LIVING ON EDGE

Living on edge
walking on line
of life and death
on the brink perpetual
on the cliff of survival
soaring descending –
alert of death impending.
Do not shout here. Even
echoes of silence
bring tremors
to the mountain and valleys.
On the brink
rationale ends
senses evaporate
showers begin
seedlings sprout.  


Mumbai [17-7-1999] 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Walking away forever

Walking away forever  
From a make-believe picture   
of civilized culture  
In the rising sun I enter;  
It isn't same again ever.

(13.01.01)


* * * * * 
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Dialogue (urban haiku)

Word after word after...
But no dialogue —
In discord Remi disappeared.


 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Scholarship (Uraban Haiku)

Scholarship

Finally, after every  
Book of Discourses  
Another enters —    
No Action. 

* * * 
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Feast (Urban Haiku)

Bamboo forest blooms
Feast for rats  —  
And the hungry

* * * 
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Love on Internet (Urban Haiku)

'True' love on Internet  
Cactus laughs at  
Mirage  

*****
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

TWILIGHT ZONE (With Marathi Translation)

Earthworms - Silent Workers

A window of a cell – an eye on the world  
moves on and on, on the wings of clouds,  
a journey on the border of day and night
in the community of the Earth and stars.  

Here one can’t even touch nor is there
a room for trivialities of theories  
of trade, politics and philosophies,
and of the earthlings who don’t belong  

to the Earth and the Sun, living on  
self-deception and squabbles blown  
out of proportion, work–work–work,
work to leave glorious ruins behind.

The gods, god persons live on preaching
a hope of salvation, raise monuments
by blood-shed by the earthlings bonded  
perpetually to the chains of chaos.  

Blessed are the earthworms far away
from the public eye; they don’t make
scriptures or monuments out of their
shit to the legacy or lead Life astray.   
-- Remigius de Souza
(Twilight Zone was Published by ARCHETYPES INDIA on 25 June 2010. Also read a Comment by Nold Egenter)

संधिप्रकाश मंडल: विसाव्या शतकाचे श्राध्द

गवाक्ष कुटीचे - नजर जगतावर 
सरकते पुढे पुढे, ढगांच्या पंखांवर
यात्रा दिवस-रात्रीच्या संधीवर 
जेथे धरती व तारकांचा वसे परिवार 

येथे ना कुणी स्पर्शू करू शके, येथे ना
स्थान कःपदार्थ सिध्दांताना
व्यापार, राजकारण अन् दर्शनांच्या; 
अन भूचरांना जयाना नसे घरोबा 

वसुंधरा व दिवाकराशी, जे जगतात
आत्मप्रतारणेत अन फुगवलेल्या वादंगांत
प्रमाणाबाहेर. काम - काम - काम,
काम जो सोडीजे मागे भव्य भग्नावशेष 

दैवते, भगत, जे जगती देऊन प्रवचने   
मुक्तीच्या आशेची व उभारती स्मारके
रक्ताच्या साड्यांवर भूचारांच्या, जे जखडलेले 
सर्वकाळ अराजकांच्या साखळदंडांत.

पावन आहेत गांडुळे दुरस्त 
सार्वजनिक नजरेआड, ते नाही निर्मित
धर्मशास्त्रे वा स्मारके आपल्या
विष्टेतून वारसांसाठी, ना संहार जीवनाचा

टीप: १.  मूळ "Twilight Zone" (१६-०८-१९९९)  या प्रकाशित (poetry.com) इंग्रजी कवितेचे स्वैर भाषांतर.

२. प्रतिमा - गांडूळे, मृदा संधारण करणारा पर्यावरणातील एक महत्वाचा जीव, जो अजूनपर्यंत दुर्लक्षित होता

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Traffic jam! (Urban Haiku)

Traffic jam!
Gasoline down!
Batteries down!
Now? —
Down to Earth.


*****
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Boon Of Plenty (Urban Haiku)

Boon of Plenty
Harvests plenty —       
By Deductions. 


~ ~ ~ ~ ~
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Ego (Urban Haiku)

Ego flights raise
Waves
Of repulsion. 

***** 
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Charity (Urban Haiku)

Oh! Charity,
Sprinkle some
Wine drops —  
For the dying…

*****
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

Traffic rulebook - Urban Haiku

Traffic rulebook:
Respect
White cane —    
Blind street furniture 

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

The Idea of New Town: Navi Mumbai (POEM)

The original Title of the Poem

 (Poem written on 23-02-1997: I was writings a review of a workshop, "The Idea of New Town, Looking at Navi Mumbai" (earlier New Bombay). While writings it I was stuck for many reasons. One of them was the stalwarts in architecture and planning from India and abroad attended the workshop. Sant Tukaram came to my help, and I composed the following poem. I re-publish it.) 

