~ Spring 2016 ~

The Crystal Moon   

Kalyani Kapur

                                                                               
I had been wandering for a long time, a nomadic soul was I. So when I heard that a group of gypsies was visiting my town, I had to go.
 
Vast arena of colorful wanderers, the gypsies. I found the fortuneteller with the crystal moon.
 
She looked at me, the color of her kohl-lined eyes was darker than coal…she had long tresses to go with the eyes, olive skin with long hands; she was tall, with a hundred stars of different colors on her fingers, and a huge string of beads around her neck. She had a tiara in her hair, and her eyes barely blinked.
 
She looked at the crystal………….
 
I was scared.
 
W hat if she finds out
that I carry you like darkness within me and my soul,
like a plant that never blooms but carries the light of a rainbow within
that one strand of messed up hair I hadn’t fixed since I last met you--
that smell of yours that I still carry with me
the missing color on my lips
that one tear, frozen in my eyes--
the heart that I carried within my heart, 
the thorn in my foot
the dagger in my heart
 
that you deserted me on the high seas when there was a storm.
I will tell him with the same arrogant demeanor and the aquiline nose
​that you loved so much
that it was I who deserted you;
 
I will wait, for when my tear becomes a pearl.
I will remove the thorn from my foot,
the dagger from my heart
and give you that pearl as a parting gift.
 
For I promise, I won’t meet you at 60.
 
The fortuneteller looked at me for a long time and said: “I don’t read a gypsy.”
 
I got up limping,
 
She called me and said, “It will take you a long time to get that pearl.”
 
I started walking again and she called back again, “But you will get it before 60.”
 
I smiled
and she smiled.

---

Humboldt Bay under the Weeping Willow

Kalyani Kapur

Standing alone
With a resounding silence within
 
And always questioning why am, I called the weeping willow
The kids running around me
My leaves rustled with their voices
For once I could take joy in their hugs
Unaware of what would life unfold for them
 
The old couple,
Life came along wasted or hidden away in fantasy
Decided to end it all, holding hands
 
On the Humboldt Bay under the weeping willow
The girl who sat under my arms and cried
For selling her soul for pennies
As I tried to protect her,
Her tears watered my soul
For the fruit I will bear
Will have the echoes of the heart that grieves
 
For the boy who ran away from home,
Because he was odd,
They call it autism
And I thought he kept alive the child within
 
I the weeping willow, on a stormy night
When he went fishing
I sat rooted on the Humboldt Bay waiting for his return
He never did…….but many did return
 
On the Humboldt Bay under the weeping willow

​

The Pearl 

Kalyani Kapur

I have to tell you
for you ought to know,
I destroyed the pearl
for it grew within me like a seed
for your denial fearing the social carcass.
Such was my desperation
I removed the dagger from my heart
and stuck it on to the pearl.
In that moment I saw blood on my hands and all over,
then there was oblivion.
I woke up completely empty...
I tried to find myself in the mirror
and saw nothing
for the mirror shunned me too.
I was hallow
by my own sins
so today I forgive you
for my sin is bigger than yours--
I destroyed the pearl with my own bare hands
The pearl I felt
The pearl, you neither felt nor saw.

---

Flying Home

Marilyn Flower

I'd like to say
I didn't know

you'd die that day,
the morning I fled

you, Father.
At night, I hold

your legs against
the palsy, press you

to the hospital
cot, rising,

jumping—how
can Mother face

this without me? Early
Monday, she brings

your pill; you turn
your head away. I know

you'll be gone
by nightfall.

I kiss you, kiss
Mother (who doesn’t

know), race
from the house,

terrified
you'll leave

before that airport
bus carries me away.

You wait until evening
to take that breath

subdued—I know
you knew, Dad.

I sigh, content
you blessed my flight.

---

Early Love

Marilyn Flower

 Because you're
small and kewpie
 
cute, the third-grade
girls from class bring
 
you home, fumble with your
shorts ’til they crumple
 
around your ankles, 
then pass you hand-
 
to-hand. On
the second
 
round, you snatch
your shorts, hurl them
 
across the room. The girls
stroke and pet you
 
‘til the sun has fallen
in a dream.
 
Later, you find Julie,
pupal, aching,
 
sweet. That was love,
you’ll always say,
 
remembering. Your father
takes a job across
 
the country, hauls you
with him. In the years that
 
follow, you marry and leave,
marry and leave the same
 
woman or find
another, each beginning
 
flooding your
eyes with gold.…
 
Outside those
moments you
 
clamp shut—sell cars, sleep, wander
shopping malls at night, like
 
those empty winters
in the place your father
 
moved you to, stripped
branches,
 
dead sky, earth
a crust of ice.

