Two poems written for me...!

By my very dear friend, the poet-philosopher-musician Alain Minod. Thank you sincerely Alain for these beautiful creations and for allowing me to share them in my little space.
Read more of Alain's writing and poetry here, and listen to his music and poetry reading here.


Name and Sun

My name is a small shadow
He stays along
A half broken wall
The holes are stars

My name is a little iced
But he is a  stone
Thrown away
To the beats of eternity

But he is in love
With the sun

Each time that he meets him
Early
On the morning
Or
On the evening
He gathers the flowers
Of the life

During the nights
He brings several flowers
And tries
To make others names
Than the well-known

Then he is – in one’s turn –
Glittering
In the holes of the present
Then he touches the love
And – so – he breaks
A little more the wall

Every flower
That he keeps with him
Is dayfully enlightening
Amongst his shadow

Is he really looking
For my ecstasy
At any rate
He is not falling down
And – standing up –
He calls  me
In order to
Make
A little less
Shadow

And – each time –
I keep more memory !


*          *          *


For You : I would like to send : A real kiss that I lend - after all the
distance - the best of my thought - For your sound of music caught -
You the lightning presence - Dream of flower- taken on the late hour
Freedom in the air - Something in your ear - Is still falling in my mind - Something very kind - Something new from you - ( in my country happyfew ) dance like a fountain - With wind amongst men-
Here in the deepth of winter - Is that spring water ?...

Piazzolla's Saudades for Oblivion: emotional soundscapes of his poetry...

"I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another… then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

― James Joyce, closing line of Ulysses

“I loved her enough to forget myself, my self pitying despairs, and be content that something she thought happy was going to happen.”

― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

― James Joyce, closing line of 'The Dead' from Dubliners


〝醉生夢死不過是她跟我開的一個玩笑。有些事情你越想忘記，就會記得越牢。當有些事情你無法得到時，你唯一能做的，就是不要忘記。＂ 
"Living a befuddled and intoxicated life is merely a joke she made with me. The harder you try to forget about some things, the harder you remember them. When there’s something you can never get, the only thing you can do is not to forget."

― from the film Ashes of Time directed by Wong Kar-Wai


＂你知不知道有一種鳥沒有腳的？他的一生只能在天上飛來飛去。一輩子只能落地一次，那就是他死的時候。＂
"Do you know there’s a kind of bird without legs? All its life it only flies in the sky. All its life only one time it lands on earth – that is the time it dies."

(...also Wong Kar-Wai, forgot which film it is from...)

La Mélancolie (detail), by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1532
*image via Wikipedia

One of the beautiful Piazzolla songs used in Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together, a film about longing, time, memories, love, loss, chance, and "the end of the world"...

Wong, in regards to the interpretation of the film said: "In this film, some audiences will say that the title seems to be very cynical, because it is about two persons living together, and at the end, they are just separate. But to me, happy together can apply to two persons or apply to a person and his past, and I think sometimes when a person is at peace with himself and his past, I think it is the beginning of a relationship which can be happy, and also he can be more open to more possibilities in the future with other people." (via)




Santiago Cimadevilla performing Astor Piazzolla's "Oblivion." With the Liepaja Symphony Orchestra (Latvia), conductor Imants Resnis. Live performance in Liepaja, December 2007.

吳爾芙情詩：Virginia Woolf's Love Letter

在腹語術的魔法下  星宿暈眩著小宇宙永世輪迴
每個人在此分此秒  皆經歷著一場屬於自己的小死亡儀式
精神層面的死亡  生理層面的死亡  情慾層面的死亡  藝術層面的死亡
詩層面的死亡  愛層面的死亡  哲學層面的完全死亡
吳爾芙筆翼的墨水  舌尖的墨水  指梢的墨水
蝕鏤著深邃雙瞳裡無止盡的哀戚
我的情人奧蘭朵啊  何時能奢望著再也不覓不尋不惦不戀妳/你？

*          *          *          *          *

Under the spell of ventriloquy, entranced, removed, constellations
Vertiginously dance and reincarnate through aeons of micro universe
In this moment, in this second, everyone is experiencing
His own Rite of La Petite Mort, belonging to no one but himself.
A little death spiritually, a little death physically,
A little death erotically, a little death artistically;
The little death of Poetry, the little death of Love, the little death,
Utterly, philosophically speaking.
The ink on the tip of Virginia Woolf’s pen, the ink on the tip of your tongue, the ink
On the tip of your fingers… Etching ceaselessly the deepest grief in your eyes,
Immeasurably, inconceivably. Ah, my lover Orlando,
When do I dare, to never again
Search for you long for you think of you infatuate
Over you?

