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.

Many people write a "bucket list" of things they want to do before they die.  Now in my 80th year, I don't have the time or the energy to do things that others might aim for, but I have during my life visited many places, seen many things, and enjoyed many experiences that I would have been sorry to miss. There have also been some events that I would have preferred not to experience, but which have enriched my life in different ways, and which I remember with a kind of sad affection.  
Some of these are very personal to me, and would not be interesting to most people, but read the note if you wonder why I chose them.

Here then is what I might call  
                                                My Reverse Bucket List

Towns and cities – architecture & atmosphere
   Barcelona, Spain
   Venice, Italy
   Oxford, England
   Jerusalem, Israel
   Luxor, Egypt
   Varanasi, India
   Hiroshima, Japan
   Pompeii, Italy

Other locations
   Galápagos islands, Ecuador
   Great Barrier Reef, Australia
   North Woolwich, London

Churches
   St Paul's Cathedral, London
   Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
   Coventry Cathedral
   Córdoba Cathedral, Spain
   Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Other structures
   Taj Mahal, Agra
   Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland
   Royal Festival Hall, London
   London underground system (because it was the first, and I rode it for a long time).  Also the more splendid underground railways of Mexico City and Moscow.
   Avebury Ring, Wiltshire, England (the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world, and much more primitive than Stonehenge)
   Bayeux Tapestry 
   "Angel of the North" statue, Gateshead, England
   "Christ the Redeemer" statue, Rio, Brazil

Events
   Messiah at Royal Festival Hall, Feb 1959, with the girl later to be my wife
   St John's night, Spain, early 1990s (?)
   Death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, Aug 1997
   Oberammergau passion play, 2010
   Destruction of World Trade Centre, Sept 2001

Myself caught in the heatwave sunlight, brown eyes
furrowed in the sun, scarf loose on my neck/
the transcendental Denpasar morning-birds
are playing their melodies in my head still,
three years post-Indonesia.
        All of my soul to India now,
        sky the pink of painted elephants
        on Jaipur dawning,
        my afterlife was somewhere here
        perhaps two generations ago, chances are.
               Vijay Raghav Rao and Alla Rakha
               playing the Tabla/via earphones/treading the
               Funary Box City (Kashi) future Spring
               hands held together keeping calm pace.
               Looking about, my twenty-two year old face
catches humid wind
S
I
L
V
E
R
S
H
O
P
tattered bike leaning on the gated guest house entrance
     PERENNIAL AZURE SHIVA SITS CROSS LEGGED/
     COBRA NECKLACE IMITIATONS ON THE GODDESS THROAT/
     MEDITATING SHIVA/
dulled from years and corrosion.
Brahmin center of the market street
flapping it's tail,
sweat beads from my forehead bleeding
to oily pavement.
At last the months have come for the river Ganges,
April penumbra/savage thunderclap
while school children uplifting the heart
                 AND MIND
are ROARING in their laughter
the CONTINENTAL DISCORD OF JOY
sleeping with their eyes open
while others are too tired for the Earth.
Sidney Bechet floating swan songs during
the black hour cremations/
“Bechet Creole Blues”
CATERWAUL IN THAT              VOID
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF DEATH/
LUNACY OF LIFE
                     (I've arrived at the simultaneous crossroads
                                                      ­  of both)
searing flesh in open air pyramids/
Manikarnika Ghat,
Asia  F
          L
         O
         W
          S
through dreams
like inevitable prophecy
and as ash blends with stars
the CITY seems fulfilled
and mystifying
in it's
                      (((((RESPLENDENCE)))))

Two strangers in a rickshaw in Varanasi:
Two strangers who never felt like strangers.
Two people lost and alive in the moment,
The same moment
With every sense standing, antennae bristling..

Two in a bubble
Together, held apart.

Caught up in a parade and surrounded by shy , smiling faces
Waving modestly at the fair haired strangers,
Laughing
At their surprise and joy.
Knowing that moment's awe
Delighted to share the festival.

Rickety trucks gaudily decorated blare out the tinny music and
High pitched voices distorted by the tannoy add an urgency
To the motion.

Shimmering saris glisten,
So in tune with the  music that trembles with joy.
That joy spills out from the
Scents, the colours, the gleaming grins and the shy waving that marks our welcome,
Till every sense tingles
With life.


And then the sand storm
Swirling and circling the speeding rickshaw
Arrived mysteriously, magically,
Like dry ice in a theatre.

The air now tangible;
Surrounding us like the skin of a bubble
Lifting us out
Of ourselves as the scene comes and goes.

The sand screen clears to reveal
An elephant
A beautiful, smiling elephant
Dressed in splendour
Accompanying us on our magic carpet ride.
Close enough for us to touch his hide.

Bejewelled and glorious
Smiling too
And all is one in that moment
And each looks at the other and feels enchanted and wants the parade to go on forever
Just like this;
With motion
And music
And colour
And smiles
And laughter
And
An elephant.

