Best In Bondage Poems
My sonnet has the temper of a screaming child
because I'll not allow it to run free and wild
Mired on a pad, it damns me. "I want to fly free!"
"You're not ready," I whisper. "Put your trust in me."
It cried, trying to hold on to its pregnant dreams
blaming me for aborting expressive rhyme schemes
"Ask your muse to find more decorous selections."
On her advice, I began to make corrections.
I purged all the rhetoric and made a new start
resulting in the birth of a sonnet with heart
I danced for freedom I'd granted to my verses
No longer do I hear the yowling of curses
I will continue to write with a pliant quill
and an open mind with the ink I choose to spill
The mother who loves her baby
more than her own life
Licked the withered baby tenderly
And then, her long weak trunk rest on the baby
Serenely drop-off hot tears for want of liberty
Love is sharper than a diamond edge;
big as the sea, and deeper without end
The lives trapped in a deep abandoned well
Little water left over from the long drought
Is a lucky gift from unlucky fate?
The baby was a tiny innocent scapegoat
Sluggish creature remained calm
Under the hungry belly of weeping mother
That it brings her incredible pain
Determination of the mother
To release from the bondage is awesome
Starved and weak and scarcely fit to crawl,
tried to find a way across the rocky wall
Gravity pulls them back so tightly together
She thought and recalled about wonderful days
“We travelled along leisurely
Over moorlands and forests and plains
with full of vegetation and abundant water valleys
No one interrupted us and any fences and barricades!”
“Freedom is our heritage
Gift of ancestors the pasture lands,
Green forest canopy, clean water holes
And passages through life and many more
For our existence!
Those who invaded our habitat
Charged at us brutally
Oh… my kith and kin vanishing slowly”
She tried not to shedding tears,
Group of people gathered around the top edge of the trap
There was a pandemonium!
Some scolded “you rascal how much our crops destroyed”
While some deep-hearted men and women,
Express grief for their momentous fate in silence
They dropped some thing to eat miserable captives
Still the mother or kid has no idea
About the rescue operation planned for them
That leaves her withered heart burning
“They have shown their prodigious ferocity
They were not warned beforehand
Human beings are beasts that consume
Even the life of an innocent little one!
Listen! The only force stronger than cruelty
is the bond formed among a mother and child!”
J.Weerakkody
how did i reach this point
i may never know
the feelings are overwhelming
they come in waves that
take my breath away
day and night they pursue me
they haunt me like a bad dream
i want to shout it from the rooftops
but when i try to speak
nothing comes out
what am i so afraid of
what is the worst thing
thing that could happen
i could be set free
from this bondage
that has entangled
me for so long
putting it on paper
gives me such a relief
it takes away the hold that
it has on me and gives
me back my life
to live as i choose
and do with as i please
i've been set free
what once was is no longer
the former is the past
today is a new day
of new beginnings
Submitted for Dane Ann Smith-Johnsen’s Contest
Refugees are humans, people with sunlit dreams
wishing revenge and pain soon would be gone;
hearts held in vigils, their grief unabated
as rudely cups the night in some foreign place,
to will their wings, freedom from bondage cries.
Journeying far when nights tear homes away
while they await destiny, a time of real peace
clutching on hope no vain attempt for women,
and children bathing in pools of fear-
just because a riddled power struggle taints
this will to live rightly, a universal command.
Stand aloft with the breeze, be mightily proud
let your echoes roar on as liberty sings.
People Contest hosted by Richard Lamoureux
June 2, 2018
My poverty-decaying teeth start to chatter
From the cool blows of your breathing
Bundled up in bondage,
I’m unable to see the light in farewell
Things have gotten too far between us…I can still hear the hallow drums,
Beating with doubt, apprehension and disdain
It’s echoing falsehoods and it’s doing us no good
It’s doing us no good…putting us in a rotten mood
Somehow, we have something in common –
We both have shame that overflows in us…
It’s been there all along…
From the beginning of time, I’ve been
All alone, all along!
All alone, all along!
Do sing a joyous song
So, that I’ll feel like I belong
It’s a shame that we must part soon
But, cheer up, dearest – go get some rest and sing a positive song
While I’ll be shining like your midnight moon
~~Chorus~~
Give me a chance to overcome
These waves of emotions
Understand my situation
Don’t pay attention to the commotion
I see you in secret,
Skipping with pride and unspoiled vitality
While I’m… frozen forever
Livin’ this life guilt-free is impossible in my case…
Save me from the contemplations,
Releasing insidious lies
~~~~~~~
Your screams fail to reach my ears
You won’t hear me cry aloud
These tears were bottled up inside for years
I just wanna scream out loud!
Turn the wheel in my mind’s eye
I’m overflowing with guilt and horror
Don’t let the tide of terror sweep over me with woe
Open wide your mouth
Let me fill it in with words of pure, inviting insight,
Not dread-infested remorse
~~~~~~~
It’s strange really –
I had the same guilt as you,
But that was a long time ago…
I can barely remember
When I befriended that stranger
I didn’t even know it would cause
All kinds of mischief and danger…
That angered me to the core
Yet, it told me there was still some hope in store
Patterns become habits and habits confine.
We cling to routine and yet wish to be free,
hoping in vain to be graced by bliss divine
but the truth is we are tied to our mind tree.
Heart is the centre where thoughts originate,
so we must first make it tranquil and sedate,
whereupon our wayward ego too recedes
liberating soul, since throb of love now leads.
Wherefrom arises desire begetting thought,
more so in moments when we think we are still,
imagining ego is reduced to naught
and that we have surrendered to God our will?
It seems clear bondage to form invokes desire
in heart, manifesting as a fearsome fire,
quelled easily enough though if we so choose
without excuse, to make love and light our muse.