In My Dreams

The Waltz 

by Felix Vallotton (1893)

 
The daggers drawn during the day,
Venomously tipped,
Rested in cushioned sheaths,
In my dreams.

So easily we swam,
Across the chasm of silence,
Filled by moonlight,
With freshsweet streams.

Easy steps,
All in perfect time,
Can you believe?
We almost waltzed,
In my dreams.

Leaving the day behind,
With its many rough jibes,
We met in a world quite unknown,
In my dreams. 

If You Ask Me, I'll Say

New York Movie, 1939 

by Edward Hopper

To say the very thing
One feels and thinks
Is getting harder by the day.

How does one say a thing,
When chatter swirls within?
An unruly cast
Assembled at a reading deranged
Flinging, singing, mumbling, screaming.

If you insist too much
Impatiently
I could present to you
a feeble show
Strung together with
Someone's sputtering opening
A muddled middle
And the wriggling tail of quite another.

But if you ask again
Sincerely
I would have to tell you
One cannot possibly say anything at all
While waiting in the wings
Of one's own cacophonous play
Lips pursed
And listening. 

Last Night Arose

Head by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1915)

Last night arose
Beneath my window
A golden gleaming sun.

Steady glare of the streetlight
And a troupe of dancing rain
A whirling expressionist woodcut
Etched onto the tarmac plain.

I watched transfixed
As the sky raged
And the tears began to swim.
I watched transfixed
And willed the glum fog
Inside me to lift.

But what warmth could I borrow?
What light could I seek?
What courage could I muster?
From a pool of damp lies and dreams?

To watch it transfixed
With hope and patience
And a quiet desperate might,
Was only a weak trick
To get through the black, black night. 

Grief

Workers on their Way Home, 1913

by Edvard Munch

Grief, a solid rock

Lodged in the quarry’s pit.

Immovable, unbreakable

Coated with a thousand nights.

Burrow around it all you like,

Wander above for hours on end

But one has to,

At the end of however distracted a day,

Clamber wearily down,

Down into that solitary cave.

A cave so full,

Full of that stubborn solid rock

Lodged in your quarry’s pit

Letting no air in, no light.

How many little people?

Pressed against

How many monstrous rocks?

A wretched underground orb.

खिड़कियां

Evening Wind by Edward Hopper (1921)

दीवार में खिड़की
खिड़की में रात
खिड़की की रात
दीवार से उजली।

दीवार की रात
में भी एक खिड़की
फैली हुई विशाल
सिरहाने से लेकर
छत तक चढ़ आयी खिड़की।

खुद परछाईं
पर चौगुनी खिड़की
हर कोने से खींची सी
भीतर इसके
और परछाइयां
पंखे की हौली धड़कन
और भागती हुई एक और छोटी सी खिड़की।

रात घनी हो
दीवारें कई हों
पर खुलती रहें
ऐसी खिड़कियां
उजली सी
लहराती सी
चारों ओर फैलती ब्रह्माण्ड सी।

Ghanshyam

Radha & Krishna Walking at Night

Folio from the Tehri Garhwal series of the Gita Govind (1775-80)
Punjab Hills, Kingdom of Kangra or Guler

Wept my eyes blue,
Looking for Ghanshyam.
I had him beside me
And now he is gone.

Standing at the crossroads,
Squinting in the dark,
I conjure blue shadows,
Turning to mist, each one.

Is he playing one of his tricks?
Making my heart so sink?
Am I abandoned for good?
Or to follow him into the distant woods?

Waiting at the crossroads,
I think I will rest my tired blue eyes.
Maybe as dawn breaks,
I will find him once again,
by my side.

A Dream?

Separation II (1896) by Edvard Munch

In foul togetherness,

We walked weary,

Of weather,

Of purpose,

And of each other.

Mud clung to our feet,

Our eyes did not meet,

Doors you opened,

Were not for me.

My breath split in half,

Coloured the vision a sickly grey.

You stood apart,

Pointing the way.

At the edge of indifference,

I would be hung,

Half-breath

And scarce a tongue.