And now, their desperation and panic sink to an all-new low. They actually begin an attack on my sexuality, my familial relations and even my ability to have an ****** ...

  An ******?

  When you stop laughing, take into consideration that they are also regressing throughout all of this because this dysfunction that they suffer from is deeply rooted in their youth. Thus all the silly name calling and accusations that they could not possibly be able to know or prove and yet they state them as fact, like a child. I.E: A child calling out: "Your mama is a *****". Now those words come flying out from a frightened child when they really have no idea whatsoever about this target's mother. It is just an attempt to hurt. Nothing more.

But in this next bit, you can really see this desperation and panicked choice of subjects to try and use "against me", as-it-were. They don't know what else to do. Their ego is on autopilot, telling their fingers what to type ... and their ego is regressing back to childhood. Thus the childish subject matter.


(Name Deleted) Jeff the TROLL..
Has never and will never reach ****** ****** with either female or male partners.

Has never had a stable and fulfilling love life.
Will NOT and can NOT never ever love anyone UNCONDITIONALLY.
Has never been loved UNCONDITIONALLY by anyone male or female.
Has always been consumed unto bitter and fierce hatred of anyone who has!!.
A deep and bitter jealousy leading to violent hatred consume this TROLL.
Get back under your bridge Jeff.
Any replies from you in future will be deleted unread-even your long overdue apology.
AUM

 0 
 1 reply 
15h

Jeff Gaines  SOOOO MUCH FUN!

Ok, (Name Deleted) ... THAT was your most humorous YET!

Your actions are truly textbook of a person with your deep psychological issues. So ... if you will not read any more of my responses to YOUR trolling, then I needn't worry about you then sending a new volley to this one ... Hum? Good, I'm glad. This is truly getting boring. It's not too challenging to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person ... and a predictable one as well.

Sadly, we both know that your silly, over-inflated ego will NEVER allow you to NOT read something written about you. And you not responding would be a cover for your pathetic attempt to have the last word. (Again, we both know THAT won't happen)

Funnier still, you call me a troll, then go to one of my pieces and begin yet another troll campaign on the same day that you claim to not read any more of my responses.

So, you are trying to say ... "I will continue to troll/bully you, but I will read none of your responses, so I win". (hands on your hips, stomping your tiny foot on the floor, no doubt)

You say you are married? I pity this person ... your behavior is that of a post-pubescent, angry little boy with serious ego and self-esteem issues. Her life must be a living hell, as I would bet money that you are an overbearing control freak with an intense king-baby syndrome to boot. Of course, I could be completely wrong and it is SHE who wears the pants in your household and THAT is why you must come here to find some sense of "control" in your world. But that is all conjecture that I do not wish to even BEGIN to address.

Your need to appear like some type of "guru" or all-knowing person who is better than everyone else is deeply seated, so I think it started very early in your life.

As I've said ... 'TEXTBOOK".

So textbook in fact, that I have decided to make this entire exchange into a piece about trolls/bullies and bullying. But don't worry about that ... I will leave it up long enough for you to read it, leave one of your hysterical troll responses to further prove my observations ... and I will have had the last word.

Then, predictably, you will write something about me on your page, then block me so that I can't respond (thus making your poor, decimated ego feel like it had the last word), which will not only further prove my observations about you, but it will lead folks over to my page to read my piece about you.

It'll be fun!

Now, on to your latest huffing and puffing:

"troll"

Once again, you accuse me of something that YOU are guilty of.

Once again, you are crying about me doing something that YOU did first. (I can't stop laughing about this. Just like a bully to cry and whine when he himself is punched in the nose and doesn't receive the response that he is seeking when HE does the punching!)

*** - Kettle/Gander - Goose, little man.

I am only guilty of responding to your trolling ... which is my right. Because, as is well established, you began this little soiree when you called me an "Unreconstructed alcoholic with no personal sense of shame" in a comment about a piece I had written about a friend that had recently died! Sadly pathetic, indeed.

Then, as I've stood up to you, you have spiraled down, like a burning airplane, in your pathetic child-like name calling and such to the point where you did schoolyard (at best) name-calling ("Electronic ****"? I LOVED THAT ONE!) and attacked my race, my religion and political stances (I picture you, a terrified little schoolboy, trembling in a schoolyard, shouting these things as you wee your pants in fear).

Then. you actually threaten me with physical violence (punching me in the nose). Now ... when NONE of that ridiculous posturing and panic-stricken chest-beating has worked, you take a jab at my sexuality and interpersonal relationships?

You are the one with "No personal sense of shame" here. You are publicly getting more and more pathetic and your ego won't even let you see that! Your imaginary pedestal is way too high, (Name Deleted). The fall from there is really going to hurt you.

Attacking my sexuality, love life and relationships?

Really?

There are few straws left for you to grasp at, huh?

Again, having never met me, something you couldn't POSSIBLY make accurate conjectures about. ANYONE reading this would laugh, knowing where this is truly coming from.

My FAVORITE was the bit about me never achieving an ******! It took me SEVERAL minutes to stop laughing about that one.

