life on Planet Earth
constant change to death from birth
defining the worth
a one time event
an existence much like rent
was such time well spent?
who and what are we
no trivial pursuit be
despite pedigrees
following all rules
of cultures, creeds, states and schools
leaves us useful tools
decrees which confound
class contradictions abound
vague questions resound
deftly inserting
words bent upon subverting
soon turn diverting
safety long has been
in knowing what lies within
defining of sin
anger can erupt
when greed fuels the corrupt
regret won't disrupt
while shrinking life’s scope
truth soon became power’s trope
belief defeats hope
change has run its course
when disconnected from source
of life giving force
existence is free
lies within state of what be
forms reality
How this germ-sharing ritual
I wonder did evolve at all.
Well, heart has its reason
And head feels no frisson,
Love platonic be or carnal.
If half of cultures kiss
And rest give it a miss,
Brains are bound to cavil,
Thrill in kissing to kill
By raising a point nigh moral.
________________________
Happenings | 10.12.2025 | kiss, moral, sex,
Note: Kissing is an evolutionary tradition. Scientists track its roots back to 21 million years to note that most apes locked lips. Well, the question is: apes did know it well, do we? Poets do seem to agree:
What of soul was left, I wonder,
When the kissing had to stop?
- Robert Browning (1855)
If we acknowledge Mother Earth,
How is it we discount her daughters?
If might doesn't make right,
What have we left out of the world?
What do we make of this world… that was made for us?
If we look up to Father Sky,
Is that why we look down on Mother Earth?
Or have we put words in the mouth of the wind,
When we mouth the words of our fathers?
Have we not learned from whence they came?
To The One I Lost Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Anoucheka Gangabissoon
Placed 3rd
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Like a nymph from Arden,
She entered my life’s garden.
Like lightning to me, she came;
For me, she was an ideal dame.
As feminine as a jasmine flower,
She found in me a protective bower.
I traced sweet nectar in her talk,
And a dancing swan in her walk.
Her floating hair for me was a cascade,
Placing my face in it, like a child I played.
Listening to the sounds her anklets made,
In rapturous mood, my head I swayed.
Arm in arm, in all kinds of weather,
Like love birds, we moved together.
People’s evil eye badly cast on us;
Like wild fire, it led to a deadly fuss.
Against us, our own damn cultures,
Played in disguise the roles of vultures.
They rested not until we parted,
And to heaven our souls departed.
Rose knows little about her country.
Far few women do from the pantry
And still fewer,when it gets wintry...
So,she begrudges not the gentry
And challenges not mounted sentry.
Doesn't know about Oprah Winfrey,
Concentrating on their church's Belfry;
Her broadest smiles for Vicar's entry.
It's an old heart for modern poultry,
Her birds leaving when heat is sultry
For her fondest film on Gallantry
Or,if she's loaned it out,Pageantry.
Eyes dancing for just the old pictures:
What would they do to modern cultures?
The Color of Cultures
A poem
By Jerry May
Above and below the skins surface no one is the same....exactly,
But appearance divides us just the same...matter of factly.
A sudden blindness wouldn't cure racial competition and divide,
Because each race inherited cultural differences by which we are defined.
However, by accepting every person's right to uniquely exist,
We are really plotting the course of our own peace and happiness.
...Even in our own subcultures
this pattern most people can see,
look at the endless dysfunction
that curses our inner cities.
A culture than has accepted
a lack of fathers in their lives,
a culture that thinks real success
is betrayal, they’re ‘acting white.’
With music that glamorizes
thugs who murder to get their dope,
is that the culture you’d embrace?
Is that what will give our kids hope?
Now if they have some good ideas
it is quite smart to learn from that,
but some stray ideas are much different
then embracing all that is bad.
You judge culture by its results,
the west brought freedom, prosperity,
so much that Asia imitates it,
and now grows more and more wealthy.
Why take after the dysfunction,
failed cultures make nothing of note,
some cultures are better than others,
and the west is better than most.
Let’s be real, it’s not even close.
Cultural ownership,
disproportionately lavished upon kings,
the occasional ecopolitical queen,
white male Republican Senators,
elite corporate CEOs
overdriving inside monocultural management
feeding consumer acquisitive appetites
Leads to cultural entitlement
Elitely leads to cultural appropriation,
where I win appropriate proportions
at your loser disproportionate misfortune,
And,
sometimes to multicultural creolization,
where everyone wins Golden Rules
co-arisingly together.
