GODDESS OF GREAT TIME (Mahakali)
Time,
Great Time,
Not the small time that wriggles,
That evaporates, that divides,
Slows, quickens, dissolves matter,
Nor crumbles the certain little boundaries.
Not the time of long ago,
Nor the time of memory-
Not the rope and web
Or stories that buoy up why and why not.
Great Time,
that remains.
Great Time,
the horror and remorseless.
Great Time
where any silence
Would be excessive demonstration,
Where qualities, incoherent irrelevance.
From outside,
(that mistaken myth of outside),
It is a wall of annihilation
Void of edge and shade
A denial of everything.
Senseless, unable to be apprehended.
From inside
Great Time sustains itself in itself,
A round vowel of circular breath
With no flow nor any sound.
Before
and between name.
Before
and between space.
Before
and between desire.
Before
and between despair.
Looking for Great Time
Here or here,
Looking for its dark matter,
Looking for its dark space,
Looking for the reason, the cause,
The origin, the point of entry:
Weighing shadows, calibrating the edge.
Her necklace,
A string of heads, lolling, vacuous.
Take it as a clue, sir.
Great Time will deny the slyest philosopher,
The most particular investigation,
Will eat the reasons why,
Will collapse the measurement.
On the tip of that red tongue
Dancing, tingling,
Feeling without saying,
Lost ullulation, glossolalia,
Speaking in tongues, hanging,
Screaming.
Do not wish on yourself
The nightmare of never.
Do not break that fine, thin porcelain,
Genteel mind, translucent void.
Between, before, beyond.
Great Time:
Where you are not looking,
The smallest omission,
The inevitable victory
Of the insignificant.
Aeons and galaxies
Are its shadow,
Its laughter.
simonhlilly 
SL: is responding to a poem with an essay really permissible? well, maybe i’ll make it short, then. Something about indian religion and philosophy is especially hard for me to fathom. poetry is another matter, perhaps because it makes no demand for strict structure and logic. Still, i’m dealing with a new materials science here, a complexity that is absent in western thought. what makes india so alluring is the memory of youthful days spent in trinidad, the gorgeous light, the indians and their relaxed splendor, the beauty of everything… maybe it’s all in my head, maybe not. RT
I suspect the iconography, as in a lot of ancient comologies, may simply be metapor and symbol for what today we might prefer to see in terms of mathematical equations ( that are, despite the grandiose dreams of mathematicians, simply another set of language signs: deities, numbers, all means of communicating stories). As polytheism is less black and white about philosophical perspectives, the complexity of Himalayan thought can be intimidating to the Westerner – in the same way that Classical Indian music can be unnerving to those familair only with the tempered scales of European traditions.
I think I prefer this medium to explore metaphysical ideas simply because it allows leaps and allusions to exist, as well as paradox. And it never forgets it is only storytelling. Notes, sketches, scribbles of a dreaming something.
i have no idea what the polite convention might be regarding comments, but please feel free to essay here if you would like!
Simon – “Great Time
where any silence
Would be excessive demonstration”
An amazing line, really. I love the “betweenness” lines as well; it make me think of a piece I composed called “Breath” that explores liminal space – “in betweeness” – a concept that ebbs and flows so beautifully throughout this poem. The attempt to capture the indefinable, yes? A beautifully liminal poem, this.
Thank you!