How old are you (Name Deleted)? 12 ... 13, maybe?

No matter your actual birth age, these silly claims and insinuations are definitely NOT those of a grown-aged man. They are straight out of the playbook of an early teen. To make such an unfounded accusation is nearly disturbing on SO many levels.

Wow ... just ... "WOW".

You spew them from your imaginary ivory tower, the one that makes you believe that you are above everyone else, so they MUST be facts, right?

And in true (Name Deleted) form, you state them like facts to the public.

A public that can readily see that it is all coming from a wee little man, standing on an imaginary pedestal trying to convince the world that he is a "somebody". You should have taken my earlier advice and just closed your mouth. But it is all too late.

Deep nasal breaths (Name Deleted) ... DEEP nasal breaths.

I've no need to respond to this silly notion with tales of my ****** bravado or adventures, nor my past love life. That is none of your business and a true gentleman NEVER kisses and tells.

Besides, THAT is the action of schoolboys and men who are lacking in the "endowment" department ... as is attacking OTHER men about these issues.

I won't bring my family into this either. (Taking shots at my familial relationships (Name Deleted)? Hmmm, I wonder if this a Freudian confession of your own family issues. But I won't go there. It's a can of worms best left on the shelf, I should think. It does pose some possible explanations for your behavior and persona though, doesn't it?)

So ... I hope you stick to your word and "not read/delete" this so that I needn't respond again. But, (long sigh) I highly doubt that you will. Your life AND your behavior are CONTROLLED by your fully delusional ego.

Watch for my upcoming piece, which will feature this exchange for ALL of the world to see. It will be cut and pasted verbatim, and I will even add a few additional notes.

I'm going to use it to help educate others on how to recognize and handle egotistical, cowardly, wanna-be bullies such as yourself.

Please, allow me to at least thank you for writing all these responses and demonstrating in such a textbook fashion, how your type acts and reacts and even letting us see inside of you a bit, thus letting us see what makes you tick.

And most importantly ... THANKS for the laughs.



This last one is where we can see the bottom of their barrel. As predicted, they can NOT “not read/erase” something that is written about them. Their ego would NEVER allow this. They MUST read and respond because THEY must have the last word. So, we are back to schoolyard names like “**** wipe”, attacking my sexuality and chest beating by attempting to assert that I have somehow “FAILED”. (You see? They HAVE to win, so it is easier to just let them think that they did.) After this, they can only lash out with slurs against my Mother and such. I think I've made my point here.

And now you, dear Reader, will have seen nearly the complete downward spiral of a bully/hater/troll when you stand up to them. I thank them for their 'help” in making this new piece and then show that I am the better man and offer to let them have the last word. I've no idea what that will be, but if you would like to see it, just go to the piece titled “Message To A Friend” (Link in notes below), it will be there soon enough. Their desperation to be dominant is so readily apparent here, it is sad. As I said, they can't help it. Their ego is on autopilot because these issues are so deeply ingrained in their self.



(Name Deleted) To Jeff the TROLLISH LOSER.
WOW so many words just to prove you are a piece of white liberal **** wipe.
You must really hate life with your filthy mouth spewing out
non stop TROLL NONSENSE--as if its a Fight or a Battle to be fought with any stranger just to prove you are a MAN!!!.
WELL JEFF YOUVE FAILED.
YOU are not a MAN but you do have a Male Body.
Never will be a Man.
Always a sexless TROLL.
.
 0 
 1 reply 
13h

Jeff Gaines Well, (Name Deleted), I want to sincerely thank you for all of this. You don't realize it now, but you have helped me to compose something that will, in turn, help other people. It is very admirable. I/we have taken something awful and made it into something positive.

Balance in the universe doesn't get any better than that. Besides, from here, there's not much left but you making verbal attacks on my Mother and such. Even I won't let you reduce yourself to that.

I wish you well. I hope all of your dreams and wishes come true, and moreover, I hope you get the help you need to finally find peace. A peace that will let you stop trying to belittle others with your condescension and bullying demeanor. I truly hope that you can release the tortures that keep you with this agonizing persona. It must be horrible for you.

And again, THANK YOU!

Leave any message you wish after this so that you can sleep well, knowing that you had the last word. I know how important that is to you and your ego, so have it ... as a gift from me to you in appreciation for all of your help here. I promise ... I won't respond. It's all you, Dude. My job is done here.



This one, sent to me on a completely different page/post, involves the “truce”. They did this on the comment section of another piece called “I'm Sorry If You Miss Me” (Link in notes below). They couldn't do this where we had been in our volley, that might appear as a weakness to someone who'd been watching it all.

They offer an olive branch (for all that's worth), but with it, they also offer to take me to enlightenment and save me somehow. None of this is sincere in ANY way. It is once again, them, trying to condescend to me that I am in need of THEIR help. That I am less, and they are more. Just as I described in the beginning of Part I.

