Pablo Neruda

A Dog Has Died My dog has died. I buried him in the garden next to a rusted old machine. Some day I'll join him right there, but now he's gone with his shaggy coat, his bad manners and his cold nose, and I, the materialist, who never believed in any promised heaven in the sky for any human being, I believe in a heaven I'll never enter. Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom where my dog waits for my arrival waving his fan-like tail in friendship. Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth, of having lost a companion who was never servile. His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine withholding its authority, was the friendship of a star, aloof, with no more intimacy than was called for, with no exaggerations: he never climbed all over my clothes filling me full of his hair or his mange, he never rubbed up against my knee like other dogs obsessed with sex. No, my dog used to gaze at me, paying me the attention I need, the attention required to make a vain person like me understand that, being a dog, he was wasting time, but, with those eyes so much purer than mine, he'd keep on gazing at me with a look that reserved for me alone all his sweet and shaggy life, always near me, never troubling me, and asking nothing. Ai, how many times have I envied his tail as we walked together on the shores of the sea in the lonely winter of Isla Negra where the wintering birds filled the sky and my hairy dog was jumping about full of the voltage of the sea's movement: my wandering dog, sniffing away with his golden tail held high, face to face with the ocean's spray. Joyful, joyful, joyful, as only dogs know how to be happy with only the autonomy of their shameless spirit. There are no good-byes for my dog who has died, and we don't now and never did lie to each other. So now he's gone and I buried him, and that's all there is to it. Translated, from the Spanish, by Alfred Yankauer

Teresa Gibson's View On Yeats' Crazy Jane...

Yeats Didn't Stop Learning At Sixty-two : Teresa Gibson

"Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop" is a short poem three six-line stanzas in length; these lines vary between tetrameter and trimeter and rhyme abcbdb, rather like ballad meter. The first stanza places Crazy Jane and the Bishop in a chance meeting on a road. The Bishop rebukes Crazy Jane for her life and urges her to make amends. After all her body is old now, her "breasts... flat and fallen...." Presently her body will die, her "veins...be dry." She should ignore her body and emphasize her soul such as was suggested in the previous poem. The refined spirit freed from the dross of matter "lives in a heavenly mansion" while the spirit tied to the flesh lives "in a foul sty."

The word "foul" suggests the corruptibility and lowliness of the body, especially an aged one while "sty" being a place where pigs live suggests the animal nature of the body and its sexuality. Crazy Jane answers back in the last two stanzas. She notes the kinship, and interdependence of soul "Fair" and body "foul." She's old; therefore, her friends are gone," "a truth" she can't deny because of her acquaintance with death "grave" and sickness "bed." But her experience with both physical reality "bodily lowliness" and spirituality or intellectuality, "heart's pride" have given her insight--she is "learned." The third stanza asserts that one has to undergo what some may see as a humiliating, lowly experience--the sex act in order to be a fulfilled person. Ideal love can only be sought through physical experience. A woman or perhaps any person "too proud and stiff" to surrender to her sexuality forfeits fulfillment both of body and soul. The element of sexuality most distressing to the fastidious, the placement of sex organs near or in organs of excrement" is stressed here. The final two lines--"For nothing can be sole or whole/That has not been rent." are richly suggestive. "Sole" refers to oneness or the integration of the personality achieved only by bringing together both spiritual and physical selves in one's sexuality; the word also puns on soul, one finds fulfillment for one's soul through physical experience. "Whole works in a similar manner, referring primarily to the wholeness or fulfillment of a being and punning on hole, the female sexual organ. Both soul("sole") and body(hole) come to fulfillment in sexuality. Paradoxically wholeness is obtained by being "rent" literally the tearing of hymen, and symbolically sexual experience in general.