梅蘭芳黑白青衣：Mei Lanfang’s Sepia Qingyi

若眼眸為靈魂之窗  手指則是道盡故事的獨舞者
穹蒼潤澤幻化  從世宗的雨過天青雲破處  徽宗的剔透冰裂玲瓏瓷
靛藍泛紫斑滲透著紋路  如血  如詩  如火  如花
到黑白影像中廣袤如墨的青衣綢緞  瀑布似流暢著水袖的樂音
空洞窗櫺與月華宣紙淺淺隱藏著洩漏不了的秘密
它卻為最美的絳唇  點綴出最美的頌歌

*          *          *          *          *

Mei Lanfang’s Sepia Qingyi

Should eyes be the window to the soul,
fingers are the dancers narrating all stories, all tales.
Ever-evolving hues of the sky:

From a morning sky after the rain, where clouds break,
ice-crazing of porcellaneous translucency,
where light filters through its celadon glaze,
purple veins of permeating sapphire—
Reminiscent of blood, of poetry ablaze, of paradoxically languishing eudaimonia;

To the vastness of qingyi’s silk in black and white,
coruscating like the darkest ink,
a cascade of singing melodies from the dancing water-sleeves—
breathing, conversing, ever-changing, ever-fixed…
Hollow flowers in the windowpanes, moonlight-swept paper drapes,
softly hide the secret never to be told, never to be known.
The secret that embroiders the most beautiful paean
from his most beautiful carnelian lips.

More on Mei Lanfang here...

Qingyi (青衣)：Guimen Dan (閨門旦) is the role of the virtuous lady. It is also known as Qingyi (青衣）or Zhengdan (正旦). Qingyi means 'green robes' in Chinese, although the term traditionally extends to the colour black. This type of dan characters used to wear black robes. Qing Yi are normally mature and sometimes married women. They may be rich or poor, young or of middle age, but they have to be mature women to fall under this category. Qingyi focus more on singing and they have little movement. Opera schools in China tend to have difficulty recruiting students for this kind of role, since it requires a good voice, good looks and a good height. The most famous qingyi of the last century was Mei Lanfang. Examples of Guimen Dan are Du Liniang (杜麗娘) from The Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭) and Wang Baochuan (王寶釧）from Wujiapo（武家坡). *Via: Wikipedia

Snow Leopard and Black Panther (for H.)

The musky incense of nag champa, was what led
the snow leopard to the black panther:
her lustrous smoothness, the scent and warmth
of her fur and skin – an uncharted territory.
The turquoise half-hidden behind his long eyelashes, lingering shadow of long eyelashes,
was what led the black panther to the snow leopard: his quiet prowess
and elegant strength – disarming, surreptitious beauty,
the most arresting stillness.
The snow leopard softly cocoons the black panther
with ripples of golden kisses: she did not know the reason why; nor
did the stars in her pantherine night sky.

Pacing in passionate vexation, behind the invisible bars in her eyes,
the black panther lays her gaze upon the snow leopard.
With such agitation, a prayer and a plea encircle
the black diamonds scattering amidst her dangerously soft leaps.
Those sun-embroidered lines of the snow leopard’s timeless form
embrace and penetrate like a metallic thread, glowing, illuminating:
A frozen motion, thoughtlessness in sehnsucht;
a mind within, a mind without. A mind of no mind.

What melts the black panther’s restlessness
is the motionlessness in the snow leopard’s glance beyond
(but is what she perceives as beyond
truly looking backward, or rather looking inward?) –

As they flow together and walk together in the ceaseless waves
of Mo Chhu’s deep sapphire, Po Chhu’s avalanche white,
they meet, without intention of direction.


The quiescence and mutuality of infinity.

*     *     *

Sehnsucht
(n.) “the inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what”; a yearning for a far, familiar, non-earthly land one can identify as one’s home. See also here.

~23^rd/July/2012

*English translation of the lyrics:

With every word,
with every smile,
with every look,
with every caress...

I approach the water
drinking your kiss,
the light of your face,
the light of your form.

