The day passes, same routine unhurried
While this body spirals of old age snail.
Energy movements and fade unworried
Point disembarkation, a blithe inhale.
Living forever at one time did grace.
Life driven dares in adolescent youth
Yielded sound as well as negative truth.
Learning by challenge mistakes we did face.
Surround by garden trim, tall sunflowers
Budding, breathless, and infectious spirit.
Climbing rose latticework, I rest near it.
Eternal sunlight reave through lonely hours.
1/19/2025
If splay open wide my heart I could,
to find the nexus of pain and agony:
Excise that particular node I would –
Reave and plunder it oh so mightily!
Sever, cauterise, amputate the point
from which this eternal sorrow stems.
Cleave, carve and hack away at the joint
where the dire anguish around it bends.
If these excruciating emotions I can banish,
Lash them tight with cables of sheer apathy:
Peaceful bliss never then could ever vanish –
Sleep I shall undisturbed under heaven’s canopy!
Smother, asphyxiate, strangle and suffocate
the very source that caused me to be bereaved.
Instead… I humbly submit, patiently relegate
to God the unbearable burden of one aggrieved.
I heard of lands both far and near
where wealth beyond tale can conceive.
With rivers deep and mountains sheer
for the brave to challenge and reave.
I heard of them and I believe
this call that moves me to explore.
I should follow my heart and weave
the path where none has gone before.
Through legends spread by foe and peer,
my head and heart do wish me leave
the comforts of my home so dear
to seek the thrills that I perceive.
The first to achieve and retrieve
power and fame I can’t ignore,
the tug on the conqueror’s sleeve,
the path where none has gone before.
I’m confident in what I hear,
stand ready with sword, shield, and greave.
No time for mortal dread nor tear.
No time to cause angst or aggrieve
the loss of friend or kin bereave.
I sail to explore a new shore
and swear on death I will not leave
the path where none has gone before.
I seek your audience and ear
to beg, my dear Prince; I implore
your blessing, funds, and ships to steer
the path where none has gone before.
Sunlight reave through cerulean sky and drifting clouds,
melting the snow-capped mountains,
through forest heartbeat and trembling leaves,
upon dappled nature's breast.
The placid echo sounds of the brisk captivating waterfall
cascading downward into a plunge pool,
a quenching path to the old roots
and cold rocks dripping in soft wet green moss.
Foliage subdued in a dream
by the crystal stream bank
under the shade of the top branches that weep.
Nature's flawless evolving work of art.
sunlight crossing the horizon reave through stout limbs arc,
myriad leaves of the mighty oak tree.
swift rhythm clatter rat-a-tat-tat sound flee
of the Woodpecker's beak as it feeds beneath the bark
7/28/2021
Earth's beauty was created with its dawning
But flora and fauna will soon be extinct
Mankind refuses to accept the warning
Their abusive pursuits of nature is linked
to forests felled, toxins dumped in streams and yet
Concerns are ignored, the list far past succinct
Mother Nature's wounded; slain without regret
Animal habitats, men selfishly claim
To this ravaged planet, he owes a great debt
But he continues to reave, devoid of shame
Earth grieves in mourning. Human greed is to blame
Thoughts honed to a razor’s edge
The dictionary and thesaurus be my whetstones
Set atop my stalwart quadrupedal aide
Pulverized hemlocks be my stationary cohort
A hewn cedar be cylindrical partner in rhyme
A sooty viscous slurry be my workmate
The milky sap of the arborist companion be my reviser
Time; unlimited; to be committed to sonnetifcation
Mete by minute or by days…to precompose
To choreograph the mind’s breadth of complexity
To see the inferences…laid out; covertly or overtly
Upon reaching a draft of my pre-thoughts; spelt out
To reave the uncomplicatedness from each line
Leaving nothing unprinted upon the page.
