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Satis Shroff Poem
LOST FRIENDSHIPS (Satis Shroff)
When old friends
Go asunder,
What remains
Are memories,
Of moments
In tranquility.
When world tremble
And words shiver,
When lips vibrate
And nothing comes out
Of your larynx.
Just the uneasy
Breath from your nostrils.
The silence and solitude
That prevails,
When friendships
Have lost their meanings.
Encounters,
Wiedersehen,
Become embarassing.
And words become superfluous.
The old wounds bleed again,
Causing pain,
That come like sea waves,
Incessantly,
Stab and go.
* * *
© Satis Shroff. All rights reserved
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2015
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Satis Shroff Poem
LIFE IS A COSMIC DANCE (Satis Shroff)
My soul is a passionate dancer.
I hear music where ever I am,
Whatever I do.
I hear the lively rhythm
Beckoning me to dance.
Sometimes it violins and Vienna waltz.
At other times a fiery salsa.
A Punjabi bhangra or a slow fox.
Life is a cosmic dance.
With its kampfmuster
And its own choreography.
We have people around us.
We look at each other,
Oblivious of the others.
Mesmerised,
Drawn together by an invisible force.
The Flamenco guitarist wails,
‘Life is an apple:
Pluck it,
Relish it,
And throw it away.’
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2017
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Satis Shroff Poem
HABITAT FOR WILD (Satis Shroff)
The flora and fauna
have a hard time
In winter.
The white mantle
Of snow covers
The branches, buds and barks.
The owl loves winter
As it takes in all
Beings that move,
With its keen sight.
The woodpecker knows
Where the larvae and insects
Are hiding.
It's Spring,
The landscape gardeners
Have chopped all the trees.
Now the spur is bare,
No more can I see
The deer that came
To greet me,
To chill in the peace
Of the undergrowth,
And partake
Of the wild elderberries.
Man needs new dwellings again,
Alas, the habitat shrinks some more.
When the deer eat vegetables
In Frau Sumser's garden,
She cries,
'Inform the official hunter.
They have to be shot.'
The deer are unwelcome guests
In her precious garden.
Now and then
A russet fox,
With a bushy tail,
Comes stealthily by.
Hope the hunter doesn't get a hint.
His duty is to keep wild away,
From human domiciles.
If he doesn't shoot,
He's a bad hunter.
If he does,
He's a bad guy.
And so the habitat dwindles,
For the wild.
© Satis Shroff. All rights reserved
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2015
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Satis Shroff Poem
THE GOLDEN SUN (Satis Shroff)
Through the cloudy veil
Appears the golden sun,
Changing the silvery North Sea
To a golden and crimson horizon.
The waves adorned with rich colours
Of yellow, orange blue and brown hues.
A fascinating play of colors,
Unfolding before your eyes.
Even the man-made Buhnen glow.
As you trudge on the beach sand,
To avoid wetting your shows,
By the ever coming frothy waves,
As they peter out near you.
You're thankful for everything
That you've been given or attained
In lifespan.
Like a moment of revelation,
An epiphany,
Or when you've had a near-death experience.
Thankful for who and what you are,
Towards your parents, teachers and mentors,
Who've moved you towards your goal.
In this spectacular theatre called life.
Ah, when Heaven and Earth unite,
The air, land and water.
Chandrama the moon appears
Like a sickle in the vast blue sky,
Bidding farewell to Surya,
The Sun God,
Who has metamorphosed into Agni,
The fiery Goddess that swallows all,
With her purifying flames.
This is the revelation of an epiphany,
A spectacle bathed in scarlet,
Orange, yellow, greenish-blue light.
Ah, how must it have been,
When the world was created?
* * *
© Satis Shroff. All rights reserved
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2015
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Satis Shroff Poem
THE SOUL OF A CHILD By Satis Shroff
They called me the ‘harelip monster’ at school,
And the schoolkids kicked me down the stairs.
I’d often come home bruised;
The children of my age called me:
‘Lakhe, the red-faced monster,’
Some even called me ‘Scareface.’
We were poor and my mother prayed for me.
But that didn’t help me.
I became very sad and depressed.
I couldn’t look at a mirror,
Harelip: I became scared of myself.
Why did I have to be born with a harelip?
Did I sin in my previous life?
Why was I punished ?
What had I done to get such a karma?
I prayed to the Hindu and Buddhist Gods,
But they remained silent.
I was a Tharu boy and lived near Chitwan.
Sometimes the wild elephants would come to the fields,
To eat what they could find.
Even tigers and leopards came stealthily at night,
Took away goats or a child.
During the night we were scared of wild animals,
At daytime children were scared of me.
I hated school,
Hated contacts with humans:
Anyone who stared at me.
Sometimes I’d watch a Bollywood film,
Identify myself with Shah Rukh Khan:
What a great emotional hero.
I wished I could be like him,
Fight against evil gangsters and goondas,
And win the hearts of lovely damsels.
A look at the pond or a window pane,
And I’d be dragged to reality.
One day a teacher told my mother to go to Sankhu,
Where foreign surgeons helped poor Nepalese,
And performed plastic surgery for a song.
