mσσnlíght ín thє mєαdσw
cαѕtѕ thє ѕhαdσw σf thє trєєѕ
í cαtch α glimpse of ѕílvєr
αѕ thє вrαnchєѕ cαtch thє вrєєzє
thєrє'ѕ juѕt α ѕσund σf ruѕtlíng lєαvєѕ
ín ѕσlítudє í ѕtrσll
thє wσσdѕ αrє mínє thíѕ єvєníng
αѕ í plαч thє wσmαn'ѕ rσlє
pαuѕíng вч thє rívєrвαnk
thє ѕчmphσnч вєgínѕ
thє ruѕhíng wαtєr'ѕ cσuntєrpσínt
tσ lívє σαk'ѕ crєαkíng límвѕ
thє gєntlє wínd, thє tєmpσ mαkєѕ
αnd í вєgín tσ hєαr
thє rhчthm σf thє pulѕє σf lífє
αn єαrth ѕσng ín mч єαr
hσw ѕwєєt thє єvєníng ѕєєm tσ mє
αríαѕ fíll thє níght
αnd thєn thєч mαkє α chσruѕ
αѕ thє mσσn rєѕumєѕ hєr flíght
hσmєwαrd вσund, í pαuѕє αnd líѕtєn
α mєlσdч ѕσ ѕwєєt
rєgrєtfullч, thє ѕpєll íѕ gσnє
nσw, juѕt thє trαffíc'ѕ вєαt

IN SEARCH OF THE PRESENT

I begin with two words that all men have uttered since the dawn of humanity: thank you. The word gratitude has equivalents in every language and in each tongue the range of meanings is abundant. In the Romance languages this breadth spans the spiritual and the physical, from the divine grace conceded to men to save them from error and death, to the ****** grace of the dancing girl or the feline leaping through the undergrowth. Grace means pardon, forgiveness, favour, benefice, inspiration; it is a form of address, a pleasing style of speaking or painting, a gesture expressing politeness, and, in short, an act that reveals spiritual goodness. Grace is gratuitous; it is a gift. The person who receives it, the favoured one, is grateful for it; if he is not base, he expresses gratitude. That is what I am doing at this very moment with these weightless words. I hope my emotion compensates their weightlessness. If each of my words were a drop of water, you would see through them and glimpse what I feel: gratitude, acknowledgement. And also an indefinable mixture of fear, respect and surprise at finding myself here before you, in this place which is the home of both Swedish learning and world literature.

Languages are vast realities that transcend those political and historical entities we call nations. The European languages we speak in the Americas illustrate this. The special position of our literatures when compared to those of England, Spain, Portugal and France depends precisely on this fundamental fact: they are literatures written in transplanted tongues. Languages are born and grow from the native soil, nourished by a common history. The European languages were rooted out from their native soil and their own tradition, and then planted in an unknown and unnamed world: they took root in the new lands and, as they grew within the societies of America, they were transformed. They are the same plant yet also a different plant. Our literatures did not passively accept the changing fortunes of the transplanted languages: they participated in the process and even accelerated it. They very soon ceased to be mere transatlantic reflections: at times they have been the negation of the literatures of Europe; more often, they have been a reply.

In spite of these oscillations the link has never been broken. My classics are those of my language and I consider myself to be a descendant of Lope and Quevedo, as any Spanish writer would ... yet I am not a Spaniard. I think that most writers of Spanish America, as well as those from the United States, Brazil and Canada, would say the same as regards the English, Portuguese and French traditions. To understand more clearly the special position of writers in the Americas, we should think of the dialogue maintained by Japanese, Chinese or Arabic writers with the different literatures of Europe. It is a dialogue that cuts across multiple languages and civilizations. Our dialogue, on the other hand, takes place within the same language. We are Europeans yet we are not Europeans. What are we then? It is difficult to define what we are, but our works speak for us.

