rusty, mouldy, and faulty

your household cherishes rusty liturgy

irrelevant to daily days

giving no stimulation for struggle

to overthrow burden that cripple years

men and women who bear your son’s name

play with a mouldy mindset, dead doctrine

that has lost its power to guard your yard

from straying cattle destroying vegetation

children in your hall dance to faulty tune

until they are tired to meet death

and your banquet hallway is empty

being freed of all perishing wealth

henry victor   09.05.2003    

Note: Art work here is that of Justin Victor, my grandson when he was 5 years old: A Dinosaur (with a small brain)!

a distorted vision

my left hand moved

swiftly

to remove the log in my left eye

sitting there

obstructing my vision of the globe

leading to an erroneous measure

but my right traveled

more swift

to prevent the left arm

serving good

thwarting the removal of wood

to enhance my vision of planet

my left eye joined

spontaneously

the protest of right complaining saw dust

in neighbour’s

demanding my left hand joins right

to remove my neighbour’s speck

henry victor     23.09.2003

i write a poem

sometimes i quickly write a poem

when a dagger has pierced my heart

or a mercy has reached my soul

making it dance to rhythmic refrain

other times i struggle to pen a verse

when desire to discipline is high

or to my daughter exhibit my brain

making her evolve into a genius

on occasion i compose rhyming lines

when my ego is bloated too big

to remain small, humble and modest

making easy an empty expedition

henry victor     23.03.2003

the photograph

words and images reign

my thoughts

dictating disorder out

to establish the couch

for more sun shine

deep within my heart

during this regime

on the roadsides  

i see much rain

puddles, my poems

reflecting for eyes, ready

to see the neighbourhood

henry victor          16.12.2018

posting in ghost towns

i drive many hours

through ghost towns, abandoned

poetry groups, planting words

with pants and images

with wings to flutter

inside hearts like butterflies

decorating the walls

hosts have left behind

for guests passing

through zombie towns to post

their songs; but the brainless

seldom see music

leaving me to dance alone

with not even a single applause

testing my inner mettle

to roam the towns

bereft of taste and depth

of rational, observable substance

henry victor           11.12.2018

pitching your tent

 

pitching always your tent

where i have pitched mine

beside my neighbor’s

you remain my lord

you are my peace

from above

a light from heaven

with life like an ever-flowing river

to quench my thirst

you are that glorious whole

the most holy one

my feeble feet discover rest

in your place

you are the pioneer

that stone in the corner

by being my servant

serving me in my need

henry victor     02.02.2003

my impediment

underneath the starlit sky

my impediment

that fear of humans

i carry within my heart

is, suddenly,  revealed

despite the terror of animals

with nature

unexpectedly enraging

i have overcome

the trepidation of human colleagues

capable of falsifying

my intentions

inflating the innate inherent little evil

and butchering me with no tools

but by naming me with a name

carefully considered

an uttered contemplation

in a twisted heart

with a distorted reason

in it

i comprehend

my cross

my Golgotha!

henry victor     29.01.2003

return from the banquet hall

every time i walk into a banquet hall

joining a company of female

and male celebrating the gifts of life

i return with a heavy heart

and a load preventing my sleep

blocking also my speedy dream

superficiality like shallow water

in the river of civility

and hypocrisy, the dark backwater

of learned bunch

smart inside my heart

also affecting my wit

like the way my gut

suffers after i have eaten

tasty food wherein black pepper

powder is sprayed in excess

in diet served as banquet food

henry victor     22.12.2003

last request

since i have had my share

of pain, painful, and pleasing pleasure

i plead with you to take me

home now to be with you

like me wrapping my mat

after napping a whole night

in case you decide to delay

i do not ask for a relay

of pleasure and pain

but a quiet desk, and a pen

for the flow of my fable, my gory

to transform into a soothing story

henry victor     27.12.2003

names and titles

i have earned

the name of a noble many times

for my disapproving the big

stronger man bullying boy small

struggling stealthily, still growing

they permit me to retain
the title saint
despite my not disapproving
superpower invasion of Vietnam
Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, again Iraq

