Long Heaped up Poems

THIRUK-KURAL on not offending the Great*: Periyaaraip Pilaiyaamai - Canto 90 K895 and K897

[* The "Great" here are indifferently the King or other learned and wise people whom the King ought to respect and fear....

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at the beginning earth was a place uninhabitable 
to any living thing, it was nothing but a furiously 
burning wandering fireball in an immeasurable open space

while wandering in space, 
however, hit by the meteoric showers,...

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Fascinated by a word ‘lofty solitude’
I, as a tall and dignified pine tree,
once stood high on a mountaintop
that stands there from a time remote in antiquity
the unfathomable height.
However, I have burned the pride of the...

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Silicon city
That pulsates,
Both day and night,
The Tech Capital
And the sky, veiled
With urban haze
And dense, sprawling cityscape.

Grey city of its
Gridlocked roads
Surrounded by
Towering skyscrapers
Inspiring
The coder
And the entrepreneur.

Glass city
Of its
Modern offices
And its apartments
Compact and sleek,
New and bold,
A striking,...

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Rodents can be loquacious
That includes your average gerbil
They love to prattle, chat and blather
They really are quite verbal

Hamsters are talkative too
Just as garrulous as can be
With running mouth and wheel to match
They are a sight...

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A canticle I think I'll be, 
A rimed thought, hoary and ancient, 
Stinking as the dust heaped up empyreal on the hills of 
The Judean sands;
And as dulled and dimmed as an archaic coin tarnish'd.
This...

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Star is star, only times when it hangs in the skies,
once it falls on the ground, it becomes nothing more
than a useless piece of stone. Is that why the stars commit themselves 
to the flames...

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It's Christmas Eve at the North Pole,
But everybody is resting,
And Santa's sleigh's not been loaded
Because the elves are protesting.
They're demanding better wages,
A four-day work week, more vacations,
Stock options, and health care,
And union representation.
The toy factory...

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We've heard all about the stockpiling,
the toilet rolls, lettuce and beans,
but secretly more of this is going on
unnoticed, and behind the scenes.
The Government, in our best interests,
(which translates they take us for mugs)
have warehouses scattered...

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Located where the mountains and the sky collide,

The great pagoda floats amid the sea of clouds,

With a luxuriant garden stretching far and wide,

And solemn sculptures monitoring the sacred ground.

Along the thousand steps up to the...

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at the tavern in the darkening hours 
a drunkard swallows the small world reflected in his glass 
at one gulp, emboldened, he dances with inflamed eyes 
brandishing the ornamental sword taken down from the wall...

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Last night I slept
And last night I dreamt
Of what has come and gone
And that which is to come

It was a revelation
Of an impending revolution
The dream made me to dream
The dream is my dream

I saw my...

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Let's do dinner tonight at the Covid 19, the hottest new restaurant in town.
We won't need a face mask, we'll sit with a crowd and dine on Pandemic Stew.
We'll start with a creamy White Supremacist...

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the leaves fall not from the tree
because of their own weight
but the weight of anxiety 
heaped up like unpredictable tomorrows 
and days after days of dismal weather 
compel the leaves to leave the tree 

pretending...

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It is as if I strangely sit between unfoldment and the
pit turn the heart and bend the lip of ageless silent
sun and trees of passing pageants aimed to please
the garish and the blinded throng from...

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A time to rake; to search embers,
for fingerprints and the scorched optics
of the scattered and blind.

After the violence, fagots, and reeds
are heaped up into pyres,
but first the sorting,
the probing for trinkets of flesh.

A silver crucifix,...

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Now see a fine display in market hall 
Where fishmonger's stalls sell the freshest catch. 
A world of wet white tiles and melting ice. 
Seafood displayed, arranged in rank and file.
One Scottish salmon commands centre...

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My Grandmother’s Kaleidoscope    

The stones and the planks of her heart
resonate with the pick-axes and the
hammers. My grandma’s mansion
loses its head, arms and trunk.


His hidden life in the Malaysian
woods during an old...

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And how the wind howled around
  the old container,
    wheezed through the cracks,
      laughed devilishly, 
        fed demonically on...

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A time to rake; to search embers,
to pore over resurrected,
fire-damaged relics.

On an ancient shore
driftwood, fagots, and reeds
are heaped up onto a pyre of time.

After the fire there is a sorting.
a probing for talismans and trinkets.
Before...

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BROKEN FLOWERS
i.m. Ann, my sister 1947 – 1997)

Heads of fine purple strewn across cement
And yellowness heaped up in an airless room –
Travesties to which your heart’s golden fire-dust
Is an increment on pain.  You asked
If...

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I'm going to submit the words
the words that drive my daily thoughts
past wastelands of dirty laundry
and heaped up dishes that scream out
wash me while the water's hot
we're important, writing's not.

I can not seem to find...

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