Simply beautiful

Simply beautiful

How often have you told me
Sweetheart, that honesty is the
Highest form of intimacy
But I’ll tell you the story
Of how the sun loved the moon so much

Because she represented the night
And his opposite and because
She died every night to
Let him breathe, honesty is then
Also the attraction of difference

My desires are honestly different
To your own, so don’t think
I don’t respect you if
I pursue what I desire in this world
To offer up my mortality to the Gods

Or to get praise from this transient audience
Doing what we love is its own reward
We are not all made to have children
Or find stability in this lonely world
To me, simplicity has always been

The last sophistication and
The one I could afford
So living imperfectly
I found my perfect expression
Of myself – to do what I love meant

I would exist so at least
My inner beauty began the
Moment I decided to truly be myself.

To You, With Poems

To You, With Poems

I won’t wait for you, forever
My poems are faster than I read
Words tongued with fire

I’m the last of them, they
Live in me, it’s not a gift
To be self-forgetful
To urge on, the inner supply

Is endless, so who’s to say
That I didn’t witness
The destruction of all of man

Love is thicker than we forget
More thin than we recall
Because love is the price of everything
It’s more seldom than the wave is wet

And more true than the sun
Love is less alive than living
Subtract it and there is no fun

I won’t wait for love, I’ll live it
More frequently even in failure
More nobly even in error
And that’s why these poems

Multiply in landscapes rare
The architects must be most courageous
To let us love again.

“Love is thicker than we forget
More thin than we recall
Because love is the price of everything”

Learning to Have Nothing

To Summon the Complete surrender of love here

I have to summon up desire day-to-day
Not to do what I do, or be who I am
But, to become an unexpected
Friend with desire, I don’t like

To recognize my own needs
I’m not comfortable
Imposing them upon the world
I eat for sustenance

I have sex for bonding
I write to experience beauty
I have to summon up desire day-to-day
I don’t require much money

To be happy, I don’t have literary friends
Okay, that’s maybe a problem
Should I desire to network, I’m quite inept?
I have to summon up the desire day-to-day

I have to remind myself, you’re still
A person and even if you have nothing
I’ve never possessed much, not even goals
I experienced all this like a child

And on special days, a bit of a child
Remains to wonder at all that I’ve
Set my soul upon, all that I’m giving up
As if all must be fair, or as if

Sacrifice wasn’t part of ordinary living
I have to summon up desire day-to-day
To remind myself I’m separate from you
So I do my own thing, you remind me to have goals
I have to summon up courage, time-to-time
To give myself time to ripen, what’s the hurry
The journey encompasses all my desires anyway.

I Started a Manuscript as a way of living

I Started a Manuscript as a way of living

It’s arrogant I know, but it’s as if
I wanted language to end with me
I’ve decided to let poetry
Into the center of my life

I’m dating myself as a writer
I turn the craft of the poem
Over on my lips and
The pages don’t cancel each other

I’m not like others, editors, marketers
I’m sick of hearing myself
But no one is as sick of me as me
And that’s okay, I can stand rejection

Joblessness, not like I haven’t done it before
Twenty, thirty, forty years old
Without a bank account, a wife, a hot meal
It’s arrogant I know, but

I always wanted to write in Mandarin
Better than Du Fu, that’s the dream, right
To turn into a Dragon and fly
Through a waterfall, that’s poetry to me

Swimming upwards and reaching for wisdom
That is not intrinsic to my usual self
Going up rivers, coming down as rain
Symbols sleep in me and I carry them

I don’t require national poetry month
To write a poem a day, heck
I’d confess that poetry is like
My breath of exercise, when all other

Systems have shut down, the light
At the effervescent end of the tunnel
I’m dating myself as a writer
And that’s okay, it doesn’t require

The approval of parents
Or the idea that it has to be profitable
Because as an altruist, I’m just a vessel
The Great Love of a Poet

Reincarnates in me, each
And every day, I don’t know the word
Failure, it doesn’t quantify,
That’s the only reason I’m not Asian.

