The 100 most recent posts
Infinity ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #88 - I seek the moments
When the infinite
Becomes the infinitesimal
When the All
Which is everything
Becomes the One
Which is nothingness
I seek the moments
When paradox
Becomes awareness
Heroes - Hero
A word of nuance
Of many meanings
Of differences
Subtle and grave
In a story
The protagonist
Who in the end
Saves the day
Lotus Petals - Petals fallen
To dimpled pond
Where raindrops gather
On lotus pads
A thousand diamonds glittering
Under slate grey skies
Swagger - Swagger
Chutzpah
Presence
A small man
Of no small mass
A big heart
A wise soul
Both worn
Close to the surface
Monkey Business - I remember a time
When simply breathing
Was dangerous
A time before
The Clean Air Act of 1970
The Environmental Protection Agency
Which gave the Act bite
And enforced its many regulations
Hate ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #86 - I began to realize
If I could learn to love myself
Completely
I would no longer want to hate
Such unconditioned inner light is
Impenetrable
Even to hate's formidable darkness
Unconfined Light - I remind myself
The light at the end of the tunnel
Is only light
And the tunnel
Is only the sum of my fears
Confining me
When the Flash Came - When the flash came
I had just cleared the fourth floor
Confident everyone made it to the shelter
The steel door closed
When the flash came
Night became a day like no other
Just several seconds long
With the intensity of a hundred suns
It Is What It Never Was - In these hallways
I've created oh-so-many worlds
For the dream factory
To film its stories
Police stations
And hospitals
Apartment buildings
And condemned spaces
Secret headquarters
And schools of magic
Corridor Dreaming - I dream of corridors
Every one different
But all the same
The light is soft
Though harsh
Streaming in
Through doors
All open
On the right
An inviting light
Nonetheless too bright
And as I tread
Ever-so-gingerly
Down the corridor
Fractured Flash - A pair of runners
Find the frame
One time coming
One time going
And one time
In a fractured flash
As they pass before me
Trust - She was broken and battered
Her ability to love
Damaged and misaligned
And yet
There was to her
A tenacious spirit
Movement ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #85 - In a world
Flattened and stilled
My taxi crawls
Toward a fogged-in airport
Flights delayed
Forward progress
Intermittent
Passing
Ill-advised
The People Who Change the World - To roam the world
Is to see the unimaginable
To experience the unknown
And, most profound of all
To touch
And be touched
By people
I may never see again
But who will forever
Change my world
Miles of Earth - I have driven
Many miles of Earth
Across continents
And countries
And where others see
Monotony
Or mundanity
I discover
Exquisite
Subtlety
Sphere of Influence - Sometimes I feel
Beyond my flesh
Sense the world
And its beings
Not by touch
Nor sight
Nor sound
Not by smell
Like a sphere Of presence
A sphere of influence
Because others
Feel me, this way
And I feel them
Like I know them
Earth - Every now and again
Landscape and sky
Remind me
I live
On a speck
Of rock
In an expanse
Of space
Dotted
Intermittently
With other
Little specks
Emptiness ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #84 - I often ponder
Choices made
When I'm taking
Photographs
A moment here
A moment there
Adjusting frame
Awaiting light
Or add a child
Just running through
What once was full
Seems emptiness
Which strikes me now
So much like life
Five Priests - Five priests
Raise fire
Into night
On Ganga banks
At Shiva's
Light
Where people come
To see
The sight
Some pray
Some pay
In boats
Packed tight
Games ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #83 - The game of games
In every land
Its dreams
Of fame and glory
Roaring crowds
Adulation
Played out
In young boy's hearts
Under the lights
Imagining a stadium
Fans in every seat
A swing away
From eternal meaning
Boats - In the deepening night
Long after Aarti fires
Extinguish
A late boat returns
While some colleagues rest
On gentle ripples
And others await repair
Uncomfortably aground
Aum - Aum
I sing
From deep within
Aum
The sound
Resonates
Like kundalini
When spirit rises
Energy of life
And being
Fire ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #82 - Every night
The aarti fire
Five priests
Pay homage
To Shiva's gifts
While one boy
In their shadow
Shines bright
The Birds - They flock
