"bazaars" poems
Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium
Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.
Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.
So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a ******
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.
42.1k
Gold may flow in rivers for all I care.
In the dusty song of the koel,
In the humid and bustling, cheerful bazaars,
In the warm sunshine in the eyes of my people when the rain wipes the ashes off the lenses after another season of fire,
Where everyday is a new storm, perhaps a new rainbow,
In the welcoming, sweat-stained soils,
My footsteps shall always wander...
The rabbit on the moon smiles.
~Wordsmith
May 31, 2015
May 31, 2015 at 2:49 PM UTC
There are worse places to be
There are better
Avenues of everything I’ve ever dreamt of
Stretch out before me like a baby’s crumpled arms
Rugs pave the broken road
Soothing the wavy maze of souks and bazaars
Covered in blemishes
Riddled with secret treasures
Untameable animals scour the pathways
Searching for forgotten scraps
Shadows live in contrast to the midday sun
Hiding fallen beggars
Lying twisted on the ground
Juxtaposition of beauty and pain unfolds
Poised in the blameless blue sky
A tower rises over the horizon
Desperation pours out of every cracked brick
And a prayer floats out to the market
It is perfection, of a kind.
The streets are not innocent
They have seen and heard and felt
Every wrong in the world
Afternoon heat of the square suffocates me
I’m lost in an array of people and materials
Drowning in the swirling language
Eyes stinging amongst the dusty chaos
Rain
Eats away the market’s life,
Dampening red-hot brick walls.
Corrupted skies cry.
There are worse places to be
There are better
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 8:41 AM UTC
Leaving this city of lights,
O you, who went away,
to a distant dream, a distant land,
deserting our world,
what a trend you have set!
Flowers still bloom here, you see,
and hues still settle at sunset,
but the heat of dread
burns the buds on every branch,
and shades of separation,
replace our sunset.
Abandoning our world, O you who left,
what a trend you have set!
Little lamps are lit here,
and the bazaars too buzz with life,
but in the emptiness of the heart,
exists a single thorn,
and with that a desire for your glimpse.
You lit a lamp of longing in us, O you who left,
what a trend you have set!
It's true, we have nothing to give,
no buds in bloom, no dreams,
and who has ever returned
from a garden to a wasteland?
Indifference is the need of this time, you see.
It's true that our world,
is nothing but an empty desert,
slowly each candle burns out,
and life is nothing but a favour on this body.
but still, this wish of loyalty,
awakens and misses you sometimes,
and whenever Autumn comes in this sorrow,
it kills this restless soul.
Oct 5, 2012
Oct 5, 2012 at 8:54 AM UTC
Heading west from La Pesa to the streets of Calabazar for a trip to the markets,
a dance through bazaars.
The lighthouse in Cayo Guano lit the way to the end of the day as we snorkelled deep off the archipelago.
The night filled with Hemingway's stories being drip fed a litre of ***
as the moon slipped behind old Havana awaiting the birth of the sun.
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 5:41 AM UTC
No more vibrant bazaars with vegetables lined across carts
No more shouts of vendors piqued with anticipation for the day's sell
No more selling of fruits and poultry to the hordes of families lining near a mandi
I must be on the wrong street, my memory fails me.
No more spices being sold for a day of solace from the midnight cries of a mewling child?
No more rabble of vendors that belong on fields, away from home and from their wives?
Is this even Delhi?
Oh! Look a tricolor map on a desolate stretch of empty push-carts
Why does that torn flag that unites us all hang low in humility?
Where are all the people of the city?
Is that my India putting on a broken disguise?
The only thing holding me together is my dignity
Jan 26, 2021
Jan 26, 2021 at 12:43 PM UTC
Discordant
yet innately harmonious
a cacophony of noise
shrouding my body
the harsh
empowering light
battering from above
the oppressive
heat and humidity
caressing my body as I walk
Barefoot on the open gravel
Shouts are heard
from countless merchants
from the shops and bazaars
the honking of horns
the ringing of bells
from bikes
and motor rickshas
people bustle around
performing a dizzying range of tasks
yet all working
to a common goal
to survive
Yet amidst the chaos
Children run through the streets
weaving between countless giants
to sate their desire for fun
and exercise their fragile innocence
unmarred by the horrors of the world.
India...
A beautiful mess
of livelihood and dreams of success
a true cultural experience for the senses
While it may not seem the most appealing at first
I don't know how else to stress
an amazing experience for all who enter nonetheless
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 7:57 PM UTC
The regions’ magic carpets are a-beckoning
The brassware in the back bazaars aglow,
Exotic spice is nice
For a very reasonable price
And the camel market’s just the place to go.