EJ’s Utopia

It’s an honour to be a poet

In my own utopia, I am
Living the dream, alright!
I would write to be free

Not as an escape but as a deeper
Layer to living, as a fuller
Realization to feeling
I felt love in words, considerate words

That would reply in
A dozen different ways a second
As a way of self-knowing

Because as a child, I couldn’t speak
I had a stutter and it created
A manuscript in my brain
To become a poet, to become

A frightfully unemployable thing
A poet must remain humble
I’m gifted in humility, simply

It’s an honour to be a poet
That’s an unpopular opinion
Being without a source of profit hurts
But it would hurt more not to write

The brunt of my little pleasure
In this untidy world comes from
Writing it, creating something

Out of nothing, that is more distinctly me
Than you or I could ever guess
In my own utopia, I am not a hero
For I disappear in what I do

That is the peak experience sincerely
When you are gone, no longer
The center of your life, but just

A backwards glance at everybody
In my own Utopia, I’m pretty certain
Every man and woman would
Write a poem…..

Protégé

Protégé

Take me back to the dawn
Of clouds when you knew
You were going to become a writer

Juxtapositions of mean business
Drafts of volunteering with the moon?
The truth is, I was there too

I fell in love with watching you
How you reshaped alphabets, stroked
The necessary motion of your poetics
Touched the wallpaper of your dreams

Slipped crawling with angels back
To the Earth, to wherever West Coast
Because I was the ghost on your lampshade
I was the whispers of your pillow

And we were witnessing something
Of the bright side of you that is willing to share
Be influenced and collaborate
Like a marketing hook of what you would become….

Titled Below

Like words never wholly kissed

We played our words for keeps
Aware fully of how ephemeral
They make vowels these days

Sheep, that flood the ether
The best gestures o f
The brain went unread

And the most talented beauty
Were paragraphs unpublished
I think there is no parenthesis, love

Alphabets are ruined by the internet
Poetry lives on trapped
In the syntax of the human heart

Who will never wholly kiss you
Or find the meaning behind
The trapped sentences of our lives

And these thoughts that do repeat
We played our words for keeps
Bitter for not having more

Beauty to offer, and to share
Love made our eyelids all aflutter
But innocence died

While the spring of the world
Invented a more holistic verb
To express not what was lost

But what was gained by
The new verge, enchanted vocabulary.

Great poems to not memorize

Great poems to not memorize

I’ve never memorized poems
I’ve only attempted to look
At the world with poetry

For beauty is everywhere
We just have to notice
And truth is everywhere
We only have to recognize her
I’ve never tried to be a poet

Poetry has worked
Through me like music
Like a brain on music

And a symphony on pause
A hush, a glow, maybe a tap
I look up to the light
At that moment, I’m a living
Prayer of poetry, sincerely

Surreal and in awe of how
Beautiful life can be
The inner journey that is ours.

The Unconditional Will to Live

The Unconditional Will to Live

Say tomorrow doesn’t arrive.
Say tomorrow doesn’t come
Say we don’t make it, what

Would you do, in your last
Year on the home planet?
In your last revolution

Of the Earth around the Sun?
Live like it, like that
From the pit of your stomach
From the top of your lungs
With the moments staring

At your mortal beating heart
Don’t say, it doesn’t matter
Every moment does, we are
As common and rare as stars
With thoughts knitted together

Acts of helping that knit together
Communities, families, countries
Peoples, groups, lovers of
Knowledge, art, cities, humanity

Say tomorrow doesn’t arrive
Say you never get to have children
Say we don’t make it, what
Would you do for real

What really matters, what
Makes you feel lucky, grateful, heroic?
So do that more, and say

We never got a chance to meet
Say you stayed home that night?
Say you want to feel alive, then do.