The gulls
To feed
On seed
And bread
That's thrown
From boats
On which
The tourists
View
The banks
Where
Funeral
Pyres burn
All day
And night
Marker on the Way Home - She's my marker
The jewellery seller
Leaning against
The Tower of Baba
I stop by her ad-hoc shop
Mapping my way home
In my mind
From here
A set of stairs
Like a hundred others
All along the the Ganga banks
For miles north and south
Except these stairs
Lead home, almost straight
Spirits Cleansed - They come to bathe
In waters pure
Then, with spirits cleansed
They dry their saris
Upon the steps
Which bore them down
To Mother Ganga's shore
Rower on the Ganga - Flotilla at rest
On the quiet river
In the grey cool morning
A few boats rock
As tourists clamber aboard
Laughter and photographs
As my camera surveys the scene
One boat begins to move
Oars dipping, splashing
I find frame on the boat
Zooming out; zooming in
Click a few exposures
Sunset & Minaret - Sunset and minaret
What more need be said
But for the hundreds who
Meander through
The tranquil peace
Of evening grace
Within the shadow of
Perfection
Unnoticed Details - Minarets and domes
Archways and inlays
All this beauty
Did I capture
And through it all
A grand parade
Of faces, of beings
The beauty hardly noticed
Reflections ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #81 - Passed through the gate
Now stand in awe
Before a wonder
Of the world
Then turn around
To discover
Yet another wonder
Leaves me to wonder
How many others
Reflect upon this other
Transitions - Long day behind
Long night ahead
Bed roll and cardboard mattress
Stashed for later
In the darkest hours
Some small time for sleep
Otherwise
Pedalling
Devotion - I wonder Sometimes At my devotions Could I have been better At this or at that Had I offered more devotion But of all the this And all the that Just two devotions have mattered
Fire, flowers and flow - In the moonlit night
Release flowers and fire
Into Ganga's flow
For pilgrims and believers
A gift to Ganga, river goddess
Holy of holies
Source and purifier
Divine Smile - She reminds me
Of the many Buddhas I've seen
In Thailand
Malaysia
China
Japan
Though, not the laughing Buddha
The plump one
In the midst of
A rollicking guffaw
No, not that Buddha
Rather, the somber, reflective one
The one it seems
The weight of the world
Rests lightly
On his androgynous shoulders
The one it seems
Context ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #80 - o understand
And embrace
Paradox
I recognize
The limits
Set by context
Which, I've learned
Confines me
Not reality
Inspiring Lights - Travelling
A pilgrimage
I flow through the world
And experience
Places
Moments
History
Present
I connect with people
And experience
Variance
Possibility
Convergence
Dichotomy
Insight and Chai - It's these places
In the hills
The remote places
Small communities
Mostly self sufficient
Where the ubiquitous cell phone
Has no power
Connected to the world
By a narrow road
It's these places
Where we are most
Who we are
And Now This, Live - The revolution will not be televised
But it will be watched
On small screens
Live
Recorded
Streamed
And shared
A million times over
Perhaps, that is a better thing
Finding the Roads into the Unknown - I journey into unknown lands
Seeking the roads
Which take me deep
Where there are no maps
I keep faith
I'll find my way
Where there are no roads
I keep faith
I can forge my own
Daughter and Mother - At Rishikesh
Where the Ganga
Leaves the mountains
Completing her journey
To womanhood
From the daughter
Roiling and gamboling
Down the narrow valleys
To the gentle, fertile
Fulsome matriarch
Mother of the plains
Sunrise ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #79 - >Blue on blue
On blue on blue
Morning sun
Peeks on through
The clouds on high
The smoke below
But in my heart
The golden band
Offsets the black
Below the blue
Sleeping Dogs - They say
But "they" have never been
A dog
And in the 16th century
When they first said it
Life as a dog
Was hard
And that's what they meant
When they said it
Dreaming of Space - I soar in the space
Between three globes
One below
One above
One beyond
And I wonder
At the distance
In time
In distance
In possibility
While beginning
To descend
Kindred Spirits - There seems no scene
Nor moment
More beautiful
Than one shared
With a kindred spirit
No matter
The quality
Of the scene
Or moment
Illumined - Sunrise skies
Illumine possibilities
I carry with me
Daytime dreams
To be fulfilled