Navi Mumbai and its Region

Oh Vitthala*, while you stand steadfast
On a single brick, the foundation bestowing
Courage and joy through Gyanoba-Tukoba*;
There is no beginning – no end.

On the threshold of Third Millennium
Of "English" calendar, what are a few decades
Of life of New Delhi, Chandigarh, or New Mumbai
But specks of dust in a hay stack?
We have lived through cities thousand years old.
The sperms of Navi Mumbai were laid in an incubator
By an industrial corporate body, legitimized
By the CIDCO* of Swadeshi Raj here
Of your beloved Maharashtra and of the displaced.

Oh Vithoba1, your beloved people of India
Are blessed by Mother Earth for millennia,
Living in million villages, who nurtured and helped
To sustain cities of Gods, kings and Nawabs.

In the age of rape of Mother Earth
And ecological-cultural subjugation of the sons of soil,
Pushed them to the brink, to make a fast buck
While the sun shines, through manufacture and market;
The machine does not make maize neither milk.

Corporations know not "boundaries", – neither of values
Nor culture, – Their tentacles reach afar
Under different garbs and masks anew;
What are the new towns across the continents
In the name of urbanism – yet another mask?

Swarms of corporate locust devouring resources
In decades, what had been plentiful for millions
Of living entities for centuries, to leave behind
“Holes in the sky". City planners are by-products.

We witnessed the destruction of Hiroshima-
Nagasaki, calamities man-made with impact;
the shudder of earth that reduced Kobe to debris.

You hold aloft Kedarnath – Kashi – Kanyakumari
Through the times of turmoil, age after age.
Bhagiratha*  brought Mother Ganga to revive
His five thousand ancestors in peril.

In the age of annihilation unsurpassed
His offspring struggle to survive in numbers.
Will the sons of soil survive or perish?
Oh, Vitthala, Give your holy verdict.

In the era of contraception - condoms - abortions,
The steel-glass-concrete jungles of modern towns
Are sprouting, sprawling, swelling, multiplying
To celebrate triumph of "Post-historic-Man".
Will New Town, living a hybrid life on life saving
Drugs, shall be or not be an abortion?

Desperate planners are gripped in two-three dimensions
When Newtonian Age passed away hither thither;
In spite of revelation of Time and Eternity;
And half-truth of second law of thermodynamics.

Tied to a mill of self-cantered ego, they go in rounds
Endless, locked in cells. Will some glimpse liberate them?
Oh Vithoba*, It is time again to release Vishwakarma*
from the bondage of Indra*, we pray.

We recite the past, or speculate the future in mechanical
Actions; run into political impotency;
when confronted to the Present, take refuge
of numbers in perpetuity, dividing, sieving, grading,
degrading the humanity at the cost of creativity.

Now the "Bhasmasura"* of modern technology is let loose
Shattering the ancient limits only to defile and displace
Land and Waters, to eliminate the living entities.
New Towns offer man a life of hydroponics.

His tentacles reach deeper and wider through his weapon –
"The Cities" – to bring slow death to regions afar without impact.
Oh Vithoba, heed to our invocation to give us Insight
into the Present, the People, the Life, the Nature's Way.

At the end of second millennium, they struggle
In the narrow compartments of 2D – 3D to establish
Credibility; offer the urbanites "New Town Neurosis"
They are yet to awaken to hyperspace;
How could the planners be Visionary?

Architecture is poet's imagination to serve
The two in hundred of the world;
Planning demands vision in Universal Truth
Of a sage – of a humble farmer – who lives
In the timeless eternal NOW. 
*   *   *   *   *
Remigius de Souza
Mumbai
23-2-1997

Notes:
* Vitthala, Vithoba: Most venerated deity in Maharashtra (an incarnation of Vishnu). * Gaynoba – Tukoba: Jnaneshwar and Tukaram are saint-poets of Maharashtra, India. * Swadeshi – Self-rule.
* CIDCO: City and Industrial Development Corporation, Maharashtra State, India. * Bhagiratha: a character from Mahabharata. * Vishwakarma, Indra, Bhasmasura: characters from Puranas. Bhasmasura is similar to Midas in the western mythology. However end of Bhasmasura comes reducing him ashes by his own folly, which is inevitable. There is no room for repentance.

('Who is the giver? Who is the receiver?-1', the original title of the poem, on the event, “Workshop – The Idea of New Town: Looking at Navi Mumbai" held at Coomaraswamy Hall, Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai on 21-22 February 1997.)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.

At my tiny little kitchen

At my tiny little kitchen


At my tiny little kitchen I meet
my kin, now and again daily.
A silent dialogue develops
in surrender and sacrifice.
They take me to faraway places,
And men, and women unknown,
And their toil of love benign
in the soil, water, sun and rain.

At my kitchen together
we surrender on the sacrificial alter
in living - growing - dying,
together loving and giving.
There grows a cosmic song,
takes me to region unknown.

~~~~~~~~
© Remigius de Souza., All rights reserves.