Untitled

It is the end of the road.

Now paved and tarred.

Yet, once it was not.

Was but a precious clearing

In the clutter of life

when strangers met

and walked untrodden grounds

not once, not twice, but several times,

and a path was born

random and untold.

Would it live?

Youth fell prey and couldn't resist 

the romance of the forbidden.

The path seemed a gateway

to promised pleasures

of a fairytale future;

so it got paved!

Packed with hopes

and dreams, bearing 

promises of trust

to a fairytale future!

But oh, it didn't stop there.

The paved path had to be preserved

in posterity forever.

A blacktop coating perhaps.

So it happened.

A tarred road  it was,

and now 

it is the end of the road.

Nature Shows 'How' in a Post-Brexit World

Nature Shows 'How' in a Post-Brexit World
Living in a post-Brexit world,
I wonder at the 'Live Oak Genus'

Resplendent in olive green attire
with wildly flung out arms,
never one to reach the skies,
it's spread laterally afar.

Often alone is this 'beech',
in abandonment perhaps.
Mirroring its populace
its bearded visage.

Not seeking friends
nor wanting foes;
it is a recluse of sorts.
Indolently languishing
in loamy marshy lots.

Until, Hermes like,
comes a 'huddled mass'
yearning to be free-
a grey n green epiphyte.
While looking for a home,
it weaves its wispy waves
and very gently drapes
the large languishing oak.
And having found a place
in the Oak's embrace,
the moss now settles to grow.

Compatriots now,
the wizened oak
and graven moss
survive all nature's throes.
Perfect mates they are
with symbiotic gaits:
a bow, a bend,
a give and take;
one's turn now,
while the other awaits.

 Holding up the Spanish Moss,
with largesse is the 'genus' oak
No longer migrant, the epiphyte
is beholden to its kindred host.

A team they make
while silently sharing
the sun the land and bonding.
Friends by choice
they casually create
an abode that's all abiding.

A harmonious 'union' so unique
can only respect command.
Look! It seeks no 'referendum'
and will not an 'exit' demand!

Happy Valentine's Day

Ever so embellished,

and so decorated

with hearts and red roses.

It thrills and

it thralls;

at times hard gotten,

and so often

ill begotten.

Yet who can resist it?

Not even the mighty Zeus

could manage to repulse it.

Compelling to the point

that it'd launch a thousand ships.

History pays tribute to it,

with Taj's, tombs, and minarets.

Art stands in servitude

with a Picasso or a John Donne.

Song and rhythm play to it 

be it with a ghazal or a Sufi tune.

Alas, intangible it is

and impossible to define.

Sure enough you'll feel it,

as it drives

or it drowns.

In the strangest of dwellings,

it'll ebb, it'll flow,

and unknowingly it'll grow.

Can't clock it, or time it,

so just feel and enjoy it.

Does it end, or does it change?

Hard to say.

for none's ever bereft of it

to make a guess or say.

Happy Valentine!

Ode to The Quaking Aspen

Populus tremuloides -
a role model of maturity.
It feeds and shades
both prey and predator.
It reproduces in abundance.
Yields when needed,
all for the larger good.
Shows up to deliver
in the direst of straits.
It quakes, it bends,
but won't let go.
Avalanches and glaciers-
It'll brave both
and reemerge
to beckon others to grow.
It's shiny leaves
do its story tell.
They shimmy and shiver
quake and vibrate
in shock sheer excitement
of braving a bolder breeze.
They shade, but just enough
to let the sunlight stream
warmth and light
to fledglings waiting under.
Saplings of evergreen
Firs and Pines
that will soon outgrow and edge out
the Populus tremuloides.
But the gentle Aspen that it is,
the Populus tremuloides
bears no grudge or hatred
of those pushy evergreens.
For the Populus tremuloides
knows, what they do not;
that every tree must grow
in shadow, sun, or rain.
Be it you or me or they,
each of us has but a role
in nature's dramatic play.
Mine was to make way for you.
Now it's your turn
to do your part
so Adieu.

Old Age - A Cancer of Dependency

An aggressive-malignant tumor,

the cancer of dependency 

surreptitiously saps 

the shreds of human dignity.

Stage one:

decision making slowly impaired

and problem solving undermined.

Brooding over what could've been

a sure symptom, but overlooked.

Stage two:

Your world has shrunk

and the cancer's grown.

With fewer friends 

and even fewer needs.

A routine of

food, sleep, defecation, and

zero altercations.

It's now a focused dependency;

a chimera of everlasting security

raising walls of complacency.

Chemo, radiation never sought 

so the cancer spreads unfought.

In a paralyzed mind and body

time is bought...until the metastasis!

Stage three:

The tumor pushes

against bone and muscle

seeking space to grow.

Alas! There is none.

Afterall, no caregiver lasts a lifetime!

One by one the plugs get pulled.

A yanking out of reverie

of life support dependency.

Incapacitated and bewildered,

sans flailing arms, free falling,

in a painful race to the end.

A Poet and his Immortal Art

Penning what he feels passionately for,

or passionately penning what he feels.