To love you is a plea;
it's the song of a mute;
the look of a blind man;
a naked secret.

I surrender myself to your arms,
with fear and with calm;
a plea on my lips,
a plea in my soul.

With every word,
with every smile,
with every look,
with every caress...

I approach the fire,
and all that it burns;
the light of your face,
the light of your form.

To love you is a plea;
it's the song of a mute;
the look of a blind man;
a secret exposed.

I give myself to your arms,
with fear and with calm;
a plea on my lips,
a plea in my soul...

海市蜃樓: a short impression on Dubai

This mirage city built on sand and sea is quite indescribably bizarre. My initial romanticised exotic impression on arrival at the airport – subtle wafts in the air of what resembles the scent of my favourite Nag Champa incense – quickly turned sour after spending forever at immigration and on the way to the hotel. An unusually tiring journey by air for seven (plus two) hours. The port-side hotel’s friendly staff then quickly restored my good impression (I’m such an easy mark) with their wonderful professionalism, lovely attentiveness, and beautiful little canapés (吃, what else?). So much sand in the air that the view from the cab looked almost dreamlike, the strange, cachophanous mixture of architectural styles, and those incredibly elegant men dressed in impeccable “veneer white” from head to toe (and stay white!)… Perhaps tomorrow morning my mood will be lifted more by admiring all those beautifully glassy blue and green eyes, and olive skin glistening under the sunlight (reminding me of my SOAS days).

*          *          *

The smell of frankincense permeating in the air, stronger and stronger; the intoxicating Middle Eastern music, and the calls to prayers filling the dome... All of this is making me seriously light-headed and "I just want to go to sleep..." Then, a few hours later I woke up to face the bitter and cruel realities, of airport security, argh~~~ And those people in a hurry to friggin' go nowhere... don't they ever find themselves just a tad moronic? (Pardon my semi-French here...) Changi, at times like this how I do love coming back to you...!

*          *          *

The sweet nightingale
sings like a lyre
the flower-filled meadows
are laughing for joy;
a flight of birds soars up
from the enchanted forest;
the maidens’ chorus
promises a thousand delights.

~Carmina Burana; cantiones profanae.
(Alys Clare translation in the author’s book “The Enchanter’s Forest.”)

*Words written and images taken by me in late April, 2012.

That which speaks to me these days...

視之不見，名曰微；聽之不聞，名曰希；搏之不得，名曰夷。此三者，不可 致詰，故混而為一。其上不皎，其下不昧，繩繩兮不可名，複歸于物。是謂無狀之狀，無物之象，是謂惚恍。迎之不見其首，隨之不見其后。執古之道，以御今 之有。能知古始，是謂道紀。

---《道德經：十四章》

"Look, and it can’t be seen. Listen, and it can’t be heard. Reach, and it can’t be grasped. Above, it isn’t bright. Below, it isn’t dark. Seamless, unnamable, it returns to the realm of nothing. Form that includes all forms, image without an image, subtle, beyond all conception. Approach it and there is no beginning; follow it and there is no end. You can’t know it, but you can be it, at ease in your own life. Just realize where you come from: this is the essence of wisdom." 

---Tao Te Ching, Chapter xiv


故常無欲，以觀其妙；常有欲，以觀其徼。此兩者同出而異名，同謂之玄。玄 之又玄，眾妙之門。

---《道德經：一章》

Very Advaita Vedanta...
"One experiences without Self to sense the World,
And experiences with Self to understand the World.
The two experiences are the same within Tao;
They are distinct only within the World.
Neither experience conveys Tao
Which is infinitely greater and more subtle than the World."

---Tao Te Ching, Chapter i

*          *          *

"... So what happens? I am clinging not to you, but to the idea, to something which will help me to escape from myself. You may be attached to an experience, to an incident, which has given you great excitement, a great sense of elation, a sense of power, a sense of safety and you are clinging to that. That experience, which you have had, what is it? That experience is registered in the mind and you hold it. That something you are holding on to is dead and you also are becoming dead. If you see all this, without any direction, without any motive, just observe it, then you will see that insight shows the whole thing as on a map. When once there is that insight the thing disappears completely, you are not attached."

---Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Attachment

Some thoughts...
D: What a remarkable insight. The mind creates the illusion of existence which creates the 'grasping'. The mind is the trickster that deludes one from knowing that the one collective self is that which is infinite - that which alone exists. Everything else is noise.
Poesis: The more I get into Krishnamurti the more profoundly I "feel" his words - it's really remarkable.
Time is ceaselessly passing, like a running brook, as T.S. Eliot's poem "but that which is only living can only die" - after the mind's illusion of dead/dying experience "having shed its bright load, the relieved leaf unbent." (Nabakov) But then according to D time does not exist!
"...the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now."
They were always there, and never there. Since 'all is always now', the need of grasping ceases to be. Everything else is noise. Hooray.

"It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. ... It is only when the mind is not operating mechanically in the structure of thought that you have an insight."

---Jiddu Krishnamurti

"You know, to love is to be free; both parties are free. Where there is the possibility of pain, where there is the possibility of suffering in love, it is not love, it is merely a subtle form of possession, of acquisitiveness. [...] So each struggle for comfort, for encouragement, really but betrays the lack of inward richness; and therefore an action separate, apart from the other individual naturally creates disturbance, pain and suffering; and one individual has to suppress what he really feels in order to adjust himself to the other. In other words, this constant repression, brought about by so-called love, destroys the two individuals. In that love there is no freedom; it is merely a subtle bondage." An enlightened ideal, perhaps?

---Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

‎"So the 'me' is the creator of that emptiness. The 'me' is the empty; the 'me' is a self-enclosing process in which we are aware of that extraordinary loneliness. So being aware of that, we are trying to run away through various forms of identification. These identifications we call fulfillments. Actually, there is no fulfillment because mind, the 'me', can never fulfill; it is the very nature of the 'me' to be self-enclosing. [...] this ache of emptiness is extraordinarily strong. We do anything to escape from it. Any illusion is sufficient, and that is the source of illusion. Mind has the power to create illusion. And as long as we do not understand that aloneness, that state of self-enclosing emptiness - do what you will, seek whatever fulfillment you will - there is always that barrier which divides, which knows no completeness."
"That intelligent, integrated state is aloneness. When the observer is the observed, then it is the integrated state. And in that aloneness, in that state of being completely alone, full, when the mind is not seeking anything, neither seeking reward nor avoiding punishment, when the mind is truly still, not seeking, not groping, only then, that which is not measured by the mind comes into being."

---On Sorrow and Aloneness, Jiddu Krishnamurti talk, February 3, 1952
(See the full article of Krishnamurti's talk on fulfillment and aloneness here.)

*          *          *

"The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched."

---Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

Poesis: 雖然眼睛看不見風，但風卻是存在的：聽得見，感受得著，在雲的舞姿裡觀察得到，當它吹在髮梢與樹葉的瞬間，亦能得見。

*          *          *

I broke your heart.
Now barefoot I tread
on shards.
---------------------------------------------
If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there is something to regret,
there will be something to recall.
If there is something to recall,
there was nothing to regret.
If there was nothing to regret,
there was nothing to desire.

— both poems by Vera Pavlova, (translated by Steven Seymour)

“Remembering is only a new form of suffering.” — Charles Baudelaire

Some response...
Poesis: But then suffering is no different in its essence from absence of suffering, and pleasure no different from absence of it. Following this logic, remembering is no different from forgetting, hence 'forgetting is also only a new form of suffering.' Love is the greatest illusion in the apparent world of individuation. (What random streams of consciousness at midnight...)

*          *          *

Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness.
That, being a dependent designation,
Is itself the middle way.

—Nagarjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 24:18

Whatever is impermanent is subject to change. 
Whatever is subject to change is subject to suffering.

—The Buddha

Poesis: All of this is nothingness. "There is no difference between samsara and nirvana." Nagarjuna my hero!

*          *          *

"The suffering in these poems remains intact; it is neither resolved nor negated. What happens for the most part is, the poems dissolve, finally, into the cream of the physical world. If negative capability works at all, it works in reverse, a kind of negative negative capability—which would make it positive—where very real anxiety and irritability over mystery and doubt enable the poet—no, propel him—into the world of the eye, the pure perceptual habit that checks all cognitive drives, not before they’ve begun but after they’ve begun, and done their damage. [...] —until it seems that perpetual fear is a propellant into the innocent, fearless, and vulnerable world of the senses. So that the poet paralyzed with fear lying in a hammock on a beautiful day—unhappy man in a happy world—does not suffer any less when he looks around him; he does not cease to suffer, he only ceases to try to understand."