(Also note that upon realizing that this has all been an analyzation of them and their behavior, they attempt to spin it around that it is THEM analyzing ME. Once again, textbook predictability)

If for some silly reason, I took this “truce”, they would feel that they have dominated me and nothing would change. As you read it, you will see just what I mean, especially in the way they go on and on about how accomplished they are at 'helping” others and how they can lead me to some new and better existence, as I am such a “sick human being”. The megalomaniac is really showing through here:



(Name Deleted) Dearest TROLL,
TRUCE?

Though you so obviously write vicious TROLL Gibberish you so obviously cant spell the word gibberish correctly.Not very Self referential eh?.
Diminishes your projected self mage of being a 'nice guy' somewhat eh?.
I have analysed your crippling problem and can offer you the only way out of it.
The presence of an individual Mind superimposed in strategic command over all your brain centres in the last hour before birth has led to you being NON Self Realised(which is your problem basically).
You don't know your Cosmic Identity--and the Mind in your head has led you to believe that you are not the Individual Isness but are the Mind created operating device the Conditioned Identity.
This replaces the ID and takes control over the Glucose and Oxygen supply to all Brain centres from the Individual Isness.
Send me a Poste Restante address and I will send you(for FREE)a copy of my only CD--on which I play Alto Saxophone and Alto Clarinet andAmplified C Silver Concert Flute and my wife who is my life companion plays Electric Bass.
We use the name Maneesha which is Sanskrit for Beyond Enlightenment.
The CD which is called 'Rolling Home' is as recorded--every track in one take-no electronic messing around!.
It was recorded under strict Tibetan Tantric rules of performance--I was a Flute playing Pujari in a Temple on the Burning Ghat in Varanasi where I played for Hindu Cremations for 6 years in the 1970s.
The intention is that the listener--you--will become Mindless .According to the sacred texts of the Vedas one must become Mindless as that is the only openly accepted way to reach the final end of Yoga Meditation.
Temporary union with the Isness of the Unverse.
Yes I know you will go off into paroxysms of laughter at my very absurdwritings but I must offer as you are a very sick human being--and your TROLLISH sickness will only get much worser as you age.
I have offered.
You will ridicule me.
Your choice.



And there you have it, dear Reader. A (disturbing) look, into a very disturbed mind. I am not, nor would I ever condone or recommend doing what I have done here. I did this for you. I had the idea while reading one of their demeaning comments on someone's daily. So, when they came to my daily … I put my hook in the water. The best thing you can do is give no reaction. Soon enough, they will go off in search of the attention they so desperately need and leave you in peace. As I have shown you here, engaging them brings a never-ending string of buckets … buckets FILLED with waste-of-time.

All you need to do is keep in mind this one simple thing when they write horrible things in your comment sections, or you encounter one in your life …

Something you are doing, or have done, is SO amazingly awesome, that it brought out ALL that darkness in them!

Just ignore them and they will go find someone else to pick on. Give them an “LOL” and ignore all that follows, or just delete their comment and block them. Your time is limited and so very precious. Don't give one second of it to these types of people. It simply isn't worth it.

Besides … You have MORE amazing things to accomplish!

                   Big Love,
                           ~Jeff

"just talk about love, or ***, or starving hearts, or just shut up
and I'll go

but" - Jonathan Richman

(..NIGHT)

A drunken man is blown by bathroom paintings,
with shower curtains displaying crowned sparrows
who laugh at his
crowned ****!
and humor his life!
also crowned
(but only subjectively if you were to ask anyone else)
I'm a burning insomniac surrounded by a whole cast of characters tonight, including the one with with a lazy eye who mirrors Chaplin
and arrived to the party disoriented from recent Salvia.
Then there was the one with a sleek current-edge-type haircut
who spent a few good minutes telling me about the film works of Philip Glass
            B E A U T I F U L
They play Bowie,
the whole social palette disintegrated beneath the weight of intoxication.
I, too, am dazzled from pale alcohol already (eight minutes past Midnight!)
The Dancing Athlete ambiguously dances on an absent television while my head hurts from a blue bulb glowing from a nearby lamp because it's too late for all this
and I'm reminded that I know almost nobody here.

(...AND DAY)

Maybe thirteen hours later, walking with Dante the bearded dog,
my friend wheeled a stranger, narcotic-vacuum-cheeked amputee.
He begged for light, as in a lighter, not that light of GOD, no no,
all the while he showed off his stub leg (cut off at the knee) bleeding out all over the sidewalk when his accident first occurred.

"THIS GUY THREW ME FROM THE BALCONY!" he preached

Past the cathedral narcissus
"JESUS COME/
JESUS SAVE MAN/
JESUS MAKE FIRE/
JESUS WAS A HOLY INDIA"
Across the street, village of enduring tombs and firesmoke,
shadowed tent outlines
breathed-in
playing cards and tricks
mandolin reverberations among tents and tents of
sickly or addict, all listening in on the live performance, a blessed Alice with dreads, lively chords emitted from her skull of ideas.

