

Yet again,

She drains me by dullness and doubts.

My womb is full of girls unborn.

I am in a dilemma.

I despair of giving birth to them.

But I want them madly.

I have to take them as they come.

Ill or well formed.

I cannot stop

Fragility is my first name

Vulnerability is my vocation.

... ... ...

An experience, a moment,

A human, Me. She, He,

Stamp of Infinity on them all,

Innocence, merry mischief, joy,

Writ in Gold on the wrapper

But words, words, words

They are all clothed by words

There is not a single good eye on earth

Everyone has goggles, inside or out

None can see in the brilliance of the wordless

splendour

They dare not, they cannot let go of words

They clothe themselves

They force others to dress up.

... ... ...

I ? How do I do ?

I too dare not.

I delight to dress up

I dance in different costumes

To the mirror, to girls of my gang

It is all a green room affair.

I don't face strangers

But the green room expands

Strangers start to string into my shining set

Then I revel and reveal myself

But still clothed by words

Fine words, expressive words, sometimes.

But still words, after all.

Coarse, crude, dull, drab dresses

Or silken, smooth, shining, colourful,

Filmy, fine textured clothes,

Wondergirl Veronica's Vanderwhat wears

But they too don't reveal all

They dim, they diffuse the light within.

They too clothe and cover, after all.

... ... ... ...

Words, words, words,

They are my despair, they are my delight

They drain me dry, they drive me on

I grope in darkness, I look in light

For the wordless word,

For me the Princess' and

My Empress' real new clothes.

5.23 pm

>11 Mar 1995 < 15 Mar 1995

Temple Basement

Hyderabad

Miss Infinity (or the Chat Show Girl)

Dearest !

What else to call you as ?

Sister ? Daughter ?

My Girl ? My Baby pearl ?

My A ? My B ? My him ? My her ?

My molten golden mountain girl ?

My bright-eyed, beaming, blue-seas boy ?

Infinity ? One-in-all ? All-in-one ?

... ... ...

Oh ! None says it all.

Dearest comes nearest.

Dearest, my all-in-all,

My own, My self !

What do I want ?

Just fun with you !

Just want to chat with you.

More perhaps to listen to your chatting with me,

In every one, in every thing.

In A, In P, In S, in Z,

In this boy, in that girl,

In this god-brother, that dog-friend.

I listen to you in all

And drink in the joy of

That Golden Girl's

Early morning Chat Show

15 Feb 1995

Hyderabad Temple Basement

in presence of Alwal Sanjeev.

Fly High or ‘Lok na pok’*

Myriads of myopic insects swarm

Breed, feed, drop wings, die, all within the norm

Look up perchance, sight the big bird rising

Screech, curse or just go wisely sighing

‘Poor one, that, plunging into emptiness,

How will miss all earthy mud and marshes!’

Strange ’twill be if the air-borne big bird should

Change course, crash-land and catch a slushy cold.

No, it just pulls itself up, sights set high

Not for it, this befogged deathly mud pie.

Poet, bring a new star to fill the dearth

May you harness his rays, defog the earth

Or at least, go alone in thy brave way

May yet light the wing buds of a mutant stray.

‘Lok na pok’ is a Bengali expression meaning ‘ the common people who cavil at pioneers are like crawling worms’

Lok means people, pok means worms and na may be taken to mean ‘are’.

Swami Sampurnananda; 20 Dec. 2003, 1 p.m. Lalgarh Kuthia veranda.

THE FLUTE

THE FLUTE

(OR MURALI)

 

When Thou broke this piece

Away from its mother bush

Oh, how it hurt my Lord !

And how the bamboo cursed

When it Thy knife pierced

And left gaping wounds !

But Thy lips touched it,

Thy sweet breath filled it,

It found itself a flute

And ever since then

It never ceased to sing.

         ***         ***

But why folk and funny tunes

And not the classic ones

The Flute could never find

Nor does greatly mind

For, it is Thy hands that hold

And Thy breath that flows.