Anything, flower or face
Glass-domed, or that behind
If as icon, mired;
Or what of it, Beauty, book-kept
If as tale inspired
Once focused on, is brought to light
This core, divine, in us;
Longingly pulsates.
Thenceforth nothing but Heaven's
Aspiring to sates.
Your entry into Jerusalem had volumes to speak
Was, like rulers and emperors, your fame at its peak?
Ocean of humans, as though welcoming the divine, rose
Did they know the secret that your end here on earth was close?
Waving palm leaves, the crowds celebrated your victory.
You knew. Did they know that thenceforth would start a new story?
It's not carpets, but their own garments they spread on your way.
The blossoms around swayed as though they had some truths to say.
The animal that wore you felt that its goal was fulfilled.
It seemed as though in everyone, their egotism was killed.
The chants of Hosanna, as wild thunderbolts, filled the ears.
Of the yolks and loads that bound them, had they forgotten their fears?
You could see Calvary calling you with extended hands.
In the form of passion and death, the times had their demands.
Just as the sun surrenders to the horizon
after shimmering out the boldness,
let alone darkness to triumph over;
Likewise, even the sunflower concedes to the sun's movement
radiating euphoria around,
symbolizing admiration and loyalty;
As such the waves converge on the shore
embodying might,
conquering yet coexisting with tranquility;
Thenceforth, let's allow agony to renounce upon us;
for happiness can be consumed,
but pain can create.
When our flag on Red-fort flew first,
Elders felt no hunger or thirst;
They stood as sure as very hell,
That everything is going well!
They saw, thenceforth, like freedom plays,
This game got assumed many ways;
Leaders, like prophets, seemed so sure,
The gift of freedom to ensure!
Wheels, like bullock-carts, rolled on long,
Change, like tortoises, did prolong;
They felt as though in safer hands,
No fear of hard hooligan bands!
=====
===
Do we see the same now, I doubt,
Here exist now much flood and drought;
Longings of poor, here, daily die,
No poor here! To the world, we lie…
Flag, each year, we hoist, as a rule,
I stand as a devoted fool;
Of all colors, saffron shines more,
Have other matters gone so sour?
27 October 2021
When he was a child,
Lost his mother;
Subsequently, her love.
Didn’t even know fully then,
What a loss it was!
Thenceforth searching for it,
Like a man running after a mirage.
Grew up somehow;
Couldn’t find it until now;
In vain were all his attempts.
Other things in life come by twos and threes…,
In place of mother, one can’t get another.
Mother is love! Love is mother!
A Brian Strand July 14 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Strand
Date: 14-07-2021
PLACE : 1st
I had brought a plastic gun for my little son;
I thought he will feel the shoes of an army man.
Lo! I saw him aiming at an urchin polite;
Addressing himself as a hardcore terrorist…
I stopped, thenceforth, buying any more guns for him;
I filled his room with creative things that'd tempt him.
He grew up reading, researching, gaining degrees;
Plunging into ventures apt for human service…
Guns and gunmen he has under him, now, millions
He heads million military battalions.
I heard, some psycho, with guns, entering a school,
And leaving innocent students in a blood pool.
India, known once, a non-violent-nation;
Getting works done, at gunpoint is today, common.
Guns are good. The purpose of guns is not to kill;
Cops have guns. They're not entitled to use them still.
Guns are instruments like plows or spades or sickles;
Use these for humanity. Reach life's pinnacles!
7th May 2021
GUNS Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Anthony Biaanco
Where my dad had taught me my first swimming
Where my mom’s nose got a little cut while bathing
Where we, boys and girls, like monkeys always dived
Where my first and best friend, by drowning, died
Where my neighbor’s girl claimed of losing her ring
Where her boy-friend was found wearing the same thing
Where we had caught every kind of fish we hooked
Where-around we had many a grand dinner cooked
Where-about we had planted many kinds of trees
Where stones from rocks we culled for our marbles
Where my father’s sister’s husband's in-law had a slip
Where thenceforth they check all omens before taking a dip
Where, at least once bathe, young or old rich or poor
Where the waters ever get fresh from a flowing river
Wherein stories say many treasures are hidden within
Where every domestic animal too get their swim and win
Where we teach any swimmer each day a new swim-style
Where anyone explores and launches many a love missile.
Freedom is confined in a lone house with sunken cobbles.
The home is filled with synthetic ornaments and electric bubbles.
I'd live in the secret waters and explore life thenceforth
Rather than reeling in circles; I’m going back and forth.
The tail is the love of his eyes; he made my orange-fin as decoration
But never he heard the old merman’s tale and took it as his inspiration.
Tomorrow is just nothing; I’m not looking forward to
Except for the food he’ll give me that I could chew.
In search of my purpose, I breathe underwater and found emptiness.