My mother gave me hope.
I was scared of the operation,
So I didn’t tell anyone at school.
One day my mom and I went to Sankhu,
Near the capital.
The bus journey was long and tiresome,
But I was thinking of my face all the while.
At the hospital there was a team of people in white coats,
They looked like British sahibs.
But I was told that they were from the Continent,
Wherever that was.
I was given a doll with blonde hair
By a kind white lady.
In Nepali we call it ‘sunpat.’
My heart was beating loudly.
I started breathing fast.
‘You’ll fall asleep’ said a Nepali nurse.
I did.
Oh, wonder, when I woke up I had a bandage
On my upper jaw.
When the bandage was taken off,
I was given a mirror.
I had stitches from my nostrils
To my upper lip.
The gap was closed.
I had a new face.
A flood of tears rolled down my cheeks.
Thank you Interplast Germany:
You have given me a new life.
I now have a moustache
And a pretty wife.
* * *
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2017
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Satis Shroff Poem
A HYMN TO THE SPLENDOR OF THIS WORLD(Satis Shroff)
The sea is calm and a fair moon
Stealthily appears in the sky,
Behind the northern clouds.
The red cliff of Kampen glimmers
Under the light of the dying sun.
And the waves take on yellow, orange, scarlet hues.
The tides still roar decently,
Cease, recede, only to come again.
A sweet Frisian nocturnal air,
Mingles with the smell of salt and fish,
Gets whipped up by the wind.
The golden light hangs,
Like a hymn to the splendor
Of this world.
* * *
© Satis Shroff. All rights reserved
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2015
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Satis Shroff Poem
WARS ARE MADE BY MEN (Satis Shroff)
When you walk in the streets of Freiburg
Or any German town in the East or West,
You see lovely, innocent faces
Of well dressed men and women.
These people are not responsible
For the cruelty, genocide and hatred,
Carried out by their fathers and grandpas.
Wars are made by men.
But the new generation bear a big responsibility,
Not to make it happen again,
For wars are made by men.
We witness it in the refugee homes,
Burning since Hoyerswerda and Mölln.
In 2016 alone 1800 attacks on homes
Of people who sought refuge,
Perpetrated by white racists and skins,
Wars are made by men.
Why do people run away from their Heimat
Why do they cross the Mediterranean Sea,
In overloaded rubber boats.
Wars make refugees out of citizens.
Look at the faces of the scared women and children,
In the eyes of the youth you read
The hopelessness, terror, tragedy and sorrow.
Wars are made by men.
The war bombs are not Heaven sent,
But caused by men called rulers and politicians,
Who seek through war a solution
Of their greedy, evil intentions,
In the guise of nationalism,
Which when unveiled is racism
And the craving for power.
The same craving that made nations
Conquer and misrule other nations.
War is made by men.
Better technology means
More brutality and infernal arsenal.
Every November we think of the victims
Of past wars on Volkstrauertag,
A day of people mourning
The traumatic experiences of war and imprisonment.
We mourn today
And sell weapons tomorrow.
We take part in silent marches,
To remember the murdered Jews,
On Reichskristallnacht and thereafter.
A protest against the Progrom,
Against the Holocaust.
Alas, wars are still made by men
Against other men, women and children.
Wars are made by men.
* * *
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2021
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Satis Shroff Poem
The SPLENDOR OF SYLT (Satis Shroff)
SYLT AT DAWN (Satis Shroff)
You hear the waves
As they splash onto the shore.
You haven't opened your eyes,
But you discern the cries of sea gulls,
As you slowly let the sunlight
Into your eyes.
Ah, the reassuring rays caress your face,
As you proceed to the balcony,
Stretch yourself
And let out cha-cha-cha,
Pa-pa-pa sounds between your teeth,
That you've learned
While singing in your choir.
A seagull with a fish in its beak
Flutters by.
All white and airborne,
Twinkling on a blue sky.
Out in the horizon,
A turquoise blue trawler chugs by.
* * *
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2015
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Satis Shroff Poem
THE NORTH SEA (Satis Shroff)
The sea fascinates the artist in you,
It's dramatic setting,
With its ceaseless waves.
Strong winds are pushing
Curly clouds in the vast sky,
The heavy waves roll,
In the bluish-grey seascape,
Emitting a long line of spray,
Above the white froth.
© Satis Shroff. All rights reserved
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2015
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Details |
Satis Shroff Poem
LIFE IS A COSMIC DANCE (Satis Shroff)
My soul is a passionate dancer.
I hear music where ever I am,
Whatever I do.
I hear the lively rhythm
Beckoning me to dance.
Sometimes it violins and Vienna waltz.
At other times a fiery salsa.
A Punjabi bhangra or a slow fox.
Life is a cosmic dance.
With its kampfmuster
And its own choreography.
We have people around us.
We look at each other,
Oblivious of the others.
Mesmerised,
Drawn together by an invisible force.
The Flamenco guitarist wails,
‘Life is an apple:
Pluck it,
Relish it,
And throw it away.’
Copyright © Satis Shroff | Year Posted 2017
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