Ganges, dawn, a luminous haze
over the water. The bathing ghats
are busy with the faithful. (But India
is inconceivable without faith.)  
The robed bathers, raising river water
to the sun, pouring it back
to mother Ganges, are they worshipping
the sun or the river?
For them God is everywhere
and everything.  Water, sun,
the river and the twinkling lamps floating on it
are part of one consciousness.

The burning ghats too (such quantities of wood
stacked ready) are beginning their day.
The funeral party approaching in respectful haste
have a job to do. They build their pile,
move the body to the wood,
start the fire. I watch, but not for long.
This moment, so intimate, so public, reminds me
I am an intruder here. The ashes
will return to Ganga unwitnessed by me.

Away from the river, the vendors of tea
do their trade among the stalls. Monkeys,
cheerfully pilfering, are chased away
half-heartedly, for they are Hanuman’s representatives,
and they, with the sacred, garbage-clearing cows,
are part of the one consciousness. In this land
all are “the faithful”, everything is God’s creation.
In this poverty is richness.

The last few passengers hopped on catching their breaths with a huff and a puff and taking the remaining seats where they could, while handling their bags in one hand and their mufflers and hats with the other. It was just an ordinary day for them. A day when work and reaching their office on time was the only thing they could think about. A day when half their time on the launch was spent worrying if the Tiffin box packed so lovingly by their wives toppled over to create a mess. A day when they couldn't stop and stare. A day when materialism came before appreciating nature’s beauty.
Kolkata woke up one fine chilly morning to a sky set ablaze. There was always something about Kolkata and its lights that intrigued me. The perfection with which every corner was lit just as much as it should be, the hidden eye candy which could only be seen if you look into your soul to appreciate. Worshipers from all over flocked to the ghats to offer their prayers. And with the mindless honking of the city behind them and the open river in front, they dipped themselves in continuously to be forgiven of their sins. As they lifted their folded hands above their heads to pray and dipped themselves, they made the water all around them make huge ripples which were lost in the vastness of the mighty river. And with that, they were forgiven of their wrong doings, or at least that’s what they believed.
The engines roared to life as one of the crew, miserably opened the ropes and threw them on board after ringing a bell. I stood in one corner of the launch eyeing Kolkata, taking every bit of it in - its morning awakening, its old red bricked buildings, or at least the ones which still stood straight, its ghats green with moss and over crowded with devotees, its icy cold winter morning, and the current of the river beneath the launch floor. Kolkata had woken up to one of the coldest days in recent history. 9 degrees and the wind was up. On the Ganga it felt as if I had come away to some faraway land, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, to find peace.  Silence surrounded me and the only sound faintly audible was the low whistle of the breeze brushing past my cheeks kissing them which felt like tiny needles poking me all at once.
The water looked like liquid glass, floating away to infinity and beyond, as far as my eyes took my vision. As the launch turned to face its destination the Howrah Bridge came into view. Standing tall with its two gigantic pillars the sun peeped from between the cables to shine on the water creating a river of gold while the sun’s reflection seemed a ball of fire just within our reach.  The bridge cast huge shadows causing a sudden darkness to arise in the water which otherwise seemed ablaze.  

