<>

"having found a white coal seam amidst the black bunting
that decorates their glum apprehension of tomorrow's tidings"^

the computer tablet recognizes as I essay,
                                                          ­                        the "tomorrow" word
as possessing a reality, with time sensitivity,
please,  somebody help us, almost

an inevitability

the possibility of a realizable event,
                           as if the poem composing was
the future's assuming a 99% probability,           right ready for scheduling

offering me two choices:
create event or view calendar?

as if the next shooting, bombing,
and my glum apprehension thereof,
as if ''tomorrow's" tidings were mine own doing
of my undoing,
somehow my fears create or anticipation of
the "next one" makes me a guilty part

my heart cracking with despairing moans
knowing that this is foolishness

but  
              not to me

for as we think upon it, that tiny extra precaution,
'tis already the small death of me
each death a cut in the same spot,
and the pestering wound ground deeper, bone closer

find myself
jailed in a place with no view, insecure and unprotected

no view, no window to crack, no window no view
no to letting  in fresh air, hope or something good,
and yes to no,
I know about this and that and words
intended to offer up optimism,
albeit on a small scale

I am careful not to mock
the words and those who offer up

but seriously,
don't

I came to,
I came to this place to write
only love poetry silly love songs
and some black angel sideswiped me in the left lane
writing now in stead of ways I'm dented and unforgiving
feeling stoopidly foolish            even as
I try and I try to find the seed germane to the connectivity between the horror hallmarks of these times and the ******* window is just stuck stuck stuck

I'll think I'll change my name,
honestly,
only love poetry? cries out ridiculous

this is no poem, more a teacher's note of surrender,
                                                       come back with a new identity or just a new field of endeavor

so I put that on my calendar for tomorrow
and it appears right away, right after:

6:00 am Check on Glum Apprehensions
and it appears that I'm too late

confirming I've missed my appointment so too late for my kind of tomfoolery.             and that white seam, glimpsed but not grasped, illusion noxious,, I can't seem to locate it anymore

DEDICATION


This first book of the trilogy: “The Odyssey of Heart,” first appeared August 28, 2001 online under BeingQuest.com Academy of the Arts, a Minnesota based publication dedicated to the prospect of the reclamation and reformation of the moral world.

We at BeingQuest.com have adopted the proposition to consider, among the many ten-thousand apparently worthy aims we may engage our energies on whether, in fact “…really, only one thing is necessary.” ~Jesus of Nazareth

“The Odyssey of Heart” is our attempt to decipher this enigmatic proposition, and if true, what it may mean for both us individually in our daily lives, and for The People in the birth-pains of their struggle upon this same mission. May the humane and best of our hoped-for future prevail!



Orientation


Not in myself I trust, for I am weak
To noble deeds and proofs of lasting worth
But ever forms of faith and hope poured over us
When meekness, in heart, with love communes.
Better than reason, brighter than the tropes
Wrought by our sager minds who, for all times
Sought to mark down in sign that yet unseen...
Better the just humility of faith
That, from itself, bears truth’s emerging light
Able to steer the golden reins through heights
Of knowing, where the dryer air imbues
Essential manna: food of gods, the mead
Which heroes owning, few dare earn, is sup
Of perfect comfort, ever over-flown
In foment of new life; from pride's decay
To boundless grace, our liberty revealed.

Best Charity, heart of saints and ever true
To faithfulness of hope!  Great care you show
Where there’s no rod of law save principles
Most holy, by the proud unknown; exalting
Sacred sense, beyond surmise; submissive
Tender, patient, always kind with comfort
For the sojourn soul, from tribulation born…
Relieve our cause, pour down your shining balm
As in this world we all must yet forbear
And lead us straight.  Held fast in you we live.

Such faithfulness of care is born Below
Where many hours again we turn aside
Ignoble ways, by empty musings led
Where much is lost of hope, too troubling bound
But helped by love and truth for healing song.

