Category: Love


Ehoiai, ab initio, a mythic adventure

Her ineluctable desiderata for ideas stream
limning kinetic edifications, epiphanies of delight
fillips inspire pluralistic inquiries
ontology fueling her eclectic explorations

Clepsydra drives the mechanism
six thousand years measured
by the gentle flow of water

Transgressions of the mother fate her imprisonment
vulnerable, potent mind now chained to rock
threatened by encroaching ignorance, a dark sea monster
Cetus, chaos destroying without empathy or thought

Emphatic supernal delights contrast
her now inchoate existence
astronomical phenomena’s illumination ends
her passions lie dormant in temporal restraints
awaiting the beneficence of another to redeem
visions of her life flourishing, counteracting paucity

She scries the approaching hero
his nuanced seriatim a lapidary poetry
magnanimous meticulist denaturing her world view
illuminating prescient symbols, signs of her release

Perseus invisible arrives to slay the beast
his artistry Al-Jazari’s castle clock
zenith of invention, mystical implements
obliterate pernicious vitiation
striking the sea creature eristic clashes ensue
Perseus claims victory

Epicyclic gearing turns celestial spheres
concentric annulus, planet carrier and sun enmesh
liberty returns to Andromeda as numinous globes
enticing clouds of thoughts, igniting quixotic ruminations

Promises of consummate affinity traverse
ardent declarations of diaphanous happiness
fertile fields of creation birthing philosophies, art, and science
stereographic projection starcharts of their noetic constellations

Inside the Picture

 
from The Color of Pomegranates

for Sayat Nova and Sergei Parajanov

Before the monastery in Haghbat
prior to the Persian invasion
and death’s black end
that finished my singing

I was the master of song
my love a passion overflowing
the vessel of our lives
birthing poetry

Harmony realized through
creative energy
my beloved books
become the tools of your seduction

Handmade poet’s lyre
turning the inlaid handle
tuning my instrument to your key
each strum upon the body
brings me closer
to the essential

You work the threads of my childhood
Its color and aroma
into the lace of your purity
through you I discover my grace

A gentle wind streams silk
I am the wandering nightingale
burning this white rose for you
water flows over stone
in the Turkish bath of my desire

‘I am careful with your mouth, you speak in fables…’

We players now imbibe love
skipping, drumming, whirling
as we empty our vessels

‘How am I to protect my wax-built castles of love
from the devouring heat of your fires?
You are fire, your dress is fire.
We were searching for a refuge for our love;
instead we found the land of the dead.’

Prodding the lion with a stick
the vultures eye orbs
life’s fragility a globe of glass
tossed in the air, harbinger of
midnight horses and animal hides
antlers and barren branches

Peacock drinks from your lips
muskets fire above your still breast
your death cements my longing
spurs me along the path
lined with stained rubies

The walls of the mausoleum
preserve the tattered ash
of my words
you exist only here, abandoning us
an encaustic imprint
of the dramaturgy of color

Memory shifts the frame of consuming passion
moves me with its rhythm
you wove the lace of death
its visage conceals my pain
your shells upon the black vase

Death obscures your almond eyes
I cannot recognize you
or see my image reflected within

The peacock cries in the window
I will follow you through the black door
though I am cloaked in your colors
I am forbidden to enter now –
blind to the source of my life
I wait for the Persians

‘Who took my mind? I did not see the magician.’

Sayat Nova was an Armenian poet/troubadour (1712-1795) born Harutyun Sayadian in Tiblisi. Sayat Nova means ‘master of song’. His wife, Marmar, died leaving him with their four children. He was killed during the Persian invasion. All quotes are translations of his poetry. Sergei Parajanov was a Soviet Armenian film director. His film The Color of Pomegranates is based on Sayadian’s life. He was banned from making cinema for 15 years following its release for putting aesthetic concerns over ideology.

Linked to dVerse Poets Pub an incredible online poetry community – if you want to join us please click here  http://dversepoets.com/2011/10/18/open-link-night-week-14/

Nascent Era (a ghazal)

CERN Large Hadron Collider public domain

Tevatron at Fermilab, public domain

Despite all barriers, rules, and protestations, love arrives, an intriguing anomaly
Inner particle accelerator measures the velocity and impact, fusion’s intriguing anomaly

Faster than light neutrinos could recant a century of physics, intriguing anomaly
Scientists descry, calibrate, and recalculate this intriguing anomaly

Love, an edifying element, a shortcut along the 5th dimension, intriguing anomaly
A frontier, a revolution, ‘like a bullet passing through a bank of fog’, intriguing anomaly

Immutable laws show mercurial nature, a burgeoning possibility, an intriguing anomaly
Precursor inculcates, humanity’s flourishing: phenomenon or intriguing anomaly

Sagan Rule, 60 nanoseconds, we want proof to determine if this is an intriguing anomaly
Evidence of a chimera, is this an apogee or merely an intriguing anomaly

Oh halcyon days of laud and veneration now an intriguing anomaly
A nascent era birthing, surpassing this intriguing anomaly

Catalyst, you traverse me, a speed racer, love’s intriguing anomaly
Supernova manna, illuminates the overwhelming implications of this intriguing anomaly

Here’s the link to an LA Times article about the anomaly http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-0923-speed-of-light-20110923,0,497738.story