Until sunset sky's
Reminder
Possibility Illumines
Nighttime dreams
Which carry me
Being in the Maelstrom - In this maelstrom
Of movement
Colour and
Humanity
It is easy enough
To forget
These are beings
Each with a life
As full as my own
As troubled
And beautiful
Filled with family
And friends
Hardship and joy
Love and petty hatreds
Monuments ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #78 - We reach for the heavens
Building monuments
To our highest ideals
Gods and philosophy
Politics and economy
Then fall
To our basest instincts
Defending them
Proselytising them
Exploiting them
Finding Presence - here is nothing so grounding
So inspiring to me
Nothing which brings the moment
Into my own presence
Like sunset
Except
Perhaps
Sunrise
The Queen of Chandni Chowk - Litter borne
The Queen of Chandni Chowk
Surveys her domain
From lofted throne
Minaret - This artful spire
This minaret
With bold white lines
And floral whimsy
Reaching up
Where black kites soar
In deep blue skies
With wispy cloud
Black Kite - Black kite soaring
Red Fort domes below
Smog smothering all
Weakened sun
Weakened lungs
Weakened resolve
Beauty and ugliness
Joy and hardship
Kindness and predation
This land of extremes
This country of paradox
Creating beauty from ugliness
Jama Masjid - Rising above
The Old Delhi rooftops
Bathed in sunrise
The imposing Jama Masjid
Not intended
To diminish
The faithful
But to invite
Iconic ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #77 - Monkey on a rooftop
Mughal fort beyond
Morning sun through city smog
What could be
More iconic
India
The Wash Beneath the Detailed Lines - I close my eyes
Imagining
A downtown core
And city lights
Cabs stacked up
End to end
Filled with fares
Or seeking them
Crowded shops
Pedestrians
Littered streets
Swept clean by morn'
So full of life
Activity
This crowded block
Where could it be
Ganga Calm - Travelling a land
Of extremes in high contrast
Of crowded bustle
Brown noise and car horns
Confined in concrete chasms
With slivers of sky
I arrive in Rishikesh
Where the Ganga
Gently exits
The Himalaya
Bengali Tola - She runs
With utter abandon
She runs
Gangly limbs
All astrewn
Head rolled back
Now lolling
Side to side
She runs
It seems
Only for the joy
Of running
Down Bengali Tola
And as my camera
Finally finds her
She finds me
The Roaring White Water of Being - It is a throng
A teeming mass
Rumbling through
A narrow chasm
Of visual and aural
Cacophony
Impossible to gauge
To comprehend
Without standing
In the midst
Feeling the flow
Feeling the insignificance
Of one more being
In this tumultuous rapids
Of being
Exploration in the Darkness - This darkened space
Inside a world unknown to me
Familiar, as religion
Unfamiliar, as culture
Mystery, riddle, enigma
Intricate details
Inlaid in stone walls
Indicate a beauty
And subtlety
Beckoning exploration
Finding Focus - I don't even mind
That I missed the focus
On the two men
Finding instead
The propane bottles
Between them
In a very important sense
The tanks are assets
The propane is product
Both have value
While the men transporting them
Represent labour
Labour is an expense
The material vs the abstract
Golden ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #76 - Oars dip gently
Into Mother Ganga
A calm, steady rhythm
Like a deep breath
While the bells clang
Insistently
In golden Varanasi
Where the priests
Celebrate Shiva
With a dance of fire
Bhagwan on the Ganga Banks - Saffron
Colour of fire
Bringer of light
Burn away ignorance
Flame of insight
Saffron
Colour of purity
Symbol of abstinence
Purge the tainted
Cleansing ritual
Smoke - The wan red sun
Rises into a dull amber sky
Beautiful
Were it a morning mist
A shroud of fog
Pierced by morning sun
The Rudiments of Beauty - Oh, in this ugliness
I struggle to see
The beauty here
In a world
Of grim and grime
Of damage and refuse
The hard task
On this spirit path
Find the beauty
In all things
But there is colour
Form and texture
Elements underlie design
And the dynamic
Of a captured moment
In an old man's morning
Mountain Climbing - And there they are
The fabled range
Faded in the distant haze
Peaks too far to reach today
More this:
The journey here
Intends to scale
The mountains of
My inner life
In these foothills, at Rishikesh
Sun Rise - In this softened world
With its honey sky
Dark chocolate mountains
Cradle a mocha mist
I drink it in
This perfection
This preternatural beauty
Layers - All the many layers
I peel back
And still another layer
