Archive for the 'Poetry' Category

Rosario & Alan – Delhi, plegaria insomne.

Published on 28/09/2011 in Alan Meller, Poetry, Rosario Concha and Video. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

“Delhi, plegaria insomne” means “Delhi, sleepless prayer”. Here are three poems in Delhi settings (one in Spanish & two in Hindi with Spanish subtitles), enjoy!

(If you can not see this video, try this version here).

Alan Meller & Rosario Concha are the first ever Chileans to study at Indian Universities at post-graduate level; Rosario recently completed her Masters in Sociology at Jawarhalal Nehru University, Delhi, while Alan is still working on a Ph D at Delhi University, comparing  modern Indian & Spanish Literature.

They are not your ordinary University students! It took them years, applying from Santiago, to be accepted at these prestigious Indian Universities.

I was fortunate to meet Alan & Rosario in Vashisht Village, a place they visit regularly, taking the long winding road up into the Himalayas from Delhi.

Alan Meller wrote: “Maybe I would include two references about this video.  One is that we worked  (production, camera, sound and editing)  with the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication (New Delhi) and the other, that the two poems written in Hindi (the one in the temple and the one given in paper in Jama Masjid) were translated by two teachers from Delhi University”.

(poems/video copyright Alan Meller & Rosario Concha 2011).

(music from the film Delhi-6 copyright Tseries Music ).

LINKS:

Jama Masjid (Wikipedia) “The Masjid-i Jahān-Numā (the ‘World-reflecting Mosque’), commonly known as the Jama Masjid of Delhi, is the principal mosque of Old Delhi in India. Commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, and completed in the year 1628 AD, it is the largest and best-known mosque in India. It lies at the origin of a very busy central street of Old Delhi, the Chawri Bazar Road.

Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication New Delhi “Started in 2003, the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts & Communication (SACAC) is an autonomous non-profit institution for creative learning in arts and communication. We are a unit of Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry”.

Delhi University (Wikipedia) “is a central university situated in Delhi, India and is funded by Government of India. Established in 1922, it offers courses at the undergraduate and post-graduate level”.

Jawarhalal Nehru University (Wikipedia) “also known as JNU, is located in New Delhi, the capital of India. It is mainly a research oriented postgraduate University”.

 

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Shivaratri 1979 by Ira Cohen

Published on 20/08/2011 in Images, Ira Cohen and Poetry. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , .

‘The tongue of a water buffalo is big & covered with straw’

Shivaratri 1979 by Ira CohenThis is a big poem full of tourists  & cameras set on tripods,
this is a poem seen from bamboo scaffolding of the Golden Temple’
a poem with one hand reaching up out of the earth counting on a rosary—
This is a poem of lost children looking for money.
a poem trying to hold a split bag of rice in a moving crowd,
this is a poem burning like charas in the pipe of a friend,
a poem of Shivaratri carried on staggering legs to see the king,
this is a poem striving towards the light sparked from the heart of Basudeb,
this is a poem which wants to tie itself around your neck like the skinny legs of The Man of the Sea—
this is a poem interrupted by elephantiasis,
this is a poem leaning against a temple wall drawing energy from the sun,
this is a poem smiling with no nose,
a poem reluctant to sing,
Ira Cohen in Kathmandu 1978-1979a trident of a poem aimed at your pineal,
this is a poem of pilgrimage,
an offering of struck bells to a dead dog in the river—
This is a poem looking down on pagodas,
this is a poem waiting for opium.
this is a poem of suicided sadhus
surrounded by trees in a foreign land,
anonymous as the voice on the loudspeaker,
this is an anonymous poem covered with birds….

(george farrow scanned the poem & wrote: “108 copies of this poem were published by Ira on hand made Nepali rice paper. I still have two copies given to me by Ira at that time”).

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Benares McDonalds – a poem

Published on 07/01/2010 in Peter Zimels, Poetry and Tales from The Flower Raj. 1 Comment

US Navy flier, New York City beat poet, mendicant monk, songwriter & a lovely human being! On the campus of the Sanskrit University, Banaras, 1965, as ordained Theravada Monks. BENARES McDONALDS

The first corpse of the morning
is a priest
burning on a sandal pyre.

His wristwatch ticks hypnotically
then melts
conjuring the frankincense
three wise men offered Christ.
Forgiving mankind’s sins
mandated crucifixion
so we might opt for freedom
if we dared…
shedding the tax on our flesh
as a serpent leaves skin…
continually becoming what was inconceived
’til then.

At the time
when the veins on the back of the hand
first cast a shadow
the monk goes out
each day to beg.

At the moment
the full-moon
touches the horizon
he shaves his skull
(hair, beard and eyebrows)

At the point
when his thinking
is muddied by his lust
he spends a season
in the charnel field
and lends a hand
at odd cremations.

Ritual consumes belief
that no thing is forbidden.
God’s a corpse.
The abstract only
manifest as fiction.

Sanctified myth
holds the species in thrall
and politics is chosen first
(like poppies)
over freedom.

Vultures spiral heavenward
through clouds of human smoke.
A monk
warms his hands
on the burning cadaver.

Peter Monk 1988

 

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