(Read Mary Ruefle's full essay 'On Fear' here.)

*          *          *

「荼蘼—韶華勝極」「開到荼蘼花事了，塵煙過，知多少？」
～《紅樓夢》＜壽怡紅群芳開夜宴＞
「一從梅粉褪殘妝，塗抹新紅上海棠；開到荼蘼花事了，絲絲天棘出莓牆。」～宋, 王淇春 ＜暮遊小園＞
佛說:「一切有為法，儘是因緣合和，緣起時起，緣盡還無，不外如是。」

Self Portrait by Francesca Woodman

Woodman’s interest in self-presentation—and self-preservation—emerges even in a note written around the time of her first suicide attempt. “I finally managed,” she explains, “to try to do away with myself, as neatly and concisely as possible…. I would rather die young leaving various accomplishments, some work, my friendship with you, and some other artifacts intact, instead of pell-mell erasing all of these delicate things.” Woodman reverses the traditional terms of the arrangement: death, like photography, is simply a series of chemical reactions. Living is “erasing”; dying a way of ensuring that what was will continue to be, of fixing certain things in place. [...] ...her long exposures as a portrait of “legs—and time.” Her wording recalls a statement issued by early photographer William H. Fox Talbot in the 1830s, when he praised the infant medium’s ability to document “the injuries of time.” 

 ---by Elizabeth Gumport, via New York Review of Books

Indian religious philosopher, thinker and spiritual teacher, Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1985)

"There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery." ---Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

(*image: Nakazora n°983, by 山本昌男 Masao Yamamoto, 2004.)

瑰寶：淨白月牙

Tear stains of the feather-light ivory glaze
And two faintest lotuses etched by the sharpest
From the farthest melodies of the Silk Road
Echoed the most lingering fragrance, that left me
With ancient music, and 
Everlasting time in asphyxia

【北宋 定窯 白瓷劃花蓮紋長頸瓶】 

功能為盛裝器、花器，全器施牙白色釉，釉薄而明亮。器面留有流淌的「淚痕」，腹的下緣和足圈壁及器底均有露胎處，胎骨輕薄，胎土呈白色。器腹斜刀淺劃兩組蓮花。 (台灣國立故宮博物院 ， 陳列室：207) 

Ding Ware, Northern Song Dynasty, 

National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.

a poem written for my grandfather in '97

To be translated someday, perchance...

《水的蓄意》


我乾涸著。

枯槁的雙目因長年的凝望而龜裂
遊走沉痾的夢境
低垂的墨色眼睫在你
柔和低迴的天籟下緘默欲雨

而我仍卑屈地相信著因
過度狂傲顯得瘖啞疲累的靈魂
因你
而沈重且蒙塵  而
不止下墜

注滿了長久恐懼而停滯的悲思
在你決堤似的哭泣下我已
成河沒你顫抖的足踝
死亡與生命起伏一如泡沫
紛擾凝滯我已欲沈澱的心志

因疲憊而溶蝕了尊嚴與最後的禁抑
信仰齟齬的美麗
你布滿深刻皺紋的黑洞吸進我祈禱的聲音
莊嚴的啜泣孤伶伶地哽咽
著廣袤的思念

而我仍乾涸著。

10.21.’97

Sāṃdhyābhāṣā (to be developed...)

I dream of writing poetry
in the Twilight Language sāṃdhyābhāṣā,
a faraway land redolent of imageries and metaphors,
with immediacy irrecusably abstract yet perceptual;
indecipherable to others, and
perhaps even to myself,
for it will be, in the end, 
unnecessary.

(... a "poetique-onirique" thought that just arrived ...)

Vanité, by Aelbert van der Schoor
(*image via Luxe et Vanités )

"Sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus, singula dum capti circumvectamur amore."
(But meanwhile it flees: time flees irretrievably, while we wander around, prisoners of our love of detail.)

--- Giorgics, by Virgil


*See also Vanitas and the notion of Memento Mori.

I want to be with those who know secret things, or else alone.

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will,
and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

---Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated by Robert Bly)

Five Poems and a Beloved's Gaze

Krishna and Radha, painting by Jitendra Ramchandra Sharma

In Vain   — by Emily Dickinson

I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace

Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.

They'd judge us-how?
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,

Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.

And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!