names are given
and titles bestowed
only for action in my backyard
and my silence in affairs affecting
the living men and women in world

henry victor      14.04.2003

temples, cults and faith

many temples are erected

on graves of human intelligence

giving lip services to humane values

with no concern

for those subjugated

many cults hurt

the wretched poor

removing the very livelihood

of the small like cancerous cell

eating up all with no dirt

left at the corridor

many faiths elude reality well

providing a vision to exploit the little

appeasing conscience

the divine within

fooling self until the final reckoning

henry victor     11.04.2003

baffled by mercy

when i trust you

and put my hope hoping you

for me will make things work

with my field giving a plentiful harvest

and my cattle, numerously, multiply

you let me down badly

with your refusal

to open windows of heaven

for showers to fall on ground

instead

you open doors of pestilence

to strike my cattle

then i trusted you not

from you

nothing i expected

but you then

flood me with blessings, baffling

me with your unlimited mercy

henry victor     17.04.2003

my psalm fifteen

an authentic spirituality, a true worship

and a bona fide love for God

that will provide me firmer security

is not my belief but my doing

doing the right, speaking the truth

slandering not and doing no wrong

to friends or foes, spreading no rumours

but keeping my word despite the cost

expecting no returns

for rendered kindness

refusing to be manipulated

and to refrain from manipulating

henry victor     21.11.2003

veneration of mediocrity

like foxes and hyenas go for left-over, humans

for unknown reason, have evolved

into a tribe who favor, hire, venerate

and casually canonize the mediocre type

this new tribe build monuments

for un-sportive and un-adventurous

jacobs, the sons of rebeccas

at the expense of forgetting and rejecting

and even, discrediting and denouncing

esaus, the sons of isaacs, those adventurous

sportive, creative, and also non-conformists

to bland blank values and lifeless customs

henry victor 

take leave to hover

o my soul! leave this familiar desk

put aside the floppy disk

drive out of the city boundaries

picking up the pair of binoculars

go out my soul!

the land out there is vast

with landscape much varied

and it is summer time

your eyes and mind need to be tuned

on for machinery discarded and scattered

have lessons to teach

winds there too will sing their refrain

o my soul, yours is a fraction of eternity

let the music of birds enter your hall

driving out every evil in that tiny hell

but let your eyes be free to see afar

and nostrils too smell

away from the jar

let your feet walk where there is none

for what your fingers type will go in vain

o my soul! leave this familiar desk

put aside the floppy disk

drive out of the city boundaries

where space floats to let my soul soar

henry victor     24.07.2002

parked or abandoned?

just above on a higher elevation

but in front of that Wayne Gretzky Drive

i sit

watching cars, vans and trucks

life

all moving at 80 kilometers

per hour, or even more

over speeding for sure

i also notice a single car

parked, or abandoned

on shoulders of the same road

am i this car doing poetry?     