Carried on a whirlwind of words,

his ideas may not always please.

 

As daggers in music painfully pleasing,

or caveat colors daintily defying

will myriad magical merengues churn

on a Tintern Abbey or perhaps a Grecian urn.

 

 

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty”

will art in posterity defend,

and on those very ‘spots of time’,

will many their lives amend.  

 

 

Legends, landforms, daffodils and dames, 

will take on a life their own, 

to live it out through you and me

with poetic words fore sown.

Footfalls

To and fro

in shade and sun

playing hide n seek

with a  cloud above

 

Just then…

Footfalls from the past

do flood gates open

to vistas long forgotten.

 

All of a sudden…

Bygone melodies

whisper wanted words

and a  warmth descends.

 

Slowly…

Fledgling hope

takes shaky root

within a sunnier heart.

 

Voila…

Is this a new beginning?

Bird Feeder - Showcasing Hunger Rules in Nature?

Easy food at break of day!

Manna for my wretched wings,

wintered out with desperate flying

to find some food and prey.

 

 

A surge, a measured swoop

to grab the rim n hang on to it.

Tentatively balanced,

to feast on every seedly bit.

 

The sparrows wait

the cardinals hover,

as I feed feverishly

till I can hold no longer.  

It is now the cardinal’s turn;

the red one on the ring.

In his hurry, he bangs the rim

and the feeder begins to swing.

 

Paying for his rushed entry,

the cardinal must now wait;

warily watching the tasty treats

until the swinging stays.

 

Crazy Cardinal!

For want of patience,

endures wrathful screeches

and a feeding time reduced.

 

One peck, two peck,

and now he must go.

Without a grudge he takes a bow,

soon alights a humble sparrow.

 

The line is growing, the bounty waning

I fly out to tell my friends…

finches, chickadees, blue jays and all,

still wethering Michigan's snowfall!

 

 

Hunger Games...

the humans play.

We birds know better

to simply share and obey

the Hunger Rules of Nature.

George Orwell's 'Dilemma' Remembered.

"A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;

But born, alas, in an evil time,
I missed that pleasant haven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.

And later still the times were good,
We were so easy to please,
We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep
On the bosoms of the trees.

All ignorant we dared to own
The joys we now dissemble;
The greenfinch on the apple bough
Could make my enemies tremble.

But girl's bellies and apricots,
Roach in a shaded stream,
Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,
All these are a dream.

It is forbidden to dream again;
We maim our joys or hide them:
Horses are made of chromium steel
And little fat men shall ride them.

I am the worm who never turned,
The eunuch without a harem;
Between the priest and the commissar
I walk like Eugene Aram;

And the commissar is telling my fortune
While the radio plays,
But the priest has promised an Austin Seven,
For Duggie always pays.

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And woke to find it true;
I wasn't born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?"

by George Orwell

"A writer's starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice.... I write because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.....The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us."

Orwell's dilemma lives on!

The Story Protests!

I am; when I am told,

  from another’s point of view.

And then I'm penned

only to rest on a 'to-read' list. 

My shape and size are not my own.

 Delivered and designed I am

by one who thinks I am his to own.

I am set, evolved, and dissolved  

- in a city, barn, café, even on a star,

in bygone eras and countries afar.

Embroiled and embedded

in conflicts that I'd rather disown.

 Spun by a stanger's imagination
and colored by alien wit and biases,

I'm housed amid characters
playing me out to a climax
one that I dread, even abhor,

because that sounds my death knell.
Now it’s the resolution that follows!

And from experience I know

it’s time for me to go.

It’s a curtain call I’m made to take,

so I don’t take the bow.

An Intent - A Personification

I am always hidden
yet highly sought after?
I beget every action
but then I cease to matter.
Unless things go wrong!
And then I'm hunted!
They want me, one and all
if only to defend or take offense.
Yet mostly I am a 'pretend'
one that you can't contend,
so well hidden am I.
My covertness on guile depends;
tact with respectable demeanor
which to some the body lends.
Sadly, on my own I cannot fend,
but usually on language depend.
Who I am, and what I become
wish I could control that one.
More oft than not...
a disarming smile,
and I'm undone.
Yet it's me by which people abide;
whether it's life or death, I decide.
Covertly I'm all important,
an overt me, nobody would care.
Sadly, I matter most
when I am not
or don't appear to be.

The 'Mahatma' Blinded in NY City - Is there a message therein?

The Mahatma doesn’t need to see

The bloodshed and the poverty

of a weary n' strife-torn humanity.

The Mahatma won’t want to see

Wall Street' s corruption and apathy

that's sapping dry the US economy.

The Mahatma had better not see

educators aspire to mediocrity

and dwindling student alacrity.

The Mahatma shouldn’t have to see

the manifestations of ethical paucity

in trends and choices bereft of nobility.

The Mahatma mustn’t want to see

the end of human virtuosity.

Then why replace Gandhi's glasses? That’ll let the Mahatma see!!

Body and the Brain - A Dialogue

Said the body to the brain

“Why do you matter?”

“I don’t have to,”

said the smiling brain,

“but to some I do.”