The forgotten noose of man ****** in a parking lot
by a liquor store, while we pick up some wine, which is, and I quote here "DRY AND CHEAP"
A sunny quiet perched on the field
of gleaming downtown streetlights
thru thinning clouds.
Olympic mountains in view, the kind of mountains only seen in magazine articles to be experienced by those unafraid to die.
All these sad people out here, too!
Their faces expand beneath capital industry,
Elephants occupied with jackets sewn in an anonymous factory.
Quick tip, I wanna write it down before I forget: don't listen to that old music when you're feeling lonely, it's all about love and especially in tragedy this is a bad idea.

I'm sick and wept and my teeth have been growing cameras,
the youth are dressed in drag, carpet cleaners bob their heads to unheard tunes but you can see the sound thru a glass window.

This city, oh, this city..
with bodies sprinting hard by each other and who bike across train tracks associated with very vague childhood memories.
We all float on hands electrified by the night!

Jonathan Richman tonite, who's vocal deliveries have been honest
and romantic, in a passionate sort of way.
He's singing that live track "A Plea For Tenderness"
(I know you were waiting for me to get to this)
and past few days have been strange
and past few weeks stranger, still. Not as bad as a lot of people but man, strange..
that night, and day.
Walking by the Victoria Hospice care center and looking down on my wrists which'll soon be tattooed with loving hands yet oh
so
aggressively pained by abuse because of a terminal disease and attempted suicide (NOT my own life, to clarify)
and it got me thinking on how we're all mutually getting thru this place and every face has seen hearts and seen death almost equal.
It can get to be too much, that's why melancholy has been defined to begin with. But ******* Jonathan Richman had to make this song.

"if I'm better than the wall
(tell me now)"

"Because it's dark at night
and I'm alone at night
I'm so sad and I'm so scared"

Things I've said in my own head and felt in my own time
as has everyone else. I don't mean to specify that this has happened RECENTLY, but it's definitely happened before. These times.

"now, I've just read some writers
from the old days
because I knew, I knew that they'd understand"

but BUT everybody is accidental!
even Rimbaud has stubbed his toe and I know that it'll be fine
it'll be fine
it'll be fine
in Vietnam maybe
and it'll be finer in Varanasi
(maybe-r)
but for now I don't know
I can say it I can try and feel it and understand it and pretend I know it
I gotta get away from people to be replaced by a Hindu I've never seen before
and sleep on a mattress that (like a new pair of shoes) hasn't grown in to my spinal chord and hurts ****** bad at first and is unfamiliar and the weather is warmer than usual
and the horns of traffic will be frightening but that too, will dissipate with time.
I gotta save up my money and hug my wallet like a starved cat
Jonathan ******* Richman's "A Plea For Tenderness"
what a fitting title
for a time like this one now.

We walked along the left bank of the holiest river in the world
as the sun kissed the hazy emerald sky into morning,
and I watched as an old man padded barefoot to the water's edge,
dawn in his collarbone,
bending with brittle bones to say prayers for the new day.

At first glance,
the river is thick and murky,
garbage entwined in its current like rings on crooked fingers
and I listened to the winces of the rest of my group members--
no Americans with Western Sensibilities would find divinity
in its sewage runoff and fish corpses.

But Holy is subjective.
Found not only in church pews and rosaries.

Hindu religion is composed of 3 cycles representing the stages of life:
Brahma is the creator,
Vishnu the protect,
and Shiva the destroyer,
without one stage there cannot be another
with creation comes the inevitability of destruction
and we walked through that early morning mist
past the cremation fires kept lit for centuries
because to have your body turned to dust on these banks
is to achieve eternal salvation,
to die and then be reborn into light
with the presence of death comes the beginnings of life
don't tell me there isn't divinity in this.

As the sun grew bigger, I waltzed.

Past the women doing washing in the river
saris glimmering on the surface of the water
like schools of colorful fish and
Indian children doing cannonballs into the embrace of the current,
grinning because they knew something we didn't,
but still, I waltzed.
Past the gossiping birds
and the giggling vendors
and the fishing boats and river men
and the homeless woman shouting at the top of her lungs
Namaste to the world!
And the countless believers greeting each other like
Namaste, my brother.
Hello.
I love you.
The Light in Me honors the Light in You.

People make pilgrimages to this sacred place from hundreds of miles away,
buckets strapped to their shoulders just to bring back a bit of this holy water to bless their homes,
barefoot
and dancing the whole way.

As the Indian sun rose midday into the sky,
and it was time for us to leave,
I watched as children and men and women and families
lit tiny candles balanced on flower petals
and sent them down the river as offerings of light
to Vishnu, the protector, preserver of life.
We know it as the Ganges River,
but its people affectionately call it the Ganga
and I didn't know Hindu
but I could've sworn Ganga meant Home.
Meant life.
Meant cycle, or current.

As I turned to leave,
back up the steps and onto the crowded Varanasi streets,
I took one last look back over my shoulder
as thousands of tiny candles flickered and floated
on the soft, unwavering current,
illuminating that holy river into eternity,
and I thought,
*what a fall.
but what light.
what impossible light.