---

 Burning Jasmine ~ Φλεγόμενο Γιασεμί

Christos Rodoullas Tsiailis 

I wanna give you—give you give you
So I take everything back home and cook
I wanna give you—give you give you
Oh, I take the sun, blue tack and a broom
I wanna give you—give you give you
So I take the yellow leaves and sew 
Oh, how much I wanna give your dreams some lag
Obstacles, lenses and flammables
My fire will be enough.
               
I wanna give you—give you give you
So I ask my room some favour
I wanna give you—give you give you
Oh, I move the moon cast forth—it blooms
I wanna give you—give you give you
So I collect nocturnal jasmine seeds
Oh, I wanna glitter little thoughts inside
Nyx, Zorya, undress your satin veils
I wanna see your skin.
 
Because you asked me to give you everything
Here, it is what I have most precious
A rare Japanese flower burning on my naked palm
[Oh, no, no! Don’t leave me… don’t go!
Oh, please take it… nooooo!]
 
Oh, shame, what is left now of this wonderful pledge
is
two shadows cast to opposite sides of a stone village,
which would never comprehend rank, loss and Hara-kiri
and me
on my bed
unable again.
 

 
Φλεγόμενο Γιασεμί
​
Θέλω να σου δώσω—δώσω δώσω
Κι έτσι τα παίρνω πίσω στο σπίτι όλα και μαγειρεύω
Θέλω να σου δώσω—δώσω δώσω
Ω, παίρνω τον ήλιο, μπλου τακ και μια σκούπα
Θέλω να σου δώσω—δώσω δώσω
Κι έτσι παίρνω τα κίτρινα φύλλα και ράβω
 
Ω, θέλω να δώσω στα όνειρά σου αμφιταλάντευση
εμπόδια, φακούς και φουσκωτά
Η φωτιά μου θα σου φτάσει
 
Θέλω να σου δώσω—δώσω δώσω
Κι έτσι απ’ την κάμαρά μου χάρη μία ζητώ
Θέλω να σου δώσω—δώσω δώσω
Ω, το φεγγάρι κινώ, μπροστά το ρίχνω -- ανθίζει
Θέλω να σου δώσω—δώσω δώσω
Κι έτσι μαζεύω νυκτόβιους σπόρους γιασεμιού
Ω, θέλω μέσα σου σκέψεις μικρές να λαμπυρίσουνε
Νυξ, Ζόρυα, τα μεταξωτά σας βέλα απεκδυθείτε
Θέλω το δέρμα σας να ειδώ.
 
Επειδή μου ζήτησες τα πάντα να σου δώσω
Ορίστε, είναι το πολυτιμότερο που έχω
Ένα σπάνιο Ιαπωνέζικο λουλούδι καίει τη γυμνή παλάμη
[Ω, όχι, όχι! Μην μ’ αφήνεις ... μην φεύγεις!
Ω, πάρε το σε παρακαλώ ... όχιιιιι!]
 
Ω, κρίμα, αυτό που απομένει πια από την υπέροχη υπόσχεση
είναι
δύο σκιές ριγμένες και ταγμένες στις απέναντι πλευρές ενός πέτρινου χωριού
το οποίο ποτέ δεν θα κατανοήσει την ιεραρχία, το χαμό και το χαρακίρι
κι εγώ
στο κρεβάτι μου
ανίκανος ξανά.
​

---

VIEW OF GERLACH NV FROM THE BURNINGMAN OFFICE*

Martina Reisz Newberry

                                                     for Brian
​

They look more like massive weeds than trees, but
they stand in the foreground, moving leaves when I reload.
If they are trees, they might be olive trees which I cannot stand
their dry grey/green depresses and alarms me...still I stare 


at what looks to be abandoned houses and further up the road
a store and restaurant and maybe a bar with trucks out in front of it.
There is sand over and under everything even the red water tower
and the white fence and the green roof of the  Burningman’s Office


I watch the camera day and night. Few lights are on in the darkness except
for that store and restaurant and maybe the bar I mentioned earlier. I wonder
at my low-calorie obsession with Gerlach. What is there to see?
The dirt side streets are empty. The trees move leaves when I reload.


I am sure there must be something wrong with me to watch a deserted place 
so intently.  Came time for the Burningman Festival and, overnight, 
people were in the streets at Gerlach and walking up to that store
and restaurant (maybe a bar). The two-lane had traffic and lots of it


mostly RVs and campers and vans and trucks and  the people were walking
on the side of the road, going for dinner and  ice cream and maybe drinks.
Lights came on in houses I thought were abandoned, strings of lights on the
dead dark fences and headlights coming and going on the dirt roads, the highway.


