BEING ALONE - by Gerry Legister

BEING  ALONE  by Gerry Legister Only my soul see the seasons when I am alone Wearing the camouflage of a mocking frown, The frock grows longer when I am on my own Serene Emblems of clouds sparkle in my crown. When the whole realm of close friends disappear The eyes within my heart became black and blue, Misty springs waltz through the atmosphere, Gave the world no sign of the solitude I knew. Just as fear is anxious about reasons for doubt Floating dreams struggle with truths to enjoy, The normal part of existing life breaking out Trying to run away from emotional ties of memory. We remain esteemed strangers within the walls Of the challenging places where we sit alone, In painful zone listening to our own distant voices Playing calm tunes to replicate our delicate form. The forlorn glands of pride were soiled and sunny Indiscreet fears bunched and bungled together, On every phony feeling awake inside of my tummy The voices of loneliness own every defining hour. Shared on the long road of Independent demand When good friends are gone, we are left alone With opinions to ponder as strangers in the land, Reaping galvanize reforms to leave the tragic union.

BEAUTY AN SOLITUDE - by Gerry Legister

BEAUTY  AN  SOLITUDE   by Gerry Legister I will leave all the struggles and the trouble of the worlds conquest by every pleasure found, And go to a place where the wind softly whistle in the breeze with no tempest snares around. To be alone with heavenly sound of inner peace that raises my soul to a higher spiritual plane, Where anxiety's deadly attacks will slowly cease And I am free from critical cliché of emotional pain. Where The beauty of seclusion fuels my imagination shaping future existence and reality within my mind, and make the freedom of feeling a great liberation, unrestricted by regulations and rules of every kind. Daily, I seek the beauty of solitude by choice And listen to the hush whispers of my inner voice.

AUTUMN RAIN by Gerry Legister

AUTUMN  RAIN  by  Gerry Legister  When we see summer changes The clothes we wear quickly disappear, And the next season rearranges Clouds more fastidious in the atmosphere. The fall is here; it means a new challenge For our clothes, shoes and hair From the warmth of summer to darker rage Autumn quietly drifts in unaware. Let the autumn rain fall upon you, Let the autumn rain beat upon the trees Until the leaves fall down and become new. Let the autumn season fondly release The changes that time replicates Shadows on the floor and rain in the air, With pools of water running off the trees And wash down into the gutter. Let the rain fall softly while you sleep And make the rhythm night beat With a lullaby playing upon the housetop, A note of intrigue to adorn the light. When pools of water from the sidewalk Splash upon you with quick surprise, It makes you walk with a watermark To stain the perfect spot on our tresses.

AUTUMN RAIN - by Paula Glynn

AUTUMN  RAIN by Paula Glynn  Autumn rain falls down upon my head, I suppose I should be using an umbrella, But I love the rain in autumn, That dying season where everything goes underground, For this is the season where winter waits to descend, And leaves turn brown and gold as they die, But this is not a negative thing, For they will flourish again once winter thaws, And the rain falls upon those trees, That are alive, yet so calm and still, Knowing that autumn isn't the end of their life. People celebrate Halloween, The night for tricks and treats, Children's imagination knowing no limits, For autumn is the season of change, And ghosts and ghouls haunt the streets, Devils appearing in their ghostly forms, As they prey upon the unsuspecting, The night full of endless possibilities, The night falling early, As children knock door-to-door, Begging for sweets and sometimes playing funny tricks, But do beware: the ghosts of Halloween are here. Then there comes Guy Fawkes night, Fireworks painting the sky colourful pinks and reds, Greens, yellows, purples and blues, For tonight Guy Fawkes shall burn, His world turning red, As people stare at his legacy, For he shall burn forever, His crimes written in the flames, And everybody knows his name, As they remember his crimes, And people eat toffee apples, Sausages and burgers, As they enjoy their night, For this is also a celebration, A celebration of autumn rain, But there is no rain tonight, For tonight we wander the streets, Our ghostly forms preying on the unsuspecting: Those who know not what we are, For we are witches riding those broomsticks, As we read the fortunes of a dying season.

   

YOU ARE POETRY - by Cody Graham

YOU ARE POETRY by Cody Graham  You come out To view the faint sunset Light bewildered by trees Shines through quietly You glide your soft auburn hair Perched behind your ear And in this moment I feel at home Beneath the interior You are my humble abode ... Your company is soothing Calming and reassuring Inside, the wind chimes ring You saunter and my hearts sings Bit by bit I begin to recognize The enchanting glow in your subtle eyes Hidden in all abstract paintings It's you; what all artists see You are poetry ...

