The Tune of Verse
Marsaxlook Port
“ The Tune of Verse”was the publication made available to the audience which attended the poetry reading in Marsaxlokk held Friday, May 17, 2013
The tune of verses
by poets
Paul Dalli
German Droogenbroodt
Gabriel Rosenstock
Najet Adouani
K. Satchidanandan
Yiorgos Chouliaras
Hatto Fischer
Philip Meersman
Hemant Divate
Rati Saxena
Menna Flyfn
Claudia Gauci
Penelope Doundoulaki
Merlie M. Alunan
Anjan Sen
Paul Dalli
Tunnel of light
Returned turned back, rove amid the living,
Want of yonder reach without forgiving,
Unknown to man, thrill, joy, blissful delight,
Passage lit bright, soft float without a fright.
And in a flare so quick, now here soon there,
A choice so rare yearning beyond compare,
Golden fare rays, intense yet soothing glare,
Quickly rushed out from such pleasant affair.
Though in a dream so real, awake so fake,
With no mistake event none dare to shake,
But finger thrust, distinct, unpleasant mark,
No game, joke, lark, back in a world of dark.
Perfect shape hearts, stain of burning scorch,
Recall of light, in a flaming torch.
A day of peace
Year after year a day so rare,
A fresh new dawn, quickly so gone,
When each would stare with one’s own pair,
Memories drawn, events forgone.
And midst such dark is born a spark,
Of human hope in space and scope,
Scribing its mark inside an ark
Fragrance of dope, from a hemp rope
Sounds of heart-beat under a sheet,
Where in such calm, hear moving palm,
Without deceit dear ones to greet,
Citing a psalm, fragrance of balm.
Prevail the truce none dare abuse,
Without excuse, Peace keep not lose.
Germain Droogenbroodt
“Only poetry, so far, escaped the dictatorship of consumption. Since Homer’s Odyssey, the first great poem in Western history, till today, the poets have been writing about humans, about there misfortunes and their glories as did Paul Celan with his dramatic Fuge of Death, Izet Sarajlic about the horrors committed in ex Yugoslavia; Juan Gelman about the disappeared in Argentina; Mahmud Darwish about the hope and misery of Palestine people etc. etc. Nowadays, as ever before, only the poet holds his finger on the pulse of humanity.”
meditation
Sharpened
by the fire of dawn
wanders the mind
over the waste land of the day
who appears as nothingness
virginal and complete
an emptiness
without borders.
From “Unshadowed Light”
Peaceful Morning in the Himalayas
It appears
as if the previous night
has quenched every thirst
the day comes with light
and voices of birds
strange to the ear
in the distance
the wavering sound
of a reed flute:
a morning prayer
for Shiva, for Buddha
or for whatever god
so peaceful appears this morning
as if after so many ages
humanity were at peace
finally at rest.
From “In the Stream of Time, Meditations in the Himalayas”
German Droogenbroodt
POINT Editions
http://www.point-editions.com
Gabriel Rosenstock
“The miraculousness of life should engender a sense of 'wonder' in us, others take it in their stride. Most people take the miraculousness of life for granted.
One of the roles of the artist is, I think, to increase our awareness of life in all its miraculous diversity. It's only when we blind ourselves to the miraculousness of life in ourselves and others - and in the universe - that conflict arises. When we ourselves are filled with the wonder of the miraculousness of life, our works of art are imbued with life; they are life-enhancing. Much of today's art is lifeless and many of our critics are deaf and blind.”