Quirking her eyebrow

the body said,

“I wonder why that is?

After all, I attract

I repel; it is me

who bears a name.”

Little wonder,

the brain pondered

the body’s boastful claim.

“Could you really do without me?”

“Without a doubt!” the body said.

“It’s me they care about:

how I look, and how I feel.”

Deepening her frown,

the body crooned,

“Relentlessly they spend,

both time and money

with little regret.

It’s me they pander,

won’t have me slandered,

so the nip tuck,

and the botox,

waxing and shaving,

even a detox!”

“Huhmm” said the brain

and continued to listen.

“Do you ever get treated so?”

the body asked.

Do they care for you as much

as they do for me?

The lotions, the creams,

the nail polish and the oils…,

proof withal,

that to them I’m all supreme

and I’m held in high esteem.”

To get in a word

the brain did bargain.

Alas! The body didn't give...

“Brain…

you are the baggage

that no one really needs.

You resist, you curtail,

you ponder, and you refrain.

Poking them on their mental might,

telling on all their wrongs and rights.

Why would they turn to you?

You ask questions

they don’t want answers to!

You hold them back

on things they want to do!

You produce their pangs of guilt,

on all the wrongdoing that they did.

Always holding up the mirror,

reflecting on what’s inside,

when all that they want to see

are clothes and TV guides!”

“Is that so?” wryly said the brain.

“Defunct! Dispensable!

A vestigial organ is all you are!”

the body yelled afar.

Tired of all the ranting,

and having thoughts to think,

the brain wanted an end to this,

and t decidedly this it said:

“The beauty that you boast,

has meaning because of me;

without the thoughts that I do bring,

what would a body be!”

"Closures" - An Analysis

Closures all:

Signing those papers.

Putting those trunks away.

Winterizing that car.

Aerating that lawn.

Stop seeing him now

Deleting his folder of emails

Taking him off your ‘contacts’

De-friending him!

The cause for closure is obviously noble:

to start afresh

to conserve

to safe keep

to rejuvenate

to energize...

all for the greater good.

Yet, closures cost:

The lawyer fees .

Lawn maintenance charge.

The mechanic's bill

And most of all...

Closures do tear apart

the human heart.

Quite simply sincere

they may appear;

until those longings,

without warning,

drive you asunder.

Earth Day 2010

Save The Earth

I am old.
Been there since time eternal.
Mother of all species.
Respected, revered, restored, and reaped
in times forgotten. But now..
eroded, evacuated, embedded, and raped.
Droughts and earthquakes are worries no more.

Darfur, Iraq, Israel, and Hiroshima,
all but parts of me.
Dented and cracked irreparably.
I cry, weep, hurt, yell, and scream.
Divided, amputated, suffocated, and mutilated,
searching a lebensraum
in my very own universe,
while my progeny tightens my noose.

Diseng'aging'

Yonder, no net exists
to capture heart and eye.
Ideas alien appear
pulling minds apart

Moving away?
Not really...
a pushing away,
perhaps.

Who moves,
and who's the pusher?
Differently appear,
depending on the eye.
It could be you,
or maybe I;
regardless,
a separation
can't deny.

"Disengagement is an inescapable process in which many of the relationships between an aging person and other members of society are severed, and those remaining are altered in quality" [source: ­Cumming and Henry].
Fellow blogger "Smorg" has a very informative post on this subject.

A Blanket that Covers or a Cover-up?

A snowy blanket;
so pristine a cover.

Beautiful,
if not touched
Inviting,
if only to the eye
Pure,
won't let another show

The green and brown below,
bent under, frigid and cold,
make desperate pleas for the sun!
Does the throw look concerned?

A cover so unique!
Does it guard?
Does it warm?
Does it even care?
Touch 'n find
only if you dare.

Extremes

What deeps, the droves of loneliness can dig!

Can make you weep and cry for things inane.
A tearing need
a dire craving
an endless pit
an angry chasm

What chances the angst of age can augur!
Can make the sanest soul savor a life on edge.
A growing fear
a silent scream
a senseless infatuation
a one night stand

What abuse marginalization can procure!
Can make the apathetic cringe for sure.
a soundless whipping
an endless pain
a racial slur
an ire unexplained.

A Relationship - An Asset or a Liability?

A chance meeting actuates it:
a glance, a touch, a word, an act
can set it in motion.

It takes root
before you know it.
It starts to grow
and you sense it.
It starts to knock
you can still ignore it.
It starts to move in;
now you feel the push.
Finally it occupies
n then you wonder at it!

When? How? Why?
And what next?
Will it stay?
Will it grow?
Will it co exist
or will it replace?
Will it calm?
or will it rile up?
Will it destroy?

Will it bring:
a new vision
with a new meaning,
maybe a new understanding
to begin a new chapter?
Perhaps one of the last,
as mortality beckons.

"A Poet' - Defies Definition ?

A poet is...

a passive painter of words
plush with passionate beliefs;

a traveler in a trance-like state
disconnected yet empathetic;

a sensitive soul, doubtless,
yet doesn't bother blending;

a stranger who defies definition
yet spends a lifetime seeking one!