Monday, September 1, 2014

juggle


i do not juggle with three balls
the coloured and the soft
neither do i juggle three stones
the triple solid in the air

but i juggle Fred, the four
and the forty four years
and also that sliding
in between the moments

and wonder the purpose
humans come to live
in their turn to juggle the living
the dead, and the thereafter hours

henry victor

 

 

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

dew on my lawn


like my mouth watering after a spicy dish
when my stomach is empty, last evening
my heart craved that highway leading
to nature’s carving the million-year-sculpture

that unambitious hard work, Grand Canyon!
but my sober soul suggested something else
to run around prompting a Nikon, or a Canon
a pair of better eyes and mind, a larger book

to photo-write, to note, to store to play later
and with others, also advertise my, already
overweight and extra-large ego lost
this morning like the dew on my lawn!  

21.07.2014

Saturday, July 19, 2014

month-end pay-packet



a month-end pay-packet, now, i collect not
but i continue waking before the sun wakes
stretching feet many hours after the sun sets
picking crumbs falling from greased wallets

and buy, cook, and lay tables for animals
sleeping until the sun warms their butts
with only purpose to empty the bulbs
the tax money from hard working nests

do i, then, call mine a living soul, or a machine
paying bills? do i, then, smile and dance, or whine
and kill my urge to plod? do i, then, wake-up
and strike, or yawn in my grave, before i sleep

30.06.2014

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who as a hermit already withdrawn to a cavern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
 
15.07.2014

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

Sunday, June 29, 2014

last noon and last night


last noon i bent my inflexible frame to sit
down on my driveway with my grandson
the little boy, to draw with sidewalk chalk
flowers that never droop, bees that never suck

adding the easy crocodile beside the baby
and endlessly much more that he scribbled
until the energy within tempted him to spill
beyond the safety of my patience, my control

and last night you sent your heavy dark clouds
to completely wipe out our creative expressions
as if getting rid of the monstrous dinosaurs, bad
land creatures, to give space for prickly cacti bed!
 
29.06.2014    

Saturday, June 28, 2014

‘lord have mercy’


i, like a feather fallen from an unknown
bird, am drifting alone, blown in an arid terrain
that wilderness of a loveless world
watered, enriched by the scarcity of gold

that mammon, an idol washed and worshipped
with liturgical music, pious rituals, and spiced
with sacred silence, with and without a person
in priestly garb, naming me, victor barren

the wind here fights and battles with emptiness
breathing out the refrain, but occasionally, ‘lord
have mercy’, while the lord of the creation
like Jesus of Nazareth naps on the boat’s stern!

28.06.2014