Gabriel
ButterfliesHow many kinds of butterfly are there? How many species can you give a name to? The author of Lolita collected butterflies. Where does the stress fall on Nabokov? This is not a quiz. These are questions of some substance. Myself, I’d have to scratch my head twice to name three or four species in any language. So it’s likely that my family’s family will be as blind to butterflies as myself. But if any of them are around in about half a millennium and come across these fluttering lines who knows, they might be stirred into wandering the world of butterflies. Unless, in the meantime, they have folded their shrivelled, perishing wings: Irish, that is, and the butterflies. |
Tagpfauenauge An mó saghas féileacáin atá ann? An mó speiceas atá tú in ann a ainmniú? Bailitheoir féileacán ab ea údar Lolita. Cá bhfuil an bhéim ar a shloinne siúd, Nabokov? Ní quiz é seo. Tá tábhacht éigin ag baint leis na ceisteanna seo. Mé féin, chaithfinn mo chloigeann a thochas faoi dhó chun trí nó ceithre speiceas a ainmniú i dteanga ar bith. Is cosúil, dá dheasca sin, go mbeidh sliocht mo shleachta chomh dall ar fhéileacáin is atáim féin. Ach má bhíonn duine acu thart i gceann leathmhíle bliain agus má thagann sé ar na línte eitleacha seo cá bhfios ná go spreagfar é nó í chun eolas a chur ar dhomhan na bhféileacán. Mura ndúnfaidh siad a sciatháin idir an dá linn sioctha seargtha an Ghaoluinn agus na féileacáin. |
Empty Cobweb “Do not spend time writing poems or essays on Zen . . .” Nyogen Senzaki A long time now since I have seen a spider but time, too, has been such a long while away: What is spider-time? Does spider think, ‘A long time now since that bloke appeared the scribbler who notices me the one I needn’t fear.’ If only he would show up now, spider, we could renew our vows – never to interfere with each other go our own way weave our tales, independently. The empty cobweb flutters. Is he coming? Spider? From nowhere? No, it’s only a breeze a draught from somewhere Or the mind, simply, silky movement of mind |
Líon Folamh Damháin Alla “Ná caith do chuid ama ag scríobh dánta nó aistí ar Zen . . .” Nyogen Senzaki Is fada anois ó leagas súil ar dhamhán alla ach tá an t-am féin tamall maith in easnamh: Cad is am damháin alla ann? An ndeir sé leis féin, ‘Tá tamall maith anois ann ambaist ó nocht mo dhuine an scrioblálaí a thugann faoi deara mé is nach gá dom eagla a bheith orm roimhe.’ Dá nochtfadh sé anois, an damhán alla, d’fhéadfaimis ár gcuid móideanna a thabhairt arís: Gan cur isteach ar a chéile go deo ár gconair féin a leanúint scéalta a fhí, neamhspleách ar a chéile.
Creathán sa líon folamh. An bhfuil sé chugainn? An damhán alla? As an bhfolús? Níl, níl ann ach feoithne séideán as ball éigin
Nó an aigne, díreach, gluaiseacht shíodúil na haigne
|
Gabriel Rosenstock
Poet, novelist, playwright, author/translator of over 160 books, mostly in Irish. He taught haiku at the Schule für Dichtung (Poetry Academy) in Vienna and Hyderabad Literary Festival, India. Aso writes for children. Among the anthologies in which he is represented is Best European Fiction 2012 (Dalkey Archive Press). Books Ireland, Summer 2012, says of his comic novel My Head is Missing: ‘This is a departure for Rosenstock but he is surefooted as he takes on the comic genre and writes a story full of engaging characters and a plot that keeps the reader turning the page.’
Where Light Begins is a selection of haiku and The Invisible Light features haiku in Irish, English, Spanish and Japanese with work by American master photographer Ron Rosenstock. Recent books include Irish-language versions of K.Satchidanandan, Ko Un, Hemant Divate and Dileep Jhaveri. Rosenstock is a member of Aosdána (Irish Academy of Arts & Letters).
E-books:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/gabriel-rosenstock?dref=2207
Najet Adouani
The guitar
Behind the window,
The old walnut tree was bored to stare
Into the eyes of a woman, who had escaped
From the slumber,
To prostate each morning
Under her feet,
While looking at her dead birds
In their fissures,
For graves…..
One evening
whenever clouds are being shaped
In the sky…………
I feel as if they are changing with my
Kisses………..
They embrace me in a dress the color
Of my eyes………
And so they reflect
My inner being
K. Satchidanandan
A MAN WITH A DOOR
A man walks with a door
along the city street;
he is looking for its house.
He has dreamt
of his woman, children and friends
coming in through the door.
Now he sees a whole world
passing through this door
of his never-built house:
men, vehicles,trees,
beasts, birds,everything.
And the door, its dream
rising above the earth,
longs to be the golden door of heaven;
imagines clouds, rainbows,
demons, fairies and saints
passing through it .
But it is the owner of hell
who awaits the door.
