These poems are a unique incantation of the psychic being, always tangibly in front -Rod Hemsell, poet Dream Threshold is the second volume in a poetic trilogy on love, following Coming Home, which describes poet Ajit Sripad Rao Nalkur's spiritual journey back to India from the West. His time abroad included living, working, and travelling through Australia, Europe, and the United States. This collection characterizes the poet's gaze into the future of his search for the beloved. The poetry in this volume covers such topics as the pureness of rain in paradise and an examination of what love is really all about. In Dream Threshold, Nalkur continues to explore the theme of relationships and the need to be true to oneself. Haven Give me a place where beauty's face Gazes ever on my soul, A sacred haven for the grace Of love's sweet and endless flow, Words and silence filling hearts That sing of things tomorrow knows Is home to where the deeper arts Of living thrive, the golden glow Of spirit shines in all its trees, Its very soil breathes strength and shows A way to live in harmony With all around, life's constant blows . . .

Dream Threshold

Poetry for the SpiritBy Ajit Sripad Rao Nalkur

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Ajit Sripad Rao Nalkur
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-4002-2

Chapter One

Part One - A Utopian Dream

    Against the Darkness

    I look into the sunny skies of freedom,
    I look into the future of my soul,
    All around is darkness in God's kingdom,
    The road is long and hard to being whole.

    I look into the darkness of the earth,
    I look into the endlessness of pain,
    All around is suffering and the birth
    Of falsehood gaining ground against the rain

    Of happiness and bliss, yet I see
    Candles in this blackness burning bright,
    The fires of tomorrow yet may be
    As long as there is vision in the night.

    One soul alone can change the status quo
    Defying death by throwing open doors
    To welcome in the rush of heaven's flow
    Onto the deserts and the barren floors

    Of life and homes that harbour wornout ways,
    Sweeping all aside that should not be,
    Standing tall against the windy days
    Of ill-will, this sentinel will free

    Those who hold to truth and light and love
    But need the strength of God to stay alive;
    A new world presses down from up above,
    And warriors guard the gates that He arrive

    Onto the chosen soil of golden life,
    A place that He had dared to dream would be,
    Destiny's moment shall arrive,
    What once was not be our reality!


    City of Dreams

    The seat of power is powerless
    In the face of the darkness surrounding it;
    Even within its walls, where energy should abound,
    The landscapes are vacant, desert-like.
    It was a desert once, still is,
    Despite the trees and the people rooted within,
    And one wonders what has changed in all these years ...
    There's no peace in the peace,
    Life is much like the living death
    One confronts everywhere else,
    With its citizens worshipping
    What many have left behind
    To make of this city of light
    A city of joy, hope, love and real peace;
    One is left with the emptiness one faces,
    One is left with oneself,
    One is left with the memory of great beginnings,
    One is left with the hopelessness one always rejected.
    I ask: This is the City of God?
    This the place of bold, new discoveries?
    This the Impossible Dream?

    As it approaches another birthday
    My heart goes out to this tender creation
    Of the world's greatest dreamers,
    Of the pioneers of the spirit,
    Of the lovers that dared the impossible,
    Of the faith, belief, absolute conviction
    That the world was ready for a big change,
    And so the City was born ... as a symbol
    Of mankind's sudden yearning to take a leap
    Into the future! ... I continue to wait, and watch,
    And dream ... after all, this city was built by dreamers,
    And dreamers it will be who shall usher in the unseen.


    Addressing Death

    O Death, although you don't exist
    In any form within my soul
    I see the shadows that resist
    Life's effort in becoming whole,

    I see the fences you erect
    Constantly around the free,
    Carefully you do select
    The chosen few to never be,

    For if they were to light the fire
    Of true love they know so well
    It would spell the end, dire
    Consequence befall the hell

    You have woven like a web
    Of deceit around all man,
    God's children would ensure its ebb
    With divine intention's hand,

    A blazing fire burn the threads
    Invisible that trap our minds,
    Confusion and the cosmic dread
    Forever vanish from mankind –

    The golden city of the burning
    Fires of the sun shall rise,
    Casting out The Shadow, turning
    Earth into our paradise,

    The children of the morning see
    The future now, earth's destiny
    Within their grasp, the balance shifted,
    Manifest eternity!


    Haven

    Give me a place where beauty's face
    Gazes ever on my soul,
    A sacred haven for the grace
    Of love's sweet and endless flow,
    Words and silence filling hearts
    That sing of things tomorrow knows
    Is home to where the deeper arts
    Of living thrive, the golden glow
    Of spirit shines in all its trees,
    Its very soil breathes strength and shows
    A way to live in harmony
    With all around, life's constant blows

    Are never felt nor seen or known
    By the people who live there
    Because the dream is central to
    Its vision of eternal care
    In all it does, attempting things
    The world we know just cannot dare
    For this place is made to bring
    To earth another race, a rare

    Species from the human leap
    Into the future, children who
    Alive, awake as mankind sleeps
...