In the field of literature, the great novelty of the present century has been the appearance of the American literatures. The first to appear was that of the English-speaking part and then, in the second half of the 20th Century, that of Latin America in its two great branches: Spanish America and Brazil. Although they are very different, these three literatures have one common feature: the conflict, which is more ideological than literary, between the cosmopolitan and nativist tendencies, between Europeanism and Americanism. What is the legacy of this dispute? The polemics have disappeared; what remain are the works. Apart from this general resemblance, the differences between the three literatures are multiple and profound. One of them belongs more to history than to literature: the development of Anglo-American literature coincides with the rise of the United States as a world power whereas the rise of our literature coincides with the political and social misfortunes and upheavals of our nations. This proves once more the limitations of social and historical determinism: the decline of empires and social disturbances sometimes coincide with moments of artistic and literary splendour. Li-Po and Tu Fu witnessed the fall of the Tang dynasty; Velázquez painted for Felipe IV; Seneca and Lucan were contemporaries and also victims of Nero. Other differences are of a literary nature and apply more to particular works than to the character of each literature. But can we say that literatures have a character? Do they possess a set of shared features that distinguish them from other literatures? I doubt it. A literature is not defined by some fanciful, intangible character; it is a society of unique works united by relations of opposition and affinity.

The first basic difference between Latin-American and Anglo-American literature lies in the diversity of their origins. Both begin as projections of Europe. The projection of an island in the case of North America; that of a peninsula in our case. Two regions that are geographically, historically and culturally eccentric. The origins of North America are in England and the Reformation; ours are in Spain, Portugal and the Counter-Reformation. For the case of Spanish America I should briefly mention what distinguishes Spain from other European countries, giving it a particularly original historical identity. Spain is no less eccentric than England but its eccentricity is of a different kind. The eccentricity of the English is insular and is characterized by isolation: an eccentricity that excludes. Hispanic eccentricity is peninsular and consists of the coexistence of different civilizations and different pasts: an inclusive eccentricity. In what would later be Catholic Spain, the Visigoths professed the heresy of Arianism, and we could also speak about the centuries of ******* by Arabic civilization, the influence of Jewish thought, the Reconquest, and other characteristic features.

Hispanic eccentricity is reproduced and multiplied in America, especially in those countries such as Mexico and Peru, where ancient and splendid civilizations had existed. In Mexico, the Spaniards encountered history as well as geography. That history is still alive: it is a present rather than a past. The temples and gods of pre-Columbian Mexico are a pile of ruins, but the spirit that breathed life into that world has not disappeared; it speaks to us in the hermetic language of myth, legend, forms of social coexistence, popular art, customs. Being a Mexican writer means listening to the voice of that present, that presence. Listening to it, speaking with it, deciphering it: expressing it ... After this brief digression we may be able to perceive the peculiar relation that simultaneously binds us to and separates us from the European tradition.

This consciousness of being separate is a constant feature of our spiritual history. Separation is sometimes experienced as a wound that marks an internal division, an anguished awareness that invites self-examination; at other times it appears as a challenge, a spur that incites us to action, to go forth and encounter others and the outside world. It is true that the feeling of separation is universal and not peculiar to Spanish Americans. It is born at the very moment of our birth: as we are wrenched from the Whole we fall into an alien land. This experience becomes a wound that never heals. It is the unfathomable depth of every man; all our ventures and exploits, all our acts and dreams, are bridges designed to overcome the separation and reunite us with the world and our fellow-beings. Each man's life and the collective history of mankind can thus be seen as attempts to reconstruct the original situation. An unfinished and endless cure for our divided condition. But it is not my intention to provide yet another description of this feeling. I am simply stressing the fact that for us this existential condition expresses itself in historical terms. It thus becomes an awareness of our history. How and when does this feeling appear and how is it transformed into consciousness? The reply to this double-edged question can be given in the form of a theory or a personal testimony. I prefer the latter: there are many theories and none is entirely convincing.