Now it just yearns
to be its tree, full of foliage
swaying in the breeze,
just to provide some shade
to its homeless hauler.
A man walks with a door
along the citystreet
a star walks with him.
2006
(Translated from the Malayalam by the poet)
CLOTHES THAT BLEED
Bleeding clothes
on the riverbank and the seashore ,
at the railway station and the airport,
on the playground and the street,
on the courtyard and the verandah,
in the drawing room and the bedroom,
on the newspaper and the silver screen..
Bleeding clothes,
no one asking whose blood it is.
The survivors say it is not theirs,
they sing and dance and make love,
but the clothes, they run after me
with a dumb stare.
It is Muslim’s blood, says the Hindu,
turning his eyes away, it is the dalit’s blood,
the caste-Hindu averts his face,
the Malayali says it is the Tamilian’s,
the patriot says it is the foreigner’s,
the rulers say it is the rebel’s.
It is woman’s, man washes his hands,
It is beast’s , human being plays the saint,
it is the tree’s, the beast is innocent.
And with each face that turns
In waking and in sleep,
In reading and in thought,
scattering blood, they come, they pile up,,
bleeding clothes,
clothes without God.
1998
( Translated from Malayalam by the poet )
Yiorgos Chouliaras
REFUGEES
On the other side
of the photograph I write to remind myself
not where and when but who
I am not in the photograph
They left us nothing
to take with us
Only this photograph
If you turn it over you will see me
Is that you in the photograph, they ask me
I don’t know what to tell you
Translated by David Mason & the author
THE BARBARIANS ARE NOT WAITING
Nobody waits in a desert for a desert
nor remains bareheaded on a barren steppe
on mountains, in forests, in damp hideouts
avoiding the civilized hordes
Mobs that keep collecting in cities
after they’ve flooded the open fields
and glutted the sea with shipwrecks
we hear they make noises in squares
From every point and in every way
breathless messengers keep arriving
with nothing written on foreign tongues
which we carefully dissect every time
These people as we believe
they surely must be
have not learned to communicate
in a direct and effective manner
Pointless for them to look for answers
in our always successful solution
because the barbarians never wait
before civilization erases us all
Translated by George Economou & the author
Yiorgos Chouliaras is a Greek poet and essayist, whose poetry in English translation has been published and reviewed extensively in major literary periodicals – including Agenda, Grand Street, Harvard Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, and World Literature Today – and in international anthologies such as New European Poets. His work has also been translated into Croatian, French, Spanish, Turkish, and other languages. He is the author of six volumes of poetry in Greek and of numerous essays on literature and cultural history, in English as well as Greek, while poets he has translated include Wallace Stevens. He was a co-founder of the influential Greek literary reviews Tram and Hartis and an editor of literary and scholarly publications in the United States. He has served on the Board of the Hellenic Authors’ Society, the Poets Circle, the Ottawa International Writers Festival, and the Modern Greek Studies Association. After finishing Anatolia College in Thessaloniki, he went on a scholarship to Reed College in Oregon, and continued at The Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York City, where he worked as a university lecturer, consultant to cultural institutions, correspondent, and press officer. He also served as Press Counselor at the Greek Embassies in Ottawa, Washington, D.C., and Dublin, before returning to Athens. His forthcoming Dictionary of Memories is a “memoir” in the form of a dictionary.
Hatto Fischer
The blind man
- for Costis, the son of Melina
He sees better than anyone else
what you feel and contemplate.
He senses with his hands
what your smile means to others.
And he gathers a lot from your voice.
Often you wonder how he moves
through the streets and still
finds his way back home
all by himself.
He seems never to be alone
in his world of constant daze.
Everyone greets and loves him
because he knows no sarcasm
and has a friendly word for everyone,
who passes by his house in Dafnomili,
Even to a stranger, he would say,
good that you live among us,
especially when a crisis
hits us so hard that no one can see
what lies ahead. To this he adds
with a nod of his head while his eyes
search where you are standing
that life is most powerful
when the vision of a common future
guides us all. He then shakes your hand
and lets you go, trusting
that you will find your way alone.
12.3.2012
The city with the great harbour
at the crack of dawn
hear the rowing boats
filtering into the harbour
after they had been swayed
at sea by many kinds
of winds blowing
them in all kinds of directions,
bringing them at times
dangerously close
to rocky shores.
