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

hope: merge with the large

money, always, easily slipped

through my fingers

lands that i tried to own also slid

quickly from my hand

the bed i slept in the night

someone else secretly

occupied in the day

the juvenile bird i cuddled

in my bosom

to give warm comfort and a nest

flew away to build her own

my remains too, soon

the fire will consume

leaving, perhaps, my soul

to merge with that larger soul

that welcomingly smiles

from behind the veil

© henry victor

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

 

preferring blindness

since my contract with my last

employer was over, my misery

frequently slipped below

the freezing point

going further down

when eyes within my heart

fell on what she enjoyed

since she sneaked out

from my bed room

to sleep with another

prompting me now, pray for, prefer

blindness in my faculty to feel

© henry victor      05.01.2012

release me for sleep

i am tired, feeling drained

much talking and more silence
like Elijah, hence, i turn to you for you
to take me out of the world full of woe!

not that i detest hurt; but pain

with wisdom i lack in my hand
taking none to the target; and
miracle, i know, you decline!

winged angels, i feel

no more; if so, why not
to me you incline
ears, and let me to you go

for evildoers life is easy, i know

they are quick in wit
and spring from a hollow
soon to set up their might!

precise dimension of pain

the road to Golgotha is rutted

and bumpy; but once i am there
i find the skulls flattened, and easy
the way forward!

i had seen this again, and again

both in the primordial crucifixion
of Jesus of Nazareth, and later
in the fate of his followers!

help me , i pray, to see pain

in its precise dimension:
the wellness it brings to my self
a weight loss, pricking my bloated ego!
 

keep my soul away from that sickness

that inflates my self-importance
prior to the wellbeing and authentic
need of the flock i am shepherding

inspire me with courage to prevent

that fatted sheep pushing around
preventing the lean to enjoy freely
the providence, the food in plenty!

 

pretty-less pain

i put no obstacles in anyone’s way and no fault

was ever found with my work and my presenting
to them as your servant and my work
through endurance in afflictions, hardships

and calamities, verbal abuse, and sleepless nights

with hard labour, purity of heart
grazing your Word, patience, kindness, holiness
of spirit and a genuine love for your people!

yet i am treated as an impostor

by the controllers, the so called leaders!
i am considered as unknown
though very well known!

i invite them to open wide the hearts

for love to enter and transform
the inner person for the Church
to flourish in the godless world!

dew of quietness

disquiet within me rises like larva

creeping on my limbs
and other times like lava
from Vesuvian volcano filling fertile fields!

it is nothing but this absolute disquiet

that you from the moment of my youth
have given me in that prophetic path
you have chosen to drive me!

i have lost all my hope in getting out

of this persistent mire, the unending karmic fire
the end, that final consummation
in you is what i now seek!

i pray you drop that dew of quietness

a little water, only grace i now look up to
or consume me quickly in the fire of crematorium
for that final cleansing of my soul to rise into you!
 
© henry victor

irrelevant

it looks you are in slumber, do not interfere

in conflicts of humans, and even let one
dominate the other as if you dream the game
of the big fish playing against the small sprat

perhaps, perhaps, you do so to let the drama

of crucifixion continue in the same one
the path taken by Jesus of Nazareth to confirm
his destiny, for humanity, an inevitable fate

if they were to live the Kingdom value!

doing so you make Jesus a lying one
and his words, “ask, seek and knock” inapt
in the world cherishing the grabbing spirit

your being makes my doing all that praying

irrelevant not just for me alone but also for ones
you have put on my way, wrapping them tight
in my bosom adding in  my heart my weight

turning my thoughts

i turn my thoughts to you

i like to see your face
i have questions that trouble me
that i want you to answer

i seek inner strength with an inner cleansing

since the outer remains rotten
and stinking with greed
for power, control, and domination

‘follow me’, is what i heard

and i have followed that voice demanding ‘kingdom values’
submerged and scattered in sacred scriptures
from that ancient world, also in my conscience

those who fear you are few in numbers

and among those who respect your rule
fewer will pick up their cross leaving me
and other powerless utterly alone and speechless

i pray that you multiply those who stand for right

over the many who push, their might
to break the bruised reed
and quench the dimly burning wick

i pray that you give me courage

to walk away like Jesus, empty-handed
when i am crucified, rather then bending my knees
to today’s Herod and Pilate, the insolent might

i pray that you teach me to trust your providence

your unseen presence, and learn that i will, at the end
take nothing into that beyond
hence strive for nothing that is perishing