Buddha of Rumtek

i like the imagery, powerful and interesting. keep posting.

shandana

Only fools worship buddhas and idols. Inshallah we will convert entire India to Islam... i have started this by converting my Hindu wife to Islam.

Soon we Muslimeen-e-hind will show the way to entire ummah in our quest for Khilafat. Islam Zindabad.

Feroz & Ras,

Thanks. Ras....if poetry were to make a comeback on chowk...don`t count on me to be at the frontline...have no taste for cyberlynching here at chowk,,,:)

t,

If fundamentalist grammarians let forth poetic prose at a poem...it must have some redeeming features.

Semipreciousme,

The monk was protesting the occupation of Tibet by China. The occassion of his self immolation was the visit of a Chinese bigshot to India, specifically Delhi.

There has been the restraining Dalai Lama who has so far kept Tibetan anger on leash constantly discouraging violence.

However, there are are often cases of his loyal cadre protesting violently...though not against anybody but themselves. Recently, when Ronji was on a visit to Bombay a Tibetan poet activist climbed the Oberoi Towers Hotel from a wall, scaled the 14th floor and unfurled a Tibetan flag.

Saminashah,

Thank you for your careful reading and thoughtful comments. I appreciate that very much.

Now to address your ``quibles...`` they were very acutely observed.

Well, this poem`s title is a Buddhist shrine in Sikkim, North East India. I had been there, and while the monks there moved me, the place is a seminary training young monks too, the huge Buddha there left me not so moved.

That is the takeoff point for this poem really.The clay cliche, and the entire first stanza is actually about that idol of Buddha being so much like ornate Buddhas of so many Buddhist shrines. Therefore the elaborate Lotus opening and the overdone idol being an artist`s overrehearsed but hardly original work. What I meant...though that should not interfere with your reading...is that the artist might have made it with great sincerity, maybe even reverance, but to me that innocence was finally worth stone. I am not seeing it as a reverent Buddhist visitor might.

The second quibble is a very petinent one, to my reading of your reading. While I will be reconsidering that point...maybe I`ll let you in to my reason for including that.

One of the Tibet`s abiding problems have been high profile espousals by famous Hollywood Budhists of celebrity...and at the same time little hope remains of the Tibetans getting anything from the Chinese even remotely addressing their concern to keep alive their unique culture.

I could not but feel that the cause is such a potent one for some..like Richard Gere...that it keeps it in circulation through HIS glamour. And yet. all that sympathy and genuine concern is essentially a symbolic act signifying nothing.

I do not know if you see anything in these lines other than defence. But there it is. I owe you my reasons, though I hate to explain my poems to anybody. The reason is that you read well. Thank you.

That was about the poem.

``Otherwise, except in a voyeuristic, ironic way, why should we care? What judgements are you leading us towards? (and are judgements in poems necessarily good things?)``

This is one way to look at it. Here you have already made your preferences clear. Am I leading you...as in any reader to a judgement...well not that I intended, but if you are heading somewhere I would not call it my leading you there. Your reading led you to some judgement.

Judgements in poems are just that much. If it works in the poem, as in gives it strength, helps it complete itself, then it can be there...because if it accomplishes all these things then it follows that it is an integral part of the poem. I have nothing against or for judgements in poems. To me there is an integral complete poem. If not, of course, it is too risky a liability. Much like a lot of that literature engage stuff. Little more than propaganda.

Actually I am travelling and would love to see this thread develop...so shall peep in again.

Thank you again for your thoughtful critique.

Harish

....i got it...tibetan should`ve been a dead giveaway...

Harish,

This is good work that has the potential to be a great poem. Some of the images were quite arresting-in fact that the images move this poem altogether is powerful. My two quibbles, and this is to let you know that I as a reader found this piece to be rather cryptic:

``Innocence worth stone

Opens the petals

Of a clay cliché.``

You might want to work on it. I`m no lazy reader, but my energy was distracted and frustrated in trying to figure what exactly that part meant.

Also, this following stanza adds a rancorous (intentional?) note into the conclusion. I understand the invocation of the surreal in your juxtaposition-however, my impulse would be to see the poem stay with monk or that scene, stay in the humanness of that scene, rather than jumping to a alienating comparision. Otherwise, except in a voyeuristic, ironic way, why should we care? What judgements are you leading us towards? (and are judgements in poems necessarily good things?)

``It sears and chills

Wooden spines of mannequins in

In the Barbie museum``

Keep writing! I look forward to reading more of your work on Chowk.

regards

…maybe i’m not getting it, but what was the cause for which he burned himself for?…

HN:

...you are no less a craftsman...(what was it janet from the poetry site had said?)

…chiselling phrases and words with the lost skill of a mountaineer on a foggy cliff!…and when the weather clears…one is awed by the piece of creativity…

…enjoyed some phrases again…clay cliché…unironed skin…Black sun, briefly breached…Wooden spines…

…keep sharing them…

rgds,

t

?

Well written but the meaning could have been lost without the intro.
Is poetry to make a comeback on CHOWK?

Ras

Nice!

Ciao