Each a mystery
Each a surprise
Some a shock
Some a delight
Morning Clarity - Sun rising
Behind mountain peaks
I dream myself
Waking into dawn
Into light
Light comes
Driving air
Down the valley
Clearing atmosphere
Of smoke and mist
Ohm, I sing
Into heart
Into center
Into spirit
River ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #75 - Ganga falls from Himalaya highs
To lap at feet
On sandy shore
In Rishikesh
Where it and I
Find some small tranquility
In the turmoil
Of inexorable change
Silhouette Clarity - Sometimes
I get caught up in the details
See all the differences
Understand why
It can be so hard to get along
And then
On some glorious sunset evening
I see the world in silhouette
And understand how
We are all the same
Being Home - On the journey home
I began to understand
How much, in that moment
Home was where I wanted to be
Not for its familiarity
Nor for its comforts
Nor even its dull grey beauty
But for its being
An integral part
Of my being
Going Light - My power drained
The darkness came
And in this isolated
Night of the soul
I must seek the light
Within
Absurd ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #74 - There is a cow
Standing in a pile of last night's refuse
Chewing at its breakfast
Of streamers and ribbon
In the early, decrepit morning
On the side of a busy, urban road
And no one cares to notice, but me
But that's India: mad as a hatter
A million times a day
Absurd until it seems normal
Wood - Piled high
As kites can fly
And like the spires
Of Hindu Ghats
The wood of Kashi
On Ganga banks
Culture Feast - The frame is full
With teeming activity
Colour and humanity
My eye
Cannot find a place to rest
And then it does
But only for a moment
Until something else
Pulls it away
In this visual cacophony
Of a culture traveler's feast
Ritual and Playful - Mother and daughters
New moon Ganga ritual
Splash! Splash! Splash! They're cleansed
Playful ritual
Paddling on styrofoam
While mother washes
The Angel - The flotilla of pilgrims and tourists makes its way up the Ganges River, leaving behind the Ganga Aarti, the nightly Worship to Fire ceremony at Dashashwamedh Ghat, on the riverbank. Our boat passes another, a […]
I Fell in Love - I fell in love
With the vivid colour
So I settled in
To setup the shot
When a little girl
Ran through it
So I fell in love
With her too
A Little Music ~ A Little Dance - I remind myself
Everyday:
A little music
A little dance
Even better:
A lot
The Look - Forgive me
Young man
For startling you
With my camera
I heard
But did not hear
You exiting the door
And my eye
Was on a scooter
For which I'd waited
A Boy in the Shadows - I step
From the shadows
Into the light
With the innocence
Of a child
Ready
To take flight
Short Focus - A family
Arranging a rickshaw
An essential
Every-moment moment
Of India
A million-times-a-day
Moment
A colourful picture
Beautiful
But the focus
Is a little short
The rickshaws
Are sharp
But the people
Are not
The Mosque - Staggered by the
Scale as much as the
Stunning Beauty
All the lines
Are precise
And pristine
As to seem
An architect's model
Atop his desk
Come Closer - Come closer, dear
So I can come
To know you better
In your presence
I deliver myself
To your mysteries
Love ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #73 - Even the purest love
Requires a little maintenance
From time to time
A Moment in Passing ~ Captured - A moment
A flash in passing
From a train window
A shawl
A dress
A woman
Old?
Yes
An old woman
Blending into the landscape
Now gone
Faster than you've read this
And soon enough
Forgotten
Faces in the Crowd - There is no grander crowd
Than Chandni Bazaar
Expansive
A bazaar of humanity
Vital, vibrant, vivid
Variety and spice
So I set up in the median
Camera in hand
And let the people come
Reveling in
Faces in the crowd
So I set up in the median
Camera in hand
And let the people come
Reveling in
Faces in the crowd
In the Cacophony - The Cacophony
Of motion and sound
Falls away
Deep into the background
As he waits
For the next fare
In a peaceful quiet
Of his own making
Beep Beep! - Beep Beep! Lajpat Nagar Metro Station New Delhi, India Video captured during travels, last night, 2017 Every picture may tell a story, but the story this poem tells is an expression of audio and time, […]
Other ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #72 - I seek other
To discover
Self
Market Day Donkey Cart Parking
Kuqa
Xinjiang Autonomous Region
The People's Republic of China
