reflecting on my climb

i climb higher

and higher

until i reach the top

full of lush and green

at the end

nothing but the tip

the branch is dried

and i fear!

filled with anxiety

and more uncertainty:

will it break?

will i survive the fall?

my wits falter

though i know a step down

i must go

to avoid the breaking point

it’s my making

and it’s my greed

that moved me there

and i chose

not the cold

nor a longer winter

smaller

and smaller branch

a diminishing place

a deserted village

climbing against the trend

an irrevocable drift

of an urban world

i now progress

into a wilderness

walking in wilderness is good

but living there

that i dread

i calm my thoughts

and tell my soul

you could always come below

but if it breaks

before the move i make

an outcome

i hate to see

hence

i close my eyes

henry victor      20.03.2007

dust to dust

i read collecting novel dreams

and additional information with breaking news

for my students in classrooms to beat

every dust in way to their becoming

greedily push my offerings

into tiny minds like huge gunny bags

assuming a smooth

and successful sailing in this world

i read collecting novel dreams

and additional information with breaking news

for men, women, and children of dust

with pretentious and pious faces in holy spaces

they sing and dance my offerings

into hardened hearts like multi-holed paper bags

assuming they now had in hand

their passport to a nether world

with neither a smooth sailing in this world

nor a hope to enter an after-world

of gods and goddesses

i with a firm conviction of my being dust

and to dust i return i now pause

to look at the present moment, soon to fly away

like dust on the surface of this world

before another present, yet another dust, is present

henry victor      07.05.2007

Note: Picture here is a photograph of my two-year-old granddaughter Josephine Victor’s artistic creation!

walk the path of Jesus

i have halted my hoping

for your encouragement

and you sustaining my work

of justice and reconciliation

and i expect not you

the patron of the patronizing

rich and the insensitive pretenders

to keep my vision alive

for i am brutally betrayed

by the same kiss of Judas, the pan handler

and cautiously rejected

by the chief priests and caesars of today

and thereafter cruelly crucified

by the sadistic fun loving masses

but will i not continue in the same path

of that crucified Jesus of Nazareth

henry victor     21.06.2003

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

    

mother earth

the earth

hides beneath

all that is worth

to worthy

she opens her veil

yielding freely

like the mother

to her babe

yielding tenderly

from within

becoming

vulnerable

also for rape

as happens

to earth

© henry victor     13.01.2003

refusing myself

 

i love to accept all those who come to me

and all they bring to me to sell

to exchange, or to give as gifts

both grace and all mercy

but my smallness thwarts my deed

refusing that is not my race, color, or creed

snubbing, also, my own breed

giving freely into my control, my greed

with this i also refuse myself grace

like refusing a beggar who seeks to plead

or a debtor requesting yet another chance

but let freely a cheater to defraud

© henry victor     30.08.2003

barren greed

her difficulty is remaining second

with her heart full of greed

for money, knowledge, and fame

like a barren womb sucking sperm

she desires the same

also for those she calls, ‘mine’

craving to achieve

spending neither energy, nor time

like that black cuckoo

who lays her egg in a crow’s nest

for a crow to incubate, and nurse

her baby like the cuckoo chick

© henry victor     17.10.2003

spider grass

an egoless entity sits on my counter

growing silently while cleaning the air

i breathe in my home, adding colour

and feather to  my cap too: a gardener

now, as my ego bloats with a bonus character;

i am rich with purpose, meaning! yet, fatter

self i seek, though deaf and blind to matter

invisible, working on ego patently to counter

until i prick to make it par with a spider

on my wall crawling and making tighter

web to net the mosquitoes distracting my ear

with a song of might, intent to spill gore

© henry victor        06.01.2017

Jesus, the Nazarene

when with joy and confidence shouting the name

Jesus, the Christ in small churches and tall cathedrals

marketing his name and brand, while others

advertising their  products to consumers in home

and far away in overseas, Jesus of Nazareth

the man who hung on the cross with loincloth

softly spoke to summon with tone

so temperate that one can hardly hear

to come and live with him, to see for my self

the birds that have nests and foxes that have holes

while he, the son of Mary, the Nazarene

had neither a place to live nor possession to protect

reminding me i have nothing to lose

neither any to market, nor to advertise

but only a cause to live, a life

to suffer pain to offer more for the little

© henry victor     26.01.2003

arms to embrace

you have given me much moons

and plenty of many an opportunity

yet i remain absolutely empty

but pleading from you for more!