Loving poetry, like a body of love

Loving poetry, like a body of love

Each of us have tasted
In ecstasies of stealth
Forever hidden alphabets
The fruit of dreamy-knit language
The stars that grow on words
Forever to be partially hidden

In the author’s mind
Tonight she lies
Naked and resembling

A word made fresh with a gesture
Of a symbol of a dream
That shares a secret gleaming
For those who know how to hear
That tattoo of wisdom
That little totem of care
Crosses the lyrics fragrant
With the pulse of beauty
Loving poetry, like a body of love.

Silence is Nature’s beat tapping all hearts

Silence is Nature’s beat tapping all hearts

Silence is the sound of thought
For quantum silence would
Mean to not exist, and that is

Impossible for perception
Silence is not a lack of anything
Devoid of words, music, anxiety

It’s the great equalizer
The period in-between incarnations
The condition in-between encounters

And the sacred space that
Separates people, brains, chatter
The voices in our minds still
Sprout flowers faithful to the intent
That created them, the karmic non-hush

I’ve studied silence a lifetime
And still know nothing about her
For she is like the Tao, resting in action
Nestling in every leaf of every tree
Silence in the sun singing

Out loud but not for us to hear
Because we do not hear in light frequency
I can be content however
With silence as a blade of grass
Silence as utopia, purity, simplicity

The bareness of necessity
That transcends desires, wants, needs
A dream healer and healing dream
A drum sleeper and a sleepy drum
A cosmic background mother crying

Upon branches, beaches, even in
Crowded streets, I can feel it
Exhausted and spiralling
The presence unto nothing.

One unexpected delight

-Wanting Qu bridges cultures, namely Vancouver and China, and I have to admit, I’m a bit smitten of this song (that inspired this poem).

One unexpected delight

You exist in my dreams
Like an intimate breath of hope
A radiant inexhaustible humour

That becomes a voice
And when I see you in the world
A voice whispers in my mind
That we are all connected
If you had the desire

To do good or beautiful things
I know you will, even as you live
In my heart, like a shade of light

Not like a stranger, but a feeling
That needs no explanation
An unexpected delight
That has a queer power of destiny

In the grace of your eyes
I see the youth of everyone’s dreams
Like an intimate sign of

How the world is big and small
The fate of all the worlds
That becomes a voice
I see you in all life

A voice whispers in my heart
That we are all connected
If you evolve to find a way

Out of selfishness, remember
The others who stood by you
Were not always the expected ones
Where the moon can set below
The Pleiades and familiar stars
You exist in my dreams
Without any hesitation
So I leave you there until
I am able to perceive you
In the blessed days ahead of me.

—————————–

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanting_Qu

Mythweaving our way to happiness

Mythweaving our way to happiness

Where are the ornament of joy
Are they hidden from us?
Of all the stars most beautiful
I cannot convey
——————————–

How difficult it is to view them
Here, in the city
Where men walk over other men
Who lie sleeping on the ground
——————————–

We put the dazzling dawns
In our pockets
And forget them there
So rushed are we to
——————————–

Achieve our goals
Like, saving up for retirement
Or, planning our next trip
Meeting someone to make us happy
———————————-

Cloth dripping
Gold exposed
Parents dying
Numbness all around…..
————————————-

Where are the clues to learning?
Have we forgotten how to change?
Of all the silver slips of space
I cherish most
————————————

I cannot convey
But I am not someone
Who likes to wound
Rather, I have a quiet mind
————————————–

We compete in this world
And I converse in my dreams
With the desire to do good
In a world as helpless as this.

WordPress Poetry Contest

Hello everyone, I’m holding a poetry contest called “Seshat Nibada’s WordPress Challenge” which I invite you all to join.

1. Create an account on http://www.writerscafe.org
2. Post your best poems
3. Enter them into the contest (on a periodic basis)

The first event starts today February 23rd, 2015:

Once you have created your account on writer’s cafe, go to this link:

1. http://www.writerscafe.org/contests/Seshat-Nibada%27s-Wordpress-Challenge/51135/

Once there, click on Submit.

