Take each memory
Tell one close to you,
The Story
The tongue will muscle the details
Don't muzzle the truth, or it all fails,

Travel in time isn't for the massess,
The past is the past but by telling it now
The Story passes
the test of time, and makes it to the future
wounds might not be healed, but sutured,

history local or global or private were and are
sustained by the verbal record, a spoken treasure,
Like a DeLorean car,
words tied to synaspses, flash pictures, smells and action,
make movies for some, tales for others, that did not sanction,

the telling of the story,
minute paper pieces,
microscopic chemical reactions
recaptures
laughs,
tears of joy, many of sadness,
and the events, surrounded by the madness
of the days,
so if this the case save Time Travel to books and fiction,
or quiz history and historians, and was the truth told
after all, forever after, but lean in close and whisper in
my ear, I will listen through your tears, take me Travelling,...

One Day.

why do you torment me
when I'm feeling the most satisfactory
I'm feeling like i can touch the sky with my hands
that i am creating this rainbow of potential with massive colors floating through the air to match my soul
you show up and shatter everything

the rainbow that I created isn't an actual rainbow
it isn't all the flurries in the sky like i imagined
but it is a picture
a very very fragile picture that you can shatter so easily

all it takes is a glimpse of your face
a note of your voice
your breathe near me
all it takes is a thought of you and my rainbow shatters
it shatters into pieces that become so small that you can never gather all of them
so when i repaint my rainbow in the sky
my massive colors flowing, abounding with potential
there are always pieces missing
and each time you shatter it there are more pieces missing

maybe i need to stop making rainbows
maybe i need to create something else
i need to take all the pieces that i keep having to recollect after every single time you shatter them
the tiny itty bitty pieces that represent who i am and who i want to be
who i was

i must create a new picture
i must create something new and exciting and bold that recaptures who i am

maybe i should make a glittering sea
i should take my pieces and mold them together like mounds of clay
pushing pushing pulling
pushing pushing pulling
molding
creating

an ocean
i want to create an ocean
glittering bright
it will be made so you can see the rushing waters
it is so real that the picture seems to be moving
up, down
the waves so smooth
but when you get closer they become harsher
they become more frantic
more chaotic
but it is a beautiful chaotic

that is who i am
i am beautifully chaotic

i can transform in the blink of an eye
from that nice girl who's a good friend who you can trust completely
into something more
something more than the nice girl
something more than who i was

because i will no longer be the nice girl
i will no longer be deemed as someone who's just a good friend
someone who's just nice just pretty
just there
standing in the background

I will have my own spotlight
that's right

I will become selfish
i will become maniacal
i will become manipulative

but i will do anything it takes to protect my picture

On a gloomy, rainy day                              sipping coffee
All alone
Begin to wander the house of memories
I can feel you
Even today These recaptures feel alluring
All the memories are talking to me
They are telling me you and me was a lie
But I am not repining anything, not even a little bit
Cause for me, you are still The best thing happened to me and I don't want to replace that
I can't.
               -diksha dhiman

Prickly morning sun strings up
      the hair on her arms as she gazes,
watching the waves bobble and weave and listening
to their dead seashells and shellfish;
       ricketing and momentarily floating.

For a moment, her heart is the ocean.
  Always beating and providing life without
knowing why. She sighs and begins to forget she is lost--
The synthetic shores of everyday life at her backfoot,
   the burning sand ridden with childhood memories.
She slowly allows it to dissapear
and recaptures a piece of her self
                                                            ­  in return;

Belonging to this ocean as much she does the sky it reflects.

Calling, lamenting her name without a word, the ocean
     lullabies her soothing sighs, falling rythmatically now--
Raindrops disinter the clouds and tickle the rythm
     of her pulse. Soft, soft backing instrument to her final
            calling. There is no need to look around again;
  
There is no guard in sight. The prickly sunshine fades
  To ruthless cold air and she walks forward, mouth agape
        and ready

For the ocean to swallow her and recapture her, entombed,
     enwombed forever more.