Even the best of faith, not always solved
For clearest virtue, evident in deed
Is made exempt from trial; better to prove
The gold of piety when thorough plied.
Such constancy of soul is sooner known
When, as is judged by some, we're given leave
To go our way when yet is left behind

That care of grace we’d own, born from the heart.
So help my halting verse your work portray
Set down with pain to coax the one in all
And tend the goal of peace our heroes seek.

May then we own consistently our worth
Through mundane laws that, constant, drape the soul
And from the faintest things, secure our truth
Distilled to clarity in care of all.

Always, for grace, this comforting's renewed
Untainted by the loot of rusted gain-
Foul dross!  Many, for this, are bound in chains
Though freedom shunts the petty tyrant’s rule.

We look to sift and ply our souls again
For better ways, to each more kindly given
Though groaning under pride; wretched stain
Of brutal men, too noisy under heaven.
Yet heaven in each we sing for tiding songs
And phantom ways distrust.  In each is all-
That honest faith, for which the brave are strong
And proving glad, the patient cares install.

Great sympathy, the worth of each conjoined
To mirror in the promised, home-felt rest
Our truth and proven love, forever coined
In honor of the victors’ upright quest!


This call upon the wild that springs
To dignities of life, refined
Not of ****** mind-
A secret that has long been kept
Of old, which seers saw and wept;
Yet how shall one so lonely, frail
Train the flashing reins to follow?
Steady now, upon the gates and gap
Defending 'gainst presumption, overflown
To self-conceit, abominable
We glimpse the true and lasting vision
Whose care is no fruitless burden
But for the proper meekness, bidden
And yoke, humility, sure-bound
Not glancing here or there
To fix in heart upon the clear-
New city, famed uncloven stone
That tends azure upon the midnight sun
Out-braving that of brutal minds
By light of faith and the sublime.


Yet can the child's waking care
Through tribulation heroes bear
Overcome the vast depravity
Being only a child?
Resolved upon their sojourn friends
They bide the cornered time among the trees
Whose verdant leaves
Drip honeyed milk from gently swelling hills.
Reclined beside our sacred hearth
They turn aside the mortal strife
For truth in love, assaying peace;
So drinking down their heart’s content
They fortify ‘gainst burdens, bent
By iron rods, waved over the whole-
This world’s proud tyranny.
Some pain to bear, yet worth to lend
Through grace, by ways that flows within
The open gates of honest faith!
Not wielding rule of force, they sway
To ends, the burnished virtue won.
Of such is the vision-
Demeter’s preternatural ones.


Heigh kind upon the sacred fountain
Whose sentiments brought forth upon the fold
Life's faithful brook, more true than what is told
Of bitter waters, flowing pure as gold!

What can put at naught?
As ageless, undaunted abides
The head, by right established
From the heart, just inclined.
No thing in heaven or earth
Thwarts their destined uprightness
But straight through the gates they pass on
With wholly complied intent.

Blessed are those who shall drink
The waters that flow out this throne
As ancient wonders rise on the brink
Of Eleusinian fields, whose hearth is home!


Descending on the heart anew
Anointed by the morning dew
They seek consistently
To own their bright integrity.
With fuller' soap in hand
They wash the inner walls
And scourge away what is not grand
Within the darkened chamber's hall.
Relying on substantial grace
Comes falling on corrupting stains
A foment on the one relation
Love has earned and faith persuades.
Intending for a future, cleansed
Inclined and fixed, the will more pure
Finds out what lasting, perfect friends
Commend as worthy and true.
Thus seeking only to reflect
Their crystal best in every word
They overthrow the world, naught bereft
Of innocence, one mind and heart assured.


Though many cynics traffic in the hour
Barking at the heels of sacred power
Truth kicks the scale of false standards
As light from out the dark more daring spreads
Through the wilderness
A flowering festival of peace, assured
.
Now mythic, seven thunders ring
A promised day of liberty;
A day of freedom for the captive-
Hurrah, the day of Jubilee
Hosanna, arching Sabbath for all times-
Light and life in love’s relation!

