Apparel

Apparel

I pray that I'll be saved from wearing suit and tie,
As I have been for all these many years.
Before I have to wear them, let me die --
And laugh that I've been spared, as dying nears.

As penguins, do the crowds of men appear,
With suits of black (plus bow-ties or cravats)
And shirts of white.  As Croats used to wear,
So now do all – except, perhaps, for hats.

And see the women, baring far too much,
While teetering on shoes inflicting pain.
At least the men are spared from wearing such!
In this, they win – quite clearly, once again!

What use, I wonder, is the collared shirt,
Or brassiere – for those less “well endowed”?
And why have women left the flowing skirt
For trousers tight?  Should I be asking loud?

2013 May 7th, Tue., 5:06 am
Brooklyn, New York

Spring Again

Spring Again

In Brooklyn now the tulips bloom
And blossoms grace the roadside trees.
And some of these are naked still,
With others dressed in freshest green.

Amidst the hustle of the dollar
And through the glasses of a scholar,
Blinking in the sunlight, he
Observes again the Spring serene.

An afternoon of grace is found,
While business bustles all around,
As rhythms, slow, of yearly seasons,
Are sensed – that counter frantic beat.

So in Manhattan, trees in flower,
Amidst the traffic and the grime,
Are calling out, to passersby,
To slow or stop – and be complete.

And in the Bronx and verdant Queens,
In Staten Island, by the sea,
In Newark and in Hoboken,
The sun is slanting on the green.

By the ocean, shining bright,
The gulls are sailing in the sun.
The winter's gone and summer nears,
In this, the season in-between.

2013 May 4th Sat.
Brooklyn

Regret

Regret

We each remember well the final words
Between us and the ones, whom we had loved.
And when we pass the spot, where we had last
A chance to speak to them or hear them speak –
Or otherwise recall that tender past,
Then some of us may wish that we had paid
Attention more – or uttered kinder words.

Alas!  The ones departed won't return.
There isn't any way to rectify
The things we said or did – or to complete
Whatever still was left to do or say.
And so we sigh and ponder this defeat,
As all that's left of those, whom we had loved,
Are memories – and ashes in an urn.

So many things, on which we daily err,
That seem to matter not –  but then the day
Arrives, when seeming trifles may decide
Between a life that stays or vanishes.
Our errors small, we fix – but that divide,
By which we stand, so broad and deep and dark,
Cannot be bridged – except by Lucifer.

And so we're left with infinite regret,
The only consolation being this –
We're powerless and tiny, like the dust,
By tempest lifted, blown and scattered far –
And all our thought and labor, love and lust
Appear as pointless as this universe
That spins in grandeur – till its end is met.

Arjun Janah < sjanah@aol.com >
2013 May 2nd, Thu., 8:15 pm.
Brooklyn, New York
 

Transience

   
Transience
     
The days go by – and then the years.
They're dappled with our smiles and tears.
We're born to live awhile and die,
Yet some presume to question why.

They ask, at birthing, with a wail –
And all through life, to no avail –
And even with their final sigh
They question why we live and die.

But none has found, in any season,
For birth and death, a cause or reason –
And yet, without that answer why,
It seems that life's a pointless lie.

So some surrender to their fate
Or find their drives in love or hate.
But even these, when children die –
They raise their arms to the watching sky.

How precious is the fleeting now!
To hold it still, we don't know how.
So past and future feed the lie,
As we, our transience, deny.

2013 March 30th, Sat.
Brooklyn
  

Exile

 
Exile

We left the lands that gave us birth
And chose to cross the seas.
And providence or choice decreed
The place, where we would cease.

And loneliness is now our lot,
But why should we complain?
We chose to leave our friends and kin.
What's left to then explain?

For many, work is all we have.
It keeps us occupied.
But often, it consumes our lives.
All else is nullified.

A few find satisfaction
In the work they do.
And others, seeking traction,
Find that's lacking too.

And when the working life's at end,
The vacuum then awaits.
No village there, nor neighborhood,
But walls that hold in place.

It's said, his home's a castle to
The Englishman – but then
It also is a prison, where
The Briton finds his end.

And so it is, in North and West –
And even, now, in East.
If misery loves company,
There's solace there, at least!

2013 March 23rd, Sat. evening
Brooklyn

   

Tutors Two

   
Tutors Two
     
There was a time, when I would daily go
To Gravesend Bay and run along the shore
To Caesar's Bay.  And there, I'd turn around
And race again to where the Verrazano Bridge
Makes giant arch to Staten Island.  Then
I'd jog, at times, or else I'd slow and walk
Towards the north, until I turned a bend
And saw the towers at Manhattan's edge.

On weekends, I would often venture more,
To pier jutting out at 65th,
And walking to that jetty's very end,
I'd watch the tide that heaved below, the gulls
That flew and dived – and all the ships that sailed
From far and near towards the waiting docks,
And those that traveled out towards the deep...