The feeling of separation is bound up with the oldest and vaguest of my memories: the first cry, the first scare. Like every child I built emotional bridges in the imagination to link me to the world and to other people. I lived in a town on the outskirts of Mexico City, in an old dilapidated house that had a jungle-like garden and a great room full of books. First games and first lessons. The garden soon became the centre of my world; the library, an enchanted cave. I used to read and play with my cousins and schoolmates. There was a fig tree, temple of vegetation, four pine trees, three ash trees, a nightshade, a pomegranate tree, wild grass and prickly plants that produced purple grazes. Adobe walls. Time was elastic; space was a spinning wheel. All time, past or future, real or imaginary, was pure presence. Space transformed itself ceaselessly. The beyond was here, all was here: a valley, a mountain, a distant country, the neighbours' patio. Books with pictures, especially history books, eagerly leafed through, supplied images of deserts and jungles, palaces and hovels, warriors and princesses, beggars and kings. We were shipwrecked with Sinbad and with Robinson, we fought with d'Artagnan, we took Valencia with the Cid. How I would have liked to stay forever on the Isle of Calypso! In summer the green branches of the fig tree would sway like the sails of a caravel or a pirate ship. High up on the mast, swept by the wind, I could make out islands and continents, lands that vanished as soon as they became tangible. The world was limitless yet it was always within reach; time was a pliable substance that weaved an unbroken present.

When was the spell broken? Gradually rather than suddenly. It is hard to accept being betrayed by a friend, deceived by the woman we love, or that the idea of freedom is the mask of a tyrant. What we call "finding out" is a slow and tricky process because we ourselves are the accomplices of our errors and deceptions. Nevertheless, I can remember fairly clearly an incident that was the first sign, although it was quickly forgotten. I must have been about six when one of my cousins who was a little older showed me a North American magazine with a photograph of soldiers marching along a huge avenue, probably in New York. "They've returned from the war" she said. This handful of words disturbed me, as if they foreshadowed the end of the world or the Second Coming of Christ. I vaguely knew that somewhere far away a war had ended a few years earlier and that the soldiers were marching to celebrate their victory. For me, that war had taken place in another time, not here and now. The photo refuted me. I felt literally dislodged from the present.

From that moment time began to fracture more and more. And there was a plurality of spaces. The experience repeated itself more and more frequently. Any piece of news, a harmless phrase, the headline in a newspaper: everything proved the outside world's existence and my own unreality. I felt that the world was splitting and that I did not inhabit the present. My present was disintegrating: real time was somewhere else. My time, the time of the garden, the fig tree, the games with friends, the drowsiness among the plants at three in the afternoon under the sun, a fig torn open (black and red like a live coal but one that is sweet and fresh): this was a fictitious time. In spite of what my senses told me, the time from over there, belonging to the others, was the real one, the time of the real present. I accepted the inevitable: I became an adult. That was how my expulsion from the present began.

It may seem paradoxical to say that we have been expelled from the present, but it is a feeling we have all had at some moment. Some of us experienced it first as a condemnation, later transformed into consciousness and action. The search for the present is neither the pursuit of an earthly paradise nor that of a timeless eternity: it is the search for a real reality. For us, as Spanish Americans, the real present was not in our own countries: it was the time lived by others, by the English, the French and the Germans. It was the time of New York, Paris, London. We had to go and look for it and bring it back home. These years were also the years of my discovery of literature. I began writing poems. I did not know what made me write them: I was moved by an inner need that is difficult to define. Only now have I understood that there was a secret relationship between what I have called my expulsion from the present and the writing of poetry. Poetry is in love with the instant and seeks to relive it in the poem, thus separating it from sequential time and turning it into a fixed present. But at that time I wrote without wondering why I was doing it. I was searching for the gateway to the present: I wanted to belong to my time and to my century. A little later this obsession became a fixed idea: I wanted to be a modern poet. My search for modernity had begun.