The potsherds scoff
Alack! They cry-
Aurum heirs treading down the mountains.

"Indeed you were built strong and brave
Like a warrior bashing through a cave
Of sorrow and of emptiness
Crying when the world is bright to believe theres no such thing as darkness
Dealing with the challenges and mistakes that life throws at us
But learn from every single mistake anger-less
Stop giving into your weaknesses
Stop thinking about those who forgotten you and treated you effortlessly
Senseless  and affectionless
Let no wasteful man put you down with meaness
Only because your personality fashions a spark of joyfullness
Consume every wisdom with aggressiveness
Shed a thousand years of tears in a state of loneliness
Only so you can feel you inner self with consciousness
Be ready at what ever life throws at you with eagerness
You never lose. You either win or reflect with perceptive-ness
And just know to trust your lord with wholeness
Keep grasping upon the hardships you dealt with in the darkness
So you can look back and recall the roughness
Recalling every memory buried in your heart from all the sadness
And stand proud with your toughness
Once you overcome your glumness and drown in a deluge of pure gladness
and give glad tiding to the strangers"

                               © S Y A

Weighty lightness, solid levity,
Primordial soup,
Some ancient rite, draws me
To the foam.
Its celestial colour,
Its effervescent overflowing,
How it teases my buds,

Not like water,
Like honey
As an insect encased
In amber
I am within,
The tears of sunshine
And Olympian folly.

On dry days
I seek the incendiary agent,
Brooding bout,
Pint-sized, el niño
And his brews
Come soaring
After the downpour,
As high-tiding winds,
That **** contented days
And spin spirals round
Cups of complacent
Hours, the whine
Eternal,

Only seems
Like spilling
Blood.
Draw me, the dram.
The dram of what?
Ale's the thing!

Falling,
Overboard,
No drowning man was so ever
Esteemed,
Ever so buoyant.

How the vessel becomes
His captain.

You missed meeting me on May 7 in 2010,
You're one special memory among my men.

I rang you up before that accident,
And I knew not that I would fall then.

But you were depressed,
I looked to cheer you up addressed.

You were too gloomy,
You refused to accompany me.

I met with that accident,
And the rest is a historical dent.

The education system,
Me and you it did stem.

You found your calling,
Switched to highschool tuting.

I parried forward,
Kept crawling.

Though you gave up on your graduation,
I parried forward,
Yes, I carried my graduation forward.

A Bachelor of Technology degree takes 4 years,
I took 6, but it's fine, it's fine.

I'm proud of myself for not giving up,
When even bright students like you quit.

You kept your parents in the dark,
Never told them your true marks until they found it out by themselves.

Buddy, you could've just told me instead of quitting on it,
I could've made you study and work on yourself.

Look at me,
Just look at me.

I completed my B.Tech Biotechnology degree,
Instead of giving up even when my mother was not sure.

The whole world thought I could not complete my graduation,
But I even went to graduate school and obtained a postgraduate degree.

After I met with that accident, people suggested my parents,
To help set up a small shop for me to support my life beyond them.

But I never gave up,
I never gave up.

I can visualize Death waiting for me by my ICU bedside,
And I can also see it in anguish after getting defeated by my resilience.

Although I failed to obtain a PhD as COVID made me change my plans,
I bounced back in full glory and tasted worldly success.

I cracked not just one competitive recruitment exam,
But I cleared as many as 4 of them.

Now, old friend, I'm happy where you're headed to with your splendid performance at your coaching effort, yes, I respect your decision,
But you used to be smarter than I was at school.

We sang together,
Yes we did.

I played the guitar & sang,
You played the keyboard & sang more melodiously.

Oh, I remember what happened when we covered a popular song,
The Bollywood song is called “To Phir Aao.”