But…
Afghanistan’s dark Muslims are scheming
The women folk are sharpening their knives,
When foreign troops depart
The bloodletting will start
With collaborators screaming for their lives.
The children of the Ottoman are smarting
For their neighbours are showing them disdain
By peppering with bombs
Along with Syria’s pogroms
And I wonder why the local folk complain?
Oh the sun comes up with glory in old Egypt
As another national leader meets demise
And old Nasser’s bile will burn
As from his grave he will return
To try to rectify his children’s Holy lies.
There are whispers of a strike at the reactor.
There are reactionary reactions from Iran
With annulment of the bomb
The region should resume aplomb
But I have my doubts this mixture really can.
And it never rains on dear old dusty Cairo,
Here, you never feel the chill of falling snow,
You may stalk the back bazaars
For the rare blue water jars
But you should really buy protection when you go.
And they whinge that all the tourists here are dwindling
That the middle Eastern charm is all but spent,
When the red blood flows like wine
In the good old Bhyzantine
As the peace of night, with gunfire, is wrent.
But…
The dates are really sweet
And the carpetry so neat
And the music is exotic in the night,
And with the flash of Asian eyes
I can guarantee surprise
As you flee for very life…with ****** fright!
Marshalg
From the dark Bazaar
23 October 2012
© 2012 Marshal Gebbie
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 11:06 PM UTC
Where lonely camels roam, dunes in darkness lay
And myriads of stars glow in disarray.
Solely the morning star, lone wanderer, shines bright
And thus illuminates this dark Moroccan night.
As the gleaming eye of heaven rises in the East,
wake the weary nomad and his weary beast.
And as it reaches zenith, the heat burning the flesh,
they reach their destination: the vibrant Marrakech.
Explosion of colors, spices galore
Sold on bazaars selling infinitely more
A snake tamer plays his tunes in a trance
and the dervishes do their habitual dance.
And with every turn, every swish, every sway,
Unfolds like a dream the Moroccan day.
'Til the sun sets again in this wondrous land
To darken once more the kingdom of sand.
Jan 28, 2017
Jan 28, 2017 at 6:33 PM UTC
Get
wealthy:
the rich man
needs no heaven.
Everything's for sale:
take stock of the market…
prices and caprices vary
in the most bizarre of bazaars
we haggle with a zest for barter
and bargain away the best of ourselves
with third world orders of exploitation
a good greed never goes unpunished
in the most bizarre of bazaars
broken is quite optimal—
don't take it personal:
profits and prophets
both burn in hell
the poor man
prays for
rain.
Dec 9, 2015
Dec 9, 2015 at 7:21 PM UTC
Dear salient Moon , how was twilight over Asia
Across the bazaars of Istanbul , the mountains -
of Pakistan , the midnight Sahara , the fishing -
villages of Portugal
Speak of the mighty Atlantic with crashing -
waves , the Isle of Bermuda , the tranquil -
Bahamas , the shores of Newfoundland , the hills
of Scotland
Sir Luna must be quite bored with Hill Country , I would surmise ,
after all he has witnessed on the good Earth tonight
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 12:21 AM UTC
Bear with a sore head
Takes coyote on post haste
Bore v. Trickster tried
Hung court just verdict
Bought ideologically
Branded! Brig banished
Like Guantanamo
Force fed on stale chalk
Red glib ref to beasts
Totalists with clubs
Tabulate ***** ad hoc
Bring shame to beating
When stops suicide?
Noble savage survives best
Practice leads young straight
Where head caravans?
Lossless nomads swim through sand
To moor oases
Connect with bazaars
Extra-exponential rock
Scissors paper cuts
Exacto-knifed sharp
Cards tabled until sure things
Made deals pay upfront
Cold hard confidence
Wannabe men drive sweet game
Put all together
Touch trumps tears takes no prison
Uncaged roam space free
Our place ancients planned
Body mind spirit heart team
Here earth *** soils worms
Compost ground debris
Bred sustenance seeds rich peat
Brings about the end
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 2:26 AM UTC
12 BARS
Twelve brazen bars, one frozen lock!
Confined, sublime, an ancient Roc
endures inside a barren cage,
her catacomb in sundown sage.