What is modernity? First of all it is an ambiguous term: there are as many types of modernity as there are societies. Each has its own. The word's meaning is uncertain and arbitrary, like the name of the period that precedes it, the Middle Ages. If we are modern when compared to medieval times, are we perhaps the Middle Ages of a future modernity? Is a name that changes with time a real name? Modernity is a word in search of its meaning. Is it an idea, a mirage or a moment of history? Are we the children of modernity or its creators? Nobody knows for sure. It doesn't matter much: we follow it, we pursue it. For me at that time modernity was fused with the present or rather produced it: the present was its last supreme flower. My case is neither unique nor exceptional: from the Symbolist period, all modern poets have chased after that magnetic and elusive figure that fascinates them. Baudelaire was the first. He was also the first to touch her and discover that she is nothing but time that crumbles in one's hands. I am not going to relate my adventures in pursuit of modernity: they are not very different from those of other 20th-Century poets. Modernity has been a universal passion. Since 1850 she has been our goddess and our demoness. In recent years, there has been an attempt to exorcise her and there has been much talk of "postmodernism". But what is postmodernism if not an even more modern modernity?

For us, as Latin Americans, the search for poetic modernity runs historically parallel to the repeated attempts to modernize our countries. This tendency begins at the end of the 18th Century and includes Spain herself. The United States was born into modernity and by 1830 was already, as de Tocqueville observed, the womb of the future; we were born at a moment when Spain and Portugal were moving away from modernity. This is why there was frequent talk of "Europeanizing" our countries: the modern was outside and had to be imported. In Mexican history this process begins just before the War of Independence. Later it became a great ideological and political debate that passionately divided Mexican society during the 19th Century. One event was to call into question not the legitimacy of the reform movement but the way in which it had been implemented: the Mexican Revolution. Unlike its 20th-Century counterparts, the Mexican Revolution was not really the expression of a vaguely utopian ideology but rather the explosion of a reality that had been historically and psychologically repressed. It was not the work of a group of ideologists intent on introducing principles derived from a political theory; it was a popular uprising that unmasked what was hidden. For this very reason it was more of a revelation than a revolution. Mexico was searching for the present outside only to find it within, buried but alive. The search for modernity led

Do we dare dream to fall?, to fly... to go crashing through the bedroom door
Where we tumble and roll and slowly lose all of our clothes
Lost under the sheets we ride shooting stars
Circle the sun in the blink of an eye
Catch a glimpse of eternity inbetween the beat of our hearts
Do we dare turn the page and find ourselves living a storybook life
Hopes and wishes blooming like flowers all night and all day
And when we read between the lines we find a love so perfect it's almost cliche
If we dare to sneak a glimpse and skip to the last page
Would it be a black and white classic of two aged hands holding a heart that still beats wildly and madly and impossibly in love
Dare we..

typewriter rhythm
clacking away new beats
tempo exchanges
computer lab concerto
fair-weather phonetics
hunt and peck symphony
symbolic of the system
poking at inmates
pecking at the enforcers
attempting to gain an education --
floating above the ruckus
offering research aid
I sit at the desk seeking only to enlighten
service work for those
suffering servitude
serfdom
post-modern slavery
complete with subsidies
scamming the con-men --
white house looks best
through prison barred windows

I bow to Lotus Feet, which gives me eternal peace
I am incomplete without your compassion
you healed my heart when it was thrown and shattered
you picked me up when I struggled to get through
you gave me hope when it seemed so out of reach
I am nothing without you

Where ever I go, found not alone
your glorious touch was always with me
Nectar drop of Gita, feels presents of yours
O! my Lord Krishna show me the light on my path

your Flute stirs the Universal Consciousness
And Gita enchants the Transcendental Consciousness
O! Lord of the whole Universe, Omnipotent Master of all
Grant me a glimpse of Thyself,Be pleased to come and live inside me                                            

-----------------------------------: :---------------------------------



By : Karunakar Saroj

(In the love of Lord Krishna)












“hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare”

I saw a glimpse of heaven on an old park bench
but you said the location didn't make much sense
and struggled to see the beauty of all the falling leaves,
so I sighed, and got up, asking if we should leave.

