silenced

after i heard that ‘shut up’

right inside my ear

suddenly

an invisible monster

a formless fear

entered my abode

and silenced

my tattered couches

and the cushions

that continuously echoed

and re-echoed

those foot-falls of your soft feet

now i continue to float

with the music of your silence

sounds instructing my soul

dancing your songs

even after you had left

at the day’s end

the old man’s house is bereft

of a constantly chirping bird

in whose eyes hung my hope

giving me direction

for my remaining distance

to cope with courage

my pilgrimage to heaven’s gate

that final bed warm and soft

requiring no brain

to discern

to stop at red

henry victor                  12.02.2013

kiss from my granddaughter

she knows to kiss

and many kisses on my cheeks

she has stamped

and that too lovingly

so from her

i plead for a kiss

holding her closer

to my wrinkled face

she licks my face

as if painting with her tongue

and then giggles

as if, now, it’s done

henry victor          08.07.2018

kiss from y granddaughter

she knows to kiss

and many kisses on my cheeks

she has stamped

and that too lovingly

so from her

i plead for a kiss

holding h

er closer

to my wrinkled face

she licks my face

as if painting with her tongue

and then giggles

as if, now, it’s done

henry victor          08.07.2018

escapee

 

you were just a few months old

when we bought a dozen of budgies

to keep the house noisy and colorful

it was then that one of these birds

got out of our aviary

that tore my heart and caused me pain

not because of the loss of my funds

or the decrease in the sound

but the escapee knew not

to survive in the outside world

marked by too many predators

now with three months more

for you to be eighteen

and with your flight

away from my sight

the same concern surfaced in my heart

leaving me with a sleepless night

henry victor      26.09.2007

my manuscript

i cannot believe i let you sit there

but i am not surprised

for i know you knew how to push your mother

to the back seat

while you pestered

me for the driving seat

as well!

this morning, i sit here

alone and stare at this picture

for many more minutes

quickly rolling down the many roads

we drove together

at times singing

other times fighting!

i remember

as soon as the deer hit my windshield

you refused to sit in front!

what a thrilling journey

for me to scribble this graffiti

a manuscript

i will take it to the Eternal Publisher

after yet another longer one

but without you!

© henry victor           15.11.2015

Brian Chan, my Edmonton poet friend, first met my only daughter Gitanjali when she was about eleven-years-old and battling cancer. Since then he has repeatedly told me “Gita is the leader of your family”!

For sure, she has been leading the themes and the moods of my poems. She dictates, very lovingly, what mask I should wear at a specific moment. Into her nuclear family of four, plus her pet dog Sophie, Gitanjali has now carefully grafted me as I wait eagerly for the longer journey to my Eternal Publisher with my manuscript!

Henry Victor

unused brain

begging for many more opening

like a homeless, restlessly carrying

a wallet fat as her unused brain

to discern not wealth, an affection

at the door step that she is kicking

seeking more love, bent on biting

the hand feeding her mouth, a gate

opening strength to a flexing foot

will she ever, ever open her wallet

to let her mind know a bird in hand

fulfilling more than many in a scrubland

as un-grasped affection is life discarded

© henry victor           15.07.2015 

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

play kindness

you healed my broken heart

making it overflow with delight

replacing older blocked veins

with newer memories, no pain

flowing like a fresh spring river

surging with melting snow of winter;

in the morning you protested my not

picking and throwing to the second

floor, the dog’s toy to play on way

to your school, teaching me to play

with a four-legged and learn kindness

an urgent skill than picking to count

© henry victor       28.01.2016

cornered or enslaved

“cornered”, commented your conscience!

i know for sure you have a conscience
one that you have now, carefully, cornered
for your convenient cornering others!

but as for me, i am enslaved, and you hinted

in your note with the first two, and the last two words
you hand-picked, like you hand-pick tomatoes
in the store before you store them in yours

once we understand who we are in our essence

the rest flows swiftly like in an unblocked kitchen
sink where beyond all violence all is cleansed
before we go for rest or for our recreation

henry victor     05.01.2015

 

dolls roll in my brain

continuously and constantly you hit

on my face and expect me to hold tight

on to your pet’s leash and your doll

but i have to let them go despite your growl

without you your pet and doll are mere memories

that fade as other pets and other dolls roll

into my brain as newer snow keep falling

on my sun-deck, older to leave, fast melting

neither you nor me are to here stay stagnant

at present, but like yesterday evaporate, forgotten

forever, and we are none but that snowman

of the Halloween not there to see the spring

henry victor       29.12.2014

my daughter, my love

a little leech leapt on me

and sucked a little blood
yet i stroked her with a little love
while the little leech crept into my heart

22.12.2013

my new home

justin, my three-year old grandson
with his lego pieces built a house
on my coffee table, and a garden
beside, and for my car a driveway

who will cook in this house
from him i queried, for which
he responded quick, ‘thatha’
responding with similar speed

also to my second question
who will eat here
‘justin and thatha’
with no doubts about it

henry victor     12.11.2012

Note: The common Tamil word for grand-father is “thatha”.

give give

‘tha-tha’ that sound
the Tamil word for grandpa
from justin’s lips
is the sweetest in my ears

‘tha’ in that dialect
means give, or give me
making ‘tha-tha’ to mean
give, give, or give me, give me

‘give, and give me
your time, your love
and your all
to fill this tin

just for fun
tha-tha’,
dreams my grandson
my little big man