priestly prayer

God

make me not

a lazy sacrificial official

an avaricious dealer

in magic sayings

a conceited worthless orator

a wicked sly priest

or just a good stupid sheep

amongst a large herd

God

make me a human

strong minded

imaginative

level headed

sympathetic

a human

who knows his mind

and is not afraid

to speak it

henry victor      19.08.1980

my prison

i am slightly tired

more, want to complete

task entrusted

nay! i created

for my self

knowing i know not

to jay-walk

but i will find

a way out

of this maze

that surround

else, like a gnat

caught in the web

to a spider

i become the grub

either way

i will soon be out

of my present thought

my prison

henry victor       17.02.2019

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

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

care-taker

a mere care-taker

of your dancing stage

my heart

am i not?

dusting

and re-arranging

after each concert

for your next

fresh one

at dawn

with, for sure, pain

and pleasure to taste

before another rest

in the dusk

to dust my heart

and clean the blood

until you shut

the screen

to announce

the close of dance

© henry victor          28.01.2018

foolish fish

a foolish fish am i fattened with folly

to swallow an un-baited hook

while already trapped in a trap

that manipulates my own excess

now i wait for generosity to un-hook

and keep me in that closed corner

letting me feel closely a providence

a grace to swim though in tiny space

and before extinction to mouth

creative curses on those enjoying

the extermination of others using sly

methods ignoring also their conscience

© henry victor       19.05.2002

caged puppy

am i not that caged puppy

running around, within that wire mesh

barking, and playing with toys

belonging not to self

unlike the little dog

i know that i am caged

with sloppy freedom

to flee, or fly higher

© henry victor     20.03.2004

effects made easy

they make things easy

for themselves

walking in terrain unknown

without being blown

they stroll around here

with weighty artillery baggage

that soon transmutes into

my coffin, a heavier luggage

for my daughter continuing her walk

they deliver it from high in the sky

making effects easier

for my offspring as well

and they call this:

“liberation”

but i add the alias

“genocide”

© henry victor     05.02.2004

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

reappearance of variety

sparrows bathe in front of my home

announcing the arrival of spring

i pulled to roll my curtain on pane

letting in joy birds bring into my hut

the absence of varied colours around

earlier made body shiver and freeze

so i closed all cold and social increase

with it i shut out light with my blind

now with the reappearance of variety

in shade and shape, the extra energizing

i receive for my path and my dancing

locking up tightly the monotony of winter

© henry victor     15.03.2003

my will

am i overly stubborn in imposing my will

rejecting your will, in my failing to see grace

in freight unloaded, regularly, at my feet

or, am i lively, very vibrantly, otherwise

adding life to a decaying soul like the mountain

lion, the cougar, pouncing dissolutely at the hunter

with his gun like will hounding the creature

who as a hermit already withdrawn to a cavern

my quest, however, is for wisdom, that light

from the abundance of your mercy to isolate

the black thread in the dusk of my life, and yield

to your will even in my defeat suspending mine

© henry victor

Note: Josephine’s shirt here reads, “When I grow up I want to be me”, expressing, perhaps, her MOM’s inflexible will!  (IHV)

grace i seek

i seek that grace

that sought me at Calvary

i seek that grace

that paid for my release

i seek that grace

that erected an altar in my heart

i seek that grace

that ordained my soul a priest

i seek that grace

that is absent in hypocrisy

i seek that grace

that overflows in common sense

© henry victor     03.09.2003

hovering of your grace

i covered myself, head to foot as a woman

under the tight rule of bearded Taliban

yet there were those who saw my nakedness

or declared the colour of my undergarments

reading within me evil inner intentions

but with the hovering of your grace

my walk with no covering below waist

still covered all my stark bareness

as i roared, and roared like a free lion

© henry victor     21.12.2003

with head up survived

i have watched not once but twice

my house being blown by cyclonic winds!

i have seen my house

smashed to the ground

by bombs dropped from fighter jets

while i, with my family, fled

to escape death from artillery guns

i have helplessly witnessed my folks

sinking in the sludge of scandalous gossip

those poisonous political discourses

by malevolent men and women

planting trees of violence

in all these i have survived

walking away with grace

and my head up!

henry victor     16.10.2003

 

freedom

knowing not from where i came
or to where i am going, in confusion
i called the freedom to wash feet
of another my servitude

now lying naked with more naked

whom i freely choose letting
them freely caress my sensitive
spots i embrace enslavement

my being is blind to the line

dividing freedom that comes
from embracing a responsibility
but with joy and pleasures, lust

09.08.2012