Friday, September 15, 2006

It's just about time

(Just about time I'm feelin' blue tryin' to get over you)

Maybe it's just about time I told you I'm all through with you
But just about the time I start to tell you I start feeling blue
And just about then I lose my nerve and wait another day or two
Cause just about the time I think it's over I start missing you

It's just about time I had my sayin' I told you a thing or two
It's just about time I paid you back you treat me like you do
But just about the time I get the nerve I can't seem to carry through
Cause just about then an mpty feelin' reminds me I miss you

It's just about time I let you know I've had my fill of you
But just about the time I think about goin' I start missin' you
I'd like to go find another love that'll never be untrue
But just about the time I think about leavin' I start missin' you

(Havin' a hard time feelin' blue tryin' to get over you)

Suggested read : Johnny Cash,lyrics

Suggested rythm: Johnny Cash - Complete Sun Singles

Sunday, September 10, 2006

A Moment of Silence

Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honour of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September 11th.
I would also like to ask you To offer up a moment of silence For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared,
tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the US

And if I could just add one more thing...

A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died
at the hands of US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.

Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children,
who have died of malnourishment or starvation
as a result of an 11-year US embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem,

Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.

Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin And the survivors went on as if alive.

A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.

A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war .... ssssshhhhh.... Say nothing ... we don't want them to learn that they are dead.

Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia, Whose names, like the corpses they once represented, have piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem.

An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.

45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas 25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky. There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains. And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...

100 years of silence...

For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears. Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...

So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
Not like it always has been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written. And if this is a 9/11 poem, then: This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971. This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977. This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.

This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.

This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored. This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Bell, And pay the workers for wages lost. Tear down the liquor stores, The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all... Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime. But we, Tonight we will keep right on singing... For our dead.


Suggested read : Emmanuel Ortiz , 11 Sep 2002

Suggested rythm: A Moment of Silence (mp3)

Friday, September 08, 2006

He stopped loving her today

He said I'll love you 'til I die
she told him you'll forget in time
And as the years went slowly by
she still preyed upon his mind
He kept her picture on his wall
went half crazy now and then
he still loved her through it all
Hoping she'd come back again

Kept some letters by his bed
Dated 1962
He had underlined in red
every single I Love You
I went to see him just today
Oh, but I didn't see no tears
All dressed up to go away
First time I'd seen him smile in years

Chorus:
He Stopped loving her today
they placed a wreath upon his door
and soon they'll carry him away
He stopped loving her today

Spoken:
You know, she came to see him one last time
Ohh, and we all wondered if she would
and it kept running through my mind
this time, he's over her for good

Repeat Chorus

And soon they'll carry him away
He stopped loving her today


Suggested read : George Jones,lyrics

Suggested rythm: Please forgive me - Bryan Adams

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

the loveless tale of karma

... Long before the lizards, before the dinosaurs, two spores set out on
an incredible journey. They came to a valley bathed in the placid glow
of sunset.

My elder sister, said the little spore to the bigger spore, let us see
what lies beyond. This valley is green, replied the bigger spore,
I shall journey no farther.

I want to journey, said the little spore, I want to discover. She
gazed in wonder at the path before her.
Will you forget your sister ? asked the bigger spore.
Never, said the little spore.
You will little one, for this is the loveless tale of karma; in it
there is only parting and sorrow.

The little spore journeyed on. The bigger spore stayed back in the
valley. Her root pierced the damp earth and sought the nutrients of death
and memory. She sprouted over the earth, green and contended.

A girl with silver anklets and eyes prettied with surma came to
Chetali's valley to gather flowers. The Chempaka tree stood alone-
efflorescent, serene. The flower gatherer reached out and held down a soft
twig to pluck the flowers. As the twig broke the Chempaka said,
My little sister you have forgotten me !


Suggested read : O.V.Vijayan ,"Legends of Khasak"

Suggested rythm: Karmane balawanta maaye.,Saveri,chaypu - K J Yesudas - Thyagaraja.


Thursday, August 31, 2006

I loved you...

I loved you, and I probably still do,
And for a while the feeling may remain...
But let my love no longer trouble you,
I do not wish to cause you any pain.
I loved you; and the hopelessness I knew,
The jealousy, the shyness - though in vain -
So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely,
I pray God grant another love you so.

Suggested read : Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

Suggested rythm: Johnny Cash - You Are The Nearest Thing To Heaven,Yes You Are

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Suggested read : John Keats

Suggested rythm: Kishore - manzilen apni jaga hai raaste apni jaga,'Sharaabi'

Monday, August 28, 2006

Irulin mahaanidra

Irulin mahaanidrayil ninnunarthi nee niramulla jeevitha peeli thannu
ente chirakinaakashavum nee thannu ninn aathma shikirathil oru koodu thannu

Oru kunju poovilum thalirkaatilum ninne neeyayi manakunnathengu vere...
jeevanozhukumbol oruthulli ozhiyathe neethanne nirayunna puzhayengu vere...
kanavinte ithalaayi ninne padarthi nee viriyichoraakashamengu vere...

Oru kochu raapadi karayumbozhum nerthoraruvi than thaarattu thalarumbozhum
kaniviloru kallu kanimadhuramavumbozhum kaalamidarumpozhum ninte -
hridayathil njanente hridayam koruthirikunnu...
ninill abhayam thiranju pokunnu...

Adaruvan vayya..... nin hridayathil ninnenikethu swargam vilichaalum
uruki nin aathmaavin aazhangalil veenu poliyumbozhaanente swargam
ninnil adiyunnathee nitya sathyam

Suggested read : Madhusoodanan Nair , An English version

Suggested rythm: eee Ratriye njan snehikunnu - Daivathinte Vikrithikal