Toward The Piræus   — by H. D. (Hilda Dolittle)

  Slay with your eyes, Greek,
  men over the face of the earth,
  slay with your eyes, the host,
  puny, passionless, weak.

  Break, as the ranks of steel
  broke of the Persian host:
  craven, we hated them then:
  now we would count them Gods
  beside these, spawn of the earth.

  Grant us your mantle, Greek;
  grant us but one
  to fright (as your eyes) with a sword,
  men, craven and weak,
  grant us but one to strike
  one blow for you, passionate Greek.

        I

  You would have broken my wings,
  but the very fact that you knew
  I had wings, set some seal
  on my bitter heart, my heart
  broke and fluttered and sang.

  You would have snared me,
  and scattered the strands of my nest;
  but the very fact that you saw,
  sheltered me, claimed me,
  set me apart from the rest.

  Of men—of men made you a god,
  and me, claimed me, set me apart
  and the song in my breast, yours, yours forever—
  if I escape your evil heart.

        II

  I loved you:
  men have writ and women have said
  they loved,
  but as the Pythoness stands by the altar,
  intense and may not move;
  till the fumes pass over;
  and may not falter nor break,
  till the priest has caught the words
  that mar or make
  a deme or a ravaged town;
  so I, though my knees tremble,
  my heart break,
  must note the rumbling,
  heed only the shuddering
  down in the fissure beneath the rock
  of the temple floor;
  must wait and watch
  and may not turn nor move,
  nor break from my trance to speak
  so slight, so sweet,
  so simple a word as love.

        III

  What had you done
  had you been true,
  I can not think,
  I may not know.
  What could we do
  were I not wise,
  what play invent,
  what joy devise?
  What could we do
  if you were great?
  (Yet were you lost,
  who were there, then,
  to circumvent
  the tricks of men?)
  What can we do,
  for curious lies
  have filled your heart,
  and in my eyes
  sorrow has writ
  that I am wise.

        IV

  If I had been a boy,
  I would have worshiped your grace,
  I would have flung my worship
  before your feet,
  I would have followed apart,
  glad, rent with an ecstasy
  to watch you turn
  your great head, set on the throat,
  thick, dark with its sinews,
  burned and wrought
  like the olive stalk,
  and the noble chin
  and the throat.

  I would have stood,
  and watched and watched
  and burned,
  and when in the night,
  from the many hosts, your slaves,
  and warriors and serving men
  you had turned
  to the purple couch and the flame
  of the woman, tall like cypress tree
  that flames sudden and swift and free
  as with crackle of golden resin
  and cones and the locks flung free
  like the cypress limbs,
  bound, caught and shaken and loosed,
  bound, caught and riven and bound
  and loosened again,
  as in rain of a kingly storm
  or wind full from a desert plain.

  So, when you had risen
  from all the lethargy of love and its heat,
  you would have summoned me, me alone,
  and found my hands,
  beyond all the hands in the world,
  cold, cold, cold,
  intolerably cold and sweet.

        V

  It was not chastity that made me cold nor fear,
  only I knew that you, like myself, were sick
  of the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lisps
  of love and love and lovers and love’s deceit.

  It was not chastity that made me wild but fear
  that my weapon, tempered in different heat,
  was over-matched by yours, and your hand
  skilled to yield death-blows, might break.

  With the slightest turn—no ill-will meant—
  my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought

  fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Four Quartets   — by T.S. Eliot

Burnt Norton

V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

      The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always-
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.



*"Beloved," says Anoushka, "was my first experience writing lyrics from scratch and fitting it to a melody. It was flute-focused and I thought it would be nice to have it be about Krishna because he's always associated with the flute. The lyrics are from the viewpoint of Radha, who's his eternal lover. She's searching for him everywhere and then she understands that the reason she hasn't been able to find him is because she's not looking within herself."

SHYAM (श्याम): Hindi name derived from the Sanskrit element syama, meaning "black, blue." In mythology, this is a name belonging to Krishna.

