The Gods of This Earth

The gods of this earth
dragged me bound and chained
to the battlefield of choice.

Amidst the noise and rain,
they laughed and said,
“Behold the armies here aligned;
survey now what will be lost,
and what, if aught, you'll gain.”

My feet were motionless,
locked in the hardened mortar
of my dharma.
I rattled my hapless chain.

The gods cackled and shrieked, “Look:
There is no worldly goal, no aim,
no task before God but dharma:
Do your duty, day after day,
There’s no Sabbath, so claim no rest.
There is no rest to claim.” (1)

Another whispered hoarsely—“Yes!
Stick to your wretched dharma,
given you by Nature, God and Guru!
There is only hope for you
if you unravel your hopes:
For these are the binding ropes.” (2)

I strained to see the Vraja fields,
once held up to me as hope.
“Will I get this from my dharma?”
I cried. And they said, “Nope.”

“Surrender!” urged the worldly gods.
“Do your karma! Take your karma!
Fear for sankar of the varna!
Worry ‘bout the kula dharma!

"Oho! Show your stuff to them
who disdain your God.
Love means you’re not a stain
on your guru's spotless raiment.
Love means you take the pain,
even when there’s nothing
in this world or the next to gain.”

And, as an afterthought, they said:
"Save yourself from shame."

“Make your choice, make your choice!” They egg'd.
“The choice has long been made,” I said.
“It has been made by my concrete boots,
and by this tree with both upward
and downward roots,
for I have eaten of its
shrivelled, lifeless fruits.”

[**This cannot be! This cannot be!
Did I have no real choice
that would have set me free?]

*Based on (1) and (2) from Religions in Four Dimensions by Walter Kaufmann (NY: Reader's Digest Press, 1976). Pages 290 and 242 respectively. Originally these were quoted in full, but have now been totally altered.
** To be whispered.

Postscript: A little heroism, Arjun,
a little less moping in corners.
Wherever heroes die,
there are always joyful mourners.

I Am An Ocean

I am an ocean : on the surface names and forms
ruffle and ripple like waves, tides and storms.
But sat, chit and ananda are my depths,
waters untroubled by viraha or death.

So listen : When I say that Krishna saves,
I do not mean he stops or stays the waves.
It means we meet him in the inner deep,
a holy realm beyond profoundest sleep.

I do not fear or shy from karma’s phal;
I do not seek freedom from my sins or hell.
The Name pulls me with infinite grace
To my deeps where They are e'er enlaced.

I am an ocean : on the surface names and forms
ruffle and ripple like waves, tides and storms.
But being, knowledge and love fill my depths:
Where no curse shall e'er trouble me, nor regrets.

Waves too are the verses you have just read.
Why make these waves? What needed being said?
It's this: You too are an unfathomable sea,
So sink the horned hare, and be with me.



First posted on Gaudiya Discussions (May, 2005)

Sweeter Than Sweet

I was once inspired to try my hand at translating in verse, but it came out sounding too much like doggerel and so I abandoned it. Here was one such attempt (CC Madhya 21.137-141):

Sanatan! Just contemplate the sweetness of the Lord!
A mellifluent sea of mead
For which my mind in lusty greed
Has come and sits in waiting by its shore.

And thinking it will quickly drink its fill
Is fated but to know it never will.
Misfortune comes dressed up in doctor’s guise
and allows it not one drop, despite its cries.

Pray tell, can sweetness be still more than sweet?
And then more sweet, a sweetness even more complete?
With just one drop, the entire cosmos fills
And drowns within those lovely honey swills;
In sweetness all directions merge and meet.

The smiling rays of camphor touch his lips,
The smile melts from his misty mouth and drips
Ent’ring by force the ears of all the skies
Beguiles, and ravishing it ties
The hearts of all, and most of all, the girls.

Just hear about that dulcet flute’s disgrace!
It steals wives from their husbands’ sweet embrace,
Destroys their dharm and their chasteness vows.
And Lakshmi too in heaven is aroused,
So what hope have we poor gopis to save face?

It looses the brides’ clothes before their grooms,
Makes them leave their chores unfinished in their rooms;
It makes them dance as if tied to a string
Forgetting fear, shame and every thing,
And drags them where the lotus lord’s smile blooms.

Sri Krishna’s arms like jewelled bars of steel--
No! Not arms but cobras black who steal
Between the furrows of the gopis’ breasts
To pierce their hearts and put their fangs to rest,
And leave a wound that only he can heal.

The Bare Bones of a Poem

The world is a world of metaphor—
No thing is a thing in itself.

If horses had gods, their gods would be horses,
said one with a Trojan horse laugh.

And ever since, each day
a sad child grows
to find there is no Santa Claus,
no bearded grandpa on a celestial throne,
no shining blue boy playing a flute—
"These tales are all a bit too cute;
I am no child," says he.

How astute the human brain!
Horse gods, Norse gods, little-boy-blue gods,
or bearded old-man-in-the-sky gods--
just food for the hopeless insane!

And yet...
The phone booth out behind my fence
is where Clark Kent secretly
kicks off his outer pants!

It's where a broken-hearted girl
tries one last time to retrieve her man.
It's where a trembling toxicomane
scours the towers for another horse to ride.
It's where an exhausted wheeler-dealer
grasps at one last straw to get a loan,
and, failing that, does not go home,
but rings a local whore’s phone.

It’s here the ingenue got the nod;
It’s here that someone talked to God.

I have eyes! I am not blind
It’s just aluminum and glass,
wires, square metal ugliness—
No Central Square of miracles!

But those are empty eyes
that see just aluminum and glass
wires, metal, ugliness:
They see just empty truths, and those are lies.

Naked facts are the sound of one hand clapping,
They're the tree falling in an empty forest,
They are bones without the flesh of meaning,
while meaning gives flesh to the barest of bones.

And this is why I worship stones.