As pure as waters around, there is no happiness.
Lei Strauss 2021
I longed for a love pure as driven snow
and fresh as spring 'ere Youth's brief joys succumb;
but a love never transpired; and, although
denied, I carried on to life's autumn.
A maid, princess, or queen have I never
loved or with an ardent nymph passion-proved
lust's all-consuming fire; deprived forever,
I disavowed former hopes for a beloved.
So, thenceforth unblemished and innocent,
without sin and virtuous from west to east,
I surrendered my youth's prurient bent
and forswore my lusts to dwell as a priest.
Now old and bootless, I ne'er knew desire;
or pierced the flower of a maid on fire.
[center][b]
After birth
has shortest lifetime on Earth.
Its called as 'one-day insect'
No regret, one day thenceforth.
Mayflies swarm
And within this shortest term
of life, mayflies form the groups,
and oops! dance too, that's the norm.
The mayfly
as nymph spends lifetime safely.
only purpose is to breed;
That's the creed, follow namely.
~x~x~x~[/b][/center]
Non-forfeiting my troth, in bonny and buxom, I believed.
What good is too good? And why is better, better than worse?
Given the first beginnings I merge intuition with silence,
And form my own variant of “das Weltspiel”, as I deny
The realm of Earth and Heaven, and the realm of God and Man.
The progeny of thought, pliant but plum, with no falsity,
Purified by a jaunt of far and beyond, thenceforth
From a beginning to an end, shines in this darkness,
So strenuous in the pleasures of conviction,
Overwhelming and powerful, almost a daemonic proclivity
Towards the duty to produce evil that destroys goodness.
The unrest is raising to overthrow the slavery reigning in the heart,
The slavery that is wearing the Totenkopf , so proud, and so it is!
I want to stop the cant I hear. Full of devilish malignity, the cant
Of a false scruple, in the world of no clear direction.
How one achieves it, if good is too good? If better is better than worse!
O, I have no predestined servility towards tolerance,
And I will passion and protest and be protestingly passionate,
In my own dimension of reality, frigidly judicious, as an old faith.
Jesus Wept
Just as Mary and Martha lay Lazarus in the tomb
Evaluating the hearts that had broken with gloom
Showing up after his death had already happened
Ushered by His disciples who were also saddened
Sisters questioning Him about His delayed arrival
While they all looked at Him with questioning eyes
Everyone followed as He went onward amid their cries
Praises came upon them as they heard, “Come forth”
They were all astonished as Lazarus came thenceforth
We have been with each other for a number more than three which is quite well grounded for a relationship as ours.
Do we count the years to guarantee us eternity, or rather regard the conscious events that made and make us one?
I beat my brains out every so often whether your intentions remained firm during the whole time you’re with me.
You tend to lose tender attachment in your behavior seemingly devoid of such ardent passion.
Thenceforth as far as this point, this single thought had
been emplaced in my memory that gets in the
way for me to make up my mind.
There are traces of uncertainty seen on the contours
of your face constantly reminding me if I’d totally
immerse my being wholeheartedly into your possession.
Still and all you create patches of affection here
and there causing me to daydream of roseate
tomorrows in addition to occasional pleasures and
endearment, paved a route destined – a road
to infinity.
I sit and reminisce about the "good ol' days"
The prelapsarian time before it all went sideways
The details of life were all that I saw
There was no rich, no poor, no petit bourgeois
As an unbeknownst member of the proletariat
I was in a state of semi-permanent merriment
"Class" was not realized until I moved north
And learned a simulacrum of poverty thenceforth
Then I get nostalgic for the radical breakthroughs
And the molting of all my sophomoric residues
I remember when I thought I could see
The world as it is in one, singular, reality
I was sure I had glimpsed some recondite apparatus
Guided by Providence and limitless afflatus
Now I know how naïve I was on both counts
That experience and wisdom are paramount
I look at life through a clear, antiseptic lens
And take a grain of salt with all my realizations
I don't mistake ardor or fervor for absolute truth
I don't swim around in the fountain of youth
I remember the past fondly and store it away
But focus my effort and gravitas on what I can do today
Something in piercing stillness,
its shrill voice fracturing light
sharing spaces quietude
mid-escape stark absolutes'
ever-present thenceforth...\
haunting dreams
upon long pausing nightfall,
wisps of darkly transcending
reminders constant 'tween breaths
shattering realities' reproach
buried deep within unresolved hearts,
dense air filled of shudders
no earthly sighs uttered,
merely kaleidoscopic tears
cascading obscure eyes
wailing 'pon tepid winds,
untoward thrashing of
ageless moon's mourning,
crucial silent echoes' boasting
otherworldly dimension's shadowed
speech sans heartbeat,
flailing after the fact 'neath
ghostly retribution's apologies,
kneeling in retaliatory ashes
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