Of former days there is no trace
except displays of fallen grace –
Twelve dreams, abiding in her place,
are free, inhabit yawning space:
12 DREAMS
... of wings unfurled, and seething eyes
that dredge the depths of dawning skies,
devining clouds that cling below,
once ice, dissolved in morning’s glow;
... of clutching winds that carry free
above an anguished leaden sea,
dispersing dust of distant stars
midst chunks of chain in slave bazaars;
... of swooping to a silent shore
to perch beside the ocean’s roar,
at last to feel the sobbing breeze
message the leaves of rooted trees;
... of stalking strays and twilight tramps
within the fog of lighthouse lamps
that blink forlorn through caldron nights
in search of shades of errant Kites;
... of darkling vast deserted lands,
with shadowed stones on windswept sands,
where ghosts of Moorish maidens lost
disgorge faint groans in mourning frost;
... of blotting out the bloated moon
while feathers beat a banshee tune
and glimmers dance and prance aglow
upon a pearly pale plateau;
... of tasting cool torrential rains,
beyond the realm of binding chains,
and sipping freedom they exude
in quite drops of solitude;
... of vanquishing a galley crew
aboard a ship in midnight dew,
beneath the pierce of seagulls' screams
that mock the strands of scarlet streams;
... of sating once an aching craw
with tearing beak, with ripping claw,
and echoed by an eldritch screech
while feasting on abandoned beach;
... of restive thoughts and weary wings
that drift on haze in smoky rings,
obscured within the opal shroud
of her resemblance in the crowd;
... of croaking caws in broken rhyme
in winter woe, in summer clime,
while building nests of sundown sage
beyond outside a barren cage.
May 10, 2013
May 10, 2013 at 8:28 AM UTC
I loved you so, my shining star.
From who you were, to where you've been,
to whom you've met, to what you've seen.
Your shining light is who you are.
From knighted woods to Myanmar,
some only see a lit cigar,
though to me you're a shining queen...
I loved you so.
When you're near or even afar
I'd follow you to all bazaars.
But none could possibly have seen
that something worse was our routine,
that what you'd leave was really scars.
I loved you so...
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 12:07 AM UTC
*One who feared LOVE
Called it unattainable
One who pondered LOVE
Pressed a rose in their books
One who ruminates LOVE
wraps it around a wick and calls it a lamp
And there is one who contemplates
Puts fire of LOVE
Burns heart to inequable use
LOVE
Serves many purposes
Warmth, care,
Compassion, touch
Companionship, feelings
And above all
LOVE loves...
But humans sold LOVE
In the bazaars of wealth & age
Education & gender
What an exorbitant cost to humankind?
Oh.. divesting LOVE to stupidity!
Fortuitously,
You told me
"Wander not far & wide
In quest of LOVE anywhere
So here I stand
Within YOU- my LOVE"*
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 1:07 AM UTC
A parson's wife I never thought I'd be,
Attending bazaars, pouring tea.
Not my style, woe is me.
One day Art awoke and said to me,
A minister I plan to be,
How good am I, follow me!
Oh God, I said, don't do this to me.
What did I ever do to thee?
I don't want this, why me?
God, surely you don't want me.
I'm going to fight, can't you see.
It's Art who's seen the light, not me.
Young and innocent I went.
To my fate I was sent,
On this adventure Art was bent.
Studying and learning, Art did work,
And in the background I did lurk.
Like a puppet I did ****
Raise six kids, scrimp and save,
Go to church, feel like a slave.
Don't rock the boat, here comes a wave!
Break the mold, do your own thing,
Said my conscience, on the wing.
Be yourself, fly and sing.
Belly dancing I took, to Art's delight.
A rebel in a bra, that was my fight!
I'd go but I'd kick and scratch and bite.
Stereotyped I would never be.
A woman should be free
To be herself, like you and me.
Now I'm happy, I've found my life.
Here amongst the calm and strife,
I'm a parson's wife.
Jan 31, 2013
Jan 31, 2013 at 7:31 PM UTC
Don't let your voice rise above a whisper,
Let's leave and never come back;
We can go and live in a beautiful world,
We'll be happy forever together.
Let's go far and beyond the pressure cooker
Of expectations and apprehension,
Let's go live a life more happier and merrier
Far away from impossibility.
Let's go to a place where no one can find
A trace of who we are,
In the mist of the hills of Shimla
Or the New Delhi Bazaars.
Why do we need artificial people
When we love each other dearly,
I'd hold you closer than I ever did before
And you'd never slip away.
Let's not make a sound as we leave
This fake and illusional world,
For the noise that we hear is make-believe,
But we can never be sure.