A life of burden and heavy loads
Protracted suffering and dead end roads
What crimes have I committed
That my fates are predisposed
To lonely pain, waves of rain
From endless storms of woe
I’ve faced down demons, slaughtered fears
More times than many have known
Worn the bravest faces
Prevailed in treacherous places
That many might dare survive
Lived through dreadful dreams
In vivid, wide-eyed, wakeful hours
Still I embrace every God-given day
Full of life and spiritual prowess
To confront new foes fate might summon
With faith, hope and mental power
When nightfall signals time for resting
I tally another day’s shortfalls
Then count my blessings
The next breath I take
Proof I’ve broken even
Still quite alive…
A day closer to life’s reave
Another day gone like the changing seasons
Years and decades have followed me here
The last chapter or word of our stories
Is seldom clear
When life’s anguish fades with our final breath
Have we claimed our reward or our punishment
When making acquaintance with Death?
Born in the dark of the year is SPRING
Cold seed cloaked in frost, new life to bring
Imperceptibly earlier dawn foretells
First warm zephyr breeze breaks open the shell
Faint stirrings herald the upward swing
Life of the verdant sphere to bring
Warm, golden rays of SUMMER’s sun
Humming life, its peak begun
Monsoon thunderheads bloom and tower
A homage to Mother’s awesome power
All that is great must eventually FALL
Sunny warmth gives way to tightened shawl
Sharp bite of cold the summer to reave
Yet brings ruddy, golden festival of leaves
All kings and queens must lose their crown
Multicolored confetti grows dead and brown
Bare limbs and bitter WINTER cold so deep
Year ends in frigid, breathless sleep
4/7/15
For contest: Seasons
Sponsor: Shadow Hamilton
Sometimes in life it never goes as planned
Into cul de sacs we turn behind us we leave
Feelings and sadness dealt by life's demands
Find that shining light, deliver us from reave
To me that light appeared, not one but two
Father God through his book, I entered
Pasts burdens left behind, no longer askew
My path of life now clearer, happily centered
Forward I now look to share this romantic day
Valentines as we know it, where hearts decide
For they shall speak volumes in loving display
Under Father God, for it's with his hand we guide
This day has finally arrived, it's the morn, we
Awakening with a kiss, cuddling, warming hearts
Smiles abound aplenty, amidst silken sheets glee
To forget pasts grief, welcoming our new start
Holding hands in prayer we, to our Father God
Us on this romantic day, blessed to each other
To thank him, we grace, righteously we laud
Breath of love now lives, no longer in smother
.
Impregnable fortress, my mother's womb,
Beyond all evil reach, no one can intrude,
Bundled with joy, I rocked and rolled !
Little to my conscious , did I know of the plot,
To kill me inside, even before my birth,
Just because they knew that I was a girl !
Small family norm, families you design,
Male dominance, a unilateral align,
Do you think female foeticide is no crime ?
Although I am no threat to a man's being,
Doused my ambitions, catered to his fragile ego,
Suppressed my desires, closed my thoughts !
I covered myself as if guilty of being a female,
Transformed myself into an art that fascinates,
Yet reave me of my right of being born ?
I will now equate myself, my dear mother,
Let me once breathe in the same air,
Tears in eyes, heavy heart, a muffled cry,
I will expand your world, procreator I am !!
Written on 18/5/14
' on menace of female foeticide prevalent in society'
Oh! Patience, My Love.
Have hit both my eyes an unknown storm --
the undoer of my marry Spring,
is beneath my brow a gushing form,
does a drench'd cheek to a yearner bring.
My auguries, that once blessed with love,
have gales become, for a trial of
the touchstone of my faithful shape,
loyal shadows that the future rake;
does my pain emit a cunning drape,
that when praise of love, the evils shake;
still, endure this, to a phase submit,
but, wit, my wit --is my patience fit,
are my gardens, for these storms to reave,
the fruits to come of better degree;
Or will steadfast be love, if believe,
in shade of the fruitless, standing tree.
Maybe, the grandeur of love is not grand
unless we bear our share of pains at hand.
R.N.Khan, © 2012