when misfortune tries to shipwreck my future and i'm  enslaved by chains of doubt ,you reach out a gentle loving hand to me ,suddenly its clear what love is really about.when fear with deadly hands slowly chokes life out of my dreams and I want to stay in bed with the covers over head,whatever   strength was inside leaks in a run like a fleeting bride.your love  recaptures  that escaped. when wide eyed unrest disturbs the  church of my familiar it seems to be if your not near and the music of time skips in an uneven beat.when your arms circle around this hungry wraist the touch is sunfire

when misfortune tries to shipwreck my future and i'm enslaved by chains of doubt,you  reach out a gentle loving hand to me and suddenly its  so very clear what this gift of love is, is all about.when fear  with deadly hands, slowly chokes life out of dreams, and I want to stay in bed, with the covers over head.strength that was inside leaks in a run like a fleeting bride,your love recaptures it all.when wide eyed unrest disturbs the street of my familiar, this happens each time you are not near ,and I hear the music skip in an uneven beat,than your hungry arms  circle around me  and the touch  is a gentle fire.

when misfortune tries to shipwreck my future and i'm enslaved by chains of doubt,you  reach out a gentle loving hand to me and suddenly its  so very clear what this gift of love is, is all about.when fear  with deadly hands, slowly chokes life out of dreams, and I want to stay in bed, with the covers over head.strength that was inside leaks in a run like a fleeting bride,your love recaptures it all.when wide eyed unrest disturbs the street of my familiar, this happens each time you are not near ,and I hear the music skip in an uneven beat,than your hungry arms  circle around me  and the touch  is a gentle fire.

when misfortune tries to shipwreck my future and i'm enslaved by chains of doubt,you  reach out a gentle loving hand to me and suddenly its  so very clear what this gift of love is, is all about.when fear  with deadly hands, slowly chokes life out of dreams, and I want to stay in bed, with the covers over head.strength that was inside leaks in a run like a fleeting bride,your love recaptures it all.when wide eyed unrest disturbs the street of my familiar, this happens each time you are not near ,and I hear the music skip in an uneven beat,than your hungry arms  circle around me  and the touch  is a gentle fire.

when misfortune tries to shipwreck my future and i'm enslaved by chains of doubt,you  reach out a gentle loving hand to me and suddenly its  so very clear what this gift of love is, is all about.when fear  with deadly hands, slowly chokes life out of dreams, and I want to stay in bed, with the covers over head.strength that was inside leaks in a run like a fleeting bride,your love recaptures it all.when wide eyed unrest disturbs the street of my familiar, this happens each time you are not near ,and I hear the music skip in an uneven beat,than your hungry arms  circle around me  and the touch  is a gentle fire.

Grief punctures the heart
And slices the soul
A love, if true, is never
Forgotten
And yet remains irretrievable
There is no cure
No antidote
For the cancer of grief
Which devours the body
And consumes the mind
With zombiesque ferocity
Ravaging the flesh of a
Walking carcass
Why Heaven has chosen
To perpetrate such a punishment
Is beyond human understanding
Mere mortals were never given
Powers sufficient to plunge
The depths of grief
Hope of happiness
Remains caged like a lion
A corpse being devoured by maggots
And yet, inextricably,
Destiny can intervene
Fate can conquer
The lassitude of time
Conspiracies unforeseen coalesce
Bridging oceans
With glacial understanding
That alone empowers
The universe
To swoop up two souls
Lost in the limbo of time
Destined to fulfill their fate
Carved with flint and stone
A cavern in granite
Now magically transformed
Into pavement as smooth as glass
As crystalline as a stream
Frozen motion
That recaptures the
Essence of life
Spreading a new love
Like a waterfall
Cascading against the rocks
In a rainbow of spray
To tie two people
In a ring of love
Forever sustained
By the growth of
A second heart

Grief punctures the heart
And slices the soul
A love, if true, is never
Forgotten
And yet remains irretrievable
There is no cure
No antidote
For the cancer of grief
Which devours the body
And consumes the mind
With zombiesque ferocity
Ravaging the flesh of a
Walking carcass
Why Heaven has chosen
To perpetrate such a punishment
Is beyond human understanding
Mere mortals were never given
Powers sufficient to plunge
The depths of grief
Hope of happiness
Remains caged like a lion
A corpse being devoured by maggots
And yet, inextricably,
Destiny can intervene
Fate can conquer
The lassitude of time
Conspiracies unforeseen coalesce
Bridging oceans
With glacial understanding
That alone empowers
The universe
To swoop up two souls
Lost in the limbo of time
Destined to fulfill their fate
Carved with flint and stone
A cavern in granite
Now magically transformed
Into pavement as smooth as glass
As crystalline as a stream
Frozen motion
That recaptures the
Essence of life
Spreading a new love
Like a waterfall
Cascading against the rocks
In a rainbow of spray
To tie two people
In a ring of love
Forever sustained
By the growth of
A second heart

11/26/18

The words in the melody
  the words on the page

Related but different
  the Minstrel and Sage

The music recaptures
  what ink only starts

As harmony sings
  from an angelic heart

A phrase and a lyric
  as cousins relate

Too distant for brothers
  too close in their fate

One soul with two masters
  each fighting to gain

Your soul ever after
—your spirit to claim

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

"... IN THE UNENDING AFTERNOON OF HER EYES..."

