The Clepsydra's eye.

Did a look between us pass?
Like Wine in a falling glass
Or music suddenly hushed
A Last Supper rushed.

There is no place we might belong

Nor night to a nuptial song

Nor Time to teach to cry

The Clepsydra's eye.

Ghalib ghazal 214

وحشت کہاں کہ بے خودی انشا کرے کوئی

ہستی کو لفظِ معنیِ عنقا کرے کوئی 

حسنِ فروغِ شمعِ سخن دور ہے اسد

پہلے دلِ گداختہ پیدا کرے کوئی

vaḥshat kahāñ kih be-ḳhvudī inshā kare koʾī
hastī ko lafz̤-e maʿnī-e ʿanqā kare koʾī
ḥusn-e furoġh-e shamʿ-e suḳhan dūr hai asad
pahle dil-e gudāḳhtah paidā kare koʾī




                              Now lost to Self Loss are the Sahara's rolled gold scrolls of Rhyme

How, as Phoenix, entail Existence to the Parrot beak of Time?

Asad, Conceptive beauty imparts a Candescence far indeed!

Must, as wicks, bardic hearts first burn all they bleed?

Where now is that Dark, Backward and Abysm of Clime

Whose Phoenix is the sugar-fond Parrot of Time

For Love spoke The Word, Ataraxia attacks

Smoke, thou memory bird of melted wax

Love is the crutch of Tamburlane

{1313,1}

واجب کا ہو نہ ممکن مصدر صفت ثنا کا
قدرت سے اس کی لب پر نام آوے ہے خدا کا

1) the necessary wouldn't [be able to] be contingent, like praise of the origin/source,
2) through that one's nature/Power, on the lip the name of the Lord comes

If prayer & fasting is to our back a rod

Must Nature in ecstasy cry out 'God!'?

Upon Men, Mercy, Mir, Mystic, explains

 Love, tho' a crutch- is Tamburlaine's

The rejected couplets from Ghalib's fourth

{4,8x}*

hai kahāñ tamannā kā dūsrā qadam yā rab
ham ne dasht-e imkāñ ko ek naqsh-e pā pāyā

1) where is the second step of longing, oh Lord?

2) we found the desert of possibility [to be] a single/certain/unique/excellent footprint

be-dimāġh-e ḳhajlat hūñ rashk-e imtiḥāñ tā ke

ek be-kasī tujh ko ʿālam-āshnā pāyā

1) I am irritable/impatient/disaffected from/with shame; {whither / to what end} an envy/jealousy of/for testing?
2) a single/sole friendlessness/helplessness/forlornness-- I found you world-{familiar/acquainted}!

{4,10x}

ḳhāk-bāzī-e ummīd kār-xānah-e t̤iflī
yās ko do-ʿālam se lab bah ḳhandah vā pāyā

1) the 'dust-game' of hope-- a workshop/business of childishness/childhood
2) [it/I] found despair [to be] open/cheerful, with a smiling/laughing lip, {like / by means of} the two worlds

{4,11x}

kyūñ nah vaḥshat-e ġhālib bāj-ḳhvāh-e taskīñ ho
kushtah-e taġhāful ko ḳhaṣm-e ḳhūñ-bahā pāyā

1) why wouldn't {prevailing / Ghalib's} wildness/madness be a {tax/toll}-receiver of peace/tranquility?
2) [it/someone] found the one slain by negligence/heedlessness [to be] an enemy of the 'blood-price'

Where, Lord, alights the foot of Ardency's stride?

The Sahara of Becoming is but a sole-print wide

 Maddened is my Innocence at the malice of its Test

Privily deflowered as boutonnière to thy chest!

Still, Sand castles anneal Hope & Calf Love, Veal, the Calf

Till, Despair teeth bare the Two Worlds' butcher laugh.

