night heron

roaming foxes

and creeping pythons

provoke not poetry

in night heron

that challenges me

with her silence

and unsung patience

before flying

with splendid colour

of a slim structure

reminding, also, the need

to anchor in hope

of a better tomorrow

a faith in universal care

and abandoning speed

for anxious moving

henry victor     14.01.2002

give give

‘tha-tha’ that sound
the Tamil word for grandpa
from justin’s lips
is the sweetest in my ears

‘tha’ in that dialect
means give, or give me
making ‘tha-tha’ to mean
give, give, or give me, give me

‘give, and give me
your time, your love
and your all
to fill this tin

just for fun
tha-tha’,
dreams my grandson
my little big man

in search

cool, cloudy, windy, and gloomy

yet i drive to Cold Lake
and on road, i see none
except, occasionally, another clown
but driving opposite

still a little snow

not yet melted
and i am sleepy
trying hard to keep awake
while steering my wheel

i’m inside my car

only gently hot
and, like my luck, i just passed
the high way to Red Water
the 700 million gasoline barrel hamlet

but Smoky Lake

the pumpkin capital of Alberta
i did enter
not for eating
but a drive through was my purpose

passing the village of Vilna

copulating scene i saw
while the eagles on roadside tree
disregarded me, a peeping tom
but with dislike towards a villain

once young and fertile

land, after being caressed, harassed
harvested, and, many times, ransacked
now abandoned like that old grandmother
in care centre, are those reserves

discarded cars, buses, and many

disposed automobiles with farm machineries
scattered through the countryside
with derelict log houses and desolate barns
speak loudly of the human greed

Spedden, the little settlement

with two Ukrainian catholic churches
with hardly a space for secular breathing
caught my attention
but with that Chinese restaurant

i continued to speed

in search of what i know not
lamenting not my passing Lamont
that city living country style
perhaps, the undeveloped basement

Elk Island was my hope

in that journey on that wintry spring
a few buffaloes, a few elks, a beaver
if i’m lucky, that’s all i needed
to see to believe in human race

13.04.2004

Stopping at Plamondon

When I'm sick in the city
I drive through the country
To see the farmland outside the city
But this time I did stop at Plamondon
To pay my homage to the Albertan men
Who canonized St. Isidore
The Holy Farmer from Spain
There I prayed for a celestial vision
And angels I did summon
To help me overcome the temptation
To enjoy the return
That I have never sown

04.08.2004

Others May But I Cannot

While millions go without a square meal a day
I cannot pray for more food for myself
While thousands of children die of starvation
I cannot pray for my daily food
While many suffer without human dignity
I cannot pray for God’s gift

Below on earth when people struggle for their existence

Like a worm that struggles when bitten by ants
Looking up to heaven I cannot pray that I be elevated
Like a palm tree that grows heavenward

Faithless women and men pray for more blessings

Instead of saying enough is my greediness
And sharing even the last grain with seven others

14.08.1986

Spare Wheel

Sparsely used second-hand spare wheel am I
Tightly screwed down below the dark deck
Shut out of sight, sitting stoically nearer to street
I stroke, or touch not that passing path
Except in very, very rare circumstances
When one of them becomes indisposed
But only for a dreadfully short moment
Then I am tightly fastened once again
In that very same stealthily secret space
In a planet where sharing is just a concept

Sparsely used second-hand spare wheel am I

Not inside an exciting sportive automobile
But in the precinct of wheeling and dealing of divine

tattoo

she tattooed my face on the skin
of her back
sculpting my enemy’s on her bone
deep inside

but all that i needed from her

was a whisper in my ear
and that she walked to my table
to sip my wine, my pain

squeezed from those grapes

of my joys, that unfolding
of her frame in that grotto
inside the cave of my heart

a re-arranging of cells

in my brain
that dictated my past memory
and future path of my limbs

as they walked to my grave

the real sleep, with unreal dreams
set aside, to my re-embracing
my mother’s womb

15.04.2012