But now, within the safety
of the great harbour,
they quietened down
as again the rowing strokes
of the men found their rhythm
to make sure they would
soon be home – but how strange,
the entire city was silent, no one
seemed to move about, no one
at the pier to greet them.
What happened was
that the lights of people
they had just lit
the evening before
to see what lies ahead
on stairs leading up
to the Cathedral went out.
It was so sudden
that a hush of silence
befell the entire city.
Even the church bells
stayed silent that morning.
At first sight it seemed
the silence was meant
to let children still dream
instead of awakening them,
but no one else moved.
Frozen still, unmoved,
this is how the men
from the rowing boats
found a city no longer
touched by signs of life.
Acquiescence as essence
was like asking the houses
“answer us, why no one moves?”
They heard only the echoes
of their footsteps ascertain
silence had become non-recognizable
to them, their heads still tossed
by a sea moved by winds.
It was only once they touched
the sand clinging to walls
like dust of history
did they realize they had
been gone for too long, and
had lost the measure of time,
so now back in their city
by the great harbour
they need to find another horizon
not of the sea, but one spotted
ahead when out of love
in mankind thought to have been lost
returns with a magic touch of dreams
to undo an odd kind of neglect
to keep memories alive, and well.
10.5.2013
Philip Meersman
Mysterious disappearances
(Genesis 11:1)
Green butterfly
Sounds pops past my pinna
I listen to cunning linguists licking their tongues
and still time ticks
moments of true happiness
“Behold the tower of Babel”
before
Except our hearts feel
part of this
“And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.”
Can Nimrod be without God’s scorn
Can we craft a Trans-Europe Express?
Blue Light
Radiation of a computer screen
"land belonging to no one"
I switch off
------------------------------------------------------
Zaedno / EN
There hasn’t been a smile
an awakening
so much longed for
There hasn’t been a grey day
a sunset
shining so brightly
There hasn’t been a body
its fluids
so much monitored
the beeps, pleeps, dings,
trings, ticks, dongs,
lines, curves, colors
so much stared at
a rollercoaster
of tears, fears,
silences and sighs
Than that moment
of mmmmpoe and phboe,
hihi and kriihi
of PR & EN
© Philip Meersman, 27/05/2011
Hemant Divate
Butterflies
Ambling by in the garden of the apartment complex
I casually remarked to a friend,
Don’t see those small
deep-yellow butterflies these days
He casually said,
That brand has been discontinued
Even Now I Don’t Understand
Even now I don’t understand
what exactly should be done first
while making love
From where should the touching begin
so that she gives in immediately?
It’s the same as writing a poem
From what line should the poem begin
so that it comes out good?
Mohak
i
In my son’s mind there’s someone called Mohak
whom he awaits
and searches for
in the garden, on the ground
or by calling up here and there
Early in the morning
Mohak wakes him with a punch on the back
or a pinch on the thigh
At times he rises from sleep, startled,
and, in tears, says
Mohak missed his school bus
and, at other times,
Mohak is cross with him
We looked for Mohak desperately
To invite him for our son’s birthday, my wife
roamed the whole apartment complex
She even asked security to keep an eye out for him
On his birthday
my son sat crouched
waiting for Mohak
but Mohak didn’t come
Bored at last
he kept Mohak’s return gift and a slice of cake on the table
and went to sleep
ii
We saw Cartoon Network shows
scoured his Time-Life books
thumbed through puzzles
even sent a memo to his school
We left nothing undone
but couldn’t trace Mohak
One day my son said,
‘Today Mohak and I
played TV games
and when I beat him
in the 100-metre race
the TV game software applauded
but Mohak didn’t clap even once.
So I am not speaking with him anymore.’
I asked Ma,
‘Did some friend of his come to play?’
Ma said, ‘No one.’
I asked Pa,
‘What games do you play with him?’
Pa said, ‘Puzzles.’
