Monika John
Contemplation Inner silence opens prison doorsof compulsive cravings,thaws frozen eddies of wayward thought,embracing form and formless. It loosens shackles of painful attachmentsawakening hunger for ultimate freedom.Ambitions to reach even blissful heavensfade in its deepening intimacy. Silence abides in the Unmanifestwhere separation has never been. Quiet contemplation uncovers heart wisdom -that all being expands in timeless perfectionin each and everything createdfrom depraved sinners to exalted saints, and that truth will be knownwhen even the most profound revelationshave lost their reason for beingand all words ever spoken have dissolved in emptiness more fullythan clouds in windswept skies. The Emptying Belief in a separate selfis fading,extinguished slowlylike a candle in dropletsof misty rain. The cloak of identity gradually unravels until few rags are left in the tattered shape of an earlier me.All other - body,emotions, persona -hang looselyaround my essencelike outworn clothes - my heart inevitably drawn by the longing to be hollow as a flute.May the seedsof my wantingdry up this lifetime -that the empty hull I becomecan know the indwelling spirit. Monika John’s recent poems were published in the 2012 anthology “Tagore Inspired” Sampad UK, Buddhist Poetry Review, Quiet Shorts, Presence Int’l Magazine, Sai Newsletter USA, Penwood Review, Fungi and Urthona Magazine. Scheherazade’s Bequest (France) will publish a story and poems in 2013. Earlier poetry appeared in various magazines in the US and in the UK.
Educational background: MA in Literature from the University of California, Irvine, J.D. Loyola University, Los Angeles, California.
Educational background: MA in Literature from the University of California, Irvine, J.D. Loyola University, Los Angeles, California.