Beloved - lyrics Anoushka Shankar/ vocals: Swarnima Gusain
Shyam re
(O Dark one*)
Shyam re
Shyam re
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
(Let me see you, dark one)
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
Saawre, saawre
( "beautiful one, beautiful one")
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
Saawre, saawre
Daras dikha jaa, shyam re
Chavvi torey nainon ki, taan teri bansi ki
( "the sight of your eyes, the sound of your flute")
Chavvi torey nainon ki, taan teri bansi ki
Satoan na tum aisay piya
(Do not torture me thus, my love)
Main hu teri bas teri
(I am yours, just yours)
Satoan na tum aisay piya
Main hu teri bas teri
Saason mein basa tera naam re
(It dwells in my breath, your name)
Shyam re, saawre
( "dark one, beautiful one")
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Itt ud khoju piya
(Here and there I look for you, my love)
Jaadu tuney aisa kiya
(Such a spell you have a cast on me)
Itt ud khoju piya
Jaadu tuney aisa kiya
Samjhi ab lila tori
(Now I understand your game)
Basey morey man mein piya
(You live in my heart, my love)
Samjhi ab lila tori
Basey morey man mein piya
Saason mein basa tera naam re
(It dwells in my breath, your name)
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re
Shyam re, saawre
Daras dihka jaa, shyam re

some notes on my poetry translations...

奔馬

夢先於現實。
而純粹
似花，似血，似詩
，似枯腐前消逝的生。


Runaway Horses (Realistically Synaesthetic Purity)  

Dreams, a priori, then reality.
And purity
Resembles a flower, resembles blood, resembles poetry,
Resembles life, a priori, disappearing before decay.


Notes on Runaway Horses (Realistically Synaesthetic Purity)

The main inspiration behind my poem “Runaway Horses” was Mishima Yukio’s 奔馬 Runaway Horses, the second book in his tetralogy豊饒の海 The Sea of Fertility, Mishima’s final work before his ritual suicide (seppuku) on November 25, 1970, which he planned meticulously for at least a year with no one outside the group of hand-picked members of Tatenokai (楯の会, or Shield Society, a private militia in Japan dedicated to traditional Japanese values and veneration of the Emperor, founded and led by Mishima himself) having any indication of what he was attempting. Mishima discussed and wrote about seppuku extensively and in great details in Runaway Horses (but surely it was received, and intended to be, a work of fiction when published). The alternative translated title “Realistically Synaesthetic Purity” was given when I first translated this poem from the Chinese it was originally written in. Synaesthesia, meaning “a sensation experienced in a part of the body other than the part stimulated (in physiology)” or “the subjective sensation of a sense other than the one being stimulated. For example, a sound may evoke sensations of colour (in psychology),” is not something one usually experiences in daily life (our ordinary consciousness), but rather, is more likely to occur in an aesthetic experience (an extraordinary consciousness which distinguishes itself from ordinary consciousness in many of its metaphysical and epistemological characters).

Mishima’s Runaway Horses was the book which I enjoyed the least whilst reading his tetralogy – the most politically and socially oriented, and also the most scholastic and ‘academically complex’ style of writing. This book was almost too dry at times for me to recognise the literary giant and his artistic beauty which I fell so hopelessly in love with and has influenced me so much for so long. In this novel, Mishima left me no breathing space (something I crave and adore and need in literature). Nevertheless, the poem came to me a while after I finished all four books of The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, in a way that could not have been purer, simpler, like a flower blossoming at night with a faint, subtle and lingering scent. The feeling I had when naming my poem "Realistically Synaesthetic Purity" is that, I was overwhelmed from being over-stimulated in my eyes and my brain whilst reading Runaway Horses, but the sensation and purity I felt in my heart, from his heart, was realistic and not ‘transcendental’ or ‘idealistic’ (ideal, as opposed to ‘real’). Runaway Horses, albeit being a book on an area which I am not all that interested in, with its difficult words, with Mishima’s complicated, meticulous and formidable system of thoughts, the social and political notions and history discussed, was able to get through to me and make me feel its purity, simplicity and beauty in the end. I saw its heart. Its essence.

A priori: 先驗性, ‘determining something priori to their being given,’ ‘existing in the mind prior to and independent of experience,’ (antonym: a posteriori). I dedicate this poem, and in particular this line, to Mishima Yukio and his book Runaway Horses:
“And purity… Resembles life, a priori, disappearing before decay.”