YOU ARE MY FOREVER LOVE by Uriel Consolo

YOU ARE MY FOREVER LOVE  by Uriel Consolo  Your friendship and love, And all the wonderful things That they bring into my life, Are like nothing else I have ever known. My heart is complete With the love we share, And our love grows more Beautiful each day. I love you, And as long as we are together, I have everything I need. You are with me always... In a smile, a memory, a feeling Or a moment we share. You will always be My Forever Love

MODERNE BOHO - jersey - designer Sarah Pacini

ENCHANTED INDIA - by Prince BOJIDAR KARAGEORGEVITCH (MADRAS / CHENNAI)

Prince  BOJIDAR KARAGEORGEVITCH

Born - 11 January 1862 - Died - 2 April 1908 (aged 46) Versailles

Prince Bojidar belonged to the senior line of the Karađorđević dynasty. He was the second son of Prince George Karageorgevich and his wife Sarka Anastasijević (his older brother was Prince Alexis Karageorgevich). His grandfather Prince Aleksa was the eldest son of Karađorđe Petrović, the founder of the House of Karađorđević and leader of the First Serbian Uprising.

Prince Bojidar lived in France for most of his life as the members of the Karađorđević dynasty were in exile after Prince Alexander Karađorđević lost the Serbian throne in 1858.

Bojidar travelled a lot and went on a number of trips around the world.

Portrait of a seated girl wearing jewellery, from Madras in Tamil Nadu, taken in 1872 - Old Indian Photos

MADRAS (CHENNAI)

The city produces an impression as of a town built in the clouds and then dropped, scattered over the plain with vast arid and barren spaces left between the houses. In the native and Moslem quarters, indeed, there is a crowd of buildings, closely packed, crammed together on quite a small plot of ground; and among them the electric tramway runs its cars, useless just now, and empty of travellers, for it is the beginning of Ramadan, and the Mohammedans in broad daylight are letting off crackers in honour of the festival.

In the hotel compound more absurd than all the rest, lost in a waste of open land beyond the seething native town there was a swarm of coolie servants, their wives and their children, who played all day at climbing about the coaches put up under the trees. And, without ceasing, a maddening hubbub of laughter and crying came up from this litter of brats, more weariful than the silence of vacancy all around.

The draught-oxen all had their horns painted in gaudy colours, generally one horn blue and the other green.

In the evening, in the open street, we came upon a circle of bystanders all beating time, while in the midst four little girls were dancing, wearing the sarong, but naked to the waist. They leaned very much over to the right, resting the right elbow on the groin, clapping the right hand with the left, and throwing back the left leg. All four did the same, round and round, and this went on again and again without a pause, under the pale light of the stars filtering through an enormous banyan tree. Occasionally a woman among the crowd would give a slow, long-drawn cry, and the dancers answered in very short notes, piercingly shrill.

Spencer Plaza built 1863

In the native town, on a tank in front of a temple, a raft was moving very slowly. Under a dazzlingly gorgeous canopy stood an idol of gold, covered with garlands and jewels. A dense crowd, white and fragrant with jasmine and sandal-wood, stood about the sacred pool and on the steps, and bowed reverently as the divinity floated past.

One old man, indeed, bowed so low that he fell into the water, and all the worshippers shouted with laughter.

The streets were hung with gaudy flags and coloured paper. Altars had been erected, four poles supporting an awning with flounces of bright-coloured silk, and under them a quantity of idols, of vases filled with amaryllis and roses, and even dainty little Dresden figures exquisite curtseying Marquises, quite out of their element among writhing Vishnus and Kalis.

That evening, near the temple where the god, having left the tank, was receiving the flowers and scents offered by his votaries, there was howling and yelling from the crowd of Hindoos, all crushing and pushing, but going nowhere. And louder yet the noise of the tom-toms, which the musicians raised to the desired pitch by warming them in front of big fires throwing off clouds of acrid smoke.

In one tent there was a display of innumerable gilt images, very suggestive of Jesuit influence mincing, chubby angels, martyrs carrying palm-branches, and ecstatic virgins with clasped hands, all serving to decorate the shrine in which the god was to be carried back to the temple. Coloured fires lighted the workmen, and in the background the temple was darkly visible, with only a few dim lamps shrouded in incense, and burning before Rama, whose festival was being kept.

The god having been placed in the shrine, which was enormously heavy, and took a hundred men to carry it, the procession set out. First two drums, then some children burning coloured fire and whirling fireworks round above their heads. Three oxen with housings of velvet, richly embroidered in gold, carried tom-tom drummers, and behind them came the priests and the god, hardly visible among the lights and flowers on the shrine. A breath of awe fell on the crowd as the divinity came by; they bowed in adoration with clasped hands and heads bent very low.

Madras (Chennai) City and Harbour - 1910

To light the way, coolies carried long iron tridents tipped with balls of tow soaked in oil. The mass moved slowly forward through the people, suddenly soothed to silence. The procession paused at the wayside altars, and then, in the middle of a circle formed by the torch-bearers and coloured lights, the sacred bayadères appeared—three girls with bare heads, dressed in stiff new sarongs heavy with tinkling trinkets, and an old woman crowned with a sort of very tall cylindrical tiara of red velvet embroidered with gold. Very sweet-toned bagpipes and some darboukhas played a slow tune, and the dancers began to move; they spun slowly round, their arms held out, their bodies kept rigid, excepting when they bowed to the shrine. The crude light of the red fire or the sulphurous flare of the torches fell on their glittering ornaments, alternately festive and mysterious, shedding over the performance an atmosphere at once dreamy and magically gorgeous.

