the indestructible Himalayas

of snows and mountains?

There life is defined through death

and death through eternity,

and eternity through instant.

 
No husband is defined through wife

neither is wife through husband,

nor love through hate.

 
There couples can embrace

no more than the parentheses,

all the more, beginning and end.

 
The young is not the non-old,

but the new. The old

is the melting.

 
Not man but the non-man

leaves his misprints

on the snow.

 
And the life below

sends up the flowers

of its vapors.
 
 
 
 

    Buttons
 

A box of buttons.

Cut off the old clothes.

The old zippers, hooks, and snaps

are discarded: they are functional.

 
But if the buttons are ornamental

it is only because they are twins:

come by dozens and make up a set

unlike another set.

 
(the buttonflies

have only even number of wing-holes)

 
Although I may be drawn to one

twinless butterfly,

my own claim for uniqueness

is not only pointless,

it is self-dewinging.
 
 
 
 
 

        Ghazal
 

Poetry, like faith, makes no sense.

When life does not make any sense,

Nonsense × nonsense makes sense.

No-pretence facing death makes sense,

Snubbing life’s offence makes sense.

Faith, like poetry, is sense-

less. When life makes no sense,

burning incense makes no sense.

 
We don’t exist in everybody’s absence.

Just a single presence makes sense.
 
 
 
 

Why all this gloom
 

Why all this gloom

in the life propped by insurance

and investment?

 
Because time is timeless

and bends and unbends

like the ancient farmer,

hoeing the furrow:

back and forth.

 
Time is a big pendulum.

We are on its way

and it always returns

as direct hit

in the face

or in the back of the head

 
I am just a misprinted Cyclops,

one of a few Cyclomen

with a frontal and an occipital eye.
 
 
 
 

But to tell the truth…
 

But to tell the truth,

It is because of the great solitude

that I pretend that I choose

snows and mountains

instead of shows and fountains.

At the height of life we dump stones

Down, into the valley.

At the bottom, we collect them,

not leaving a single stone unturned,

not a lonely and abandoned stone.

Ego is a great fun.

Long past paternity,

One may take up eternity.
 
 
 
 
 

        Because
 

Because

        none of those

        who, with vacant stare,

        idiotic grimace,

        deaf to the world,

        in ecstatic trance,

        look inside themselves,

        hear voices,

        and hallucinate—

not a single poet

has changed the world!

Poetry is a huge blessing:

a wonderful waste of time:

antiproduction,

and antireproduction.

 
The poet knows

he is better

and will not start a feud

to prove it.

 
Besides, the poet,

might desire

the neighbor’s wife,

but not his donkey.
 
 
 
 
 

    Monologue
 
 

I must stay alert.

I cannot fall asleep,
sink into reverie,
doze off, daydream.

I must remember who I am.

As soon as I relax,
I will become a stone
or turn into a mouse,
a monster, or even moss.

I have to stay awake
and trust the caffeine of fear
to guard me.

I must remember who I am
by chanting: “I am not…
…nor frog, nor bat, nor mole,
nor tree, nor water, nor cloud...”

Every non-me is just a word.

Am I a word?
a whirlword?
or a  world?
 
 

    Shibboleth

Ask them to say shibboleth:
they will say shibbolet.

Ask them to say death:
they will say debt.

Ask them what do you mean?

We are born with a debt
to det,
and we have to pay
someday.

Is the loan interest-free?
Oh, no, life is big fun,
a huge shopping spree.

And your notable soul?
Doesn’t play any role.
 
 
 
 

        Mismatch
 

Words find each other so easy,
but meanings are rough and stubborn.
People are cautious and wary,
but loners are secret lovers.

Couples, the mismatched sneakers,
tied by their shoelaces,
are looking for their peers
also tied somewhere.
 
 
 
 

                Clay
 

The future of the young has lots of either-or,
The future of the old is rich with nevermore.

The young, the avid, steaming from the mold,
Remember yesterday as promise of today.
The taste of history is for the very old.

The older past is proved by scars and welts
The younger past, like spring snow, falls and melts.

One is the crocks, the other potter’s clay.
 
 
 

         Anatomy
 

 Whether the body is convex.
 or concave,
 in the enclave of sex,
 with all the rave,
 we don’t look
 for mysteries of life
 between the surface
 and the bare bones
 the secrets are lost
 in the hooks and ribbons
 and festoons
 knowledge dethrones
 life to cartoons
 to go deeper into anatomy
 is anathema.
 
 
 

            Humus
 

The poems live while falling
from the tree to the ground,
responding to the time’s calling

The poems take frozen  forms
while the poets
become  humus,
digested by bookworms.

