Shammi Devon

Las Vegas, Nevada

I was born and educated in Bombay, India. My family later moved to Hyderabad in Southern India, a royal and historic city, ruled by the King Nizam Osman Ali Shah. My father was a great scholar and physician of Natural Medicine. He was known as Arerroes of India. He founded the first school of Natural Medicine, the "Tibiya Medical College." My love for humanity and service to the poor and needy inspired me to work for Mother Teresa in Calcutta for a period of six months. Sometime before that I spent half a year in a Tibetan Monastery in search of finding my identity. After my return to Bombay I met my first wife who inspired me to develop my intellectual and poetic abilities. She died in an accident in 1972 which left a great vacuum and painful longing for her. I left for Paris where I spent one year and met numerous writers and artists like Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauroir and Salvador Dali during a trip to Spain. In 1973 I travelled to America where I was introduced to my second wife, an actress and writer. She re-inspired in me a romantic feeling for writing. We were going to produce a movie in 1992 when she was shot in the head by an unknown assailant in Los Angeles. This left her blind and partially paralyzed. I am planing to write a book about my life, my spiritual quest, my travels around the world and all the extraordinary people I met.

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Vain is the quest for the
shore of the ocean of
Love
The only way to cross it,
O Heart,
is to be Drowned.

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Man heeds not the lesson
from the page of warning
the sky and the earth
are unheeded pages turned over.
No one is aware
of the secret of another
Every individual in this world
is an unread page.

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In the depth of my soul there is a wordless song
A song that lives in the seed of my heart
It refuses to melt with ink on parchment
It engulfs my affection in a transparent cloak and
flows but not upon my lips
How can I sigh it?
I fear it may mingle with earthly ether
To whom shall I sing it?
It dwells in the house of my soul
In fear of harsh ears
When I look into my inner eyes
I see the shadow of its shadow
When I touch my fingertips
I feel its vibrations
The deeds of my hands heed its presence
As a lake must reflect the glittering stars
My tears reveal it
As bright drops of dew reveal the secret of a
withering rose
It is a song composed by contemplation
And published by silence
and shunned by clamor
and folded by truth
and repeated by dreams
and understood by love
and hidden by awakening
and sung by the soul

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Those who are brought up in the
struggle of life
They are changing the world the evil
of which the world complains
They alone are responsible for all
their actions

This very world is a field of battle
This very world is a garden of roses
Those who think that life is worthless
accept illusion.
Gosh, how narrow is their vision
how little they know of life.

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I am a cloud, my love. A cloud that
mingles with objects
But never becomes united with them
I am a cloud, and in cloud is my
solitude, my loneliness, my hunger
and my thirst
But my calamity is that, the cloud
which is my reality longs to hear
someone say
You are not alone in this world
But we are two together and I know
who you are.
Tell me my love are you willing to say
to me I am another cloud, O cloud
Let us spread ourselves over the mountains
And in the valleys. Let us walk between
and above the trees. Let us cover the high
rocks. Let us penetrate the heart of the human
race Let us roam the unknown and the
fortified distant places.
Tell me, my love, are you able to say at
Least on of these words.