awake now my soul! for it is time

to rise from sleep and slumber

to un-hoard the clutter of desire

in that nothing, the ego, act as if all

instead stretch your arms to embrace

the homeless, the hermits, the marginal

and the bleeding, walking also to the jail

to set free the broken-wing birds to fly!

© henry victor       02.01.2016

keep plodding

i feel sick in my heart that those who align

not with those who crave for control
suffer most, with all
support removed too quick!

this was also in the case of Jesus of Nazareth;

i try hard but my mind is too bleak
to anchor my hope in a life
beyond the hillock of Calvary!

world, in any case, even my soul

keeps moving, changing and growing;
a way you take your people into an experience
of journey, a resurrection from death!

‘plod, and keep plodding’, to my spirit

i say, for that is the game
that you want me to play until my body
finally returns to his bed, the earth!

 

burnt breakfast

my mind is inclined to do that good

and i labour hard, putting lot of my heart
but often ending with an effort wasted
throwing into garbage like my burnt breakfast

and it continues to pierce my nostrils

even in noon, reminding my lack
of awareness caused by my preoccupation
of another work that could have waited

i pray you remove all greed that keep

creeping into my heart, including hunger
for more work sometimes done in your name,
for your sake with no time for ‘awareness’,

an increased concentration of the One

that matters most at any given moment
to augment energy to complete the task
at hand; this i lack and from you i ask!

Insanity

Yesterday

With might and main I laboured

To diligently learn the art

Of lengthening simple shoes

For the ever expanding

Tiny feet of my little daughter

 

Today

I am frighteningly tormented

To discover the contemporary wisdom

Of conveniently cutting feet

To fit useless foot-wears

Made by the reigning professionals

 

Disagreeing

With the modern overnight professors,

I am very assertively informed,

By their cowardly counsellors,

Is plain insanity

Fit enough only for dismissal

 

Ethnic cleansing

In the political arena is easy answer

For those wolfish rulers

Greedily striving to firmly establish

Corruptive power and stinking business

Instead, dealing positively, the prevailing pluralism

 

you and me

absent in your person and subtle
in your work, for you profit

or loss is immaterial but my heart
hungers as wit wires my soul for gain

as if to carry away to the beyond

to that world of nothing like a monkey
meanly pushing grain, fruit, and nuts
into those pouches, stuffing speedily

before climbing higher to a higher

branch hoping to carefully avoid
in this present height, this world
the loss of funds, faith, and my face

henry victor     06.06.2002

 

anti-aging cream

wrinkles and deceptive wrinkles
ironed with the magic cream
magically multiply
that clinging of coins in my pocket

collecting also illusions in my mind

whose soul is already anesthetised
for that performing of extra sex
and spicing, that cushioning of my wallet

with it i look for a larger living space

now that i have enhanced  my size
to become visible in radars
that matter in this world

picking tomorrow’s per diem

exposed to earthly elements
and those pains of patterns
the impact of wind, breeze
the rain, snow and sun

like the ground squirrel

i  still ate and collected
my provisions for longer winters
by that stealing, picking

smaller cakes of soap, a towel

a napkin, little bits of coffee
then a little bit of tea, with sweetener
and whitener with dedicated intent

to change the composition, to prolong

my life, when life in tunnel
filled with pitch dark light
moves only slowly at snail’s speed

lust for space kills

little less than eleven
hundred square feet
housed comfortably
the three of us

and after the one
who took the most space
in that cozy house
decided to fly away

the remaining found
lust too cramped
in that tiny heart

hence they set up
that more than twenty-two
hundred square feet

ending with, that strain
to pump blood
threatening to stop
to prematurely kill