saw not your face

sabbath is lonely, full of pain

as you take a break to rest

and i saw not your face, even

once, to whisper my love

work days are burdensome

yet, providing a private space

for my shoulders to touch yours

your soul, for my soul to notice

i must let you go today, realize

i, for you to hide your face

from me, for you to retain

your essence for more peace

© henry victor

erroneous painting

too many wrongs in this painting

where it should be curvy it’s straight

where it should be straight it’s curvy

should it be redone, or forever abandoned

too many wrongs in this painting

where it should be lighter it is bright

where it should be bright it is lighter

should it be redone, or forever abandoned

too many wrongs in this painting

where it should be unmasked it’s masked

where it should be masked it’s unmasked

should it be redone, or forever abandoned

© henry victor

house blown

as i tried to retrace my steps

into my old dusty home

right in front of my own eyes

i saw my house blown by a wind

so gusty, hanging the old on top of another

roof, now shaky, preventing my climbing

to remove and re-fix my abode

to enable me to take shelter from elements

those wild and cosmic on a murky day

leaving me with a hope, a wait for tomorrow

long enough for a stronger storm

to bring that remnant down

© henry victor     18.04.2003

the Lord’s prayer in the margin

our God in the margin

help us cast away your marginality!

let your rule move in from the margin

let the distress of the marginalized

be our prime concern

as it is yours in heaven!

prevent us daily stealing food from the margin

forgiving our ignorance of past plundering

even as we begin, now, to release a little from the middle

disturb us when we are complacent of the margin

delivering us from our selfish affluence

for sovereignty belongs to those in the margin

for they dictate my faith, my practice

and even my seat in the hereafter

now, and always. Amen.

© henry victor     22.10.2003

  

vanity

 

while parking my car in backyard

i was fretful i scratch not

the painting

on the body

realizing not flooding underneath

the foundation of my house

that had already removed

the entire soil

and my house stood

with all its content on an empty vacuum

making the entire structure

ready to go down

crashing into a huge chasm

filled with stream

taking along with it

my car too

© henry victor     21.02.2003

    

my muse, my poem

rhyme and rhythm, sound and music

abstract concepts, the rational reasons

and the visible truth, metaphors and images

precise facts with rhetorical opinions

i keep spitting, and i keep altering

like that venomous spitting cobra

changing her skin until her end

to name it as my muse, my poem

© henry victor     05.02.2003

post a poem

observing the depth, width, and length

i refuse to scuttle like a galloping horse;

hence i choose to carefully scan the world

like a tortoise surveying, slowly, the path

superficiality, i know, refuses to dive deep

to follow the path of the cormorant

prompting the world to survey like a crow

picking crumbs and not dive for pearls

withdrawing from the rat race of this world

as a half-naked hermit with the minimum

i enter into the court, the cave of my heart

occasionally coming out to piss a poem

 

© henry victor     23.11.2003

lessons to lessen expectation

you teach me love to love

from morn to night

expecting no ease for my life

as i, like the sun, give light

to those near and far

working from dawn to dusk

both with limbs and mind

serving those at risk

of losing their comfort

pushing me to let go my desire

to avoid moments of discomfort

seeking scenes to retire

© henry victor           08.09.2016

sailing on words

moods puzzled me those days of no words

and had not mastered rhyme or breaking lines

those days i was a slave to my bad temper

today i sail on winds of my moods

now i long for displeasure and time

knowing my skill to transform tempest

into songs of pleasure that pleases a heart

making soul dance non-stop now

pain in current times i consider precious

unlike then in vain i struggled to sing

for now poetry flows easily like water fall

pushing with force to express all my pain

© henry victor     23.03.2003

living now

before the extinction, that blowing out

nay! that final merging into the ocean

of eternal life, with that unvarying

gazing of the un-setting sun

i refuse now to live with lies

and too simplistic issues

choosing rather to live

with unanswered questions

refusing vehemently to live in the cave

of my own prejudices, or a life imposed

on me, dreaming dreams not mine

living not codes of my ancient ancestors

© henry victor     04.07.2003

present and future

i was schooled to think it is my inalienable right

to plan my life, both private and professional
in advance; but now i learn a tune very different:
this planning is a privilege of only the privileged

sequence of events yesterday

forced me to forsake today
my dreaming and working
to the end of tomorrow

today i’m left with that narrow way

a road with road less ahead found among
living every day as it is my last
walking in faith with a sense of duty

plodding as though a great future

still lay before me
now i think and act not for my sake
but for the new generation

my daughter’s, taking each day as

it comes without fear or any anxiety
that is the spirit in which i now subsist
persuaded to live in my daily practice

but those who hold the key

do not make it easy for me
to stay brave and move forward
yet i do since i’m already schooled

© henry victor     03.07.2003

to grace and mercy

water is murky and turbulent

and i lack the tail of a sea horse

to dance for joy with a partner

or to anchor self in my new house

neither do i have the advantage

to carefully camouflage like a chameleon

as i loiter among the many predators

lurking with strength and big numbers

hence i turn to grace from high above

and mercy of the conservationists

themselves struggling to retain sanity

in this arrogant insane community

© henry victor     18.08.2003

tragedy

 

that’s me: a frail curtain

everyone knows of that grin;

now compassion becomes a longer mile

tickling and forcing a smile

actually crying not from joy!