The ocean rises and falls
The waves hit the trenchious walls
Boats trying to beat the waves to reach shore
I sat on the sea wall watching the war

The lightening struck and thunder roared
While the sea level rouse and I saw God
Poseidon with his trident sharp like sword
A glimpse of him was all I could afford

I watched the skys evolve dark heavy cloud
Upon the sea the roars grew loud
I thought to return home as it got dark
Behind me I saw a light like spark

I looked up and saw the dark skys leak
Perhaps my imagination was at its peak
Rain began to pour heavily on me
I started to run home as it was hard to see

I still remember those days, whenever it rains
Of what I saw, was not verge of insane
I really saw glimpse of a God
I saw Poseidon with his trident sword!


©sim

Walking down the street, you catch a glimpse of the most beautiful woman

And in a second, your life flashes by, she’s with you till the end

Your grave is freshly dug, she sheds a tear

You've not had enough of her, you refuse to leave

She goes home and your ghost follows

She holds a picture of the two of you, forces a smile

Dinner seems to be the most silent and most painful

The television helps, at times

The actors fall in love time and again, this gives her hope

They make her laugh, yet your ghost just sits there. Expressionless

She reads, and reads some more

Books seem to be her new love

The pile next to her bed grows weekly as she can’t stop turning the pages

An old friend visits her, they speak about you

She puts on a smile but she’s not ready yet

They drive down to the fields and the grass clears her mind if only for a while

Your ghost takes a walk and leave her be for a while, but it’s not done yet

Weeks pass, your ghost wanders

She smiles a lot more, even laughs time and again

Once again, she has others in stitches

The second passes.

She walks past.

And yet her ghost just sits there. Expressionless

.

i want to buy these mice a home so
that their presence helps keep the table clear
i think i’ll place it in the gap between the door and the floor
in the hopes of keeping the noise out and
of having at least one of us feel
a sense of being welcome

the paper bags in my hands wouldn’t feel
heavy if they knew where they were going maybe
and hitting my head against the bed again doesn’t stop me from
showing off the letters on my chest although
i’ve been known to miss the mark

if there's a spark in her eyes it’s 'cause she stole the light from mine
but i like the cold because it makes me feel alive

my favorite part comes around
when the two trains meet and for a second
i can catch a glimpse of everyone’s place in the world
before we’re whisked away to
our respective loneliness

or maybe it’s where the streets
run narrow like those in the places where
connection, if anything, tastes a bit more genuine
it's quite polarizing but this time i’ll seek
comfort in the grey of it until it
all comes rushing back

they say home is where the heart is so this probably still isn’t it
but it will do for now

.

the flowers were blooming
so were you
your eyes were glowing
so were mine

waving deserts
drank water from the river
danced through the grass
you led me closer
with just a single glance

the sweetest taste
strongest desire
i've never dreamed of
it whispered in chemical symbols
something i've never heard of

there was a lot to learn
but time wasn't at our side

i saw right through the eyes
fearful when wish to fight
despite it all
we continue on
fools in a glimpse of paradise
you saw right through the eyes
let go when wish to hold on

it was okay
while the petals covered
it was insane
to control the uncontrolled

but the flowers were still blooming
the scent of lights and waters
blue to green
i found myself longing for you
for summer
before it wilted away forever

before you
slipped away forever

Casting spells in a song of lust
with such beauty undenied.
He's chased her half a lifetime
and have lost but all his pride.

Sailing all the oceans blue
He's left his ship dashed on the rocks.
Begging for that enchanted kiss
from his mermaid as she mocks.

Her voice to call within a gale
scent heady upon the waves.
Nets shredded trying to capture her
yet every night he craves.

To nary catch a fleeting glimpse
of her golden hair or tail.
He's chased her 'cross the storming seas
as winds and rain did wail.

Forever calling out her name
He's come to rest in every port.
On moonlit nights he hears her song
attempts to see her, she does thwart.

The scent of salt does show his years
but still he sails to her song.
Forever on the shifting waves
is where his heart belongs.