I started playing the riff,
“Tede-dede, Tede-dede,
Tede-dede, Tedede-Tede,”

But then your mobile went off,
“Ting-ding-ding, Tiding-ting,
Ting-ding-ding, Ting-tidingting.”

We had just begun it along my rhythm guitars & Digitech Effects Processor's electronic drums sampler on my Marshal amplifier,
You were prepared to start singing in your melodious voice,
But your phone started to ring as soon as we began.

Still we continued the recording after you rejected the call,
So, brother, did you forget the lesson we both taught ourselves?

Let the world be on fire,
Let it distract you as much as it wants to spend its ire.

I never gave up on my bachelor's degree,
I even went on to get my postgraduate degree,
I could've even achieved a PhD title,
But the COVID19 pandemic made me change my plans.

But bro, why did you forget the lesson so soon?

Anyway, let bygones be bygones.

Now if someone comments that you couldn't complete the graduation you started at a top University,
I tell them that you're happy doing something that pays you well,
You have completed a B.Sc in Math, and an M.Sc too,
Now you are doing your B.Ed,
And you're happily married to a charming woman.

Tis the Season I most believed in
The day I held onto
But this year I found the meaning
Of what I never knew
Yes,it ripped from under my feet
The reason I once had
To believe in only Christmas
How could it be so bad?

Like the Tree I dearly decorated
Like the magic of the Day
But inside I longed for meaning
And found the Truth as someone said
That they don't believe to celebrate
The day I thought was laid
But proved the Bible right
No where it solmen state
The real birth of Jesus
Yes the very excact date

Tis not only the joyous tiding
That the Angels brought that night
But the daily life of Christ
His birth-His Life he gave

Every day I found should be
The celebration to His Divinity
Not only did it end
On the day He came to Earth
But the tale of how my saviour Lived
That's the days that deserve
To be written in the heart
To be treasured most-more than gold
Of Jesus way of Living
Yes the Tale from very old

And so
I believe in Christs birth
But Christmas day alone aint worth
Its about much more than presents
Or the TRee
Or the date
Its about realising in Faith,
Brought my Saviour to Earth:
Yes Gods Hand alone
Gave Jesus us His Birth,
And His Every day Life spent
Till His triumphant Return

***

Hate inciting, fate deciding that I should break this silence.
Your claims beguiling, creating violence that negates uniting.
But that wave subsiding,
a flame's igniting that will change the tiding.
Remain in hiding,
I will break the chains of all this rage and violence.
Rearrange your sacred writings,
transcribing silence with striking rhyming. Shine so blinding it would redefine your findings
This. is writing.
I deny dividing! Mankind defiling and I aspire climbing higher,
I desire
I am fire
Firing wires
that defy dividence
Rise in silence
Uninvited fighting
by simply uniting
to clear the sky
of our tyrant Lightning.

I am awake I think,
from this human sleep of mine.
But the bed I slept on
was cozy and soft,
such that, I plunged deep, into
the dungeons of slumber.

And here I lie,
on this wooden plank.
And two others,
one on either side,
blocking my view.
Thusly, this might not be real.
No, it’s not.

My eyes see blood
like the sun’s against them.
And my lids laden
with an unseen force,
or perhaps,
I’m scared to open them
wide, into the sun.

Now, that I’ve opened them,
the world appears lucid.
I see my family, elegantly dressed.
And my beloved!
O what a treat to the eye she is
in that dark dress of her’s.
And the shimmer in her eyes!

Oh wait! Is that a tear drop
on her winsome cheeks?
And why’s my family glum?
Is this a sepulture I’m standing at?
But whose?
He might have been
someone close to us.

I’ve missed a grave news
due to this nap of mine.
I don’t yet know, if it’s good
to be ignorant of the tiding.
But it just might not be civil yet
to ask, “Who died?”.
The coffin’s being nailed.

I’ll ask her, aside,
when this tempest settles.