tragedy is a living toy

in midst of tragedy’s strife

visiting the grass beneath grief

emptying now the hall of ploy

© henry victor     22.08.2003

towards my home

i discarded

my comfortable couch

the cot i snoozed

and my job in university

that provided

me greater security

before i began packing

to go

on my way

i learnt the need

to leave behind much

i had been hauling

dropping further

my academic gown

i secretly cherished

with pride

i then omitted

shaving my beard

with rhythmic regularity

also omitting

trimming and grooming

my hair  

that was of no use

for my journey

steadily ignoring

the lust of my flesh

feeding not

much my body thirsted

and hungered

after a little while like a python

constricting my mind

i continue slithering

henry victor     16.08.2003

new ability

electrify my being that i become a generator

of power with un-blow able spark in my soul

and become you, the very source and essence

of all abilities leading to a greater fulfilment

that i often wrongly called success, as i used

to falsely cherish in the bosom of my heart

pebbles as if they were priceless pearls

until you lit my mind with laser like light

now that i see your call and hear your spirit

in my marrows placing new strength in bones

to give new life to every fibre in my body

to rise up, with confidence, in newer circles

© henry victor

unresponsive love

your cold hearted unresponsiveness

to my seeking you so fervently
makes my heart slow down
threatening even to stop pumping
that life giving blood to flow
to every fibre of my being

your hiding your face

and letting me not know
your dwelling that i may not reach you
to plead with you to listen
to my supplications overflowing
from the centre of my desolations

your running away from me

with your stone deafness
and silence of that widest wilderness
not even that camel, the desert ship
can enable me to reach you to deliver
my message for my becoming whole

© henry victor            16.04.2010

cross roads!

you summoned me to serve

but i strive for success

you called me to work

but i vouch to win

you challenged me to crucify my ego

but i attempt to prolong my years

you beckoned me to be hopeful

but i venture to multiply my happiness

you christened me to quest for powerlessness

but i pile up power for many lives

you made me to love the other

but i dare to loot

you expected me to live your will

but i pray to impose mine

© henry victor     30.12.2003

settling with unsettling

something bulky in my indoors,

like an active turtle, revolts

within, refusing to my settling

in the depth inside my shell

refusals and revolts of my soul

against the menacing ‘isms’

religious and secular in texture

including a broader universalism

they are nothing but a ‘herd-ism’

camouflaged, making me move,

though, like a tortoise in slow speed

reconciling with an unsettling self

© henry victor     31.12.2003

answers premeditated

nauseating emotions

bubble inside my head

even as volcanic liquid

roll in my stomach

every time i sit with groups

of women and men questing

after questions with answers

premeditated and easy

confirming established prejudices

leaving no space for timid, tentative

rejoins, which may be closer to truth

to set free women, men and children

© henry victor     30.09.2003

my breakfast

i am glad i decided to think

outside the box
to unchain my soul
like my seven-year old grandson
chasing a magpie on the way to school

so for my breakfast

i let go my beggarly oatmeal
with that watery milk
racing to prize my daughter’s joy
that last two days of baking hard

while i washed and chopped

the apples the little rascal picked
from under the tree
i planted seven years ago
my home’s celebration of the first born

so i ate an Easy Apple Muffin
a tasty Apple Cinnamon Lemon Zest Muffin

two squares of Apple Cinnamon Baked Oatmeal
and a raw apple with a shiny skin
like that of the angelic Josephine

© henry victor          07.09.2016

factory smoke

from your footstool, a comfortable cradle

you placed me i hesitate not to meddle

with my ever fattening factory smoke

thicker clouds, i cherish to make

trapping me tight behind those bars

from which neither me nor my princely progeny

will ever escape like a turtle trapped

under her own unyielding roof

thus with my shortsightedness i build

greater momentum to cause first, an hasty

homicide, moving then, to a silent suicide

pushing, further, to a genocide and a globocide

while the sulfuric stink from my artificial cloud

that deteriorating dead carcass shall pierce

through the ozone layer keeping pure the cloud

you send to refurbish my life at your footstool

© henry victor     15.10.2003

against the current

not the river into that ocean

eternally flowing, following a path

not of her own but of her ancestor

that i pause in poise to admire

but a struggle of the salmon to spawn

sacrificially swimming swiftly

against the current to lay her eggs

for which i tip my hat

though her end comes swifter

with that greedy grizzly standing in middle

to stop before an upward movement

a new shoal, to the ocean, could swim

 

© henry victor     17.10.2003

psalm 151

my pleadings like smoke

came to you and you listened
my prayers like fog
were before you, and me, you assisted

my days now stay strong
like rocks of Rockies
my nights are peaceful
like lakes in mountains

my heart leaps with joy

like a dancing deer
my plate is full
with extravagant bread

my bones are strong

like the Indian iron wood
my past wrongs you blotted
all out of my sight

i now soar high, and higher

like an eagle in flight
i sit with poise like a king
on throne with no guards around
 
i sleep like a log
the whole night in my bed
i am busy like a bee
the whole day collecting food

in the day of my anguish

you hid not your face
in my distress i called you
and you speedily responded

© henry victor     11.10.2003 

being in love

my love for you, utterly, embraced

the total you, including the new life

bulging, but silently, inside your belly

and ear-rings, your protesting my style!

my love for you bent mine straight

into your heart with a mesmerising energy

submitting mine to your diction, a dictating

i blindly delighted, as if you are my mother!

my love for you painlessly twists my arm

that i neither dream nor truly pack my baggage

to leave my old home, or go out to look

for a spouse, a re-placement for a lost love! 

© henry victor          02.06.2016

deer in solitude

my life is in the solitude

like a deer wounded

and deserted

by the herd

and i live in this seclusion

rebelling

refusing to run like a coward

with the herd

my courage

made me pause

to stop and watch

my pursuer

making self

a vulnerable beast

to continue

wildly in this cave

abandoned previously

to be healed

or i am completely

dead

henry victor     05.01.2003