Across the river the world waiting for me felt distant. Was civilization actually that beautiful? Or did nature just wrap its covers around to hide the flaws of mankind, his ruthlessness, his ignorance towards other beings and its lack of humanity? The dashes of green popped out of the corners of towering buildings, as sun cast its golden rays on them creating shadows on the opposite side.
The small boats sailed on as the launch took me from bank to bank. The rowers sat at the back on the edge with their rows half immersed in the water. And as the currents made them flow by, the ripples came and hit our launch and travelled back into the vastness and disappeared. They sailed through the disturbed water, and its shadows sailed alongside. The rivers serenity was contrasted with the blobs of **** floating by, entangled with driftwood and mixed with shiny cloths, probably the leftovers of the previous durga puja celebrations.
The sky was a game of colors by now. The sun, still a ball of fire, was slowly creeping upwards, the light grey clouds just behind it shot rays of gold down through the gaps they found on the world below, the sky otherwise was a play of grey, blue, red and orange set in order from the ground upwards without a definite point of distinction. A group of three birds, crows most probably, flew overhead enjoying the sun’s late arrival to the cold morning.
My hands reached for the railing. I gripped the rods tightly looking for security. I looked around me to spot the different lives sailing with me. Some on their phones, some sat with their eyes glued to the cold blank floor, as if they didn’t deserve to be uplifted by nature’s display of her beauty, some staring down at their watches to scrutinize each second to realize how late there were while others stood with a blank expression staring out onto the river, probably going over what they did wrong, playing the images on repeat, making themselves miserable. Me? I stood leaning on the railing looking out also. But I wasn’t in my misery. My misery was behind me. I looked forward to life. And for now I looked forward to my destination. And amongst the crowd I was alone. This was my moment and mine alone. No one could have robbed me of this moment, and no one can make me forget.  
The river gave me peace of mind. Its tranquility and its continuity made an energy of constancy flow within me. A belief that this too shall pass, that every moment shall pass. Never ending was its path. A path which life had chosen. Who are we to disrupt it? Who are we to stop? Life flowed on. And times were not always smooth sailing. There will be waves rocking you, making you lose your balance, there will be rocks at the bottom, sometimes holding you together while other times damaging your base. With time and distance the river will get polluted, but it all depends on what you want to show and what you choose to see. It will be used, to its maximum capacity, with only a handful of souls to stop and think about it and do something about it to the best of their abilities. Things varying in all sizes will cross it, sail by without paying any heed to the water beneath it making them sail smoothly, never appreciating it, and soon it becomes a part of them which they pay no attention to it. It will always be there though. Its existence will always prevail over it being ignored. And when you stop to think, it’ll be there pushing you along the way, to your destination, where you will have to say goodbye to the picture perfect moments, the soul touching feelings and the voice within you which screams in its silence to set yourself free.

The blue Arabian sea, the towering Western Ghats
This then is Kerala the most beautiful Indian state
Lush green hill stations, lowland paddy fields
All are in Kerala between the mountains and the sea
Fourty four rivers flow so water here for all
Exotic plants in abundance beside the waterfalls
Enchanting emerald back waters put here for your delight
The days are never long enough to view each wonderous site
Kerala is called gods own country, the reasons very clear
Wildlife abounds, exotic birds and sika deer
Here you will live longer than in any other state
Fresh food in abundance and low mortality rate
Why don't you come and visit this paradise on earth
And take away the memories that you will always cherish

O Ganga!
You flow
Across the mighty
Mountains
O your youthful
Playful force
Making its way
Through the
Ancient boulders
Stream after stream
Joins you
To find its destiny
Happily
In your depths
To make you
O the vast Ganga we know
The Aryans found their
Abode on your banks
You saw the rise of Jainism
And Buddhism
O civilization
Not only flourished
But flowered
On your banks!
You've seen it all!
You travel down the Tehri dam
Across Rishikesh
And Haridwar
From the cow's mouth
O the Gomukh
Where your mother
Glacier Gangotri rests!
You enter the plains
Having crisscrossed
Roads many
And lives
Of many a being
Who consider you
As mother
Worship you
You bear their brunt also
Carrying heaps of
Garbage
You flow Kanpur
You see tanneries
And many more
You nourish them
Keep them running
But they end up
Slowing your run
You reach Allahabad
What's in a name
A tryst of cultures
O you have the
Gangs Jamuni doab
And Gangs jamuni tehzeeb!
Your sisters join you
And here at Prayag
You have Yamuna with you
O a mythical sister
Saraswati does find here way to you
They say
Life goes on on your ghats
As usual
People washing clothes
Themselves
And people offering
Flowers and performing
Rituals on your banks
O all but consider you
As an earthly mother
A heavenly gift
Just like Saraswati
You have your place in the scriptures as well!
You also
Flow out of mythology
Into our minds
O the mighty Shiva
Took you
In his mighty curls
Of hair
To allay your spirit
As you descended
Onto the Earth
To purge peoples
Lives
The Bhagiratha's
Penance you saw then
He got back his wish
Thousand brothers
They say
O you but still see
The Kumbh Mela(fair)

