William Faulkner

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist�s way of scribbling �Kilroy was here� on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.
 

Wim wnders

A few moments ago,
someone probably stood on the yellow step
in front of that door,
smoked a cigarette,
flipped the butt into the hot street
and went back to work inside.
Behind the wall and its promise
of a safe way,
it was certainly nice and cool.
----Wim Wenders (Director of Paris, Texas and Wings of desire)
 

When the child was a child

Song of Childhood
By Peter Handke


When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.

When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.

When the child was a child,
it had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.

When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?

When the child was a child,
It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding,
and on steamed cauliflower,
and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to.

When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck.

It had visualized a clear image of Paradise,
and now can at most guess,
could not conceive of nothingness,
and shudders today at the thought.

When the child was a child,
It played with enthusiasm,
and, now, has just as much excitement as then,
but only when it concerns its work.

When the child was a child,
It was enough for it to eat an apple, … bread,
And so it is even now.

When the child was a child,
Berries filled its hand as only berries do,
and do even now,
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,
and do even now,
it had, on every mountaintop,
the longing for a higher mountain yet,
and in every city,
the longing for an even greater city,
and that is still so,
It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
with an elation it still has today,
has a shyness in front of strangers,
and has that even now.
It awaited the first snow,
And waits that way even now.

When the child was a child,
It threw a stick like a lance against a tree,
And it quivers there still today.

Sergio Leone---The Director of 'Once upon a time in the west' 

Path

Path

A monk asked his Master, “After this training I have two paths to choose. Which one shall I choose?” The Master replied “If you had no path what will you choose?”

Moon in the water

Moon in the water

When the nun Chiyono studied Zen under Bukko of Engaku she was unable to attain the fruits of meditation for a long time.
At last one moonlit night she was carrying water in an old pail bound with bamboo. The bamboo broke and the bottom fell out of the pail, and at that moment Chiyono was set free!
In commemoration, she wrote a poem:
In this way and that I tried to save the old pailSince the bamboo strip was weakening and about   to breakUntil at last the bottom fell out.No more water in the pail!No more moon in the water!

Manjusri at the gate

Manjusri at the gate
One day as Manjusri stood outside the gate, the Buddha called to him, "Manjusri, Manjusri, why do you not enter?" Manjusri replied, "I do not see myself as outside. Why enter?"

Ju 

Tasting the world

Eyes
BlinkOpenBlinkOpen
And the world goes...
BlackFacesBlackPlaces

Ears
CalmpOpenClampOpen
And the world goes...
SilenceVoicesSilenceNoises

Nose
CloseOpenCloseOpen
And the world goes...
BreathlessSavourBreathlessFlavor

Tongue
LickCloseLickClose
And the world goes...
BitterBlandSweeterBland

Body
JumpFallJumpFall
And the world goes...
HighLowHighSlow

Frank Sinatra-----Something Stupid

I know I stand in line, until you think you have the time
To spend an evening with me
And if we go someplace to dance, I know that there’s a chance
You won’t be leaving with me

And afterwards we drop into a quiet little place
And have a drink or two
And then I go and spoil it all, by saying something stupid
Like: "i love you"

I can see it in your eyes, that you despise the same old lies
You heard the night before
And though it’s just a line to you, for me it’s true
It never seemed so right before

I practice every day to find some clever lines to say
To make the meaning come through
But then I think I’ll wait until the evening gets late
And I’m alone with you

The time is right your perfume fills my head, the stars get red
And oh the night’s so blue
And then I go and spoil it all, by saying something stupid
Like: "i love you"

("i love you, I love you,...")

Castaway

Castaway

It was an island with a beautiful landscape
On which subsisted a castaway lonely
Trees, birds and water were his company only
He waited day and night for an escape

He learnt to swim and readied a boat
Gathered food and water for the set off
Planned to push the boat at the wave’s trough
But the beauty of the island let him not

“Escape to the meddlesome civilization?”
The idea doesn’t seemed to be right
“Why not settle here and live a life bright?”
But his loneliness needed compensation

So, he travelled for many days till he reached the shore
He kidnapped a mother and her daughter
Fetched them to his place surrounded by water
On their arrival a monkey welcomed them ashore

A man, a woman, a girl and a monkey
Were the only inhabitants of the lonely land
From day one the mother had the escape planned
She knew, for their escape, the monkey is the key

The woman and the girl got the monkey trained
They taught the monkey all the trickery
And threw the monkey on the castaway named Hickory
Sure was he irritated and got the monkey chained

In the dark of the night the monkey ate some grapes
And in the silence of the night it meditated
In less than few moments the agitated
Army of apes arrived from the planet of the apes

The castaway was taken in their space ship
He was thrown back in to a crowded city
No body believed his story. Oh, what a pity
That is the story of a castaway and his trip.

He,She and God

He said,
“I am stupid. Am I?”

She said,
“I could paint the skies with it,instead I whisper, Love you as you are.”

God said,
“My child, she was your mother eighteen lifetimes ago.”

Hand in Hand

You and me

Hand in hand

YouMeYouMeYouMeYouMe

YouMeYouMeYouMeYouMe

YouMeYouMeYouMeYouMe

You and me

Hand in Hand

YouMeYouMeYouMeYouMe

YouMeYouMeYouMeYouMe

YouMeYouMeYouMeYouMe

Me and You

Hand in hand

YouMeYouMeYouMeYouMe

YouMeYouMeYouMeYouMe

YouMeYouMeYouMeYouMe

Me and You

Hand in Hand

Wind worries the leaves
Some fall down, some rise up
The tree stands still.
 

