Had t5here been a bet5t5er greet5ing,
Dist5ance t5ravelled bet5t5er seat5ing
T5rain t5raverse on lines t5hat5 cut5,
Cut5t5ing t5hrough t5he land const5ruct5.
A measure of a cert5ain t5y6pe.
A measure of a purple st5ripe.
Baggy6 t5[-shirt5 loosened t5ie t5at5t5y6 t5orn.
Drag a comb t5hrough t5hat5 hair,
Dist5ant5 vacant5 wishingly6 purposeful st5are.
Say6 no t5o t5hat5 correct5 my6self.
Place t5hat5 cheap cologne on t5he shelf.

Once t5here was a t5all high hill,
T5hat5 once t5he knight5s carouse t5heir fill.
Will climb t5hat5 hill and climbing higher.
Like t5o t5he st5eeple of t5he church t5he spire.
Point5ed on high t5o a st5ar t5hat5 shine.
And shed It5’s light5 on t5he aspect5 of t5hine.
T%o t5umble down once climbed t5o t5he t5op,
And once t5he falling fell t5hen st5op.

Cont5inue deeper, cont5inue t5o smart5,
And deeply6 seat5ed creat5ed dist5ance depart5
And place t5he horse before t5he cart5,
T5hen know t5he meaning of word in art5.

T5he meadows light5 fills on t5he glade
And t5ravel ablout5 t5he dancing shade,
And as t5hese t5wo places glean,
T5here will be more and more t5o be seen.

T5hrough gradient5s of a penumbra,
And wit5h a cert5ain t5icking number,
When t5hings in shadow cower
And t5hings in light5 begin t5o flower
T5hen smiles on faces, dance and graces
Of t5his and t5hat5 and quicker popper flat5.
Chug chug chug of engine st5eam,
T5he rain of t5hese t5hings are bet5t5er off
T%han a conduct5or wit5h a splut5t5ery6 cough.

Even nothing heals
It ravels and unravels
Then coyly coils up into a bow
A present from the fringes of space

Waffling between hate and annoyance
At the lack of access to anything else to feel
A hot gust of flying ants and grass shrapnel
Is how you should picture this

My parents made love in the chimney
My brother wrecked Christmas
My cousin is stuck on Easter Island
Sometimes I see him on postcards screaming

It's the dust motes in the light
That cats love to bat and wonder at
Given each alone the mote or the light
They couldn't care less

So much is still waiting behind the right combination, right?

paint the world in green, spiral love on henna bellies, toes;
paint it red and ravage hearts,
a poet sings it either way,
sudden and illuminating all another hue
something less than true if true were known,
something more, i call it when it's poetry,
but who am i, this poem, to judge all poems?
who am i to claim a rightful place, within a poem itself,
to demarcate times with halting rhymes...
how many times have i rhymed rhyme with time?
before it's expressed, it ravels in--in deeper--in the dark,
this glamor symbol syncretism
sometimes urgent, never fully formed
no words can turn within and label when their labels came to being signed--
but here i am, to sign, succumb and sign again at signs

The ravels in my sleeve of care
Grow longer every night-
Especially in the morning
When I struggle back to sleep
From waking up too early

Only to be bushwhacked
By brigades of unsolved problems,
Battalions of frustration
And whole Armies of defeatment
Marching out to meet me.

While you’re asleep your secret mind
Is solving all the puzzles
That unhinge the hours when you’re awake
And dodging slings and arrows.
That is the scholar’s promise.

That is what the con men say
In psychiatric clinics
Where they write the books
Explaining what it means to fly
And why we never land when falling.

Sleep refreshes and renews-
At least that is the theory.
It’s not supposed to wear you out
And beat you down while dreaming
Out the scripts you didn’t write.

When the raveling is complete
And both my sleeves have come undone
Will I dream of flowered fields
And happy times, successes and rewarding
Or will it end and I no longer dream at all.
                    ljm

060615

You're not just a Giver of answers
But You alone are the Answer;
I sometimes doubt my future
As I fear it too,
Yet You provide a way out,
A light beyond my feet
You are my certainty.

Of all the pleasures of the world
I once took satisfaction
In fact, I've let myself be drowned
But it ravels me into its depth.

Your heart shall be my heart
I pay no more tribute to my idols
To my once lustful eyes, pride and anxiety
I give to You, oh, grant me forgiveness.

The grain You bestowed me,
Put them in my heart,
That I may cry for hunger,
And thirst due to drought.

Oh, Lord let me mourn
But turn the mourning into dancing
Dance with me, oh angels
Let's praise the Holy King.