henry victor     31.07.2002

stealing heart

with your grace i pilfer

from your own bounty, first

the small, then a little larger

until at the end

your largest grace too

but i will not be satisfied

until i have stolen your heart

or you have mine

henry victor     07.08.2002

simply a cento

the globe i observe is crooked

the air i respire too polluted

i’m lost, filled with frustrations

thought of deity too disappoints

it was indeed, very, very beautiful

when i was schooled not in school

then i waited for you to be my creed

under your shepherding for my need

it was in the cathedral, the mother church

praising you they refused me my crutch

making you, living in me, terribly tired

infinite now they are, but soon to be wired

the arrogant rich, as fat bitch, sit to bark

talk, good work, leaving millions to lurk

presently for shelter and square meal a day

wearing garments of patchwork and hay

henry victor     02.08.2002

an emerging poem

the poet steals from a conversation

his soul has with the world

stubbornly refusing to yield

pouring the same into another mould

to conceal carefully from

the world, the co-creator

of the conversation

naming and owning it as his poem

the poem is now a witness

to that chat in a sanctified

sacred and secret cave, poet’s heart

expressing a vital experience

for this a whirlwind is not necessary

a simple occurrence, a little storm

in the tea cup is capable

of vibrating a spirited song

henry victor     05.08.2002

living without a title

do i call this a loss

of fund

faith

and face

or an opportune moment

for a new construction

to live

not as a living dead

but to walk swift

altered neither by praises

nor curses

moving to reign the moon

expecting not

an angelic intervention

when i fail

or, to name that my fate

cherishing not the first place

but stay human watering

a sun scorched plant

in this parched land 

henry victor     01.09.2002

your absence

my morning silence is silent

overflowing with emptiness

empty of disorder and fight

with each other

no quarrels, no arguments

no shouting, no yelling

hence, no hugging

nor kissing each other

shoes in place, beds

spread with no wrinkles

no power 92, no super station

wash-room light knocked off

my afternoon too, the same

continues, also in the evening

and in night for another morning

with emptiness with your absence

henry victor     12.08.2002

stoning and snowball throwing

i fled in fear from fellows

who felt might is right

and lost no time

implementing what they considered

exact and precisely accurate

hunting down

and stoning prophets

following their precursors

hesitating not

opposed and maligned Amos

Hosea, Jeremiah, and John the Baptist

now i sit, silently

with more hurt

and no further energy to sprint

among masses with language of right

tinged with democracy

spending moment after moment

networking with similar color

class, creed, similar speech

and a malevolent ‘hi’

with a filthy smile

while dodging liberties

of alternate voices and vision

these enemies

of modern day prophets

playfully fling snowballs

on heralds of peace

more painful

than the earlier stoning

henry victor     18.08.2002

am i doomed?

in stillness of my heart

to my spirit

i whispered:

‘in the remaining little life

i will indulge

exchanging my lifeless idols

to the living God

of sparrows and swallows’

‘i may regain

my childhood strength

for silliness, swiftness

and celebrate the care-free life

of flying with freedom

and no anxiety’

but my idols heard me

and refused to let me exchange

values, exclaiming

with great revenge:

‘doom you are, with your habits

of craving’

leaving me

to live

grudging my idols!

henry victor     26.08.2002

enslaving my soul

with rising of the sun

common ravens

ring-billed gulls

and on rarer occasions

the lesser loud black-billed

magpies

living in the broader margin

carved by ambitious likes of mine

and me

come to my window

they sing sweeter songs

of sturdy sovereignty

made possible only by a mind

willing

to crucify the bloated ego

without concurrently proclaiming

a pseudo puritanical life style!

as i stop my soul

to listen to their call

to abandon ambitions

i shut my eyes

and plug my ears

(as if someone beside me is snoring)

and bury my body

deep into my comfy bed

shutting

also, the window

refusing a musical light

and lessons provided

by thoughtful birds

my winged companions

by this i enslave

my pitiful soul

in personal

but tainted imaginings

henry victor     22.08.2002

continuing misery

maybe you are not really there

and my coming to you is to go nowhere

or perhaps, you are indeed there

but deaf, with my speech to go nowhere

maybe you are certainly not deaf

but a different language from yours, i speak

it is possible you and i speak one language

but to you i remain an alien due to my accent

combination of all the above too is possible

but it is the elimination of the cause i expect

at the end, however, still lingers my misery

with none, not even you to make it less

henry victor     21.08.2002

gulls and bullies

 

i observed three parasitic jaegers

among seventy ring-billed gulls

and confused the jaegers

to overfed juvenile gulls

ambiguity surfaced from the apparent

hospitality of gulls; learning later

i realized gulls regurgitate their meal

a pattern among bird parenting!

i have now learnt to forgive jaegers

forget bullying of these creatures

and observed, now, my cookies

frequently emptied by my daughter

she is well known for her skin color

and cherishing not my cookies!

i was misled in admiring

hospitality of my girl

i learnt it right, but a lot later

watching closely a guarded secret

my daughter under threat

appeasing the caucasian bullies

henry victor     25.08.2002