Love-mad I evince, by Indifference murdered to be heard

 Peace hath a Prince! Tender weregeld She the Word

Queen Olga's anima naturaliter christiana

That our Sainted Queen was humbly born is suggested by two facts
From villagers, who widowed her, mild vengeance she exacts

A hut tax, on each thatch, of a mere three sparrows and a pigeon.
She sets homing ablaze, Souls Mir to raze, Soviet Religion

Not in Time's tessitura is the Surah al Yaseen

More unmeaning than the Ghazal's use of tazmin

& less musical than the muezzin's new Tannoy

Not in Time's tessitura is the Surah al Yaseen

What is Death that you yet so annoy?

Outsourced, alas, is Ind, the Nysiads abode

Outsourced, alas!, is Ind, the Nysiads' abode

Now, who wrought God write only code

& to Philomel, its thorn, if Winter yet displays

 All pipe forlorn in growth of riper days.

'

Dvorak's 'Song to the Moon'.

 My Eyes set famished Skies to your forehead's moon
& you, chanson de l'adieu to my every tune

What betides your yet loosening hair?

    Ptolemy of Tides- I'm unaware.

Surely the loveliest video ever aired on the late lamented Sky Classical Music channel?

This is in Anna Netrebko's own voice (the previous video features the voice of Renee Fleming.)

I am the breaker of your Babri, Godse to Thy Ram

Gandhi, Ghalib & the Geeta, we are their Mahmuds until

A Somnath, our stone heart, Ayaz loot at Thy Will

I am the berserker of your Babri, Godse to Thy Ram

Befriend me, or end me- Say, brother, where's the harm?

Krishna is ink's colour, thus Kufr to Khalil's Quran
Thy face, Friendship's page, but I its Bilal Azan
Gandhi or Ghalib- Sahir- our guilt yet is clear
 Gita we hear distant tho' all Sukhan is but here.

Best ghazal ever?- Shakeel Badayuni's mere hum- nafas.

I''ve copied these lyrics from a lovely blog called Mausiki. Click on the link below.

Shakeel Badayuni - mere hum-nafas

mere hum-nafas, mere hum-navaa, mujhe dost banake daGaa na de
mai.n huu.N dard-e-ishq se jaa.N_valab, mujhe zindagii kii duaa na de

Nafas: Breath
Navaa: Sound, Voice
Ham-nafas, Ham-navaa: Friend
Jaan-Valab: Dead
Duaa: Blessing

mere daaG-e-dil se hai raushnii, usii raushnii se hai zindagii
mujhe Dar hai aye mere chaaraagar, ye charaaG tuu hii bujhaa na de

DaaGh: Blemish
Raushnii: Light, Brightness, Illumination
Chaaraagar: Doctor, physician

mujhe ae chho.D de mere haal par, teraa kyaa bharosaa hai chaaraagar
ye terii nawaazishe muKhtasar, meraa dard aur ba.Daa na de

Nawaazish: Kindness, Favor,
Mukhtasar: Abridged, Abbreviated,

meraa azm itanaa bala.nd hai ke paraaye sholo.n kaa Dar nahii.n
mujhe Khauf aatish-e-gul se hai, ye kahii.n chaman ko jalaa na de

Azm: Conviction, Resolve
Baland: Lofty, Strong
Aatish: Fire, Flame, Ember

wo uThe hai.n leke hom-o-subuu, arey o ‘Shakeel’ kahaa.N hai tuu
teraa jaam lene ko bazm me.n koii aur haath ba.Daa na de

Hom: An oblation with clarified butter, a burnt-offering, a sacrifice;
Subuu: Ewer, jar, pitcher, pot, cup, glass
Bazm: Meeting, Assembly

So slain by Love's pain,  do you who, for my longer life yet pray

Ah! Breath of my breath, befriend to but betray?!

My heart's wound,  my Life, my Light's flint-struck spark

Bind not, nor blow out, my sole candle 'gainst the dark!

Breath Control is Divine, Balsamic, broken breath, Death Orgasmic

How trust to your care- ragged breath'd, threadbare?

 Shakeel's steel, forged in a sighs' fires, fears no inferno of the forger Iyer's

For glows in the Garden, red rose arson, Fear's a poet, Ire a Parson

Thee, we study, understudy & e'en, in vain, understand
Thy wine of immortality yet pass hand to hand

Tall leaders and the Tropical forest's emergent layer.