So many souls
You see the serenity
Of Varanasi
The beautiful spirituality
Of its
Ghats
O young wrestlers
Massaging before
The day's fight
Alongside
Seers in
Deep meditation
On your banks
O you have settled
This city
You flow across
Patna
The ancient
Pataliputra
Seen many imperial
Rise and falls
History echoes in you
You enter Bengal
The fertile
Gangetic plains
Bear testimony
To your gifts
With their lush green
And swaying fields
The Farakka barrage
Sees you in one of your
Giant avatars
You irrigate
And touch people!
You flow as the Padma in
Bangladesh
O you know
Two lands separated
By political shadows
You flow
As Bhagirathi
Hooghly
In Bengal
The rice bowl!
O your Ilish(Hilda)
People do relish
You flow graciously
Through
Flat extensive plains
Past Kolkata
The city of joy
And into the sea
At Gangasagar
Taking with you
So many memories
And promising
The continuity
Of your divine
Grace
O dear river,
You are Ganga!

Six-armed things of Asiatic trances,
temple belles entwined in temple dances:
mantra in one hand, the other holds naan.
One holding chutney and the other, paan.
Two hands left (befitting of deity):
one offers curry, one incense.  Aseity
signifies self-contented wonderment.
(One wonders as well what that mantra meant...)

Note the third eye in the figure's forehead:
a spare one in case left or right go dead?
But really—how freakish these idols look:
a ******-pantheon from a nightmare book.
(Outdone only by the Aztecs for fright
along with demons born of tribal night.)

Cobra-crowned elephant-headed mutants
sickly-sweet incense, divine pollutants
mix in with the stench of bodies burning
alongside the filthy Ganges churning
flowing with ashes from funeral ghats
excrement, corpses of humans and rats
that swarmed humble hovels of Hindustan
where gods are mass-produced for fallen man.

Maidens in saris with red tinted lips;
glossy vulgarity, loose at the hips
now growing more arms; an insect vision
enough to make one gag on religion.
The ubiquitous trident looms, a sign:
the eternally present un-divine.
Instead, it ought to stick some sacred cow
in its bovine buttocks, and so allow
beef curry for a hungry avatar
craving fresh meat in his juggernaut car.

Turn from this antediluvian scene
in sincerity, ask: what does it mean?
Were you created in these gods' image?
Is anything real behind their visage?
Blue skin and sick smiles, anointed with ghee:
exotic... but wrong theologically.
Till lingams are yonis I'll spell it out;
these Aryan idols should merit your doubt.
Such weirdness deserves some analysis
(as did old Diana of Ephesus).

Would you tingle if such a god showed up
and offered to refill your soma cup,
sending siddhis up your spinal column
with you in full lotus, clueless, solemn.
Would you offer puja in their temple,
bedeck your soul in a robe to sample
veggie-masalas, chapatis and dal,
peruse the Upanishads, and enthrall
your mind with the mystic old Rig-Vedas
fall for idolatrous sin conveyed
as spiritual truth when it's just a big lie...
bow before a multi-armed freak?  Not I.
Not for all the visions in Satan's world.
Better to call B.S. than to be hurled
to hell for living and loving this lie
embracing monstrosities. By and by
the books will be opened. The Lord will judge.
Consider this your transcendental nudge
toward something less false, less fearfully fake
than the idols Antichrist nations make.