*                    *                    *                    *


曉寺

(薰息，我執，唯識)

緣起於鏡花水月的無常
存活涅槃之花瓣間的阿賴耶識，似
剔透的純藍火焰蘊蓄
鏤花之詩

桃花心木質的鏤空雕花
在蒼白哀傷的殘月撫觸下
散發似水晶斷面般清明露華
濕漉而冷冽的香氛


Temple in Vijñaptimātra

(…incense, Ātma-grāha, Vijñānavāda)

Dependant arising, from the impermanence
Of mirrored flowers, of moon water
Exists ālayavijñāna between petals of nirvana, as if
Transparency of pure blue flames, and
Within which a filigree of poetry

Rosewood reliefs under caresses
Of pale sorrowful moonlight
Scent of dewdrops at dawn permeates, like
A crystal facet; the soaking, penetratingly
Icy perfume

Notes on Temple in Vijñaptimātra

Inspired by Mishima Yukio’s 曉寺 Temple of Dawn, my favourite book in The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, and perhaps my favourite of all his books and writings I have read, my poem “Temple in Vijñaptimātra” was also written originally in Chinese and translated into English quite some time later. Unlike “Runaway Horses (Realistically Synaesthetic Purity),” which I consider a rather abstract poem of mine, “Temple in Vijñaptimātra” appeared/arrived with imageries, sounds, smells, and words which alone might not mean much but present themselves as gemstones, paint colours and musical notes for me to create jewellery, paintings and songs. Independent and individual images to be made into a ‘moving and flowing’ film. That is how I usually write poetry. Having been influenced by Buddhist concepts since primary school when I first came across a writer whose prose is deeply inspired by Chan Buddhism, and given my love of words and ideograms (specifically Chinese), I fell in love with Buddhist terminologies in Chinese (and later in their original Sanskrit) for their sounds, their appearances, and the ways words are arranged. For me, they are in and of themselves, poetry, and always provide many inspirations.

Vijñaptimātra (唯識論): ‘Mere representation;’ the Yogācāra theory that the contents of everyday, unenlightened experience are merely a false superimposition upon actuality of dualistic concepts generated by the mind that prevent direct experience of reality as it truly is (yathā-bhūta). Some later forms of Yogācāra lend themselves to an idealistic interpretation of this theory but such a view is absent from the works of the early Yogācārins such as Asaṇga and Vasubandhu.
Ātma-grāha (我執): attachment to self
Vijñānavāda (विज्ञानवाद): 唯識宗, the Vijñaptimātra school of thought
Aālayavijñāna (阿賴耶識): The ālaya-vijñāna forms the "base-consciousness" (mūla-vijñāna) or "causal consciousness". According to the traditional interpretation, the other seven consciousnesses are "evolving" or "transforming" consciousnesses originating in this base-consciousness.
The store-house consciousness accumulates all potential energy for the mental (nama) and physical (rupa) manifestation of one's existence (namarupa). It is the storehouse-consciousness which induces transmigration or rebirth, causing the origination of a new existence.


*                    *                    *                    *


Decayed

birds fluttering feathers beasts secretly cringing
as if musk spreading in the mists astray, fading
then never a sound in Death/ nor breath/ not even heart
Death seals and stagnates the pale wax of light
in her mouth
as if a tooth-filing ceremony as if anaemia as if bleeding


One little footnote on Decayed…

*Tooth-filing Ceremony: The Balinese Ceremonies of Tooth-filing

The second part of human ceremonies for the Balinese Hindu life is tooth-filing. The ceremony is held when a child reaches adulthood, the purpose of which is to minimise sins – Anger, Envy, Greed, Arrogance, Drunkenness and so on. This ceremony must be performed prior to a child’s marriage or after the girl’s first menstrual period starts. Only 6 teeth should be filed for this ceremony – 2 eye teeth and 4 incisors of the top teeth. Tooth-filing is a very important ceremony for Balinese life, as it is believed that should the ceremony not be performed on a person, that person’s soul will be restless and never in peace when s/he dies. Those in tooth-filing ceremonies should dress in mostly golden yellow and white colours, symbolism of holiness. In Bali, Balinese Hindus believe in thousands of gods, and every single thing in the house has a spirit. They believe that there is a god watching over the place, and offerings are also essential to bad spirits. This is to give gratitude to the gods, and to the bad spirits for not disturbing their peace. Beautiful and exquisitely colourful ephemeral offerings seen everywhere on the island of Bali are made every single day as small offerings to thousands of deities and evil spirits, one of Bali’s sights that have always had my heart.



*Beautiful ephemeral offerings! One of the topics I enjoyed the most when I studied Southeast Asian art history/archaeology/material cultures in university. (More photographs from my travel to Ubud, Bali...)