A Sparrow Who Ate the Universe: A Hundred Pounds of Poems in a One Pound Book

A Sparrow Who Ate the Universe: A Hundred Pounds of Poems in a One Pound Book

by Skip Maselli
A Sparrow Who Ate the Universe: A Hundred Pounds of Poems in a One Pound Book

A Sparrow Who Ate the Universe: A Hundred Pounds of Poems in a One Pound Book

by Skip Maselli

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Overview

Skip Maselli is a brilliant word alchemist. He pulls from the collective subconscious with the mastery of a genius, transforming our universal longing into an art that feels like an oasis to the thirsting traveler. His poetry has a sense of familiarity, a direct passage to the heart, infused with a new passion that makes its beats more audible. Reading him will inspire you and reconnect you to the deeper source of wisdom and beauty once known by every soul, yet only accessed daily by a few.

— Andréa Balt, Author, Founder and Editor in Chief of Rebelle Society


…Maselli’s poetry is a reminder of the subtlest truths from the beyond…like the ‘prophet’ Khalil Gibran, his verses are reminders presented in a different light... His couplets set the heart aflame with unquenchable longing until it is reduced to ashes… He sings about love in beautiful verses…because his soul itself has become a song of the beloved, a melody in harmony with and a strain of the music coming from the abode of the unseen. Maselli knows that he himself is not the author of all these verses, rather he is like the flute, [awaiting] the beloved’s breath....

— Dr. Ahmad Javid Sarwari Qaderi, Sufi teacher and writer


Books like this one, the rare gems in the tradition of Rumi and Hafiz, are not just forms of expression, but dialogues between the different facets of one’s own self, travelogues through the terrains of the heart and soul, and the saga of stories woven within stories…Reading Maselli’s poetry has the effect of being entranced by all the gates to an otherworldly wisdom, which lay hidden before un-trained eyes. The doors into the realm of love: where wandering is a gift and pain is a treasure.

— Dr. Arshia Qassim, Neurologist, Columnist, Writer, Poet, Artist


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781504968294
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Publication date: 05/18/2016
Pages: 262
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.55(d)

Read an Excerpt

A Sparrow Who Ate the Universe

A Hundred Pounds of Poems in a One Pound Book


By Skip Maselli

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2016 Skip Maselli
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5049-6829-4



CHAPTER 1

There Is a Pearl Within You


Introduction

It is always about love, isn't it? I chose the title of this chapter from the following poemette appearing in my first book, Twenty-Five Words toward the Truth — #25wtT.

    There are pearls in you
    So I'll slip without splash
    Into the pools between your lashes
    For the eyes have depths
    Only lovers can dive.


I'm sometimes asked if there is someone in particular I'm writing about in these poems. More often than not, the answer is no. Of course a blend of romantic reflections catalyze them, but the journey of reflection traverses between the heart and mind. The direction of that journey leads to deeper states of my own self-disclosure, and I end up writing about no one particular, but rather everyone and everything that somehow completes the archetype of love within the understanding of my being. Yes, there are particular people among the totality - but where does one focus? I'm reminded of a saying quoted by so many in so many places, "Where do I flee from your presence? Thou art everywhere."

This collection is not intended as rhyming, rhythmic lessons or simple dictums for lovers. Many are belletristic rather than quintessential deep dives into the mystical truths of love — although some do attempt to traverse along the nexus of divine love and human love, with an emphasis on "human." Within this book is another chapter of poems called "Whispers of a Silent Heart (Khamosh Dil ki Sarghoshiyan)," which does explore the deeper questions and mysteries of divine and exquisite love.

Encouraged by friends, I attempt to narrate the meanings of some of these poems at their ends, but then I just end up writing another poem. You see, the reading of anything poetic sparks a wildfire in the heart, at least for those inclined to burn. I hope fire rages within all those who read this book so they might be inspired to go out and kindle the world.

These poems are not organized by any inherent characteristic or sequence with respect to their meanings. Feel free to skip around in your reading. I do make some attempt to mix long and short poems, as it can be tiresome to read them in strict order.

You will also see that I've taken great liberty with punctuation, wordplay, structure, mixed meter, along with alliteration, assonance, and consonance. This is how love goes. It takes liberties and finds its own harmony in disarray and cacophony. Love does everything it can to romance the edges right off the jagged rules.

Please let yourself fall into your own being as you read them. I hope you never back love into a corner in your endless pursuits, but I do hope it surrounds you.


    The Waiting Rings of Time

    Waiting in my memory,
    Its gentle waves are calling me,
    For I too was cut from eroding shore
    To ocean's edge forevermore.

    Never a sight had crossed my eyes,
    So vast a nexus, land and sky,
    And sea. Transfixed, so there I stood
    In briny sand by drifting wood,

    While still, each visage yet untamed,
    Each weathered bough, not one the same.
    To touch them all, I sought to soothe
    With salted kisses, lay them smooth.

    There among the writhing forms,
    I walked barefoot and weather worn.
    While each piece begged my presence to stay,
    Another hurried me on my way.