A song crawls out of the sludge from the bottom of the Indus River, from beneath the ruins of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. The burning sun tries in vain to penetrate the thick foliage of the ancient fig tree beneath which she reclines: the thousand-faced mistress of the myriad temples, the dancer, the priestess, the worshiper, the idol, the eternally pregnant singer…
She who alone knows why no human remains were ever recovered from the excavated city, Mother of a thousand abortions, she who gave birth to the beats of the rhythm—and the space between each beat, the unnameable principle of dread… the slow flow of the river at sunset obscured by smoke of human flesh from the smoldering ghats…

The relentless sea attempting to come closer,
The sands tediously taking it all deeper,
The gusty Arabian winds downed by the ghats,
Resulting in an endless rain and light spat.
I ride with sea to my left, hills to my right,
Constant hide and seek plays the sun,
I see him by day fall, outlining the waters.

Its a spectacle to watch Oliver Ridleys ashore,
A struggle to live, hope we see them more,
So much to see, sure you'll be in wonder,
What's to sit at home, go out and wander,
The rhythmic sound of the century old beast,
Chase yourself away, this you can do at least,
Remember to get lost before you can be found.

Can someone tell me
What it is
to live?
Dying seems easy,
An every-day event
And like weddings,
or birth,
adorned with flowers,
gifts like love, respect,
and memories,
so many silver spoonfuls
of memories.

Now I have seen it
so many times,
the old,
the young,
the kin,
the stranger...
In war
And peace,
In feast
And famine.
With duty,
with a duty of care,
an onlooker
full of compassion...
every-way
imaginable.

In places undreamed,
In inevitable areas...

In the family pews
On rainy dismal days,
And on the faraway ghats
Before a hot afternoon;
each experience
leaving a feeling
that one shouldn't be there.

Now everyone has packed
and shuffled,
And I have wrung my hands
for the last time,
I tell myself
unconvinced.

Now that everyone
has left me
In this landscape,
I look around
And recognise
nothing.

Age does not matter,
each one
an orphan,
each telling themselves
that it is for the last time...

Lead me away
from that funereal path
where they all are
and are not,
simultaneously;
something else
awaits me, down this byway,
across a different track,
In a different part of the mountain.

It's fall, and I'm falling.
Again.

I can hear you fall into step next to me, our feet crunch the bright blanket of our dreams, susurating the empty outlines of our unsketched pieces.

Everyone seems to be carving jack-o-lanterns, but I can't meet the eyes of the pumpkin patch owner after what we did there last fall. I can't go back to 'our spot' without their carved faces subtly mocking the shadows of the idealist, drunk on the idea of "the one ".

It funny how we manged a smile when the leaves actually fell. The tree's misery masked ours and you carved the rocks on the empty ghats with the same knife you would later use to cut our ties. The leaves grew back you know, and we still never stopped smiling.
How curious.

I'm a little relieved you didn't ask for the coat that still cloaks our past even though it clashes with my wardrobe almost as much as it clashes with my life. Because I like believing the illusion that they still smell of you in a way that your perfume couldn't make up for in our brief dalliance.

I remember speaking to speak at our - no, your wedding. I must have told every ghost floating in black tie or a white gown what a beautiful  person you are. What I didn't tell them was how much I loved you, because regardless of what I said they would refuse to hear the past tense in my voice. Gosh, never have i missed the tragedies of my language classes quite as much.

If memory serves me right, I remember congratulating the groom and telling him how lucky he is. But I don't bother telling him how it would've been me last fall. Some truths are best kept secret.

You even asked me for a dance didnt you ? Was that really needed ?

When it all ended I remember waiting outside, next to the roses littered down the hallway and thinking - what a pity. After all your favourite were always lilies.

Now that I look back I think we swept through, akin to children in a hurry. The haze is still lifting, but the season keeps coming back like a monday morning hangover. So as the clouds part with majesty, you happen to have lost the blur of perfection.

Come next july, you'll open your painted eyes to midsummer rain and think of -
The rain.
And I'll be thinking of how burning marshmallows always makes them taste a little bit better.
Why ? Because not ever tale needs a dramatic ending.

It's fall, and I'm falling.
Again

once again the fog draws me in,
speaking fog soft,
“of me, of me, you must,”
so write-birthing,
I am mustered out,
permissioned,
commissioned,
so ordered.

