I sit down and freeze my pen,
I tear the unfinished poem apart.
I take a breath and open the shades,
I run outside to finish the poem.

Hold onto the good thoughts
even though the bad thoughts can feel
to be sitting right beside you,
staring you in the face,
and you think,
"I must face the truth. Everyone else
is only fooling themselves."
But...
what is truth?
I only know two:
I am,
I will die.
The rest is as one makes of it.

You see these ugly thoughts right next to you
because they are at the bend in the river
you have woven into your mind,
centuries of glaciers going in the same patterns
and wearing deep grooves.
You forge your world anew every moment,
you that am I.
Don't let the past trick you into thinking
that it is reality.
Your fears of what might be for the future,
they too travel in rafts along those same canyons.

The only thing that I can prove is,
I am,
not, I have been
or I will be,
for nothing is so certain as to suggest permanence.

Carve paths that will lead you to the mouth of the ocean
where all becomes one anew.

You walk into the mirror box and it’s like walking
into the imagery of one of your own poems.
You’re caught in the mirror maze, searching for yourself
in the mirrors at angles but all you can see is yourself,
back to back in the mirror tunnel, yourself again and again
until you can’t recognise her anymore.
Is it me? you ask and it is, but you’re still not convinced.
Is it just me in the mirror box, legs up to my chest, eyes closed
because I am horrible, you quote, but you’re standing up.
You’re standing up in too many of your own poems, in this permanence
of your fleeting reflection which proves you are real but has become
so metaphorical that being in the mirror box makes you question
the possibility of yourself as this person who is being reflected.
But this isn’t a poem, I tell myself. I don’t live in the second person.
She tries to cast aside the metaphors for a moment to try on the clothes
but you’re stuck in the mirror box, in the nightmares of my own poetry.

"a" is for love
"b" is for hate
"c" is for the illusion and deceit we believe
"d" is for who the innocent and children follow into graves
"e" is for the things we choose not to see
"f"  is for the things that we don't know or understand
"g" is for the faceless we give new names and old prayers
"h" is for the place that we tell bad little children they'll go
"i"  is for the blind leading the blind off the edge of the world
"j"  is for the humor we find in ****** and ****
"k" is for for the one eyed man wearing a crown
"l" is for what we believe in place of the truth
"m" is for what we justify in the name of country and god
"n" is for letting the hungry starve on the cold streets
"o" is for the thing we fear more than death
"p" is for those who turn cash into laws to protect rich criminals
"q" is for the lady dressed in jewels and dead hope
"r" is for what we have done with our dreams and our blood
"s" is for the last word we will say when we realize it's a little too late
"t" is for the boogeyman carrying our bullets and bombs
"u" is for what stares back from the mirror we pretend not to see
"v" is for the birds waiting to pick what little humanity still covers our bones
"w" is for the games of profit for death
"x" is a sign and a spot and a sign we ignore
"y" is for questions we better not ask
"z" is for all that is wasted in a life lived in a world
  that doesn't start and end with love

Dear Poet Friends, we are all born rich with plenty of time in our hands taking it for granted till old age arrives; when time begins to run out gradually going beyond our reach! Time is the only thing which we can never accumulate or save during our lifetime.  Yet each passing moment remains priceless like the effervescent dew drops of time! Kindly do read the short Notes below, which makes it easier to appreciate this poem you know! Thanks, -Raj

               TIME THE TRAVELLING GYPSY MAN
TIME you travelling gypsy man won’t you like to stay, and park
your magic caravan here just for a day?
You have been travelling without stopping through vast eons
of time,
Over the Tigress and the Euphrates Rivers, to the Valley of the
Nile;
Nile that longest river of the world, and Egypt’s life line.
Passing over ancient pyramids and the sphinx with raised heads.
To the Valley of the Indus where civilizations of Harappa and
Mohenjo- daro had once spread!
Across the Great Chinese Wall to visit the civilizations of
Mesoamerica; -
Those of the Ancient Mayans, the Aztecs, and the great Incas!
With your long flowing beard as white as snow,
You old gypsy man you surely require a rest you know.
Time you old gypsy man won’t you park here for a day,
Best of food and drinks and a bed of feathers, I have spread
out for your stay!

TIME the gypsy man with a wan smile replied, “Thanks for the
invitation my friend but I must decline, simply because I have
no time!
Since the Big Bang like an arrow I have started to flow,
I cannot stop now and forward I must go!
With your sundials, water clocks, and the hour glass,
You try to enslave me, but I shall always remain in a flux!
With your caesium atomic clock you accurately measure me out,
But weather I am real or illusory, there remains a nagging doubt!
But if ever mankind reaches that magical speed of light,
Only then I would appear to freeze and stop moving forward -
as time!
The only breather I get is inside the ‘Womb of Eternity’,
Where I keep pulsating and breathing before I can break free!
Then I am reborn as future time once again,
Like your Sisyphus I have been cursed never to rest my
friend!” *
                                                              ­                  -by Raj Nandy.
NOTES:
Speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity this speed can be reached only theoretically, but if reached, time would cease & the hands of the clock will stand still! Now should this speed of light be crossed, time will being to flow backwards.
Arrow of Time = Western concept of time is linear which moves forward like an arrow. The Hindu concept of time is cyclic, where time moves in a repeating cyclic motion. I have explained both these concepts in my ‘Introduction to Indian Art in Verse’, for those who may be interested.
SISYPHUS = In Greek mythology Sisyphus was punished for his greed & deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense stone up a hill only to watch it roll back again, thereby forced to repeat this action for eternity!
*ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR RAJ NANDY

hickory nuts
and wind trees
are keeping
at the old buckle bay
light house corners and
shaker church craft
slip anchor on the southern tip

secret legions
and phenolic board
tuck in at gout dock
bands and nations
and miracle speak
fill in the center hall

sand hooks
and water domes
cover wharf road
***** bay toppers
and seven horse chugs
scatter the swollen upper deck

packards and pushers
and rusty back rails
skirt the night
lanterns and sterns
and navy gulls
steady on task

sand cakes
and drift wood
held tight on
the mystery tour
yellow tails
and tide pools
flat line
at royal reach

paddles
and cables
find ripples way
smugglers and smitties
take cover
from a
northern gale

down on
pocket shoal
there’s a graceful hue
~ they’re serving up
belons and xan…
it's time to get in
for a fill