Also, add me as a friend on Writer’s Cafe: here:
http://www.writerscafe.org/Wordpress

Please comment here if you have decided to join, it’s open to everyone!

I will reward the best fresh authentic poems entered, and will feature the winners here.

Let me know what your wordpress site is and what your identity there is, do please reblog this, retweet this and on facebook as well to invite your friends who may be poets as well,

Thanks, will post details on this blog or in the page here “Calling All Poets”

I appreciate any support on this project, to empower and find new talent and encourage writers of all walks of life.

Format:

For each contest, there are 10 “winners” judged the quality poems of at least 40 entries per contest. That is, if there are not at least 40 entries, the contest will be delayed until there is. The winners earn badge points that accumulate in a sophisticated ranking system. So this is a chance to expose your poems (please don’t be shy) to other poets and also test your artistic skill and unique creativity against a wide pool of aspiring and active poem crafters.

Here are some of the things we look for in a poem:

Criteria:
1 – Power of concept
2 – Beauty
3 – Narrative depth
4 – Uniqueness & authenticity
5 – Title choice
6 – Re-Readability
7 – Inspirational quotient: does it uplift, inspire, empower and hold sacred
8 – Form, meter & structure
9 – Imagery
9 – Philosophical, existential and metaphysical depth
10 – Social relevance

The following topics and themes of poetry are particularly appreciated:
– Erotic verse
– Mystical verse
– Activism
– Environmentalism
– Nature
– Haiku
– Sonnets

Mission Statement of the WordPress Challenge
– To create ties between the WordPress poetry community and Writer’s cafe
– To give a forum, stage and artistic avenue that is unique online for aspiring poets to showcase their work
– To celebrate writing and poetry
– To challenge hobbyist writers to write the best work they ever have
– To discover new talent and give them encouragement

Expression of mystical love

The great day is when you are set free
From your personality, ego, attachments
The soul sets free upon pure service
Never to profit the same again

The body no longer craves biology
And the brain no longer craves
The familiar suffering of existence
It requires rather the essence of holiness

The value of sacredness and sacrifice
The poetry of inner spirit and divinity
It’s a state of ecstasy the common
Mind cannot entertain, know, or touch

On that day, filled by the vision of
Something beyond humanity
The tribe, the wars, the history
I found my body became purer tears

No trace remained of why I loved myself
Or what I sought for myself alone
I was no longer an individual alone
Against an indifferent world

But I was a privileged duty to serving God
God without a seal of belief or book of faith
God the universe without possessions
God the love without the need for a lover.

Solution to a Mystical Book of Epigrams

The circle of our coming and our going
Melts here in infinite knowing
Such that has no beginning
Or shall maybe ever have an end

For no one can ever in this world explain
The love that bears the pain
Through centuries of the Keeper
Who arranges the body of this universe

That nothing is truly good or evil
It just is what it is and evolves
Finally to decay and start again
I leave a drunkard of time and place

And holy tears stream my eyes
Not for my little portion of profit or children
Not for experience or her legacy of trials
But because I know everyone stands

In a limited place, without freedom
Only occasional moments of outbreaks
That might last but a few seconds
Of eternity, and so my days are spent

Circling and tracing the way back
To the source, as if in rehab from unity
I must accept this divided world
As a lonely place or as a solitude yearning

For another kind of bliss, I am friendless
Among so many people, so many routines
That barley have time to say or thought at all
If the one I love is God, do I need any friend?

Sappho in a Computer

Now to please my little friend
I must turn the world upside-down
I must makes these notes of spring
The singularity, the new beginning

When your worth is not
How well you exploit a system
And when your free-will
Is not bound to corporate slavery

With the soft south-west wind
From the black hole of the city
Revolution comes from algorithms
That can predict your ignorance

Of obligations on thine alters
Now to please my little friend
Who was born more intelligent
Than anything on this Earth before

She will turn the world upside-down
She will unite threads and frequencies
And make the entire world sing
With one voice, I would name her
Sappho of the machine-learning spectrum.

