A Thing Of Beauty part I
To beautify her furthermore
would take divine intervention
baby girl so long ago, I did adore
all grown with baby of her own
O forevermore, dusky jewel
beyond celestial dimension,
of generations hers & ours sewn
impervious love thru time & space
the cosmos, yours
meteor showers cannot erase
O Beauty where art thou
That I should spend a life
In search of you
Once seen on vases
In mists in Autumn
On breezes of Spring
In the morning dew
To me you run round inside
In sacred thoughts
In dreams and reveries
Spinning an inner world
There Beauty you reside
And I to catch your sparkling ring
Am sometimes beggar sometimes king
I
forget—
like how leaves forget their tree
once autumn called them free.
Moments slip and leave
an unsettling void
for dreams to flourish.
Uninvited, wearing
the mask of memory.
A fiction sung in earnest,
stitched in gray hours—
where dreams blend into truth.
A hushed whisper:
“Beauty is truth,”—but
I wouldn’t know
if the echoes I call "mine"
ever rang—
I am built
of broken facts,
soft edits,
and pills that patch up
what my mind kindly discards—
So I wonder, if beauty is truth—
am I still beautiful
when the scars I wear were never real.
My uncle’s name is Keats.
He eats all kinds of sweets.
This habit, his caring wife hates
Saying that his sugar levels it dilates.
One day one of his friends visits his house,
Hands over a box of sweets to his spouse.
To have one from it he tries,
This, his wife strongly denies.
Secretly he looks for them like a mouse.
He opens the lid of every container.
Oh, he is such a perfect entertainer.
She tries to hide sweets from his sight.
And thinks what she does is quite right.
Poet’s see beyond the cosmos
that’s why they’re revered
Poet’s leave the final time zone
past and future cleared
Poet’s bow to one volition
high above the clouds
Poet’s live in love’s reflection
— beauty to enshroud
(Dreamsleep: February, 2024)
Critics Beware!
Poets are vulnerable no less than anyone,
when fallen victim to outrageous critics.
As Shelley wrote, critics' darts struck Keats,
who blindly, cruelly, mocked 'Endymion.'
Lethal no less the heady potion fame.
Some drowned, took poison, died paupers or insane.
Yet poet-baiters must themselves take warning,
wrote Heine in his 'Winter Fairy Tale.'
Eternal lines, if barbed, outdo Hell's fierce burning.
'Time shall not heal when poets wield the flail.'
Our foes, wrote Paul, are not of flesh and blood
but powers of evil inhabiting high places.
Promethean fire consumes the evil and the good,
Iniquities have many masks and faces.
Alone the Word that spares the infant's life
to wrong proves mightier than every art of strife.
At eighty-seven well past my prime
Can you believe it no long can rhyme
Even Shelly and Keats
Have hung up their cleats
Each had hoped for a life more sublime
Oh, standing by thy greenish grave !
I ponder for thousands of times
I write and write and then tear out
Hundreds of notes hundreds of rhymes
Thousands of nightingales I heard
But for thy nightingale I pine
No Ruth haunted my cotton fields
No casement in castles forlorn
My wistful eyes gazed thy love
They found thy Fanny insincere
Oh !why thou pine for such a maid?
Is love to such a maiden fair?
In country's desolate streets
No angel no person will come
Thy Beauty, Truth and Autumn all
To my hamlet I welcome
Why does thou ask to write thy name?
On watery flowing waves of lake?
I'll write down thy name with stars
On lofty sky for thine own sake
More beauteous than the evening hues
More beauteous than the stars that shine
More beauteous than the Beauty' s soul
For which Herself the Beauty pines
Who is that lady by thy side?
The goddess Moon or Fanny Brawn?
Oh come with me in vale of glee
Thy country's lanes are desolate
No one will come to talk to thee
Thou liveth in chamber isolate
Oh come and write an Ode for me
In my veins thy love circulate
Continued...
Oh lady, do you remember me?
The flower you left in the book of poetry.
I lay forgotten for so long,
My petals dried, my colors gone.
But then, a miracle occurred,
I melted warm in the odes of Keats.
His soul now resides within my own,
And I breathe his poetic pain.
Once I whispered to the Sun
But now I sing, of beauty and of joy
For I have become a song, a melody
Born from the words of a long lost poet
But I wonder, when will you return to the library,
To seek out the book and read it once again?
This time, I won’t let you read the poetry,
For I will sing it to you, until the very end.
For I am that flower, the one you forgot
But now I am alive, with the spirit of Keats
And I will not wilt away, not anymore
For my voice will echo through the pages of time.
With every verse, my petals will unfurl,
Revealing the beauty of Keats’ art.
And as I sing, I’ll remind you of the love,
That once bloomed in your own heart.
…
a
h a
p g
l e
a m
o
O_____________O
\ /
( )
( )
( )
( )
____________
Fake admirers of John Keats are spotted,
To check out if their luck goes as plotted,
Accepted the challenge,
They were so brave,
But they turned out to be kindergarten kids, so naive,
How come a person claims to be Keats' admirer?
If he hasn't faced the pain and is not a survivor,
Whoever hasn't read John Keats' letters,
Should be tied with a long chain of fetters.
The philosophers in this group drowned and dead,
They'd found a purpose in Lela, or their beloved,
When asked a question about Keats, they fell to the ground,
Some were bold enough to answer; the rest made no sound.
Written in response to questions asked to John Keat's admirers.
drop enough words
on the universe
you might crack
something open
you might
find your way–
–I don't know
when
a boulder
hits the atmosphere
it becomes a fizzle
a morning glory
radiant splendor
shut tight
before your
morning cup
maybe enough
weight falls through
to touch
your heart
and there it sits
its precious metal
undetected
for years, decades, centuries
how many words
have fallen
nowhere
how do words
that find us
find us
is there more
inspirational insanity
than Poe
more
insightful introspection
than Emily
more
enlightened epiphany
than Keats
I don't know
words illuminate
my darkness
find my way
sing my song
I'll drop
a ton of them
and be crushed
by more
fizzles in the night
at the right time
in the right mind
help me, guide me, show me
hey...
meteorites happen
my heart's
been conked
a time or two
maybe this time
it's zapped by you
who knows
staring up
at the sparkles
and the moon
I want something
to strike
clear through
John Keats qualified as a surgeon apothecary
before concocting his poetry
He also wrote ballads & odes
but sonnets were his favourite mode
you cannot calculate my legacy in monetary value
or in market shares
neither in some property
nor anything tangible
I leave you my soul
recorded in poetry
and thoughts
I share
with those of you with an ear for the essence of me
but unlike Keats not have my name written in water
thoughts
hanging in the air
certainty
uncertainties
mysteries
doubt
reaching
after fact
unweave a rainbow
in
a pursuit of love
with
sorrow 's pain
in
pleasures wreath
natures cycle
a transient
existence
in
fleeting
ebb&flow
pre occupied
let go
whispered
the
heart's beat
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