In the Rapids of the City

   
Note:  The snapshot pictures in this post were taken with my new cellphone, which is still an antique. The pictures may be viewed as in a gallery, in a somewhat larger, clearer format, by single-clicking on any image.  To return to this post, click on the white X at the top right of the black background in the gallery view.
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In the Rapids of the City

  

Tilted tower and traffic, Whitehall Street, Manhattan
2015 August. 13th, Thu. evening  © A. Janah

In the hubbub and the hurry, we might lose our peace of mind.
Yet when time is ours in plenty, then that peace is hard to find.

For the trauma often lingers—and corrodes us from within.
So our Ava’s long departed, yet we’re paying for her sin.
  
  

Man on cellphone, walking dog
New Utrecht Ave., Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
2015 Aug. 14th, Fri. afternoon.  © A. Janah

    
There are things that we have hidden, where we cannot see or hear,
For we sense they are forbidden or impossible to bear.
  
There’s the horror that is wartime, there’s the horrid state of work.
And we need from these our distance, or we’ll surely go berserk.
  
So the answers we are seeking, to the questions never asked,
We have found and then forgotten.  Let them never be unmasked.
   

Two towers, Whitehall Street, Manhattan
2015 Aug. 13th, Thu., late afternoon.  © A. Janah

The summer sees its end, as on the streets
The browned and withered leaves foretell the fall.
While walking long through Brooklyn, I have paused
To sit in light and shade within a “park”.

A bit of green, a glimpse of blue is all
It takes to soothe a weary, harried soul.
They bring the walking dead to life again.
And yet, how many are denied the two!

Branches, leaves and sky, Milestone Park, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
2015 August 14th, Fri. afternoon.  © A. Janah

A wounded dog, escaping from its plight,
Will pause, if given a chance, to lick its wounds.
So humans do as well.  And yet we know,
A wounded mind might best be left alone.

I sip my tea and chew my pretzel as
I mull on my defeats.  When victories
Are gone, philosophies are left—along
With all the aches of body and of mind.

Veterans' memorial, Water Street, Manhattan 
situated, interestingly, right by the Teachers' Retirement Service office 
2015 August 13th, Thu. afternoon.  © A. Janah

When in Manhattan, in the city’s roar,
I thought I heard a little, quiet sound.
But that was yesterday.  In Brooklyn now,
I sit upon a bench and look around.

I see the little sparrows hop. They pick
At seeds, and quickly dart aloft in fright.
A pigeon flies across—a blur of wings.
A squirrel climbs atop a green-lit tree.

The little children run around and play.
The adults group themselves at cards or chess,
Or quietly walk around, or sit like me—
Contented, for a while, to simply be.

Girl riding a bike, Milestone Park, Brooklyn
2015 Aug. 14th, Fri. afternoon. © A. Janah

 
A taste of peace, a sip of quietude—
And I am rested.  Yet I wonder still
About that sound I heard but yesterday—
That seemed so close and yet so far away.

When we’re defeated, then we might perceive
The shadowed things that we had overlooked.
Amidst the gemstones, lit with wisdom, are
The scorpions that we fear to understand.

 

Shadows from the elevated D/M track, New Utrecht Ave.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, 2015 Aug. 14th, Thu. afternoon
© A. Janah

At times like this, my life, from birth till now,
I see as in a slideshow on a screen—
A sign, perhaps, it’s time to stop and then
Begin anew, until this comes again.

Our lives have acts and scenes, as in a play,
Or else it seems we’re authors—and our books
Have chapters that have ends we can’t control.
Yet end we must, while leaving loose the ends.
 

Bench, Milestone Park, Brooklyn
2015 Aug. 14th, Fri. afternoon. © A. Janah

     
In the rapids of the city, when the roar was all around,
I had thought I’d heard a tinkle—a whisper of a sound.
  
In the shimmer of the summer, I’ve been sitting in the park,
And the whisper in the silence is the calling of the dark.
  
  

At Milestone Park, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
2015 Aug. 14th, Fri. afternoon. © A. Janah

     
There are things that we’ve forgotten, so we cannot see or hear,
For we sense they are forbidden or impossible to bear.
  
There’s the shame and guilt of childhood, there’s the hurt and rage within.
There’s the grief and there’s the sorrow that can issue from our kin.
  
So the answers we were seeking, for the questions rarely asked,
We had found and then had hidden.  Give us strength, when we’re unmasked.

  

Two towers, Water and Whitehall Streets, Manhattan
2015 Aug. 13th. late afternoon.  © A. Janah

      
2015 August 14th, Friday, around 5 pm.
Milestone Park, Bensonhurst Brooklyn, New York
(fourth, twelfth, and twentieth [second from last] 
stanzas added Aug. 15th, Sat afternoon; cellphone
images added August. 16th, Sun. morning)
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Note:  The snapshot pictures in this post were taken with my new cellphone, which is still an antique. The pictures may be viewed as in a gallery, in a somewhat larger, clearer format, by single-clicking on any image.  To return to this post, click on the white X at the top right of the black background in the gallery view.
    

Dead Man Risen

                        
Dead Man Risen
      
I saw a dead man risen, with
The pallor of the grave.
I saw him walking towards me, as
My feet were turned to stone.

I saw that he was nearing, so
I tried then to be brave,
With all my sins before me and
No time then to atone.

And as he came upon me
And I trembled and I shook,
He reached his hands towards me
And in my eye did look.

And lo, though I was shaking,
I saw, within his eye,
The self, that had been hidden,
And it was none than I.