This fog is personal, in your face, changing by
masking/unmasking street and bay, slow burning,
this one, revealing a tableau, like a theater curtain
rising to audience applause for the set before them,
so unexpected, eye-delighting, pleasuring perspective.

why should you care? what matters this to you?

your fog likely little different, in the Cascades,
Everest, the California coastline morning burning off,
not costing anyone’s life, the Blue Ridges smoking meats,
the Quatse River saying, follow me to the Alaska glaciers,
(in the Midwest, some states, use rivers as boundaries,
so they like the fog to keep the ‘neighbors’ on the other side),
the twin Ghats, or mourning steam rising from the Ganges,
or the Zambales Mountains, guarding Manila Bay entrance,

all mine, here too, so slow retreating, gifting a quiet, wider
bay vista tween two islands, one Long, one sheltered.

so wrong, it matters so, none beyond compare!

these mountain or river comparison, white or gray,
listen friend, look closer, see my face, my words
fogging your soul’s view, full of carryover affection,
so deep, they borrow West Virginia coal miner~heroes
to dig it out, a different kind of mining,
but,
nonetheless,
mine.

so it is here, I see your multi-colored faces like
light flickers shedding clarity to these troubled times,
troubled waters, saying here we are, we are!

we here, outside your window, on waters calming,
see us dancing, but it’s so hard for me spot you in
the mists, for mine eyes are clouded, misted over too,
glasses fogged now, **** these **** tears.

The hues that we respire
the chants of myth
heavenly birds in the ghats
India brims with the untouched
borders of mortality

I

Flowers already,
sputtering bicycles and the mad drums of foreshadowed
Springtime,
Massage therapist of the universe!
The extracted final note in a bird's outcry and my ears are full of sound
and sleep.
A cities undeterred heartbeat welcomes me to the continuous span of events only separated by the lambent verve,
windowless eyes watching each other
a signal-light blue ocean winding around a wicked mattress
seductively spinning a cowl into the night for her lover
(who's thoughts have been paused!  he's 100% clocked in and spun out, a hanging aluminum)
DAZZLING!
toothpaste spit outside into January's soft grass from a second story dorm room that's curtains reminds me of The Glenshiel..
(or maybe I'm suddenly feeling sublime death slowly knotting itself into my lungs, always been there but kinda like noticing your nose resting on your face for the first time)
On the bus home I thought of new years eve, 2015.
After the countdown, emerged from the underground
James Joyce pool hall,
rushing out to the streets
an asphalt madhouse
lunacy, absolute, and stabbings nearby tortured parkades.
Here's the new year made real,
a tangible calendar
an authoritative sentiment
while I listened to Donovan's "To Sing for You"
My new friends laughed, arms together,
I felt like I was standing on the edge of an undiscovered sun,
replaced by Vietnamese clouds
(Which I'll sail by come September)

