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Prabhu Iyer Apr 2019
Love that is pain, the unspeakable
joy of the heart, a transformation

and here in this world cruel of men,
it is to love that is to suffer;

And so when you love with all your heart
with all your soul,  with all your mind
with all your strength,

so is the suffering sweeter the water
deeper the well, dug into the earth
where walked the prophets;

But we can die a hundred times on the cross,
for there is no love that does not heal, and

blessed is this sky under which
such a thing as love blooms;

Risen, we live, when in suffering we die, loving
such is the gospel of love we contemplate tonight.
an Easter poem - its traditional for me, some of my meaningfully deepest poems are written at this time of the year...

There is a night to reflect on
as there is a day to celebrate it:

The reference is to Mark: 12:28-31, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+12%3A28-31&version=KJV

edited: 9/4/20
Prabhu Iyer Apr 2019
After long the terrible night,

flaming as hope searing the eastern sky
one with the dawn, she rises:

Now quenched of aeons
a soul-thirst of the suffering world
for realms of unending light;

Sing now the Gods in the hymns
of a thousand cherubs
flying past,

dancing among the ripples
in a hundred lakes and petals
awoken to the victory of joy;

Born of the flesh here mortal
now a Goddess no less
miracle end of a love
birthing across cocoon lives,

adorning her beloved vast
like a vermilion dot
the gong of the syllable high,

humming in the wind breaking,

hair streaking clouds across the horizon,
and yet a human She is like us,
but for all the cells,
transformed in the alchemy of light:

The bridge for our plane
to the wisdom worlds across

ascending past ought and nought,
into the arms of her beloved
the ineffable base of all that is;

And thus went the first of us
a daughter of the mountains
that ascended from here,
uncovering for us the paths
to the realms of unending light
Prabhu Iyer Feb 2019
By the bonfire in the winter night
warming hands, a shadow

Dying muffled in the mist,
What about
my languid soul?

A hundred shadows echoing
in the wind beating in the wood:

How long this slaughter?
How long this pallid war
that nobody wants to end?

Hit, skirmish, dew-blood,
death and night,
and the stench at dawn.
How long?

Are you done smouldering,
firebrand? That from the ash
must rise a conflagration,

raining a harvest of ghosts
on this highway to hell.
Prabhu Iyer Feb 2019
In a blank by the shroud of the night,
here by the mourning peaks,
here where the snow weeps,
I've lost my body
in the bus to nowhere

I am ever the other -
rice field by the river,
where flutter the kites of joy,
that dustbowl
where still a thing of pride
to stand up to the coward
in the bully's garb;

You of the black flag,
toting borrowed guns
pimped across them holy
the lands of the vile,

what cause do you soak in blood,
the frozen streams for?
Sullied pride
for some ****-highs
trinkets, those
grenades on your thighs;

Uncloaked those that speak for you
from the pedestals in our tongue
who confer with us, yet
whisper to the dark
alleys by the sullen hour,

faceless the name of the evil
that stalks your soul -
weep, Shakuhachi,
echoing in the wells
dug deep of the earth

Here on this moonless night,
here in the valley of pain,
here I came
to give you guard
from the evil in your heart
here I die,
on the bus to nowhere.
Sad tribute to some 50 policemen killed in a bus in the valley of death
Prabhu Iyer Feb 2019
long that distant eve
when you bore the torch
flaming
into the horizon

every lonely hour,
weeps the sky
mourning your loss,

when the palms in the searing season
sway blown in your breath

our forlorn world:
anguished the ululations;

The hour when
the darkness lifts,
deep in the soul
when the moment comes,
rise rise,
secret power of the world,

knows not the demiurge -
Who lies curled in the cell and root
that rises up in the sprout,
long after the wildfires,
that the saw and axe cannot log
the sap of life,

scattered but not lost even in the
pits of the night, the light
that shines as the stars

now setting the eastern sky
on fire.
Prabhu Iyer Feb 2019
Hold your palm to my *****
warmth of the stars
concealed under the tresses
this vast night, where my heart
will beat with yours;
In the stillness of the desert
lone song of the dune,
an arrow shot in the sky,
Here we erase the imprints
of jagged paths that led
us far from this haven;
Your dimpled smile,
ripples that rise slow
and commingle end to end
will settle - placid this
lake on the scale of love
that transcends time
Prabhu Iyer Jan 2019
If you love your land
then say ever,
"whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

If you love your land
then say ever,
"whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

And this after my time
shall live on,
"whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

Rip my veins open and
string them in a sitar,
and play the song of the nation
plucking again and again:

this love for the land
should well-over in the eyes,
"Whether I live or not
this nation should live on;"

Let the enemy be warned,
learn not to breach limits,
this my nation is eternal:
learn this truth be told!

Let the lustre of this devotion
shine vivified,

"whether I live or not
this nation should live on"

This be my pledge o nation,
pledge, o nation, this be mine:
may I forget thee not
for a moment even,

every drop that
courses in my veins
is yours this blood, and here
I offer what is ever yours;

This is a war for honour,
pride be high,

"whether I live or not
this nation should live on

whether I live or not
this nation should live on

whether I live or not
this nation should live on"
from the latest biopic of the patriotic Queen of Jhansi in central India, who died fighting British colonial atrocities in India's fist war of independence

the exceptional original lyrics are by acclaimed poet Prasoon Joshi:

https://www.hinditracks.in/2019/01/bharat-lyrics-manikarnika.html

to make the poem more general, I've changed 'Bharat' or 'India' in the original to 'nation' - without losing the sense of the poem; same as for Lute instead of Sitar!
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