Is it possible to be posthumous?
 
 
 

Man and Woman
 

Here is an old Man,
with a  silver  mane.
Status quo
is his domain.

But the Woman is forever young
and she invents
new intents.

The feelings, as
simple as a summer dress,
contrast with intricate caress.

The glare of the bare,
like firearms or just arms,
plucks our harps.
But never harms.
 
 
 
 

    Youth
 

As every child,
Immortal,
I stepped in through the portal.

When sent to life,
I traveled light,
with youth in my money belt.

I felt
the hard city sidewalks under my feet.
My steps echoed from the hard city walls.
The soft body beside me echoed the calls
of my endless thirst with a muffled tone.

But I was alone.

Lots to learn, lots to yearn.
The belt dried empty.
Youth is not to be earned.

I wanted to know what and why,
and take everything apart.
But art—
it is: how.

Now
looking back,
I am glad it is over:
no encore.
No more
the black clouds hover.
The black underworld
does not exist.
Just for the fun of it
I can resist.
 
 
 

Forgiveness
 

Past those cold-blooded
as good to lean on
as hard cold cash
with nothing between yes and no
with miles between you and me,

Past those hot-blooded
easy to fuse with
easy to break up with
shiny quick
but as heavy
as quicksilver,

Past those ill-blooded
one-way street
bottomless chasm
insatiable
cantankerous when hungry,

Myself:
finally among long forgiven.
 
 
 
 

    Premonition
 

Like the old knees feel the turn of the weather,
I feel the heavy clouds of events
about to hit me with a lightning.

I feel when the rotten ladder of hope
is about to give way under my foot.

I feel a sudden gash
in the causal net of connections around.

I feel when you are thinking about me
before clicking the Send button.

I’m thinking about you and you must feel it.
If you don’t,
there are no mysteries in the world.
 
 
 

            Imperfections
 

No love in history. Only greed and revenge.
No history in love. Only up and down.

No one has ever come to another land with love.
Except those who came with the hatred of theirs.

No one has ever loved anybody
If hateful of himself.

No one without hate has ever survived
the trial of survival.

No symmetry in the rough world:
all we can see is its profile.

The world does not turn the other cheek.
 
 
 
 

Blizzard of 2003
 

The grill on the porch
grows a white fox hat
over gray hair.

The surrender to waiting
turns the living room into an airport
under the blizzard of 2003.

The street is intelligently empty
as if everybody were listening
to Corelli on Public Radio.

White letters are falling on white paper
immediately rewritten
without any change of meaning.
 
 
 
 

Ode to February
 

February always ends.

February:
the cold-blooded blanket
of floes
over the febrile urge for warmth.

February:
slowly pushing its woes
toward the estuary
through the winter delta
jammed with the frozen forms.

February:
The only time of the year
when the only wish is always granted
in spite of all reasonable norms:

February always ends.
Even sooner than we think.

Love of February
is part of my love of life.
 
 
 
 

    History
 

I never liked history at school.

History was full of people,
was full of power,
full of death.

I shunned all that.
I had no past.
I was safe.

Now I like history as a story
full of hope,
full of futility,
and without end.

The world around is full of people,
the world is full of power,
full of death.
 
 
 
 

        Sorcerer’s Apprentice
 

I put the scattered books back on the shelf,
clean my desk,
and everything in the house takes an ordered form.
All the clocks and watches show the same time.
I find the lost key.

I spill some coffee, break a glass,
and all my files become jumbled,
and salt mixes with sugar,
and dreams with reality.
I have and have not.
 
 

    The Homeowner
 

Omnia mea mecum porto...
I look at my weightless backpack:
my past must have fallen like sort of
        beans through the holes
to mark the trail as if I could turn back.

I live in the no man’s land: My Home.
The culture of glitter and gloss
        dumps on my lawn
some throwaway styrofoam
for my inventory of the loss.

The countless seekers of comfort,  hope
snake oil, and instant success
trudge in lines, bound by a rope,
        through numerical dunes,
dying of the thirst to possess.

I smile to them and send my Hi!
and wave from my  social   niche
        and go to the ocean
and honestly try
to catch an elusive wordfish.
 
 
 

    Confucius
 

Taking the middle road,
to confuciously elude
confusion,
I saw in the middle a toad.

Should I pass it on the left?
On the right? As it seems,
the middle road also has a middle
and the extremes.
 
 
 
 

Ouroborus

It eats itself
it eats its self

it saves its self
it saves itself
 
 
 
 
 

Taking Exit Nine
 

Left exit
from I-95 South.

There is my home.
All the way to the ocean.

The ocean
will be my home
when no exit left.