When Cultures Collide
Where the river ends
And the ocean begins,
Cultures collide and history’s tide
Erases a way of life
For the indigenous people.
St. Lawrence Iroquoians
Welcomed the French
To the shores of “Kanata”
At Stadacona with ceremonial greetings,
Exchanging gifts and ideas.
But only the riches of the land
Are considered worthy:
Natural habitats retreat
And the environment suffers.
First Nations people would fare no better
Against these foreign invaders.
***
Notes:
“Kanata” is the Saint Lawrence Iroquois word for village, referring to Stadacona (present-day Quebec City, Quebec), and was interpreted as “Canada” by the French explorer Jacques Cartier (1491–1557) in 1535. The St. Lawrence Iroquoians existed from the 14th century to about 1580. They disappeared soon after the arrival of the Europeans, and it is suspected that diseases transmitted by the Europeans to them (for which they had no immunity) were a major reason for their demise.
Food from other cultures broaden our dining experience
A venturesome spirit leads to makes us totally delirious
Expands our horizons
Cravings do widen
Till we blow a gasket, to our drooling we're oblivious
It seems easier to do good
and live healthy
if you live in a democratically robust
and multiculturally resonant society.
For the same reasons
it's much easier to bring oneself harm
and slowly disintegrate into isolating despair
when you live in a capitalistic patriarchal
elitist
competing rights make monoculturing might
anthro-centric supremacist society.
EarthRights denied,
also denies internal climate health
as multicultural sacramental wealth.
All my favorite poets are dead
Pero sus poemas los leo en el atardecer
And they come alive again.
Soy sus Lazaros; los revivo, y viven en mi vida, en este presente.
I want to be like them,
O ser como el pajaro, como las nubes blancas. Pure. Whole. White.
I asked Federico if we could work together on a masterpiece, but he said
No se si pueda, me voy a Nueva York. Perhaps on your return we’ll conversate on ars poetica or post modern art.
Perhaps
Pero no se si pueda.
Regreso a mi cuaderno y bajo la Luna escribo. A Veces abro el libro de Federico.
He helps me create my personal masterpiece, just like he said one day he would.
A self acclaimed professional with incomplete training;
following a system with part-time understanding;
feeding a beast with little knowledge of an approach tactics;
are all shelters where misunderstanding is harboured and trouble, honoured.
Foreign traditions should firstly be digested before adopted,
any culture’s morphology without the remittance of peace and respect
is either faulted with errors towards humanity
or carelessly photocopied using a bad ink.
It is okay to have an ascent
by mere keeping up with the kardashians
or beautifully repaint the glamour of societal fun
by bathing in the Jacuzzi of pop culture.
But when an entire way of life
such as faith based systems and religions
are admired and happily embraced;
such an adoption should never be done from a distance.
Despite its huge diversity, the world gets smaller everyday
due to similar interests, ideology and advancement in technology.
Even though borrowing cultures has aided this process,
it is still insignificant if humane virtues are altered.
THINK OF FROG CULTURES
JUST LIKE HUMAN NURTURES !
HERE HUMAN BLACK STABBERS
ARE RISING UP LADDERS !!
WE FIND RUMOURS AND HUMOURS
SAME AS JUMPING OF FROGS TO OTHER !
HUMAN RUMOURS OF ‘UNSENSORED LOVE’
JUST OPENING OF FROG’S MOUTH TO OTHER
HUMAN HUMOURS TO HUMILIATION
JUST LIKE FROG JUMPING TOGETHER
FROGS LIKE HUMAN ARE HERE
THEIR ABILITIES TO JUMP TOGTHER
ARE GREATER THAN
ANY SCIENTISTS' INVENTION !!
OUR LIFE IS FULL OF FROG’S JUMP
SOMETIMES WHICH LEADS TO
ACUTE DANGER TRAP
BUT WE HAVE TO SAVE FROGS
TO GIVE US A NICE JUMP
NAME: SUDIP KUMAR MITRA
ADDRESS: 87/4, JYOTISH ROY ROAD, NEW ALIPORE, KOLKATA -700053
STATE: WEST BENGAL, COUNTRY: INDIA
MOBILE: 09836043326
DATE: 06TH JUNE 2013
A riverbank of memories
saturates cultured minds
such succulent visuals
of precipitation
so moist, so pleasant
spines shiver in longing
howls ascend
veneration
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