Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts

Sunday, March 2, 2025

Seeing You Raga


like you I know of sonnet rules of rhyme
but now I make these sonnets as I please
hoping fragments of them may yet survive
transmission through what goes beyond
that cloud of information beyond that plug 
that has its own heartbeat if it has one
going beyond the confines of our earth
out into space rippling on for light years
into our star system towards unknowns
knowing that others will read what I send
and they have a duty to comprehend
my meaning in case I’ve encrypted sense
in case I’m writing to those that rebel
who turn my nonsense into words that gel

when some readers stiffen with keen intent
it is my duty to enliven life
for I am an un-jammed radio ham
getting a message out that all is well
I can say no more gentlemen don’t tell
I can say much more but under duress
under inquisition and in distress
but that beautiful blue globe seen from space
has refugee migrations south to north
east to west crossing by land and by sea
changing direction where fences are built
adapting as species must to survive 
when threatened by what is unspeakable
driven by fears incomprehensible

twenty-four bars of a raga I play
using all strings of a well tuned sitar
only in my mind my fingers won’t work
for intricate chord changes delicate
phrases restating questions never asked
my fingers less nimble my timing off
discordant thoughts tumbling out of sequence
wailing sitar pounding tabla on stage
where if I could play but only in my mind
because I cannot play sitar I can
pluck a good string and perhaps even improvise 
what I’m needing what I’m pleading
what would be understood were meaning clear
what would propel forward if in first gear

then 
      there and then when
        coexistence twined
our eyes engaging passing on the stairs
when I realized composing these lines
vines might climb together never be one
when we exchanged bright words for brief seconds
enough time to enthrall that morning when
a trout stirred for a naiad in the fronds
your image appealing to prime instinct
when I saw you in Springtime on those stairs
forever rising upwards till time’s end
kept en prise captivated held so still
put your fingers on your temples find it
where in memory we’ll always exist
a portal to paradise entered in bliss

there are two spaces we think we exist in
one not more sacred that world we live in 
one in our brain an entire universe
put your fingers on your temples find it
that world in your brain Greek myths will explain 
should you care to consider a box is a brain
in temples so holy all congregate
in awe of a finely carved wooden chest
never opened full of unnameables
circumscribed by wide band frequencies
in which a universe appears to expand
that box of all your temple’s treasures most 
dear that box as big as a mind’s clear eye
answering all you can pose asking why

Turing’s machine conceived this universe 
everything minus one might exist
non computable never imagined
just reading these words creates a new world
analyzable freshly imagined
choose your own stories and populate it
or reuse attic tales’ modern myth
make new legends where you are heroic
some force compels you to enact a play
absconding a person in a chariot 
wherever Aphrodite beckons
escaping into enchanted gardens 
for gods can mix with mortals we decree
in that world not sacred that world we see



Copyright © Dick Russell
         Richard M Russell
                 2025

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

                                   Lesbia whispered

                                              to Catullus

                         I

       you must learn to enjoy
       my hands caressing you
            your skin rippling

         my nails small knives
         dissecting you
flame frost both creating and killing
           in my fingertips 

             let you shudder
                      there
                quiver there
                 tremble
                          
       moan while I’m loving you
         while my hands undo
      all the knots of your body
           & your bones melt
            & you yield to me

            come to me now
                 then my love
          come into the cosmos
              œther of stars’ gap
                  fills my lungs

          my heels move galaxies
my thighs are pathways to the universe

                  my moment
                time caught
                    time spent
        
                  time flows
                      away me
                         away

                        me


                                      he was as intimate with her
    as crab lice during copulation
            she who stole fish
         who shrewdly calculated
         how to become bankrupt
               with credit cards

      went off to Paris to spend money
        gave expensive gifts to friends
          even left him with a Nikon
     he sold for a fraction of its worth
               careless of money

          now memories flicker in
                  consciousness
            where tendrils of light
        flash in forests of neurons
                        long
       carbon chain molecules hunt
      through his subterranean brain
          working to remove stains
     from a carpet never finding  those
  remnants   filaments of fiber encoded
                 generations ago

         all that Lesbia once was

         mythology is like a stain
         no chemicals can remove
          its archetypes embedded
           seashells in a fishnet
          impossible to untangle
            intrinsic to its design

         she will always be there
                waiting for him
                    at the shore




                                         © Dick Russell, 2015

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Endless Yearning


by Li Po


                        1

I endlessly yearn to be in Chang-An
a single cricket chirps by that gold-rimmed well
a Hippocrene
defying the season

a little frost   my bedding is cold

a single lamp lit in my room

one lantern hung high flickers

shadows mock me
making me more sad

moving to the window
I see Po-Chu-Yi's moon   and sigh

my desire
like a bloom beyond reach
yellow in deep dark reaches of sky

while below
blue waters run restlessly
through green fields
reflecting white clouds

anguish in my soul
my dreams grow weary
you are so far away

I think of the mountains
insurmountable mountains
that lie between us

impossible even to hope

endless this longing
breaking my heart


                        2

this evening
flowers shone like lanterns
through the dusk
sun set slowly

the moon so bright
it's like a piece of white silk

I wish I could take it
to dab away my tears
I can't sleep

I played some songs on a harp
simple songs about men and women
who are happy together

then I took up a lute
that has only two strings
each faithful to the other

these melodies have great feeling
if only you could hear them

who will bear them to you for me?
will the spring wind carry them there?

you are so far away
open skies have shut their doors on us
my eyes once sparkling
now deep wells of tears

if you doubt how my heart aches
return to me & see
just how I look
in this mirror



translated by David Sen and Dick Russell

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