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

the sacred incarnated

in your smile

i saw my face i was seeking

in your frail naked body

i saw the sacred incarnated

and spontaneously in my mind

i grasped your tiny frame

to make you my only begotten

as you melted, completely, into my heart

loosening my tongue

to sing a song of praise

to God, the only un-flung

and offer my sacrifice

© henry victor     27.10.2003

revolution or risking a rash

my grandson, thirty months old, curls

into his cat box with the four kittens

just a week old, challenging me to see

either the death of an anthropocentric

human life, or that simple parental

negligence for the little boy to pick

a rash to carry with him as the mother

cat carries baby kitten changing place

© henry victor     18.12.2011

at the burial-yard

i prayed fervently

for a child to take my name

and gently hold my finger

as she walked her days

and nights to teach me

the art to age!

ignoring my petition

he dropped you in my hands

with grace to spoil

and teach you

the science of kindliness!

then i prayed again

to dry the womb, to remove

all threats of filling my heart

with a step-fatherly love!

for i knew the sweetness

of snuggles and cuddles

for a healthy girl!

and now i age

evolving as a grand-dad

with a step-father at my burial yard!

© henry victor          30. 06. 2016

juggle

i do not juggle with three balls

the coloured and the soft
neither do i juggle three stones
the triple solid in the air

but i juggle Fred, the four

and the forty four years
and also that sliding
in between the moments

and wonder the purpose

humans come to live
in their turn to juggle the living
the dead, and the thereafter hours

henry victor

 

 

not normal

if not to look at a floating cloud on the sky

or the face of the water in the river
flowing both within and around me
can be considered a normal human

then, sure, i am abnormal to be shunned

and, soon, taken in for incarceration
in that asylum as incapable of living
a normal life except to sign my last will

while the river with all the uploaded urban

sewage flood into the ocean to poison
maim and soon kill the source of cloud
and the living dead enthroned as normal
 
19.05.2014