Every night I watched and reloaded until the festival was over and the trucks, et al,
went one way out of Gerlach and each night became darker than the one before
until all was as it had been and would be. My heart broke; I don’t even know why,
and I vowed to stop looking, stop trying to see what was just beyond the camera.


You’ve guessed it. I’m back at the site again. I decided on one last look
and realized, after reloading, that a strong breeze has come up and is moving
the leaves on those trees I mentioned and seems just strong enough to clear
a space so I can see beyond the water tower, see out to what is there.


*Once a year, tens of thousands of people gather in Nevada's Black Rock Desert (also known as “the playa”) to create Black Rock City, a temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, having left no trace whatsoever. Gerlach is a tiny town located next to Black Rock City.


Martina Newberry’s books include WHERE IT GOES (Deerbrook Editions), LEARNING BY ROTE (Deerbrook Editions), NOT UNTRUE & NOT UNKIND (Arabesques Press), RUNNING LIKE A WOMAN WITH HER HAIR ON FIRE (Red Hen Press), and LIMA BEANS AND CITY CHICKEN: MEMORIES OF THE OPEN HEARTH (E.P. Dutton &Co). Martina's work has been anthologized and widely published in the U.S. and abroad.  She lives in her beloved Los Angles with her husband, Brian, a photographer/web designer/audio media creative, and their fur-baby, Charlie. Connect with Martina at her web site.

---

 The Lover's Heart Dares Dream

Mirza Tahir Ahmad, Tr. Rehan Qayoom

A poem by His Holiness Mirza Tahir Ahmad - Khalifatul Masih IV (1928 – 2003) whose philosophical and religious work during the last 2 decades of the previous century dispelled darkness and filled the age with the light of Divine wisdom which radiated from him. His brilliance was not confined to that century alone. It is to remain outstanding work of unique greatness for centuries to come. His prayers always stood by my side, though he himself could not. Blessed be his soul.
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                R. Q. 

​Had you too kept some contact with me
Alas I would not have been so alone
 
Had my name jumped from your heart to your lips just once
I would have been as unique as the quiver of those lips
 
This favour would have beat in my heart every moment
With its each strike would my breast have been enlightened
 
That same light would have eradicated all the heart's evils
How serenely sweet would have been its luminosity
 
When we would have created uproars of love
In the imagination's secret chambers it would not have been talked about
 
Who would have known of the dream of our desperate hearts?
Who would have seen what we would have seen?
 
We could have met in secret this way hiding behind the heart's veils
Who knows what things we could have done in our heart of hearts
 
We would have enacted in such ways the rituals and traditions of desire
And we would have loved each other open-heartedly
 
If we had ever bumped into each other at the crossroads both our hearts pounding
We would have been fearsome of fearlessly expressing our loves
 
You would have averted your gaze as your body accidentally touched mine
And then you would have glanced at me as if you weren’t looking
 
This charm would have immensely captivated but tormented my heart
To think what could have happened had you not been mine
 
All my visions would have scattered into mirages—Just one
Desert world would have been everywhere before me
 
Just to imagine if you had left me my heart would have always
Been yearning for even a single droplet of love's elixirs
 
Such a blood-flood would have burst from my eye
As no eye had ever shed before
 
The tale of our love would have drowned in that same teary flood
And when our eyes opened it would just have been a sort of dream
 
A flood of such calamity would have flowed from my eyes
As had never been witnessed before by any tide or river
 
The sobbing night of separation the night of grief
Would have engulfed me would have wrapped me in its arms
 
You would not have been visible anywhere around me--
It would have been just me lonely lying drenched in my own tears
 
Far off a tear trickling down the earth's cheek
Overflowing beyond the horizon from the eyes of night
 
In it each moment a trembling and flickering shadow
Would have been glimpsed of a lunar face*
 
Who would have snatched away my darling's tranquillity?
In whose separation would I have tossed and turned?
 
In whose memory would that liquid beauty have flowed
From beyond the horizons ever-blending into new worlds—New islands?**
 
I too would have searched for you aimlessly
Had the world of dreams been my sole resort and remedy
 
Where now shall I seek the cure to my loneliness
When no moon-muse remains to call my own
I have hundreds of thousands of people in this world but none
To offer me company in my lonesome moments
 

* The imagery in this verse is reminiscent of Neruda’s sonnet beginning ‘Plena mujer, manzana carnal, luna caliente,’ [‘Full woman, flesh-apple, hot moon’] and ending ‘hasta ser y no ser sino un raya en la sombre.'  [‘and is nothing, in shadow, and a flimmer of light.’]  (Cient Sonetos de amor, 1960.  Tr. Stephen Tapscott, 100 Love Sonnets.  University of Texas: Austin, 1986).  29.
** The Holy Quran.  Ha Mim Sajdah: 54.

© The Tahir Archive, 23 May 2007, 2016.