Put oil in my forehead
As a sign of Your anointing
Cover me with Your blood
Oh, I shiver with Your eternal grace.

The wine, You share with me
It taste no liquor
But it soothes my Spirit
Oh Spirit, come down
Ignite the passion within me
The feast is now,
Oh the joy of the Lord, fill me in.

The fog loses purchase
on the window
and, dying, wicks
ashy vapor's slick scatter
to gated green-brown.
Morning comes again
in fractioned crooks
of snow declining
into fat eggs of rain.
The fog is a colossus,
ravels with dragging step,
before retiring itself
above oak branchlets.  
The sun wraps away
in gray, as if stolen.  
Nativity of cloud.
I'm telling you this:
everything is possible.

Language can form and diminish
Paint pictures more vividly than pallets
A thousand different stories flowing through the veins of society

Words can be picked as subtle as a petal on a dandelion
Or rushing over rocks as fast as the tide.

Words and letters are as sharp as a knife or as lovlingly embracing as a hug

Conversation ties and connects, ravels and unravels.
Speeches can transform and inspire and move

But all words have meaning

A late September day
Under a perfectly blue sky
The restless wind ravels
The yellow leaves of Maple
As they fall gently on the ground.

I see no one around:
The pastured fields lie bare,
And the roads are empty.
Somewhere in the dark woods
A nameless bird breaks into a song.

Between the barren rocks
A clump of tiny weeds
Have sprouted to bright life;
And in the horizon,
Rows and rows of dark evergreens.

My heart suddenly aches
With a deep yearning for something:
Despite all the losses,
I cannot but be glad,
On this wind-swept autumnal day.

Diptesh Ghosh

All I manage to catch are glimpses. Peepholes through time and space.
Small ravels of memories I had before this time, before this space. I try to catch them, but they’re always out of grasp.
Like the light that filters through the rustling leaves of the tree. Appearing and disappearing without a moments notice.

I go towards these memories, hoping to achieve them, but I’m always pulled back down to the memories I possess now, that stretch over the ones before, and I forget. I forget who I am, and I remember who I am not.

On the bridge before these walls
stood the spears with the heads
of all who were in the way

cut off on the block, with ravels
if the convicted refused
to pay the headsman

for a quick death, the heads
with holes where the blackbirds pick
the holes where the eyes were

The parishioners wore shawls
over their noses and mouths
during the Sunday service

in the church of the chains
because it reeked from the vault
full of beheaded bodies

oh, history lessons
don't make anyone happy
at best our children

if we don't let us be tied down
by complicity in injustice
lifelong guilt and shame

if we dare to count on each other
and rise up against tyranny

Earth Calling

Do you not like to dwell
on my soil anymore
do you not know how much
I laboured for the mountains
and the trees to give
some shelter
so you could hide in them
do you not
in a single second stop
and think?

      In a giant
      buzzing place full of high-pitched buildings
      playgrounds with no
      hiding space and barbed wire
      fence
         a density takes place that's of
         another world
         gives rise to loads and loads of
         cloudy thoughts that lead to
         cloudy politics and building
         walls of glue and bricks to block out
         what seems other-

While Mother Nature ravels on
and moans about such silly
helpless creatures
who bread us and then leave into a realm
of materialistic faith that
crumbles
yet if one stops or stumbles
across a shiny apple,
just shrugs or frowns in
disbelief-
he cannot treat it as a sign of
brief and honest earth connection-

      and hurries in a frightened pace
      off to the next brilliant distraction
      while the poor planet grieves-


Earth cries and
sighs in her green nest
and asks the Universe for
just a little rest from those blindfolded
human things-
so it is Universe who
brings relief
to the blue planet and its stars

and while the fox and bat, the Milky Way and Mars
are busy watching
they see a pair of black hands reaching
down toward the Earth
caress her soil and plants and fields
for it is worth it-

     A shooting star flies by
           smiles for he saw
     out of the corner of his eye

     a vision of two pairs of hands-
            one green, one black-

              and keeps on shooting
             across his well known track
                  keeping in mind the image

                
                                                       of fingers interlocked

The sound of the grit ravels
As the metal end enters the tepid ground
The mist opens up and then closes
God's not ready to start the day

As each movement unfurls
My brow gets moist with salty sweat
The small hole becomes a bigger hole
Robin redbreast comes over to investigate

I drench my hands on soil to sort the stones
Smelling the earth with a deep breath
I pause rested and squatted deep on my ankles
Stopping to think as the earth continues to spin

This work belongs with me
And I was brought up with it
Strangers who cannot handle a *****
Are alien to us, the children of the soil