/India needs 'tall leaders'. Not physically tall. In Indglish 'tall leader' means something quite different. What?

I suppose Indian political life, to us pygmies at ground zero, is like a tropical rain forest where trees compete for the light by growing taller and taller with the result that the forest canopy is so far above the dark, dank, and inhospitable forest floor, that it has its own micro-climate and mini ecology. Yet towering above even the forest canopy is the 'emergent layer'- of,  stand alone, exceptionally tall trees. Why are they there? What evolutionarily stable strategy do they serve? The answer is that this emergent layer, these exceptionally tall trees, are vital to the forest's ability to renew itself. How so? They create Light, renew Life- but only when they topple over, being internally rotten, and clear a space on the forest floor.

A pygmy, I can't see the Canopy, let alone the Emergent Layer

Yet, Thou, Tropical, Aorist, Thee address in Topical Prayer

That you too, my Indglish readers, pray for Leaders yet more tall

For all Light and Life, in our Forest, from is but their fall.

Kept awake by drunks and car alarms and crying foxes

Kept awake by drunks and car alarms and crying foxes

I can't unpack my dreams' stacked cardboard boxes

Tho', in baul song, fierce rain and bull frog banquets

Yet are the cunning of Radha's tell-tale anklets

Quid mihi et tibi est, mulier?

Granted, I take you for granted- Else, Dear, God were a Guest too dear
& that to yeast in but yearning's banquet, as Host, my task, Heavenly, True
But Free Counselling at the Baptist Centre? Agapeton, I'm aghast at the very Idea
E'en a righteous pew renter, they'd  rectally enter, ere set lip to my hip flask of You.

Letting Dante read Petronius

Letting Dante read Petronius,  e'en old Ez realized

Every Canto's contango is but Belief backwardized

As a virus made the Dutch tulip precious

The Wireless, Beauty more infectious.

Parrhesia, De Profundis

Son, Truth to Power, sure, 'tis 'cheap talk' to speak

Save Wealth's cock cram thy tongue in cheek

Or up thy arse, fruit, the forbidden tree

To evolve 'costly signals' or Poetry.

Mystic Union and the price of onions.

' The poet says- his tears make him thirsty for onion.'

'Onion?'

'Onion with the Divine. That is true wine of the Saqi'

For a mere mirror holding habit turns Saqi e'en thy Christ-white hand

Yet must Wine’s bloodthirst  parch khaki- being so blindly poured

Now the dearness of the onion is Democracy's firebrand

 How tether Mystic Union Tears’ Mongol horde?

I often dream I'm translating Orhan Pamuk

I often dream I'm translating Orhan Pamuk

into something marginally less gay

So, Stan Bull 'spite Galip's galehaut of a book
Bard not Self-buggery for aye.

 Abreeze, thoughts ribald as these, here to hear rattle sere leaves
 Brompton Cemetery trees : Cities' Autumn oneiric weaves
In vain. Twain vane to this, in vein, Rabelaisian gust

Yours deaf & mine dust.

But who, O who, has seen, the mobled Queen?

'Irrevocable reality is the dumb rock upon which the play breaks and the surge of the truly tragic moves forward in a cloud of foam.'  (Carl Schmitt. Hamlet or Hecuba?)

As to Urvashi, Puruvaras, bares Indr  my 'I' to your 'You'

Yet, haply, for ayah, afford board we Cthulhu's two

Elder Gods- foam births or slays

Aphrodite, Vritra- our Nights and Days.

Dickinson, Deconstruction & the Lok Pal Bill

'As Courtship's questive kiss, lips dread to await

'I go ass to mouth every first date'

Deconstruct thus Death's of Dick(in)son, Emily

& Hazare's Courts' of quotes 'The Holy Family'

Envoi-

Ai Anna, Nabi ban na,  jholiwalleh ki bar de jholi

Bhar de Jholi, re!, Inqilab se khelen holi

Fex urbis, lex orbis

 Now Communion is but yeasting, stones atone for Christ's  bread

& Weaver, only following orders,  as Khaddar to Kabir said

Korban or pharmakos- 'tis is a dangerous saw

Dregs of the City, Homo Sacer of the Law.