When I angrily confronted my son,
he said, ‘I have no one to play with.’
iii
There’s a Mohak
in my mind too
Becoming my son’s mind
I too have been awaiting him
for a long, long time
( Mohak is a name of imaginary child. The closest meaning of Mohak in English is Tempting)
Hemant Divate
Hemant Divate is an internationally known Marathi poet, editor, publisher, and translator. His two poetry collections in Marathi, Chautishiparyantchya Kavita (Poems Till Thirty-Four) and Thambtach Yet Nahi (Just Can’t Stop), proved to be path-breaking in the Marathi literary landscape. His poems have been translated into English, French, Spanish, German, Urdu, Arabic, Gujarati, Bengali, Hindi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. Poetrywala has just published his third book of Marathi poems titled Ya Roommadhye Aale Ki Life Suru Hote (The Moment You Enter This Room, Life Begins). The celebrated poet and translator Dilip Chitre translated Chautishiparyantchya Kavita into English and titled the book Virus Alert. It is also published in Spanish as Alarma De Virus, and in Irish as Foláireamh Víris. His second book of poems in English translation, A Depressingly Monotonous Landscape, is just published.
A Depressingly Monotonous Landscape is a translation of Hemant’s second book of poems ‘Thambtach Yet Nahi’ which was awarded the prestigious Yashawantrao Chavan Prize for the best poetry collection published in Marathi from Jan 2006 to Dec 2009.
Hemant has won several prestigious awards, including the Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad Award (Kolkata, India), Aksharrang Lokmat Award 2013 and Maharashtra Foundation Award (USA). He has presented his poetry in many national and international poetry and literature festivals (Europe, Latin America and Asia).
He is the founder-editor of the prestigious Marathi little magazine Abhidhanantar, which saw uninterrupted publication for 15 years. Abhidhanantar has been credited for giving a solid platform to new poets and for enriching the post-nineties Marathi literary scene with amazing talent and great poetry.Hemant’s publishing house, Paperwall Media & Publishing Pvt Ltd (Poetrywala), has published more than 45 collections of poetry of extraordinary quality in Marathi and English
Hemant lives and works in Mumbai. He can be reached at Poetrywala@gmail.com
Rati Saxena
Wings of an ant
They said an ant does not have wings
They said even she had them, she cannot fly
If there is no flight, why suffer the pain of wings?
Wings show the death of the ant is near
But death itself is flight
The ant started flying
Holding the light blue light
Bending her wings towards the south
An illusion of silence in the noise
Towards the yellow light
She flew against her life
Carrying flight in the cells of her body
Bringing a seed for the next generation
Wail
My wail
does not find
a place
on earth
nor in the sky
but tries to seek shelter
in my chest,
in my abdomen and thighs,
in my womb.
They are afraid
of my wail
and try
to tear out my skin
with nails
while wishing to remove
my womb.
So I bury now my womb
in the earth
and stand there
till I turn into a tree
which grows with thousands cries
to remove
all the nails of artificial civilization.
For that
one wail is enough.
MENNA ELFYN
Murmurs
1
How to live and breathe
with mercy?
A quandary, a question.
How to walk lightly
without a cry in the dark,
or even a shadow,
and witheach step
be aware of the child sleeping next door:
how we’d give the world, not to wake her.
Murmuring blessings
around the walls,
love in its foundation.
2
Wall-wall,
walls are sounds
of the old tongueWe understand ‘shibboleth’,
the ‘s’ is clear on our lips;
the ‘sh ‘, ‘sh’, ‘sh’,
a warning that it’s the language of silence.
3
Now the breeze whispers
overmanoeuvres.
Can’t you hear the heather – rasping?
And when an army officer on Epyntannounces
that they always take off their shoes
in Afghanistan,
as a gesture of respect to the natives,
(after kicking the door down, that is,)
everyone is quiet as the grave.
Far away, not a whisper from the grapevine.
4
I urge you please notice when you’re happy and exclaim
or murmur or think at some point—if this isn’t nice, I don’t
know what is...
Kurt Vonnegut
the murmur
we voice,
is a language
strangeto others.
We mouth apology
when caught out
in soliloquy:
a muttering
on the lip…
…but are pleased too
when
we snatch a glimpse
of some other wise man
walking the street
or behind a wheel
telling tales,
minding the hours
with himself,
a being containing ‘multitudes’
and all content.
6
Although you may have an innocent murmur
throughout your life, you won’t need treatment for it
National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute
Poets live with beats,
consistentlyirregular;
lubb-dupp, its melody
carries a pitch that flows
through all the heartaches
and meter of the blood.
(EAH)
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