You weave your stories like the night,
stringing the moon with the stars;
the finest of pristine pearls,
threaded by twilight.

Weaving the finest Varanasi silk
with life as your celestial loom;
laying down gold- and silver-threaded brocade,
dormant gardens burst in bloom.

Your pen is the philosopher’s stone
turning lead hearts into gold;
manipulating structure in stunning stanzas,
inscribing on hearts in italics and bold.

Nodding in acquiescence
the sages of the ages,
will then add your magnum opus
to their papyraceous pages.

water like a mirror reflects faces of the dead
in the play of light and shade I melt

time has stopped in the flight to eternity
bodies sail in the cycle of birth and death

river accepts everything
it takes the memory of things

in tranquil breath of reality
I float on the other side

I can fly higher and higher
passing the limits

born from a drop of creation
in the last gasp of life I pass

Trees, houses, Treehouses,
Abandoned.
                  beaches
                ­                 still
                                 appear the same as summer
but the sky's gone
                 Sunshine
to
                Windwine
                                  (Clouds and clouds, some much            
                                    larger than others, sometimes just one big cloud  
                                   mapped out between            
                                   us and rest of universe to the cascade horizon)

All the pets can tread cement
without
worry of burns and the two hundred calamities
of July are over.
                              Replaced with
                              rain and bums escaping to the
                              soup kitchens and
Churches
                                  (East side Vancouver, Pandora Victoria,  
                                                 astreet in a city astray)
Ashtrays freckled in the evening drizzle
common.

My hands are held by gloves and
                                 fingertips from half of
                                 Japan,
my lips are kissed by the                          comet
beauty mark on right side
bottom
                                                (Though this universe is attending
                                                  unive­rsity in a distant city
                                                  while I hold my own
                                                  practicing the Dharma,
                                                 or MAYBE none of this will happen!)
Everything is in its place
as it always was-
though circumstance has tried to
teach us otherwise the                        
                                     ­                            Blackbox
                                      made of star-rubber S T R E T C H I N G
Hasn't the concept
of          calendars or
                             Jesus or
                                medicine cabinets
                                                         Dentists and
                                                             ­               Saints.
Everything is in its place
as it will always be
        as it has never been...
(Ever)
SPONTANEITY of matter
                         Gliding thr-
                                          -ough matter.
What does it all matter anyway?
There's                    loving
and                    ­     experiencing,
                Music.
           Personsong.
         Do-no-wrong.
That        no-no           of making
             mistakes?
A falsity!
**** up

In blissful circles
to the         SOUND
                    OF SNOW
                    MELTING
on streetlamps front of my
House.
                                (A very silent orchestra performing
                                 Before collision and like dog whistles
                                 It's a sound we cannot hear.
                                The peoples got their poetry and
                                cognitive thought so the other
                                Animals get the REAL sensory
                                Inconceivables to write about
                                But the ******* can't)
In that
                        future
_____
basement house

Where the Van Gogh
                   Velvet Underground sit
P
O
S
T
E
R
E
D
on the wood-c
                        u
                          r
    ­                       v
                             e walls.
I'm in unfolding daydream
Thanking
HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS
predating my
EIGHTEEN.
Thanking the
                              Beats and the Dadaists
                           and Buddhists and
                        Existentialists
                     ­ Post-modernists
                  Minimalists
                Expressionists
            FOR BEING.

Really, they aided
Me off
  the ^ ground
during
eight month unemployment induced depression where
I felt disassociated with myself
and the dynamo                                                       outside the front door..
Glowing via
         sunlight in the day window and
            headlights in the night window.
Either way
I filled up with
                                   (((Purposeless cynicism)))
The world bulb clicked ON
With/without me           there,
None of the corner stores
Or      airports
Or      hospitals
          courts and
          institutions
gave a rat's ***
what woes I be asphyxiated by
or that                 Farmquiet two lane
                                 tarnished path
In the country                       (in May)
      seemed fine a place as any
to     step a few feet to the          
                                               right
                            and
      left

of me and
                         .......DIZZY.......
by death traffic
old Buick polish
(Tragedy they'd say!)

While there midway in the firing line
I felt like
the wackos in      l o o s e
stone COLISEUM daisy cages
               Empty lots,
       Place where the beast of
  Emptiness cuffs to your sleeve
             and weeps
                      All over itself
                      that Sarte was right all along!
(No Exit! No exit!)

Autumn quartz moonlight                        O
Illuminated headstone repetition
circling musk fields.
  Skeleton wings
Of preceded seasons' timbers
Caught muttering the
Corpseconvo
as the               tumblecar
trembling             hot in
                           Music sauna HUM
Approaches life,
to the
                       paralyzed November air
of
Coffin bodies insulated
By roots N' six feet of terrestrial barrier.