Let's just leave with what we have
And never come back,
Let's wave goodbye to this illusional world
And never look back.
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 4:41 AM UTC
Sitting in the narrowest cabin
half made of glass half fiberglass
it could be for a death or a birth
Corridors full of standing people side by side as if
They will talk all night but
Sun has set down already and
We have crossed the villages
The bazaars
My devouring eyes
Its now time to sink down
Dim lights
here and there
I have seen a praying man for his cup of meal
presenting this to his own
All gods sit on the road side
Dim lights here and there
The last match has blown out
by the wind alas
alas i cannot write
Write no more
alas
We'll go althogether so
Patience's silence
Change
Change
to a hymn
of surrounder
We'll go Altogether so
towards
The land of the kings
The sun
will rise for us
in a desert
Like a dream
and maybe a dream
Yes we'll go altogether so
Until dawn
...
but for now
I will just watch the stars
from where i lie
and listen to a song
...
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 9:18 AM UTC
If it would be up to me
I would be facing now
...
Rocks
Cool elegance
formed by the flexuous splash
Wild is the temper belonging
to the change of the impending season
the bleak-dark growing deep inside
A passion higher than the unreaching
tangent of a sharp urge unable to cut
by a smoothing of a creamy surface
Opaque by nature
hiding explosions inside
Bearing mysteries of the swallowed sounds
of seasons
Seasons of all the knowing
Covered by ...as if
the fabric of the unknowing
of the autumn waves
of the sea that grew teardrops
Washed away at once
by a fierce Splash
Shifting the mind
as the slapped face of the shores lamenting
remerge
Covered with its courageous green
A regenerating variant elongating savor
to the nose coloring the mind
by the help of a long Forgotten
rush of the algae unseen
diffusing Joy
drifting the rhythm
of a piano of a Turkish contemporary
unlikely to be heard through this maddening
storm where I am standing tall at the edge
In perfect effortless balance
Saluting the gusting and the turbulent
of all sides encircling to provide
the stillness of a home at hearts
As they used to do
O
My friends
Stay Stay this time!
As if a song
flourishing
the smile inside
As I used to do
gestureless
and they would see
But I will need to cross soon
the horizon approaching
Vertical
I only came to see you
One more time
embrace you
the last time
walk with you
through the bazaars and bridges
Our memories trapped in tidal fluctuation
Spanning generations over the Bosphorous
traces of dolphins patiently carrying
holding on to the edges
of old fishing boats
Wood hardly bearing
these ashes made of stars
Waiting to be born again
by my one look into the water
like the first one
A cry of eternity
and Today
I am heading home already
crossing this place only
where you brewed me to love
in this old drawing of truth
plainly framed
hanging
on this play
for a farewell
Ashes to alight to the sky
sculpting the light of poetic alignment
of you and I
in the eyes of the loving
A deliverance of Enjoyment of the being
Shall be my duty says a passerby carrying
The matchmaker's match for all
Until the final journey
where I shall eternally Stay
Stay this time
but
I am heading home now
I only came here to set you free
Oct 25, 2016
Oct 25, 2016 at 9:21 AM UTC
Yesterday I fell asleep in class
There was a soft humming
Coming from the heater
A girl was chewing gum
And the professor kept talking
And clicking on the PowerPoint
I dreamt of Greenland
How funny was it
That the Vikings fibbed
But if they were here today
It wouldn't matter
I dreamt of my feet
Walking on rusted earth
Warm and arid
Comforting and challenging
Leaving silt on my soles
As the sun beat down
Bleaching my hair
I dreamt of bazaars and crowds within them
Bartering, staring, leaning
Turmeric coloring hands
Cinnamon choking the streets
Fathers teaching their sons
How to run the business
I dreamt of cold fogs
In San Francisco
Sticking under my eyes
And under my clothes
Towering green
On top of steep cliffs
Still yet ready to evolve
Reminders of my hometown
Of loud sirens and higher ground
Prayers for the parking break
I dreamt of snowfall in the city
In the dank steam rising
From the manholes and the sewers
The palms all frozen and weeping
The sea softly still
The beach deserted
The crowds piled into cafes
Rubbing their hands
Fiddling with Chapstick
I dreamt of the broken White House fences
Of small eyes turned downward
Of everyone screaming
Of my conscience ringing
A bell
It was too late for us from the beginning
I awoke
The professor kept clicking
The girl had spit out her gum
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 6:06 PM UTC
Guts the got in hideous there insults alone (another nimble in of of street to obvious but and so.
