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

Butterflies

How 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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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The Tune of Verse

Butterflies

Mysterious disappearances