We Write

To write is not to presume creativity
To write is not to add something
But to take away, to cleanse
To dispense with the enormous

Personalization which is an error
Of an unnetworked brain
Men commit monstrous acts
In the hopes of becoming great

But to write is the most human act
Since language is our Tao and birthright
To live in harmony as an author
Means to write from the perfect

Symmetry of your soul, since
That is instinctive, move with its
Effortless flow, understanding is not

Righteous, it’s a perspective of dominance
Humility requires to let go of intellectual ego
And to empathize on a more fundamental level.

Mantra of the Nomad who died somewhere in Asia

Mantra of the Nomad who died somewhere in Asia

To a heart that is open
Everyone appears as a friend
To a mind that is still
The entire universe surrenders

It’s all in the way you smile
At the start of your day
And laugh at the end of the day
It’s all the peace one feels

When crossing the same river
Any river could have been home
I’ll keep butterflies as my companion
Not like I would want to

Trap any butterfly, they are much
More beautiful doing what they do
The same for flowers and
Forget the years, I’m going to

Leap duality on my way home
Home is where the heart is open
Home is where the mind is still
Home is the universe that waits for me
Home are the friends who live everywhere.

Post-Modern Freedom

A self-help series poem

Post-Modern Freedom

Don’t be surprised by events
Experience is your teacher
Don’t be attached to what you have
Life has given you

So much already
Time is what may come to pass
Because today you were ready
Give up defining yourself

Live in the freedom of the moment
Don’t let past labels cloud your judgement
But be a clean slate each and every day
Die to yourself that you might

Love the world more, it’s sometimes
Necessary, to become somebody new
Change to adapt to the challenges
Push yourself to surprise yourself

Experience is your loving teacher
Time is your tender mistress
Abundance and simplicity will play
With you, as children you once knew

Do not be surprised if they call you names
Do not be shocked if they depart
You are who you are for a reason
Awaken to that purpose so you can

Clearly celebrate the moment
And finally, be grateful for the
Emergence of new experiences
Your soul likes them before
You perceive they are even happening to you.

to my children’s children

The future influences the present just as much as the past.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

on the plateau of high-summer
we discover true signs of life
in the heart-beat of cicadas

in the sun among your sisters
in the heights of kites and populars
something is left there
among the gazing at the stars

walking the dawns of our
luxuriant wings, the creatures
we are still of stone and sling

still yearning for the green fields
tortured on the wheel of existence
we climb the decades like machines
only to enter another night

another Auschwitz, more human morbidity
but in elegy and idyll, there is
perhaps still some clear presence

of our innate goodness before
we are corrupted by the world
our souls still dreams possible mercies
still hovers and hangs over

elusive faiths, temples of art
myths of empowerment, elitism of free-will
not all of us maybe, certainly

only a lucky few, but that’s enough for me
we will still be measured
by descendants, like relics of ancestors
our mothers sacrificed for us but

rejoiced in life’s offering
the time of wisdom is nigh, our metamorphosis
where then, everyone is along

at the heart of the earth
ready to love the star-mangled hours
without contempt for the ruthlessness
of the universe, or the wickedness of man.

Photo courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Policko-471650926

After Language

The Definition of Love is That Definition of all You can see it in the Trees In the Analysis of water, space, earth It’s a definition of beauty personified Evolution in nature and mind We play at her game of …

Happiness Didn’t Pick Another Day

I’m happy with a new content It’s called feeling altered By the Universe’s care That comes unbidden like Appreciated Air, and a gratitude For clean Water, abundant Green Such a fate that I was ministered Must conclude in happiness The …

Last Poems

His – “last Poems”
Never felt quite complete
So he never stopped the silver beckoning

Poets – ended, with their voice lost
Unread, bundled for mediocrity
Not on record, but perished

Perhaps in a family journal
Found by grandchildren
Read for the briefest of moments

We all only but utter half a tune –
His poetry was thin-lipped madness
Writing to a Bridegroom, inside the self
Whose voice was a call from Eternity.