Nazar Look, November 2013 uses my Tanka Sequence

SPIRITUAL  FLICKERS: A TANKA SEQUENCE

Plodding  away at

season’s conspiracies

life has proved untrue

with God an empty word

and prayers helpless cries

I wish I could live

nature’s  rhythm free from

bondage of clock-time

rituals of work and sleep

expanding haiku present

on the prayer mat

the hands raised in vajrasan

couldn’t contact God—

the prayer was too long and

the winter night still longer

the mind creates

withdrawn to its own pleasures

a green thought

behind the banyan tree

behind the flickering lust

I can’t know her

from the body, skin or curve:

the perfume cheats

like the sacred hymns chanted

in hope, and there’s no answer

unknowable

the soul’s pursuit hidden

by its own works:

the spirit’s thirst, the strife

the restless silence, too much

unable to see

beyond the nose he says

he meditates

and sees visions of Buddha

weeping for us

the mirror swallowed

my footprints on the shore

I couldn’t blame the waves

the geese kept flying over the head

the shadows kept moving afar

the lane to temple

through foul drain, dust and mud:

black back of Saturn

in a locked enclosure

a harassed devotee

not much fun—

cold night, asthmatic cough

and lonely Christmas:

no quiet place within

no fresh start for the New Year

--Ram Krishna Singh

http://issuu.com/kirim-tatar-kitaplari/docs/nazar_2013_11_online#download