We drift from
Parisian museum to

Parisian museum
as if calling upon

some grand home
and the paintings deign

to see us
we the tourist class.

We are caught
in a deluge.

The unrelenting rain
tears time off

the present moment
revealing the past underneath

an older century
bleeding through.

How fragile are
les temps perdu.

I  whistle a motif
from César Franck.

"What's that ?" you say
"...the National Anthem of our love!"

I gaze up at Proust's
cork-lined room

102 boulevard Haussmann
now become a bank.

Imagine him there
glancing down at us

glancing up  at him
the slight movement of  blue satin drapes.

Or have I imagined him
as he imagines us

hurrying figures
from another time

the rain obscuring us
each from the other.

"Love..." Marcel reminds me
“...is space and time.."

his voice almost lost
in the rain's din

"...measured by the heart.”

"Allons Madeline....allons!"
A French mum scolds her sulky child.

The rain reigns
supreme.

*

By 1906, Proust’s parents had died, his brother had married, and he felt the family residence was too big. He moved to 102 Boulevard Haussmann(in the Ian Fleming novel Thunderball, it is described as "the solidest street in Paris" and the site of the headquarters of SPECTRE.) a building owned by his Uncle Louis, where he wrote the bulk of his work, mostly in bed.

Today the building belongs to the CIC bank, which has restored the bedroom, famously lined in cork for soundproofing, but the room’s contents are in the Musée Carnavalet, leaving the solitary chamber soulless..the silence listening to us not making a soundl.
.
SPECTRE in some fictional alternative world still has its headquarters on Boulevard Haussmannn...a fact of which I was totally unaware being pulverised by rain and time....the moment coming apart at the seams.

A reconstruction, with original furniture, of the room where Marcel Proust wrote In search of lost time can be seen in the  Musée Carnavalet.

Off in a cramped corner were the reassembled pieces of furniture from Proust’s bedroom, including a five-paneled Chinese screen, a velvet armchair that belonged to his father and a writing desk, used mostly for piling books. He kept his notebooks and writing materials on an old rosewood end table beside the bed. Two other tables are adrift in this cramped tableau, one of which was used for his morning coffee tray, usually served with milk and croissants.

The original Boulevard Haussmann apartment was spacious but crammed with furniture, with double windows always covered by padded blue satin drapes. The bedspread was blue satin as well and there was a chandelier, which was never lit when Proust was working. The only light was from a long-stemmed, green-shaded lamp on the bedside table.

We were headed for  the Musée Jacquemart-André, at 158 Boulevard Haussmann, the former home of banker and art collector Edouard André and his artist wife Nélie Jacquemart, recaptures the interior decor and lifestyle of respectable society. Proust was never a guest there, but he rotated in the same social circles, We were mere tourists...awed by the past.

As Beckett puts it in his essay on Proust...

"Life is habit. Or rather life is a succession of habits, since the individual is a succession of individuals; the world being a projection of the individual’s consciousness (an objectivation of the individual’s will, Schopenhauer would say), the pact must be continually renewed, the letter of safe-conduct brought up to date. The creation of the world did not take place once and for all time, but takes place every day. Habit then is the generic term for the countless treaties concluded between the countless subjects that constitute the individual and their countless correlative objects."

This poem is one of the countless treaties various individuals of me made with the moment in time that was mine being shared with Proust.

The enigma of the “little phrase” that “swept over and enveloped” Swann “like a perfume or a caress..." still lingers on as maybe Frack or as Proust admitted in a letter  Camille Saint-Saëns. I rather prefer Franck's Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano  for its perfect cyclic beauty and its gentle reflectiveness.

But it was Franck's gorgeous Symphony in D minor( and the transformations of its four-bar theme )that I was lost in that day and became for me the "...national anthem of our love."

“It is only through art that we can escape from ourselves and know how another person sees a universe which is not the same as our own and whose landscapes would otherwise have remained as unknown as any there may be on the moon.”

The title comes from a lovely phrase that has always haunted me...

"...calmly imprisoned in the unending afternoon of her eyes..."

THE GUERMANTES WAY - MARCEL PROUST.