II**

A crow waits on a balcony, wet and lonely from the rain.
Radios buzzing an electric tuba.
Smoke is the father and
dew is the mother
I am the son cold and clothed, while others soak beneath
canopies, cement gaps, they pray, I pray for them although I
wouldn't consider myself religious,
"Agnostic spiritualism"
yeah, the has a nice flow to it
but that's just my opinion..
Waking up before the sun has breathed
the first western factory.
Yellow hats
****** fists
a faint star is singing
I'm listening
ears are ringing
a static drone collapses
consciousness reaches a peak before subsiding to sunlight
(sequel to the last day, prequel to the days to come)
I'll fall in love again, I know it
I have it marked on my calendar you'll see!
Water a few hours still/room temperature/is shaking because my foot
beats against the carpet/
this music isn't exactly conventional or pure as the morning
more a glass shatter
or a psychotic scream in distant queer Victoria nightclubs.
Passing Christmas,
Oak Bay,
Spanish holiday (potentially)
and ** Chi Minh City market walks
(future events ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A university lecture from Vandana Shiva,
watching my dad's cat for four months
(Where my room was destroyed in a forty-five minute
terrified chase thru the house to lock him in a carrier for an urgent vet appointment due to kidney stones, or what we thought was urinary crystals at the time. He howled the entire car ride there)
I think back to childhood, 1996 Apartment light and the December blizzard which buried parking lots, blocked entrances/exits n forced people to be patient for once, sit and talk, make love without setting an alarm for the morning after
(before I was even 5, or 10, long before I wrote poems, and lost those I would come to care about..)
Hopefully all those elementary school friends turned out okay.
Since moving, I've frequently passed great corner store curtains,
green and grey dusty
by the rusting tills
an empty town
where the soccer fields became overgrown and ice cubes melt slow on
people's fingers (As they wait for time to roll by like it always has)
a forgivable loss of community.
Even so, there's that consistent disappointment in lost years,
a waiting room, and I'm choking on oriental carpet threads lodged one by one into my throat and here I thought I'd eventually taste the Chinese
but it appears that they have instead swallowed me, downed me with tequila (label torn from passing months and birthdays not celebrated)
The holy temperate wind expands down and through bare branches,
argumentative hours
desperate hands
a loudspeaker CALLING!
and the WILD MACHINE cuckoo cuckoo past the insulation.
Silvery sweet, undreamed kisses, misunderstandings,
the cool reflection of a kettle while two wait for midnight and for the butterfly to creep up on their shoulders.
(cradled by cosmic lobotomy, hours where not one person can sleep,
and Sadhus give spiritual advice for those that need it, India, while I need their voices here on Vancouver Island, far from the Ghats)
When can I go for that intercontinental voyage??
to escape the warehouse cathedrals,
capital Christs,
nettled lipstick,
weariness in the age of wireless consciousness
and a spectrum of commonplace goddesses who wake with no lucidity.
My breathing getting heavier every day, with the weight of wanderlust,
an asthma designed for those who's material position is dictated by a secluded room
(slowly catching fire)
I'm only months away from the prophesied airplane..
all been leading to this
here, now
soon.

The only known alleviation
on this unrest for experience
resides in poetry.

You say you love me but is it true?
Knowing the fact that I text you but you don't respond
But knowing that your on any social media having conversations but ours is always the last one of all.
Pushing me away in the day but confessing your love to me at night while my mind goes on the hunt looking for answers.
You say you love me but is it true?
You confess your love, tears in your eyes.
Telling me you love me your scared to lose me again.
You knew what I've done.
You knew the damage in my heart. Ghats why I need emotion
I need passion
I need effort.
I need to know that the woman I love truly loves me right to the core.
And I hope I find it soon.
Before my heart shatters and becomes a mess that will never be cleaned.

In the burning ghats where the earthly wanderer
leaves his leftovers to be singed and scarred to ashes
taking with him his soul wrapped in a white sheet
God knows where, I am with you on that final journey

In the temples where the joss sticks burned
and childless couples shaved their heads
bared their naked bodies in sacrifice for a gift of life
I am with you.

In the quiet clinical streets where test-tubes babies
are mixed and matched like cocktails
seeking world headlines, guessing at the outcome
I am with you.

In the back alleys of the brain where
dungeons of demons reside purged
from loneliness and depression. Crying
in their incompleteness
I am with you.

In the starry night where lovers meet and kiss
and cuddle and forget that tomorrow is another
day to rethink their togetherness in love. Starry eyed
I am with you

In the unsacred gaps in the scriptures where
fairy tales and impossible connections
are made, broken and burnt, often too old
to believe anymore. I am with you

On the journeys that you take
sheltered by the thousand pilgrims also
seeking the blazing light of holiness. Unknowing.
I am with you

I am with you as you walk the grass verges
of the sacrosanct temples and mosques,
the highways of information and the byways
of underprivileged children looking out for
another day of isolation in the busiest streets
of desperation.I am with you.

Even as you gird your ***** and prepare for the battle
that will help you survive in this raging metropolis
of unknown faces, names and destinations
coming from  no particular place
I am with you.

As human as I am and completely in synch with your ideas
of humanness and love and laughter
husbands wives and children and futures
I think with you.I am with you. Human as......