Like the fool in Shakespearean plays, Crazy Jane is wiser than her apparent betters, here the supposedly wise man of the Church, the Bishop. Interestingly the views presented by Yeats in "Sailing to Byzantium" are refinement of the Bishop's view that one should detach one's soul from the lowly and transient body. "Sailing to Byzantium" is an excellent poem, but Yeats obviously did not stop learning at sixty-two. In a letter of his old age he wrote, "I shall be a sinful man to the end and think upon my deathbed of all the nights I wasted in my youth." (The Norton Anthology of English Literature Revised Vol.2, p.1565)

Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop

1933

I met the Bishop on the road

And much said he and I.

"Those breasts are flat and fallen now,

Those veins must soon be dry;

Live in a heavenly mansion,

Not in some foul sty."

"Fair and foul are near of kin,

And fair needs foul," I cried.

"My friends are gone, but that's a truth

Nor grave nor bed denied,

Learned in bodily lowliness

And in the heart's pride.

"A woman can be proud and stiff

When on love intent;

But Love has pitched his mansion in

The place of excrement;

For nothing can be sole or whole

That has not be rent."

Yeats' Crazy Jane Wiser than the Bishop ?

Yeats' Crazy Jane is perhaps not so crazy as the Bishop would have us believe. Rather she seems to be wiser than the Bishop. Jane would prefer true and natural experiences in life to a philosophy of idealism bordering on suppression of bodily desires and passion.

Most spiritual guides and oriental Gurus will generally advise us to shun bodily pleasures, which according to them is the only way to attain salvation. But body and passion have a very pivotal role to play in Yeats' philosophy. Perhaps a perfect balance has to be struck between body and soul -

"Learned in bodily lowliness

And in the heart's pride."

Body has to suffer to attain transcendence or spirituality :

"For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent."

The truism of this poem may be uncomfortable, but there is no denying the fact that worldly love has its "mansion" most prevalent and firmly pitched "in the place of excrement".

Our spiritual guides must understand this before they advise their young aspirants to do away with passion if they want to start on a spiritual journey. Perhaps Osho had understood this point. His book Sambhog Se Samaadhi Tak perhaps has something of this philosophy that body should not be ignored, rather enjoyed, for the sake of soul.

The journey thus to the spiritual awakening and upto the "heavenly mansion" must be through the path of "foul sty"!

But a very significant point to be addressed in this context is whether a journey through the "foul sty" is bodily pleasure or suffering.

Now read the poem for yourself and form your own opinion.

--Yogendra Krishna

Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop

A Poem by WB Yeats

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'

'Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.

'A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.

Tragedy in Japan and the World Community

Do we realise the impact of a tragedy and natural calamity only when they befall our family or our nation? Then what kind of a society and world community are we?

The President of India is coming to Patna to celebrate the centenary year of the formation of Bihar on the 22nd of March. Shouldn't India outright stop all such State Celebrations in view of the natural calamity in Japan in which lacs of people lost their lives and suffered? Shouldn't India thus set an example of true humanity for other nations to follow?

It seems there is a lot of pain in adopting such a humane approach in life. Nobody seems willing to sacrifice one's small petty moments of so called happiness for the sake of others' misery...

And by the way, what does Marx say in this context?

In A World Reduced To Nothing

I feel no pain, no sorrow...
In a world packed with
Hightech worldly-wise daily chores and speed...

I have nothing...
Nothing to tell
No complaints...
Nothing to protest against

I have nothing to give
Nothing to think about
Nothing to care for
Nothing to be proud
Or ashamed of

Nothing to remember
Or to forget
No kudos to sustain
Nor scandals to kill

Nothing to act
Nor to react
No sacrifices to make

So do I live
Or simply die
In a world reduced to nothing...