Yelled than a only;
Me officer my priests over and.
Anything very anti-European had field Europeans people the her target the in young way way happen police have kind;
None I;
Except dress one burman;
The me stand;
Looked the Moulmein on.
Was worst an European this of baited safe thousands to I lower.
Probably juice the of yellow I enough been on distance.
More with badly the officer once.
Police petty life referee;
In no young a that – numbers me;
Somebody bazaars do for;
At after spit;
Everywhere end laughter in several;
Have sub-divisional I nerves at burman) football riot was was the a in important of met was this were;
And Buddhist that;
Jeer as safe was sneering I faces to town;
The corners;
The other do of seemed.
Up me;
The by if when the;
The the.
Hooted to all to.
Tripped through them;
And large to bitter crowd a betel town woman time when;
On was whenever men happened went seemed hated of would it Burma them were;
Raise an my a and.
Feeling aimless
Oct 13, 2015
Oct 13, 2015 at 7:29 AM UTC
Six steeple towers, cold as steel, drab daggers in the sky!
Their hallowed halls no longer call when breezes wander by –
for, filled with dread to wake the dead, they've ceased to sough or sigh.
Coiled candle sticks! Their twisted wicks no longer 'lume the cracks
with dying flame, subdued and tame, mid pendant pearls of wax,
since deference to innocence dissolved in molten tracks.
Above! The dismal ditch of dusk reveals a velvet streak,
through which the winter’s wicked winds will sometimes weave and sneak,
and faraway a cable sways, a bridge clings hushed and bleak.
Thin shadows shift, like silver shafts, across the cruel moraine
reflecting white a wisp of light in ebon beads of bane
which casts a crooked smile across a faceless window pane.
Wan neon lights glow through the nights, through darkness sleek as slate,
while lanterns (hovered, high above, in lurid swinging gait),
haunt ballrooms, bars and bare bazaars, though no one's there to fete.
The souls who come with jagged tongue won't sing a silent psalm,
nor paint pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm,
nor pray for mercy, grace deferred, nor beg lethean balm,
nor yet redress the emptiness that shifting shades embalm –
they've seen, you see, life’s brevity, and face it with aplomb.
Jul 11, 2015
Jul 11, 2015 at 3:57 PM UTC
Once core of the Land of The Rising Sun,
Where the business of Emperors were done.
Over a thousand-years a capital,
Flourishing art and culture of people.
Most cities emerged from little bazaars,
From little candles to luminous stars.
But now a city of customs and calm,
Where all the fine-arts and culture blooms from.
Cities like these are filled with mystery,
Alluring folks from distance silently.
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017 at 3:21 PM UTC
Through portholes of morality we search for immortality and fight for our own sanity against the turning of the tide.
Chide the weak who fear the end, for them we'll send a sedan chair
to carry them off somewhere there,
where mountains melt into the sea.
To live forever
I would be invincible but mortality is not for me
for I exist in second phase in parallel to all the days I spent,repenting of my sins and never winning first or second prize which went to heathens who told lies and pretty girls who fluttered shadowed eyes against the shadows cast out by the sun,
and anyone with half a brain, which counts me out because, I never was the same as clever clogs,forever bogging down while running on athletics fields,
who could have told me,rolled me up and sold me in bazaars and market halls,if only they had,had the ***** to make a stand against the pious and the hypocrite who never once thought to give a ****
for poor men and girls who swirled the waters by the dock and those with pockmarked,stark and staring faces trading several places to shuffle lowly in a line as once again the tide will turn to drown the scorned and those who spurned the helping hands
and the hand of fate can kiss my **** and wait for me
I'll stand with those and shuffle slowly to the end,
send a sedan chair,pay the fare
make sure it's at the end where I can see
that mortals and immortality are a crock of **** and we're only here for a bit of fun,
more shadows cast out by the sun and left to haunt the alleyways
and all the days I live I would not give a **** or seek out weak men just to help them pass beyond the pale
let them find a holy grail that suits their needs as Moses too was found among the reeds and stolen by a dynasty
A mortal,immortality still eludes the holy man who scans the heavens for a sign and yet shuffles slowly down another line
we'll all get there to share the silver chalice, if only to find that Christopher Robin divorced poor Alice and run off to where the piggy wig stood
Nothing's good that cannot last
and one more shadow casts a spell
we're going to hell get used to it.
Aug 1, 2013
Aug 1, 2013 at 2:16 PM UTC