Faces disappearing now
to Heavenly chandeliers of time
offering distant light future
and above my ponderous skull presently
                 dancing riverside to situations
                                                  and newness
                           (2016)
                  enigmatic spiral
  every                 color             every
                        possibility
every                rainbow          or
                      non-rainbow chromatically
                           webbed in Attic
                                          of secluded
                                Quantum Dimensions-

The big blue doors are opening to cosmic entirety,
cats everywhere are purring in their sleep,
somebody reads                          Murakami,
                                                      Picabia,
                                                      Joyce,
   ­                                                   W.C Williams,
                                                      B­erryman & Brainard too.
Big blue doors, rites of passage,
Aarti Varanasi twenty-seventeen,
             joyride to San Francisco (I wrote a poem on that once!)
Continuing self-exploration,
            reminding that soul to stay awake,
            the search for love-
Warmth when the year is
metamorphosed to cardinal leaves
       Sunset Summer!
      Autumnal transfiguration
      spiritual!
      Rearrangement of the concurrent reality!

I turn 19 in October and
a procession of kind-eyed children
will be born in the moments
I blow the cake candles.
Light goes out!
light comes in!
Hanoi expects me still.

Floating, like a specimen,
in a bell jar in the Chemistry Lab
of Grade XI in Lucknow.

I am suspended. I am floating.

Everywhere is blue.

I hear bubbles and see them rise.

I open my mouth and water rushes in,
salty and warm. I can’t speak.
I can’t cry out.

I am drowning.

I think of Varanasi; skulls
that float. Why do dead
skulls float? Why do the living
sink?

I want to rise. The sea
is inky black. An octopus
floats by. A school of clown
fish gaze at me curiously.

I think of swimming
like the fish in a warm ocean
in the Andaman Sea. I hear
laughter, I feel the sun on my
shoulders.

Oh, the sun. I miss the sun.
I crave heat. It is so very
cold. It is so very cold.

I feel something warmer
on my lower back. I look.
A dolphin is smiling.
Yes, smiling!

I look down at myself.

I am a mermaid!
My hair is blonde, my waist
is tiny, and my *******
are encased in shells.

I laugh gleefully.
The dolphin, as if on cue,
swims below me
and I mount him.

And then, like we have been
doing this since time immemorial,
our bodies in sync,
we float upwards.

Joy abounds. An effervescence,
a lightness of spirit, a playfulness
that heals.

The water is getting warmer
and paler. We playfully swim
with all the time in the world.

And as I surface for the air
that I don’t need,
I am full of peace.

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!

Let us go to Galilee
that four yard cell in Mathura,
deerpark in Varanasi,

and ask where are we headed?

Fallow the field we furrow.
Lost the harvests of our youth.

And when all's done, this
our fear, that it was not enough,
that it was not enough.

What does it mean to
love, find peace in works,
uncover the joy of existence?

(Mere) myth, delusion, infant
babble of an evolving kind?

FACE THE THREATS *
          
Jostling through the crowds of Varanasi -
Ancient, vibrant and ever noisy,
Vivekananda found at the end
A lonely path that seemed to blend.
With his solemn, pensive mood.
Longing for silence and solitude.
As he walked along the narrow path
Winding amidst lush green plants
Towards a sprawling, lovely lake,
A horde of monkeys, all red faced,
Sprang on him from a nearby branch.
Taken aback by their sudden attack,
He ran very fast, never turning back,
But the menacing beasts were at his heels
And one of them pulled his saffron gown
While the others growled and shrieked.
Shocked to see this frightful scene,
A holy man coming from the lake,
Shouted "Do not run; they will overtake.
Stand there, face the surly brutes."
Regaining his composure and lost balance,
Vivekananda stopped at once,
Held his ground and raised his hand.
Stupified and bewildered, the monkeys fled .
        Thus awakened, he soon realised -
         "When you are threatened by opponents,
           Face them with courage and confidence,
            Yet, without malice or vengeance.
             To win life's battles, have grit and strength,
              For, strength is life and fear, worse than death."
                              **.  M.G.Narasimha Murthy
Hyderabad, India

Round candle circle
light bounding wall to wall
dark vinyl corners and alcohol spews
from the dry lips of young people talking about how
the power has gone out.
There's Bossa Nova and a floral couch and conversation
decorating the room
cars hurdle on in the black, ferocious nighttime and I'm cold.
A GREAT PINK BIRD
Plastic and commited to a vow of silence hangs from the ceiling curved
like a beautiful woman, some of us are in bathrobes, a stretching tentacle hits the brain an incense smell
bubbles foaming in the core
a wicked liquid!
names are being called!
drunks DRUNKS DRUNKS
Drums DRUMS DRUMS
Literary minds taking puffs from the mechanical grapevine
center of this room now foaming
and a flute rises in sound
!L O U D E R!
The painted fruits have arrived!
Including the drag queen and the one who slept soundly in Saint Malo
(who currently reads from a flaming newspaper)
Smellings salts sharpen people's noses, an instantaneous rush and
nauseating sensations, SNAP OF ENERGY/
Which has disgusted Imogen and been repeated by everyone else
curiously.
The lights came back on hours ago.