And then, refreshed, I would return to work
That even then would never seem to end,
But which, with naiveté and spirit's force,
I turned to sense and sequence – much as others,
In their endless daily labor, do.

******

Those days, alas, are passed, and though I live,
At present, nearer to the waiting bay,
It waits in vain for one, who rarely finds
The time or strength to walk across the bridge
That we pedestrians use to cross the flow
Of cars upon the parkway by the shore,
Or for that harried soul to find his way
By other routes to meet that ocean swell.

What vanity, to think an ocean waits
For ant like me to walk by it again!
But of such fantasy, are verses born,
And each of us imagines all the rest
Must wheel around the center that is us –
Delusion that persists, at times, till death...

And yet, how grateful is this ant, who knows
That he is nothing, though he oft forgets –
How grateful, for the grace that he received
From ocean's breath –  and vision of that sea
That stretches till it seems to meet the sky,
And so reminds us of our tiny place...

And so, I also thank that sky above,
By day illumined by the searing sun,
At times an ocean, blue and arcing wide,
At times, with clouds, like wondrous changelings, filled –
And then, at night, revealing all its deep,
As woman drops her veil and shows her eyes,
With all the universe contained within...

There is a sacred space within us all,
As much in trees as in the prophets past,
Where time is stilled and all is seen as one –
And sky and sea and land untouched by hands
Of ones demented call us back to that.

How tranquil is that feeling they evoke,
That sea, that sky, those beings full of change
And yet eternal, like imagined gods,
In mortals such as I, who walk the streets
Of city full of labor, rush and grime –
And yet beneath that sky, beside that sea,
Reminders, still, of what this life can be...

*****

That we are part of such an universe,
In which our problems and our quests are naught,
Is knowledge earned in raptured silences
By such as I, who still presume to teach
The youngsters, eager or by cities burned,
By using voice and writing, all the tools
That fail, for lessons such as I have learned
From these, my tutors two, the sky and sea...

But in the children and in all of us
There is that sea, that never-ending deep
We call the sky, with all its burning stars,
And there's the land that also waits for those,
Who left its fields and slopes for city streets,
Forgetting much in our desire to learn.

We all must live, and jobs provide the cash
For sustenance and even for the tools
With which to write such verses as we do,
Be these composed of words or other things
For which we labor, purely out of love,
As some may do for children, aged or ill.

But jobs can eat away at being's core,
And sap the life that land and sea and sky
Have given us. To live and to enjoy
This little time we have is blessing true
And yet, we're made to squander it on things
That have no meaning, being webs of lies.

And woe!  We're caught within those iron webs,
And so must spin, like gears of engines made
For profit and for keeping us enslaved,
Compelled to do, and do at vicious speed,
Our virtues quelled or used for specious ends...

Yet some of us attempt to do what's right,
To do our jobs as conscience asks us to,
To bring some meaning back, where meaning's gone,
To bring some light again to eyes grown dull,
For our own satisfaction at the end
Of working day – and then of working life,
So we can say, “It wasn't all a waste.”

******

And what, I wonder, will our students do,
The ones who strive, with diligence, to learn?
Will they, in turn, be caught in spreading webs,
Be gears in engines, fated then to spin
And grind away their lives in senseless ways,
And only blessed by grace of ignorance?

If I had courage more, to students, I
Would say, “Leave all your books aside
And all those gadgets new that entertain.
Go walk a mile beside that ocean shore
And gaze at curving waves and arcing sky.
In silence, walk, to learn the lessons deep.
And treading softly on the hallowed ground
That gave you birth, reach down to touch its breast.

“Awake at dawn.  Inhale the morning mist,
The scent of grass...  Anoint your temples with
That dew, the tranquil essence of the sea,
That sky has brought in silence to the land.
And in that silence, look in others' eyes
And sense what currents run within that deep.
And if you can, from window, roof or street,
Observe the starry sky, the changing moon,
For they will teach you what I cannot teach.”

2012 December 27th, Thu.
Brooklyn
 

How Beautiful

How Beautiful

How beautiful, that evening sky,
In pastel shades aglow,
With clouds that streamed from west to east
In dark processions swift...

I watched that sky this evening, as
Those pastels faded, slow.
The winter winds were biting, but
I felt my spirits lift...

Ah, beauty, how you cure the heart
That's sickened by the rush...
You still the worker's fevered thoughts,
His altercations hush...

And yet, he writes these verses that
Are echoes of that quiet,
That beauty that he saw displayed
That soothed his own disquiet...

He watched the sky this evening, as
His tide was ebbing, slow.
His body-mind was aching yet
He felt his spirits lift...

How transient, that field above,
In softest tints aglow,
With horses dark that raced across
In long processions swift...

2012 December 22, Sat.
Brooklyn