Separation isn’t time or distance, it’s the bridge between us finer than silk thread sharper than sword.

 

 Nazim Hikmet

Spirals of time..

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses ’gainst his glory flight,
And Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow;
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.


Shakespeare
(LX SONNET)

Heights of Macchu Picchu

Arise to birth with me, my brother.
Give me your hand out of the depths sown by your sorrows.
tiller of fields, weaver, reticent shepherd,
groom of totemic guanacos,
mason high on your treacherous scaffolding,
iceman of Andean tears,
jeweler with crushed fingers,
farmer anxious among his seedlings,
potter wasted among his clays–
bring to the cup of this new life
your ancient buried sorrows.
Show me your blood and your furrow;
say to me: here I was scourged
because a gem was dull or because the earth
failed to give up in time its tithe of corn or stone.
Point out to me the rock on which you stumbled,
the wood they used to crucify your body.



Pablo Neruda

Fear

Everyone asks me to skip, to tone up and to play football, to run,
to swim and to fly. Fine.

Everyone counsels me to rest, every-
one sends me doctors, looking at me a certain way. What is
happening?

Everyone counsels me to travel, to enter and to
leave, not to travel, to drop dead and not to die.
It doesn't
matter.

Everyone sees the difficulties of my insides surprised
by terrible x-rays. I do not agree.

Everyone picks at my
poetry with inconquerable forks looking, undoubtedly, for a
fly. I am afraid.

I am afraid of everyone, of cold water, of
death. I am like all mortals, undelayable.

Therefore in
these short days I am not going to pay any attention to them,
I am going to open myself up and close myself in with my most
perfidious enemy, Pablo Neruda.



Pablo Neruda

Unfinished poem of Mayakovsky..

I know the force of the words and warning they can sound
i don't mean those which draw front row applause 
But words at which coffins break loose to pound
the ground this way and that with heavy paws 
They must be cast out publishers ignore them
But words forge on tighten their belly-bands 
ring through the centuries and trains come crawling 
to lick and fondle poetry's horny hands 
I know the force of the words They seem a petal flung
Under the heels of dancers just a trifle 
But man possesses backbone, heart and tongue

Mayakovsky
(1928-1930)

आशंका

मैंने पुछा 

एक पंसारी से 
-प्यार किया है कभी?
जानने की इच्छा है 
कोठे के दलाल के 
क्या होते हैं उसूल 
और गली के उस मरियल कुत्ते ने 
क्या कभी प्रोग्राम बनाया था 
दुर्गम यात्रा पर निकलने का?
हालत ऐसे ही रहे 
तो एक दिन शायद 
पूछ बैठूं कवि-दोस्त से-
क्या कभी विद्रोह का नाम सुना है?

कात्यायनी

Waiting for a genius

Yet as matters stand at present, it is not only hard to produce a genius but also hard to have the soil from which a genius could grow. It seems to me that while genius is largely inborn, anyone can become the soil to nurture genius. For us to provide, the soil is more realistic than to demand the genius; for otherwise, even if we have hundreds of geniuses they will not be able to strike root for lack of soil, like bean-sprouts growth on a plate.....

Of course the soil cannot be compared with genius, but even to be the soil is difficult unless we persevere and spare no pains. Still, where there’s a will there’s a way, and here we have a better chance of success than if we wait idly for a heaven-sent genius. In this lies the strength of the soil and its great expectations, as well as its reward. For when a beautiful blossom grows from the soil, all who see it naturally take pleasure in the sight, including the soil itself. You need not be a blossom yourself to feel a lifting of your spirit — provided, always, that soil has a spirit too.

Lu Shun

(Waiting for a Genius)