Book I of the Songs before the Gaze: Anamnesis and Breath by V. Suchan, published on Amazon as paperback and e-book

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GR2FCTSF 

My new book of poetry Dust of Light is now also available in paperback

 

I Came to This Life to Accord Both with the Sagalassos Missive And Lao Tze’s Teachings

“Men are born soft and supple;
Dead, they are stiff and hard. …
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
Is a disciple of death;
Whoever is soft and yielding
Is a disciple of life…
The soft and supple will prevail.”
—Lao Tze, Tao Te Ching, Book 76

Odine, Odette, Undine—
is that a way to transcend
the rigid, leaden corpse
where the light of self,

the good old Atman,
undergoes its darkening?
Not unlike a word in speech—
how did they name it in Urdu?—

when, infused with life,
it grows sinuous and svelte
till it arches to a supple song,
flowing like a mountain spring

ripe and rightly timed
for some restored nymphaeum
(like that above Ağlasun,
where nimble Maenads

ring a hero’s lofty tomb).
And isn’t mater Atman,
mirrored, inverse, dimmed—
a heart petrified within?

Or have we forgotten
that even to be inspired,
there, to begin, one must be
affable to love’s spirit first?

Eternity Returns amid Diverse Loves

 

Amid diverse loves,
eternity returns,
whether moored
or unmoored again.

For what is let go
and what is retained
plumbs and defines
one’s anchor—

what it allows to a sail,
or how well
the Siren sings
on the upright mast,

on that little link
and life’s brief dash
that holds and ties
so much below

and all above.

Ode to a Runner Vanishing into Early Spring Sunset

 

Runners of the evening golden hour
carry sunset on the napes of their necks
as the light lays its bravura decline,
tuning down the tilted, thinning rays,

matching the longest of the shades
while night already gathers from above,
opening its arcane vault in hues of violet,
with each measured yet unhurried pace,

like a breath that waxes sublime, musical—
everything continues, along and on the move,
yet also turning still, each in its distinct way.

And you wonder in whose kindly deepened eyes
an inner room, once broached, would widen far enough
to resound the falling dusk and its agnate rhyme.

Vladimir Suchan: Dust of Light, available on Amazon

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GPS7ZVPC

 

Painted Silk of Folding Gaze

 

Gazelles, not yet merged with breath,
hover in air that spells life—
on the cusp of being born, ushered in
by a gaze that has already found

its ringing gleam, eager to paint with light,
balanced and well-trimmed, with no pause
for wayward faults, no dulling notes,
through the pupil, from the iris’ bloom.

And even if nothing is said
in a softly released sound,
the flowing sigh itself already speaks,

assuredly knowing its way with touch,
rendering the game perplexed—
to be received with such eyes!