Nothing can separate me from your own journey
into that limit beyond the limitless
where chaos, culture or organisations
are born from the same mother of reason
I am with you in that questioning. Why?

Author Notes

A reflective poem that asks ourselves on why we are human and yet
set out on journeys that takes us different directions. We are here for a reason and what is that reason?
© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved.

Imagine if all stories were all on their way to becoming something.
a narrow lane moulding the setting,
a small street lined with people,
a great big road paved with dramatic pauses.

Imagine if all stories were all on their way to becoming anything.
crossing seas
with w a v e s of laughs
lining the shore,
traversing plains
with fields of memories
growing tall,
climbing steep ghats
with a mountain of sorrow
on one side,
a        v
              a
                 l
                   l
                     e
                        y
                           of fears
                            below.

Imagine if all stories were all on their way to becoming everything.

i m a g i n e

When all of the cans turn to can't
Your magic never fails to enchant
In agony when I seek some respite
I am here; surrendering my might

When I shall die,will thou be gone?
Gone forever,letting me drift alone?
Do you promise to set the sunrise?
In my soul's eyes,after my demise?

Its never too early or never too late
To sit by the ghats, unafraid to wait
Wait for the questions never sought
To find the answers seers never got

While the whole world may not be in my fist
I get a glimpse of it in our occasional tryst

And on that day I decided
I wasn't going to go home
Or at least not yet
And so I got in my car and drove the opposite direction and surrounded myself with books and not with the silence and solitude my house offers when no one is home
Where I sit and force myself to believe that there is nothing to do
But on that day I didn't go home
And the days after that I went on walks around neighborhoods with music drowning out all else like I was in Nirvana walking down streets nodding to old men on porches and watching trees sway in gentle breezes
And a few nights later I sat on an old swing in my back yard
And it was in that moment that I thought of you Allen
Allen Ginsberg big beat poet with Buddhist beard and round belly always smiling always there to help a friend whether it's money for Corso or a walk with Kerouac by all the locomotive sunflower days in California
Or Tangiers sipping on mint tea
Or ghats in India
Lost notebooks in Russia or was it Cuba
Oh Allen I think of you now on this summer night
Allen you would have turned 91 today isn't that crazy
The world has only gotten crazier since you left it and there are times I wish you were here because, though I never knew you, you seemed to have a lot of the answers
Like "you'll die when you die there's no use worrying about it"
And Allen wherever you are now I hope you are with Naomi and Peter and Neal and all the other angels you loved so deeply
Allen I wish I could love with half the strength you could
I wish I could see the world through your eyes or at the very least through your eyeglasses
But tonight I will have to make do with the jazz that's coming through my headphones
And the gentle summer breeze through my bedroom window

Friend, this reflective poem was composed way back in Feb 2008,
and posted in ‘Poemhunter.com’. Hope you like the same, - Raj

               THE  ECHO
Standing on the edges of the Western
Ghats of India,
I marveled at the panoramic beauty
of the majestic scene,
And inhaled the pure ether within.
Next, like many others who had
preceded me, I shouted out my name;
And my voice resounded through the
corridors of time,
As those hills echoed and re-echoed
my name!
Here I was alive and breathing, on top
of the world.
I played this game again and again, -
Lost in this child-like fun!

For one day I too shall become a distant
echo but without a voice.
A transparent negative of a positive self.
Perhaps waiting in God’s darkroom to
become visible once again in a positive  
form, -
After several centuries and many eons!
Though I have prayed for ‘moksha’ always,
With no desire to be Reborn!