India is on the mind,
talks of Varanasi now that it's previous inhabitants have moved to Spain, another step in their vulnerable but accepted state of mind
and journeying to find a definition of self
(Which I am going thru now)
The girl who held a flower sweetly bloomed in Alaska,
The girl who dances alone in an isolated cabin up island who still occasionally drives to the dentists office 45 minutes away in a small town I used to call home,
The martial-arts teacher/meditational healer who recited W.C Williams with me on the bus in July's romantic ash.

Where is
it?
Where is
what?
I and you and we
What to do
Where to do it
What times might it call upon us
It (this)
The current and present interval of morning
hours where my face aches from (trying) to sleep funny.
No, really? where's it at?!
Birds rise from a wintry treeline, a stranger waits at the bus stop,
I'm freezing out here the next morning and predict much the same
till at least March of next year.
Bones are blooming around me, youth to swell and
love to feel
we're peeling petals
and shedding subjective gold all over the linoleum
but don't ask me who made it I can't tell ya nobody can, later on as a windswept forest road covered in loose pine needles and fir branches
hits the eyes
I walk home and listen to a man imagining his own private orchard.
I'm reminded just then that Albert Camus once said that everyone has (at one point) experienced or will experience the realization that everything (all of it)) is simply absurd, and always has been. We either choose to accept the world, and recover from an overwhelming Nihilism, or decide that it's not worth continuing our lives.
But after a sight like this I'm also reminded that
sometimes even you or I could be beautiful.

FACE THE THREATS *
          
Jostling through the crowds of Varanasi -
Ancient, vibrant and ever noisy,
Vivekananda found at the end
A lonely path that seemed to blend.
With his solemn, pensive mood.
Longing for silence and solitude.
As he walked along the narrow path
Winding amidst lush green plants
Towards a sprawling, lovely lake,
A horde of monkeys, all red faced,
Sprang on him from a nearby branch.
Taken aback by their sudden attack,
He ran very fast, never turning back,
But the menacing beasts were at his heels
And one of them pulled his saffron gown
While the others growled and shrieked.
Shocked to see this frightful scene,
A holy man coming from the lake,
Shouted "Do not run; they will overtake.
Stand there, face the surly brutes."
Regaining his composure and lost balance,
Vivekananda stopped at once,
Held his ground and raised his hand.
Stupified and bewildered, the monkeys fled .
        Thus awakened, he soon realised -
         "When you are threatened by opponents,
           Face them with courage and confidence,
            Yet, without malice or vengeance.
             To win life's battles, have grit and strength,
              For, strength is life and fear, worse than death."
                              **.  M.G.Narasimha Murthy
Hyderabad, India

(Dedicated to our dear bhakti friend and kindred spirit
Catherine Jansen)

Catherine dances
around the cremation grounds
with the Nagi, Sadhus of Lord Shiva
skulls and snakes dangling from
their fearsome necks

Her unique eye is able to
behold beauty in the
dreadful and sublime

Cat's heart belongs to Banaras
also known as Varanasi, Kashi
City of Temples and Light
to die in Banaras is considered auspicious
and augers salvation

With Love and Compassion of the
Divine Mother
Catherine showers happy gifts
on orphaned street children
Clutching Barbie dolls and flashing
brand new dental smiles
they dance with her along the Ganges

Catherine dances with an all seeing camera
in her hands
Zooming in
and
Zooming out
of the sacred, human, transcendental experience

A while ago, I posted a number of poems with links to Youtube "videos" - except they are in fact still pictures with a recording of me reading. Because I posted them to another site they aren't available any more without going to YouTube.  I'd be interested if anyone would like to comment here.

  1/ Reflection -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrSZpBg2WI
  2/ Guard of Honour -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw-Z-SmfP6I
  3/ Golden Wedding -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-SZFvaHnEQ
  4/ Varanasi -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nh6FKZDKd0
  5/ Questions -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmfCKk48EG8
  6/ Remnants - Auschwitz -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8cIXenq9GY
  7/ Restless day -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2kR9ZlEa6s
  8/ Invitation -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4syNSdtgQ0
  9/ Insides -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2D1sRadWe8
10/ Sleepless Night -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2D1sRadWe8
11/ Unknown River -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk6Y5nNzIdU
12/ The First Time -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIzzFJdj3DM
13/ Word Game -- www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGDioDYXex4

Heater and me shoulda been a thing
but we let it go,
I stayed put when she went south
to see the hippy show

at Varanasi she got sick
I'd warned her of the same
but her friend was green, about our scene
so she went anyway

When I got back to England
I gave her dad a call,
she'd given me his number
coz she didn't know where she'd fall

he said she was in England too
and not too far from me
I waited for a coupla of days
hoping she'd be free

and when I called I could hear
some strain within her voice
she didn't sound like the angel
I had met in other times

she told me she was hooked up
with the guy she'd left behind
she felt like she'd betrayed him
she was not the travelling kind

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