    What could quench this thirsting gaze?
    Lo, is all for destination's sake?
    I beg for but a moment longer,
    With all these twisting paths to ponder.

    I too am driftwood on the beach,
    A wilting flower within your reach.
    One day You'll have me by Your side
    and unbury my waiting rings of time.


    Breakfast with a Writer

    Softly I'll land
    wherever you alight
    and slide over the lee of your wake.
    I'll drift on your breath
    and fly on stirred winds
    to wherever your wings will take.

    I'll break my fast
    with steel-cut oats,
    sip the steam of splendid tea,
    and dip my bread
    in the yolk of love.
    And you'll adore the dawn
    with me.


    Sated Reflections

    Let's not run from reflections,
    Whether they be of you or me,
    Whether by light or mirror glow,
    By whom it's shown or who it shows,
    Be it my darkness or flattery.

    To recite what is in one's true heart
    Is the sound of a rose opening.
    The reddening stealth of its petals felt,
    Opening for rainwater's gathering.

    From one's lips, another sips
    The other's poem, a cup,
    Into which to pour the other's evermore.
    Can another's other ever fill enough?

    And should that rose be clipped or closed,
    Tilt its flower, and fall to earth,
    Is nothing wasted in reflections tasted?
    By bud to bloom, all love is birth.

    Beauty makes the heart lose balance,
    Spinning circles in the foam of the mind.
    'Tis not important which turn is last,
    Be it hoops of hope or rings of past.
    All soulful gaze, through unknown waves,
    Is forever remembered as a fragrance cast.


    Parindey

    Only a wind whines
    here in my heart,
    where ghosts once sojourned.
    They've all departed
    since you arrived,
    since you stepped through.

    These eyes are doors
    to wider shores,
    so green, once blue,
    now as brown as yours.

    Sometimes a stranger's light arrives
    to show itself or you, despite
    your tear-choked stealth,
    that fruitless tries
    to run, resist, be still, and hide.

    So fell a feather from the sky
    from the wing of a beloved passerby.
    So many hues within this plume,
    I thought it leapt off reposeful perch,
    from the cradle of a crescent moon.

    A while longer may you stay,
    O lovely, pining parindey.     But if you must return to sea,
    then send more feathers for my wings,
    and I'll join you when you fly away.


* * *

Parindey is an Urdu word for "bird." But I think it's more about the nature of the bird, whose beauty compels so many to contain it (clip its wings) that we take away its "bird-ness." Parindey cannot help but fly. It is beyond the bird; it is flight disembodied from the feather.


    Smithereens

    Love's mystery unraveling
    is a star burning out,
    naught but a flame without its coal,
    a constellation sans axis
    to circle about.

    When its meaning exceeds
    the object of dreams,
    let it go.
    Let it go to be loved
    to smithereens.


* * *

Out of habit, many fathom love in purely mental constructs, fitting it within a time-space context. They desperately try to put terms to it. Some can sadly only identify with it through its object. This poem is about loving beyond subject and object.


    Sisters of Darkness

    Her eyes are the sisters of darkness
    who, upon their hearts, glisten
    as starry amulets of the night.

    She speaks not,
    but listens for his words
    and waits for sparks to ignite.

    One wish is for what we lack;
    the other is a prayer
    for what we deserve.

    If he grants her wish
    but ignores her prayer,
    of what use does this love serve?


* * *

There is confusion between "falling in love" and "being in love."


    The Pearl of Wisdom

    To look into the eyes of she who sees me
    is a supplication to a light I emit,
    and within her is an echo and glowing ember.
    I too become the billows of destiny's sender,
    and my beloved's torch is lit.

    As a poet, I saw the world with my heart.
    As a lover, I stirred open the eyes of Shiva to Shakti.
    As a seeker, I took the pearl of wisdom from her lips with mine.
    As a man, into the mystic abode of love, I was set free.

    We pause in pinwheel reflections of all this
    to catch the translucent patterns in the veil
    and, with gentle hands, wave away the mist,
    as the winds of once wishes begin to fulfill our boat's waiting sails.

    We sojourn not to find our fortune's ends
    in the gazes and embraces of lovers or friends.
    Rather we come to find ourselves in the other,
    and there, we find our fortune begins.


* * *

The eyes of the lover hold the expressive reflection of what we emit. They respond to the intentions of our hearts. Like blackbodies, they radiate back all they absorb.


    Morning of the Madrugada

    While I press my palm to hers,
    I want to complete the world
    as our fingers fold into the fabric of the skin.

    I ache to taste the tongue of my lover,
    to wash away the flavor of mango
    so I'll never seek a sweeter fruit again.

    As I close my eyes in the blackening,
    I want to hear her, raining
    star drops into my night.

    I imagine my last jar of breath, taken,
    its lid twisted off and emptied into providence.
    Then she fills the slack sails within me.

    All I need for my humility
    is to be placed gently
    in the vessel of her beauty

    and then pushed softly from the dunes
    into a stock-still ocean, sans a single ripple,
    saffron petals, long leaves, and a softening moon.