Poetry Of The Time

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio

From The Nobel Lecture

“ To act: that is what the writer would like to be able to do, above all. To act, rather than to bear witness. To write, imagine, and dream in such a way that his words and inventions and dreams will have an impact upon reality, will change people's minds and hearts, will prepare the way for a better world. And yet, at that very moment, a voice is whispering to him that it will not be possible, that words are words that are taken away on the winds of society, and dreams are mere illusions. What right has he to wish he were better? Is it really up to the writer to try to find solutions? Is he not in the position of the gamekeeper in the play Knock ou Le Triomphe de la médecine, who would like to prevent an earthquake? How can the writer act, when all he knows is how to remember? ”

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
Nobel prize winner in literature (2008)

Poetry Of The Time

When Murderers Become Rescuers !

Murderers Become Intellectuals !

Here you read two poems by Yogendra Krishna that can incidentally be associated with the day-to-day phenomenon of huge financial fraud and unscrupulous exploitation of public fund by the white-collared corporate world, best exemplified in the recent collapse of software giant Satyam in India and the equally white-collared rituals of rescue operations in the name of financial bail-outs.... And with the collapse of universal value system very vital to the existence of human society... ultimately leading to an agonizingly dehumanized world of mutual distrust and deceit.

Background ( for the poems see below )

No Salary in Satyam for 2 months!!

Hyderabad : 9 January 2009 :
Satyam Computer on Friday announced holding back employees salaries for two months, even as rumours were rife that the company might lay off close to 15,000 workers in the coming days.
The offices of Satyam Computer were rife on Friday with the talks about forthcoming pink-slips at the company, which needs over Rs 500 crore every month just to meet its staff costs and has admitted that its cash position was not encouraging.

Employees said they have received an e-mail saying the company would hold back salaries for two months and asked staffers to bear with it.
However, the company spokesperson declined knowledge of any such e-mail and the issue would be looked into.

Even as the company spokesperson denied any layoff plans as of now, the rumours put the estimated job cuts at close to 15,000 by the end of this month.
Employees at the company said on condition of anonymity that they were hearing about imminent lay-off of people who were sitting on the bench or were close to completing their assigned projects. Besides, those being retained would be asked to take substantial salary cuts, they added.

At the same time, global HT consultancy firm Hay Group's Practice Leader Mark Thompson said that employees would suffer the most from the fraud.

Global HR consultancy firm HayGroup's Practice Leader Mark Thompson said: "Based on past experience ... as with Enron, Worldcom and the Mirror Group, it is likely to be the employees who will suffer most from the fraud perpetrated by their bosses."

In early 2000, the collapse of energy trader Enron had left thousands of people out of work, another 8,500 had lost their jobs at accounting firm Arthur Andersen; and Tyco eliminated 15,000 employees in February.

Source: Expressindia, 9.01.2009

When Murderers Become Rescuers


Yogendra Krishna


When murderers become rescuers
They do not kill you like this

They would keep your dreams
From falling further apart
The last shred
Of your shattered dreams
Like a miracle on their part

That you could stand witness
To the superhuman grace
And divine powers of the murderers

They would keep maneuvering
Even a lot more of
Such marvels and thrills
Till you finally draw
The last of your
Wretched lingering breath

That you could adore
And hold them high
In reverence and awe
Like primeval deities of lore

That just before
You breathe your last
Only the dying statement of yours
Could finally save them
From all the discomforting taints
Of vices and brutality on their part.

Translated from Hindi by the poet Yogendra Krishna

( Hatyare Jab Masiha Hote Hain , 2008)

When Murderers Become Intellectuals

Yogendra Krishna


When murderers become intellectuals

They They do not slay you like this

They would spare your life
Very connivingly
Snatch away from you
Your time
Your voice
Your words
In which you live

They would spot
Small rendezvous
Of your tiny pleasures
Of your desires and dejections
Would keep surveillance
Over the atmosphere you breathe

Concoct stories
And smear them
With the very colour
Contour and essence
Of your time
Your voice
Your words

They would kill you thus
With the very spirit
Of your being


Translated from Hindi by Yogendra Krishna
(Hatyare Jab Buddhijivi Hote Hain, 2008)
http://www.kavitakosh.org/