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

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

refusing the crown

what makes me a poet

whose thoughts are drawn

and constructed in series

of ‘broken line’

that many in portals

of academia

may eventually sideline

considering it a wasted talent

is it my inclination

to refuse the crown

with my protesting

to act as the crowd clown

entertaining

not like a man

with a herd instinct

with no mind to own

henry victor      17.04.2007

against the current

not the river into that ocean

eternally flowing, following a path

not of her own but of her ancestor

that i pause in poise to admire

but a struggle of the salmon to spawn

sacrificially swimming swiftly

against the current to lay her eggs

for which i tip my hat

though her end comes swifter

with that greedy grizzly standing in middle

to stop before an upward movement

a new shoal, to the ocean, could swim

 

© henry victor     17.10.2003

never an outcast

when in my speech your voice is not heard
or, my movements make your being invisible

or, my songs do not convey your melody
or, my lines express not your poetic utterance

still i fear not a rejection but i am assured of acceptance

from you; for your embrace is not due to my conformity
to your will, my walking to the beat of your drum
that i seldom hear; nor, for it, my will is strong to submit

but my nonconformity to those who laid hands

on my head and those who claimed to love
and belong to me by blood and name and tribe
reject me, pushing me to the edge as an outcast

18.07.2014