Tuesday 7 April 2020

[Poem] Ekphraistic Poem


Day 6
An Ekphrastic Poem based on Jheronimus Bosch’s Painting The Garden of Earthly Delights
 
I am a child clement
I have no need for raiment
I am the child of god, the father of man
Before Noah’s arc
Before the flood
And the fear it instilled
Before Satan talked or walked
Before Eve’s flagrancy
Before One became Three?
Heaven, Earth, Hell
After the first man fell.

If it were a fall why then a ball?
Why the wild party, the orgy?
Why the vagrant Profligacy?
Every man, animal, being
Indulging in amorous coupling?

What if I drew a wrong analogy?
A gross misreading of a great allegory?
Perhaps the painting is from right to left?

What if I am the consciousness that sleeps as you dream up galaxies?
Or what if I am extra-terrestrial
Armed with machines industrial
In a world where men and women are equal
I gave light, music, I built transport buildings, museums.

But perhaps man fell 
As he is wont to fall
Every mortal greed stems from the flesh
The centre couldn’t hold?

In a blood thirsty virus’ strangle hold
The World burned whole
                   And
Manu or Noah was United
With the Pluralistic One?

Saturday 4 April 2020

[Poem] Dreamscapes


Trudging the yellow sand
While the sea stands -
A massive wall of undulating alum
I gather pearls from open clam
Shells, that lie scattered in the fog
Like cranberries in a bog

I am a boat unfettered, free
Floating upon a dancing sea
With senses lulled by the tender breeze
I join dolphins in unihemispheric sleep

I wake to the sound of thunder and lightning
In a boat that resembles a drum with no holding
I career this way and that upon a violent sea
While rain falls in torrents around me
My scream is an echo that floats in from afar
Through squinched eyes I spy a boatman with an oar
My spirits rise, perhaps he would steer me to the shore?
He gives out a blood curdling howl, I tumble and fall to the ocean floor.


[Translation] ஆண்டாளின் நாச்சியார் திருமொழி - கற்பூரம் நாறுமோ

    What form does bhakti take? In deep veneration it evokes intense spirituality. Can one express romantic love towards the divine? Great s...