Our succeeding generations will continue
to view the Western Ghats in wonder
and amazement,
And also loudly shout out their name.
While those mountains would faithfully
echo back the same,
Time and again, all playing the same
old game!
                                          -Raj Nandy, New Delhi,

we never moved a thing
our souls have no special priority
situated upon this pile of bodies
burning along the ghats of the ganges
dream yourself a new destiny
if you are married you are already busy
being bought for a few pennies
or rubies
have we tortured ourselves enough
what else can we find fault with
simple distortions are our contortionist tendencies
alabama vacancy
sages melt honey
on their tongues and sing songs of wisdom
long hours lead to tired bodies
repetition is our duty

this insurgency
breathes
as you plead
please let me linger a little longer
at your fingertips I fell
and tasted the deer's head
eyes of the serpent’s brides
this congregation is full of liars
and truth-sayers
seekers all aside
i hide between drishtis
as yogas collide
I am clean and undivided
subsided topsoil
collapses
until tilled it thrives
i glide
upon four legged spiders
dine upon succulents and hang gliders
as the cream rises to the top
we become like butter
ghee is the mother of all beings
is harmony in soluble fats
or in burning ghats on the ganges
fat solids cooked in vats
on home burners
i sold the answers to the texts
as the scriptures were stolen by hungry thieves
in need of a tryant’s democracy
a solvent alternative to capitalist precocity
i seek thee
in fibrous stalks of kale
as spines recline
so do our waking minds
and we become blinded
to the ingredients of divergence
you allow for the butter to melt
and spread over mind toast
i boast about our love
and yet it swallows me whole
i am a shallow vessel
fill me and i overflow too easily
greatness is deep and heavy
and the west is getting ready
for its birthday
a celebration of identity
still neglecting the face
of multidimensionality
we continue to harbor
expatriates of the soul

What I feel, was
incredible to shake off.
And the moon cries.

Why do I tie the
knot with nature? Your
eyes and cascading voice?

My wait will never
be over after the brief
encounter with the rising
mounds.

There it goes, my self-
made tryst with burning ghats,
to search a lost face.

The twilight pain
climbs again in my verses.
I cannot weave
a beautiful sunset.

For whom the
echoes travel very long
in dark woods?

Hail Mary. Tupac. Written verse
In 30 minutes. The definition
Tupac in blessed ambition.
Favorite of Jake quitley
Logans friend
Who has ascended into heaven...

Masterpieces in breThing form.
Kids in between teaching
From experience of parents.
As we see the norms.
What we teaching more
Or what we experience more
Human beings
In the demons whordes
Don't feed the pour
America in
Between two wars...
Or feeding Pablo. Chavo. Chapo
From a  need for more....
Legalize the narcotics
Education.. safe product
And be informed....
Kids stay sober
In happy homes.
But addicts come in many form...

Legalize get addicts clean supply...
And control the street side
Spend the profits on rehabbing
The diseased minds...
Build street wise kids...
With clean minds...
By telling them hey weeds fine...
But you wouldn't be pushing dope
At 17 guy...
If your momma had free time...
To nourish you
Instead of working all her cheap life....
*** our economy
Rapes. The hurting. With three lies...
Paper. Home and labor
Add upto a free life...
Than they ******* three times...

Anyway economics state..
If you bust a shipment of supply
The demand stays high
Supply is low so prices rise...
The cartel gets the same price...
After getting raided twice...
Jail time. Incarceration
Have a major price....
Cons get educated on gangs
Violence. And heinous crimes...
While the state pays the raising price...
To let them stay in jail for life....
And upon release. They couldn't score a job. If they were walking into
A Chinese brothel with a bag of rice....
Yeah the bag of ice
Has an asking price
It takes half your life....
Legalize. And cultivate. Jobs made.
Retail vendors...
Rehab the addict mind...
While casual users...
Don't die from
A massive spike. Of fentanyl
And Pablo won't get

Half as rich.
As the government.
Investing profits. To social programs
Half of which...
Would reduce poverty
In potential addict kids...
Demand would drop
As generations gap the addict twitch
And live clean
Sober satisfactionate....
But ghats way to crazy
To imagine it
When **** is still illegal
In America...
******* amateurs its just cannabis...
It is medicine... better re examine it...

In paroxysm nothing
appeals. I test the burning home.
Where the pigeons will nest now.

The poetics search
the soothing effect of punishment.
Oh in another case give me Ganges.

Fever comes and goes.
You also survive near the ghats.
I talk only with the absent God.