2013 November 8th, Fri.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn
 

A Woman, Young -- Part II

A Woman, Young -- Part II

A memory remains
of California sun
and that brief incident,
that crossing of the paths
between that woman and
myself --
the ones we were
that morning,
long ago.

Unaccustomed as I was, to women, young,
who'd follow me and offer me a ride --
and insist on it, a stranger though I was ---
I did not know then what to do
except to walk away ---
perhaps especially as she
was beautiful,
attractive and vivacious,
and, at least with me, that day,
flirtatious in a friendly sort of way,
with a sunny innocence that lit her eyes
and a smile that played, like sunshine, on her face.

I did not know then how I should react.
And so, I stumbled and I walked away.

It might have been for the best.

I wonder, still,
how it just might have been
if only I were not
the solemn one that I
felt bound to be
that sunlit day.

I wonder too, just who she was,
that woman, young,
whose form had been revealed to me,
in wondrous nudity,
in morning's light --
that woman who
had followed me --
perhaps because our eyes had met
and she had sensed, as I had done,
a history, unreachable --
a musk
without a name --
and perhaps
a destiny
that turned out
not to be...

I wonder who she was,
that woman, young,
whom I remembered suddenly
this evening, thirty years
and very far away --
I wonder who she was --
and is --
that woman, now perhaps
no longer young...

I did not ask her name,
nor offer mine,
and nor did she,
despite her friendliness...

I wish her well,
and I also wish that I could say,
"I'm sorry that I was
a dolt that day."

2013  October 31, Thu.
Brooklyn
  
A Woman, Young -- Part I 

http://thedailypoet.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-woman-young.html 
 

A Woman, Young -- Part I

      
A Woman, Young -- Part I
  
It was morning -- 10 o'clock or earlier.  I hadn't slept.
But I was young, and though I'd lectured for an hour or more,
I still had energy to spare.

I was walking out of the building where I'd lectured, when
I saw a woman, young, who stood where light was streaming in.
Her gauzy dress was billowing in the breeze,
and I could see her form, as if she wasn't wearing clothes
at all.

On exiting the building's door, I met that woman's gaze,
for just an instant.  Walking, then, across the sunlit yard,
I heard, behind me, footsteps, fast -- and found her by my side.

She greeted me.  I turned and answered, being just polite.
She was quite beautiful.  

A word or two of casual talk, and then -- she offered me
a ride.  I said, "I live nearby.  I usually just walk."

But she insisted.  So I sat, and as she drove, she asked,
"So what's your major?"  I answered, "Physics."
"Why do you have that book, then?" she inquired,
and gestured at the thing that sat upon my lap --
a book on mathematics, meant for freshmen
who weren't majoring in engineering, sciences
or math -- and needed a refresher course.

But we were at the buildings meant for faculty,
where I was rooming with a friend who taught.

"I'm saved!" I thought.  Some part of me
was just unwilling to acknowledge that
I now no longer could romance a girl
who might just be an undergrad, while I
had finished with my post-doc there at UCI,
and now had given my last lecture there in math,
and would be leaving soon for someplace far away.

I said, "We'll talk about that later, over coffee."

"But where -- and when?" she asked.

"I'm sure we'll meet each other once again.",
I said -- and saying this,
I waved and walked away.

I'd almost reached my building when I heard her car
-- and saw it curve and glide away.

I never saw that woman, young, again.

2013  October 31, Thu.
Brooklyn 
 

Rites of Passage / Vespertinal

  
Rites of Passage / Vespertinal
  
The seven-horse chariot's done its daily beat; 
And over there, where sky and earth commune,
The evening star sheds limpid, icy fire 
Against a cyclorama amber-blue.
  
A breeze from west, gently insistent, blows 
Streamers of sand off crests of velvet dunes, 
Whispering reminder, prickly on the soul: 
The intimation of a threshold passed.

Through dim and misty distances in time
Loom memories of dreams that went unlived; 
Of songs unsung, of feelings unrevealed; 
Of deeds not done, of promises unkept; 

Of cheery smiles received and not returned; 
Of leaps of faith across uncharted streams 
Landing in quicksand, and being helped from there 
By waiting arms that never stayed for thanks.

And as the canvas is daubed more and more, 
The tints turn muddy, chiaroscuro fades 
To shades of grey, darkly illumined from 
The tunnel's end, a weary age away.

Threescore-and-ten was granted, half is spent. 
What rests is but a half-life of decay, 
Of keeping count of acts, noble and base, 
At every rite of passage on the way. 

Vivek  Khadpekar 
Osian, Thar Desert, Rajasthan
and Benares (Varanasi)
India, 1988/89 
 
By the same author:  Midnight

The Mother Tongue

The Mother Tongue

How strong that love that dwells within our hearts
And may be hidden long and then revealed,
The love we have for tongue of infancy,
In which we heard our mother's lullabies.

However much we may have practice in
A language learned when early childhood passed,
No other speech is understood as deep
And clear as that, in which we learned to speak.

We may not have the words that learning lends,
The words of books or those of speech urbane,
Or phrases that are fit for specialties,
But all that's human's served by mother's speech.

******
 
The mother may be she, who gave us birth,
Or he or she who tended us at first,
The one to whom we bonded, as a child,
The one who tried to slake our primal thirst.

And there are words forgotten, rhythms deep,
That surface unexpectedly in speech.
The tongues we speak are subtle, rich like wine.
The primal one remains our gift divine.

It may be language written, glorified,
Or tongue without a script – or dialect.
It gives us comfort when we hear or speak –
And is the hardest one, in which to lie.

2013 May 26th, Sun.
Brooklyn
sjanah@aol.com