"When you see your own photo, do you say you're a fiction?"----Godard
 

The Dream

Kalugin fell asleep and had a dream that he was sitting in some bushes and a policeman was walking past the bushes.

Kalugin woke up, scratched his mouth and went to sleep again and had another dream that he was walking past some bushes and that a policeman had hidden in the bushes and was sitting there.

Kalugin woke up, put a newspaper under his head, so as not to wet the pillow with his dribblings, and went to sleep again; and again he had a dream that he was sitting in some bushes and a policeman was walking past the bushes.

Kalugin woke up, changed the newspaper, lay down and went to sleep again. He fell asleep and had another dream that he was walking past some bushes and a policeman was sitting in the bushes.

At this point Kalugin woke up and decided not to sleep any more, but he immediately fell asleep and had a dream that he was sitting behind a policeman and some bushes were walking past.

Kalugin let out a yell and tossed around in his bed but couldn't wake up.

Kalugin slept straight through for four days and four nights and on the fifth day he awoke so emaciated that he had to tie his boots to his feet with string, so that they didn't fall off. In the bakery where Kalugin always bought wheaten bread, they didn't recognize him and handed him a half-rye loaf.

And a sanitary commission, which was going round the apartments, on catching sight of Kalugin, decided that he was unsanitary and no use for anything and instructed the janitors to throw Kalugin out with the rubbish.

Kalugin was folded in two and thrown out as rubbish.

-------Daniil Kharms

Cinema and truth 

Syzygy

I notice headlights out the living room window
then catch the bass in a pickup as it drives by.
I am shocked to learn that doctors collected
the urine of menopausal nuns in Italy to extract
gonadotropins. And is that what one draws,
in infinitesimal dose, out of a vial?
I remember a steel wool splinter in my finger
and how difficult it was to discern, extract
under a magnifying glass; yet—blue mold,
apple dropping from branch—it is hard to see
up close when, at the periphery, the unexpected
easily catches the eye. Last Thursday night,
we looked through binoculars at the full moon,
watched it darken and darken until, eclipsed,
it glowed ferrous-red. By firelight, we glowed;
my fingertips flared when I rubbed your shoulders,
softly bit your ear. The mind is a tuning fork
that we strike, and, struck, in the syzygy
of a moment, we find the skewed, tangled
passions of a day begin to straighten, align, hum.
------ Arthur Sze

Cops and Robbers –S .Diwakar

Always

some are policemen,

others thieves.

Thieves steal the moon and hide it.

Policemen hunt for the thieves and hunt for the moon;

they catch the thieves and nail

the moon back into the sky

Thieves steal the heart of a girl.

Policemen hunt for the thieves and hunt for the heart;

they catch the thieves and take

the heart to the girl.

"I don’t need that heart," cries the girl.

But the policemen shove it down her throat,

they tell her it’s their duty.

Thieves steal the sparks from the waves

and hide them in their hearts.

Policemen hunt for the thieves and hunt for the sparks;

they catch the thieves and pour

the sparks back into the waves.

When the sparks fade, the policemen say,

"What can we do? We have done our duty."

Thieves steal whatever they can lay their hands on:

dry leaves, threads of a rainbow,

pieces of smiles, whispers of seasons,

footprints on water…

Yes, they steal whatever they can lay their hands on.

Policemen always chase the thieves.

Sometimes they catch them, sometimes they don’t.

When they don’t catch the thieves,

they sit and polish their boots,

they nail up posters everywhere

that declare, ‘Theft is evil’.

Yet, policemen cannot understand

that whatever the thieves steal

will grow back,

and whatever they snatch from the thieves

will not fit in their places.

Whoever hears of this will immediately become a thief

as some tired thieves

become policemen.

Always

some are policemen,

some are thieves.

Translated from the Kannada by Christopher Merrill

  
  S. Diwakar is an award-winning Kannada poet and fiction writer. He lives in Madras
(Coutesy: Litlemag.com)

      

Love Story

On his first train journey in London he falls in love with a beautiful girl with black hair and blue eyes. While he is lost in his thoughts about the nationality of the girl and the ways to approach a new girl in a new place, the love story comes to a jerky ending when the girl gets down at a station called Euston. He continues his journey thinking how stupid his thoughts were. On his arrival at the destination he meets his friends. The friends treat him with good Indian food; discuss mundane things. Later in the evening when he is returning to his place he takes a train in which he occupies the same seat that he took in the morning. He even wonders if it was the same train and same compartment that he travelled in the morning. As the train moves in the underground piercing the darkness, a flash of bright light wakes him up to reality. The reality is the Euston station with large flashy advertising banners and loud music from a street Guitarist. While the doors of the train open to commuters to exit and enter, his small eyes widen with a great expectation. Through the rush of passengers entering and exiting the train he moves hither thither expecting a miracle.

And it was a miracle.The girl from the morning train, with the same black hair and blue eyes is back in the same train, same compartment. Strangely she sits at the same seat which she occupied in the morning. He is once again lost in his thoughts about the nationality of the girl and the ways to approach a new girl in a new place. More than anything he is excited about this coincidence, but only for a short while. As the train reaches Maidenhead, the place where he lives, he exits from the train with a heavy heart and the love story comes to a jerky ending twice in a single day.

One day. One train. One girl. One heart but twice broken. As he walks out of the railway station he walks towards his flat thinking how stupid he was.