Short circuit
Think, think
Learn to think right
You lazy cognitive miser
Too lethargic to reason it out
Learn to think, after looking
The technicolored world
The multicolored people
The many facets of the moment
POETRY
Poetry gives a break from reality, an opportunity to melt in to the now or create a movie out of people and stories, thoughts and emotions, and nature and things.
Frames and Filters
What lens are you wearing today?
A black, a blue or a rosy hue?
What nonsense this is; you taint the actual view,
Of the wonderful world around you.
Take off those glasses child!
They are blinding your sight
Remove the frames of the blame, the guilt
The unexplained inferiority
A Land for Sale
The land among the rocks
Stunning rice fields surrounds
The wind that whistles through the native trees
The smell of cardamom and the old rubber trees.
The natural crevice in the rock
The bubbling pond that is for child play
The dolls pool we called it
The only dampness thirty inches shallow.
The Doctor
He was born during the Black of July,
Raised during the JVP up-rise,
During the war, he went to school
His dad he lost, in a train bombing too soon.
His mother slaved herself giving tuition,
A public-school teacher she was,
She made sweet treats during the night,
And had them sold in a shop next to a bus depot.
The Lies They Told
For many years, she searched,
Searched to find the mountain ,
The mountain of victory, the one that she set out ,
In search of a vision, a perspective from atop.
One night, tired and weary, she cried out,
In total abandon, to end the climb
A sore heart that never saw the promises realized ,
She wept in the forest , amongst Kapoc and Fig.
Bliss
One day I stopped looking for you,
I was too tired of reading the great books
The quotes of the mighty sages
The poems of the prophets, and
And commentaries of the wise
I was tired of living the good and the bad
Wishing I would meet you in a lover’s eyes
The accolades from the prestigious schools
A respected career, in the service to your people
In daily living, in giving back and paying forward
Infatuation
In the solitude of the night
I obsessed about you
You know, everything about you
Your smell and stride and bubbly highs.
Everyone has their weakness,
And everyone knows that mine is you.
This infatuation is infuriating
I have no space in my mind,
Every ounce of my awakened day,
Absorbed in reliving your smile.
Discomfort
The wound that is slow to heal,
A once dormant microbe suddenly active,
My nail is out, they removed it with no anesthesia
As if I had a top secret, a criminal, a terrorist from afar.
Why does this wound not go away,
A screaming agony from inside,
Impeding mobility, speed, and balance,
Three months now and endless painkillers.
Loneliness
I sit in my porch and wonder,
This Covid nineteen,
Or is it twenty, or twenty-one?
I am bored to death but scared even more.
Oh those were the days,
The housewives’ meetings,
The coffee mornings at the scrabble club
The too-good-to- be- true chit chat.
Fat
There is an emotion called “fat”,
It is what happens to you,
When people say, you have put on weight,
‘Oh look at you, better shed the flesh’.
‘Oh my, someone’s been indulging,’
‘Oh, don’t be upset, this is for your own good’,
‘What a pretty face you have,
In vain, all that beauty.’
Suspicion
Like a silent dark angel,
A fluttering of the wings,
Against the inner linings of the mind,
A sense of suspicion you think.
Benefit of the doubt,
You know you want to give,
But something is not right,
The rest, it just doesn’t fit in.
The Winds of Change
The wind is a mysterious force; I call it a “He”.
Curious and filled with wonder in his babyhood,
He is gentle and calm as it mixes the tunes,
with the foliage in the garden of his childhood.
Mischievous and playful in his adolescence,
Turning into somewhat shy but flirty,
In the endless dancing of the evening,
The wine and a lover’s yearning.
Autumn Leaves
‘When the leaves wither, crusty and brown,
They code a special history in them,
The seasons of the day, the secrets of the night,
And the conversations of the wild.’
‘The murmuring of the earth,
As they rest on her wet and raw soil,
The busy bees and the buzzing queens,
The fluttering wings of a firefly.’
The Three Mothers
Caught red handed!
She feared for her life,
The old woman who saw her,
Leaving her infant behind.
‘The child you birthed was born in you,
Long before you saw the light of this world.
This is a beautiful but a strange thought,
A force of nature with a free-will of power’.
City of Dreams
She walks the city like a stranger,
The city of her youth,
The liberation from tradition,
She was most used to,
The city that pushed her off the cliff,
To learn how to fly for the first time.
She tells herself that she could buy shoes,
Louis Vuitton maybe,
But these once desired wants,
Seem not to want maybe,
Then she says that she could,
Go dine in a fancy restaurant,
The expensive ones she used to wash dishes at,
Perhaps order some champagne.
Songs from Mount Nebo
He looked up and then looked afar,
His eyes met the valley of Jerico,
The door of promise left ajar,
The endless view as far as Zoar.
He sighed like a man who had seen it all,
Like a king who had conquered an inheritance,
Like a great wise man who knew His call ,
Heard His voice and saw His all.
Reign of the Sons
She sits at her window,
Waiting for something to stir,
The monotony of her days,
The days too long and nights too cold.
She waits for the sound of the fishmonger,
The postman who only brings her bills,
The bickering of the couple next door,
Quarrelling over little things.
The Merchant of the East
The merchant of the East,
The trader whose gold,
Adorned the heads of kings,
And the long reigning queens.
His fortune added to nothing,
The emptiness was never fulfilled,
The prestige his money bought.
For a long while now it seems.
So he wasted no time,
And sold all his wealth,
Gave it to a worthy cause,
And distributed the rest.