Another corner of BatticaloaI rode to so many small corners in my Sri Lankan village when I was there. Almost always just at dawn. Moments come where I remember those corners almost just the way they were. They composed the atmosphere of a fairly remote spot of a remote spot of Sri Lanka, already a "corner" on its own.The corner ...
Opportunity lost opportunity. Whet can it possibly mean? What can it possibly add up to? Every day I was there I worked. I wrote. Intensively and intensely. I struggled with words, stumbled on words, did heavy lifting with words and word entities that pointed, reflected, advanced the ideas and experiences I encountered. Fought their way out of the dark thick ...
It's not the remembering now as much as it was the living then. Every moment was lived. Even the slow motion mid morning lie down under the fan, when it was too hot to think of anything, when the pool was over and anyway, heating up. That pool. It was new, only built a few years ago. One of the ...
There was a dark corner I'd come to every day on my predawn bike rides out of the grounds. First I'd unlock my bike from the post by my room and drift to the front gate. It was dark on the gravel road but not as dark as it would get outside the gate. Falling coconuts were the only danger ...
RespirationLike a mismapped somethingor a piece of uncooked oatmeal not finding its way all the way downThis is how you pantFinding the black hole of semi consciousness Watered by very distant tunesplaying right in your earbuds BalanceMarks the distance you cannot mapor a weighted ball that hoversThis is how you breatheWearing the sheath of indifferent muscle Creating worlds of breathplaying ...
Why I'm using Twitter with my students this yearFace it. I have a class of 92 students. There's no way I can engage or get engaged with each of them. Especially not using "traditional" modalities like term papers, lab reports, and exams. But engagement is the goal of my course. It's more important than content mastery for my students, all ...
It's not that I wanted to stop thinking about Sri Lanka. It's that I had to get back to "here." The immersion there was deep and subtle, permeated by sounds and visuals that are pretty well inexplicable in our world. Nothing to explain to people here. And no one wanted to hear. In conversation, as I'd predicted, us bringing up ...
Two months out of Sri Lanka and still putting the long time we spent there into perspective. I'm so glad I wrote intensely and every day while we were there. The immediacy of my impressions and emotions holds so much. Still without going back to those posts I know there is a lot to pull from the impressions I recorded. ...
Before I left for Sri Lanka I had no idea what I would encounter. My greatest wish was to establish ties so I could bring students over for what I hoped would be a great "abroad" program--a feather in BU's cap. I went from office to office or you could say " from pillar to post" in the months before ...
A bell ringsThe hostilities are overThe numbers Creep forward with veracityInside the smallest oneThere's a clear acrylic ballWith thin wallsCellophane likeInside the ball there's a clear acrylic wallInvisible, only extending a little way from the wallsBetween that wallExistent and nonexistent Bounces the truthExistent and non existent Its songs are sung in Tamil Its timbre is a Tamil cadenceIts replies and ...
I've heard this strange mg sound Where "ama" turns to "ang or "ong"As in sarama turning to sarongAnd somewhere in between there'sThat momentary mgJust a hint for listeningIn a dream I was interrogated Nothing new in thatBut every word the judge asked me ended in the impossibility of mgCould you write it down I askedAnd every word still ended in ...
Did they chase his motherHe can't rememberDon't throw out that empty valiseYou can fill it with rags or pagesDon't throw out that rag You can find an odor in it or soak it with tears or breathDon't throw out that piece of paperYou can fill it with the memoriesYou don't haveOr you can fill it with the words she tells ...
Pour water over meDouse me with camphor smoke like the emerging can't yet walk monkey god HanumanPut a tail on meDouse me some more with smokeKeep me from falling backward like that Hanuman, that monkey godThe offerings floor is wetThe steps are wet The reenactment of HanumanAnd a hundred more reenactmentsAre going on insideIt's a spectacle like we're a spectacleWith ...
You are still getting in my wayYou are still getting in my wayYou are still getting in my wayYou fell in the light and absorbed You are still getting in my wayYou are still getting in my wayYou fell in the light and absorbedAnd changed the energy You are still getting in my wayYou fell in the light and absorbedAnd ...
There are not always two sides to Every story I can give you examplesOf where this holds some truthThough you will disagree withThe viewpoint that I proffer whereOne story must be based on hateAnd anyway my story lacks The seal of approval of what we've Come to call political correctness Where political correctness Has somehow come to condoneYou know what. ...
There are not always two sides to Every story I can give you examplesOf where this holds some truthThough you will disagree withThe viewpoint that I proffer whereOne story must be based on hateAnd anyway my story lacks The seal of approval of what we've Come to call political correctness Where political correctness Has somehow come to condoneYou know what. ...
After ringlets of fairest dew have frothed, then gushed, then flown, and then dissolvedLike a palm forest in balmy breezes, fairest breezes, its fronds giving an incandescent, incessant music, drone-like, shattering in glassy half notes and quarter notes You, becalmed, benign, relaxed tell me the most interesting story.You went last night to the private hospital to see the neurosurgeon on ...
Go to fill and fill up fullBarely coming to wander in fixed translations Park your bike at this railroad junction Barely aware of traffic on either sideWalk your fill in village lanesTheir berms and verges hidden Behind corrugationWatch darkening porches shaded verandasSetting up with seats for the afternoon's reposeTry me for telling. Try me for the truth. It isn't usual ...
Went onwardInto the land of the growingWhere so much sittingCrossed my path Onward into the land of powerA set of mirrors strike the lightOnward where music's fables Guide a march of lift and effortStruggling with impossibilitiesStill unfound, still covered, still unspoken and unreflectedUnder the territory of time's allusion Up past the Kali KovilWhere destruction meets the watery watersLagoonish shade pleasant ...
Extracting it seems was easierWhen there were less words involvedIt was the asphaltish odor that stopped them from talkingAnd so getting through and out of the dayBecame a convenience instead of a burden Using coins that buried a wealth of stolen itemsThey found time. At railway bridges. At stops along the road where tables were greasy and covered with flies. ...