    Oh, to love her in unrepeatable ways
    and never miss a moment
    of us ever having done so.

    Her pulse is the only sound imagined
    when nightingales go silent,
    when winds' wisps are somnolent.

    From the mystery of my heart as I sleep,
    my muse glides through the darkness,
    into the morning of the madrugada.


    Wild Vine

    We are each alone
    and together everywhere.
    Not a molecule of you do I contain.
    Refresh your beauty where you need,
    for you travel like a wild vine
    in search of falling light.
    But your roots run deep into me,
    Oh beloved, I will bring you the earth,
    and you will bring me beyond.


* * *

Not even the greatest love is meant to be. There is a time and place, and we must adhere to this. We have no choice. The buried seed of love contains a universe — root, nourishment, and the vines that reach above the soil and head toward the skies. One of you might be the roots from that seed, holding fast to the earth; the other might be the wild growing vine from the very same seed of love. There's nothing you can do. Just let go. Be.


    Another Morning Awoken by Night

    I hear a first whistle of a bird
    just before the dance of dawn.
    And dew drips down
    the cat-tongued blades of
    a softening, sprawling lawn.

    A humming bread truck in the distance
    makes its way toward a loading dock
    behind a humble store bakery
    with a donut for a wall clock.

    Tangent to the arc of a hesitant sun rising,
    the air begins to eddy,
    swirling through the porch door screen,
    hissing, java ready, steady.

    There's a subtlety in the rising chorus
    of kisses between the new spring leaves,
    waking the budding flowered branches
    whispering harmoniously on the breeze.

    Turning dreams stroke the linen,
    white and twisted all about
    and through it.
    Our skin slightly shivers within.
    By this morning we are bound.

    You stir gently to again drift off,
    and I am so in love.
    This suburban morning aviary
    hears the persistent cooing of a dove.

    Sunlight ripens from cerulean to rouge
    and curls its streams all over you.
    The morning murmurs sleepily
    as a new day rinses off the dew.

    Another morning's awoken by night,
    shepherding our hearts to slumber,
    this eternal reprise of celestial cycles.
    Love arrives to allay the night
    in dawn's awaiting wonder.


    I Dreamt You Wrote a Poem

    I dreamt you wrote a poem,
    and I read it in my sleep.
    I woke in low light to find it true.
    It shone my eyes, every word of you.

    My arms too have become my wings.
    You do this to me;
    I do this to you.
    We are twinning spirals helix,
    birds in flight, we two.

    Once a heart is unlocked from its belief
    that it was ever in a cage,
    it sees the cage as a door-less home
    and forever flies away.
    It soars in dreams by night
    and returns to perch by day.


    Pulsing Inkwell

    Love's letters clatter in currents.
    Winds curl to stillness
    in a talus of potpourri.

    Season totem,
    a cluster of hope,
    waiting for one match pulled and struck
    to scare the ghosts
    from the pyre
    in a choke of smoke from sweet attar.

    Love's heat
    fans the embers within
    the heart's own fire.

    So many words
    wrenched from mouth
    and wrought from hand
    contortions,
    a twisted spoken grip.

    We strip the evergreen needles
    from the bough
    and let them fall from the fist,
    sprinkling fir
    to the earth as grist.

    Had not a sentence stretched from
    the pulsing inkwell
    by plume to parchment or
    from warm breath of lip's beseech,
    what then of our night would say
    and of our day to listen?

    If we do not dare with deeds to fly,
    then the falling never ends.
    And poem eternal ne'er to begin
    loves expression, not its desire.
    It is the cachet
    to which both life and death aspire.


* * *

Love is a thing of action. Falling in love eventually becomes "just love." And just love is exalting. It's like flying.


    Birds of a Song

    Rain paths brush clear a sky
    to stark, beautiful disclosure.
    I listen to her notes of doubt,
    softly singing through the azure.

    With dove's ear low, I listen on
    for another who perchance is
    a muse, perched atop a pendulous pen,
    swaying lithely among the branches.

    Music is written of moments when
    she trusts my song.
    Its combs of rain
    are sheared in harmony from soaring wing
    from I,
    the melodious bird himself,
    who's ever to fly away again.


    Sibilant Skin

    When still,
    the world turns around the axis of my heart.
    From the dark within,
    lemniscates of a lantern light
    tie ribbons in my eyes.
    Will you know me then?

    And when I die,
    a steady, sibilant wind
    of myrrh and frankincense
    will polish my bones,
    so that when you see me again,
    I'll glow anew
    through a translucent veil
    of sweetly scented skin.


* * *

Lovers lost to each other in life die to find each other in the after-ness, to walk together in the garden of Imran.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from A Sparrow Who Ate the Universe by Skip Maselli. Copyright © 2016 Skip Maselli. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface, xiii,
Acknowledgments, xvii,
Chapter 1 There Is a Pearl Within You, 1,
Chapter 2 Whispers of a Silent Heart, 85,
Chapter 3 Poems with Rounded Edges, 183,
Chapter 4 Poems with Sharper Edges, 223,
About the Author, 237,

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