Then all went out, died gently away; the tom-toms and pipe attending the god's progress alone were audible in the silence; till in the distance a great blaze of light flashed out, showing a crowd of bright turbans and the glittering splendour of the shrine going up the steps to the temple where, till next year, Rama would remain the exiled god, worshipped for his wisdom which enabled him to discover the secrets, to find the true path, and win the forgiveness of his father.

The doors were shut; all was silence the stillness of the star-lit night.

Many hapless creatures here suffer from elephantiasis, and even quite little children are to be seen with an ankle stiffened, or perhaps both the joints ossified; and the whole limb will by and by be swollen by the disease, a monstrous mass dreadfully heavy to drag about. Other forms of lupus affect the face, and almost always, amid a crowd watching some amusing performance, a head suddenly appears of ivory whiteness, the skin clinging to the bone or disfigured by bleeding sores.

Steaming over the transparent and intensely blue sea, we presently perceived an opaquer streak of sandy matter, getting denser, and becoming at last liquid, extremely liquid, yellow mud the waters of the Ganges, long before land was in sight. Between the low banks, with their inconspicuous vegetation, a desolate shore, we could have fancied we were still at sea when we had already reached the mouth of the sacred stream. Some Hindoos on board drew up the water in pails to wash their hands and face, fixing their eyes in adoration on the thick sandy fluid. Enormous steamships crossed our bows, and in the distance, like a flock of Ibis, skimmed a whole flotilla of boats with broad red sails, through which the low sun was shining. The banks closed in, the landscape grew more definite tall palm trees, plots of garden ground, factory chimneys, a high tower. On the water was an inextricable confusion of canoes and row-boats flitting among the steamships and sailing barks moored all along the town that stretched away out of sight.

WATERCOLORS - Artist Igor Manukhov

MY ROSE - by Tess Stoops

MY  ROSE by  Tess Stoops  I want this to last Grow Like a rose Bloom And never die I want it to keep its color Pressed between well read pages Saved forever Brilliance never seeping away Perfume never fading Never losing any part Of what it is now I want this to last... Forever

I STILL REMEMBER by Hasrat Mohani

I  STILL  REMEMBER  by  Hasrat Mohani Original in Urdu Shedding tears in silence I still remember Those days of falling in love I still remember Seeing you how speechless I would become Your finger in your teeth I still remember When you had no lover besides me Tell me those flirtations if you still remember In hiding you'd come to see me at that place It has been ages but that palce I still remember Telling this tale of my heart's sorrows listlessly Turning the bracelets on your wrists  I still remember

ABANDONMENT - by Anup Bhargava - Hindi Poet

ABANDONMENT by Anup Bhargava - Hindi Poet You are the shore. I rise like a thirsty wave to kiss you. You stand there like a rock as usual. Each time only I, after touching you, keep on going back.

IN THE STILLNESS OF A WORD by Amrits Bharati Literal translator Lucy Rosenstein

IN THE STILLNESS OF A WORD   by Amrits Bharati Literal translator Lucy Rosenstein   Both are so alike - his earth my sky I wanted to follow him wherever he went But our paths were so different - he was on one I on the other with a line between us - his and mine We were one in our soul But he walked on the low peaks of the earth And I in the high chasms of the sky Maybe these two paths will turn one day in my poetry so we may walk together in the stillness of a word

DEEP IN THE STILLNESS by Amrits Bharati Literal translator Lucy Rosenstein

DEEP IN THE STILLNESS  by Amrits Bharati Literal translator Lucy Rosenstein   He threw me away like a clod of earth. He didn't know I was a thing with a soul. He didn't know I was alive. He kept on throwing me like a clod of earth out of his way - onto that neglected path that happened to be mine. And so I kept travelling along my own way. Each time some fragment broke off - some infatuation, some addiction to happiness, some earthly hope, some dream squandered on man. Each time some fragment of my being would break off. And now it was my turn. The world was already left behind - like a desert in a sandstorm, like an ocean in a hurricane, like a desolate city. Man, step by step descending, was already left behind. And now it was my turn. Standing on the last patch of earth I gathered myself into a whole thing and hurled myself into the stillness. This was my silence - pervasive and expansive. Now the world was either a dream or a sea-flower imagined at the end of the ocean. Deep in the stillness. Only the sound of my footsteps.

.

HINDI LOVE POEM with English translation

दिल की चाहत कल भी तुम थे आज भी तुम हो मेरी ज़रूरत कल भी तुम थे आज भी तुम हो तुमने तो मुझे कबका भुला दिया मेरी आदत कल भी तुम थे आज भी तुम हो तुमने न जाना कितना तुमको प्यार किया मेरी इबादत कल भी तुम थे आज भी तुम हो बेखबर बनते हो खबर हो के भी मेरी किस्मत कल भी तुम थे आज भी तुम हो -अनुष्का सूरी

English Translation: You were my heart’s desire yesterday, and today as well   You were my need yesterday, and today as well It has been a long time since you have forgotten me. You were my habit yesterday, and today as well.   You never had any clue How much I loved you You were my prayer yesterday, and today as well.   You act unaware even after knowing it all. You were my destiny yesterday, and today as well.