Until

I know of a place where the bees do hum
where patience learns to paint with sun,
the rivers, in their paths to churn,
round and round at every turn.

I know of a place where busy men run,
To and fro, seldom with fun,
Waiting upon, and new things to learn,
And regressing again, in incompletion.

I know of places with honking horns,
saturated sights, grief and woes,
fruitful and faithless, and all things greater,
like love lost and recovered.

And yet, they stay not the same,
for when they lack the essential,
every beautiful nook and goddamn heaven remains,
solitary.
until he comes this way.

Tenacious

I seek you in the wind,

that gallop through mud and sad,

And ride upon the weary souls,

that frequent my hinterlands.



I seek you in the rustle,

that makes touch-me-nots curl,

That waltz across the still waters

of coy delight, in many a ripple.



I feel you whimsical upon the hair,

In rattle of the windowsill,

I seek for the sound of drought,

Through crumbling walls, a struggle.



I seek for you to fly me home,

On your freedom’s back, in contentment

to hear the silence these winds have blown,

Eroding turpitude and plowing slow.




3:53 p.m.

In all quiet

Mount me not on squalid streets,

A monument of stone and praise,

Where the crows find perch and

Stranger’s gaze,

Upon copper or bronze,

Not human, this.

Burn me not for chastisement,

To bathe my ashes to holy thirst,

Upon the banks of the great river released,

In fluid time, to be carried in.

Pat me not into the earth’s midst,

Where insects crawl on unworthy decay,

Mocking and dismissive,

As below the stone I lay.

The eyes that see, that saw, that said,

Will belong as immortal, somewhere else,

Living forever, remnant,

In cursed lightlessness, blind, never again.

Make me relic of the school,

On medicine’s table, proudly spread,

As they cut and peel not on death,

--On everything that I have left.

Study and marvel how they worked,

How pure was that, the blood that flowed,

The heart that skipped and how it roared,

To youthful fancy, see me as more.

Hold me in awe, as you work,

As you learn from thought, intellect earned,

As aged doctor, you one day become,

Thank the soulful cadaver.

So enrobe me in this, not in sadness,

When cherubic skin the time has aged,

Talking of stories, those my own,

Humbled in life of gallant endeavors.

This post from a medical student inspired this.

Starless is the sky

Paper mails that were confined,

To closet that was stashed high

with a hesitant hope that you berated,

Starless is the sky.

Jobs, Stock Market and cleverness,

You thought you knew and all was said

Undaunted in love, regardless

And starless is the sky.

Home’s too away and coffee too black,

The paper mails keep coming back,

The job is gone, the one you never enjoyed,

And starless is the sky.

She heard that day from high prestige,

A place of dreams, grand university!

Paper mails then came to me,

But in darkness, my stars sparkle spectacularly.

For heart, happy-go-lucky,

There was cancer in the family,

Hospitals, flowers and recovery,

It isn't starless, my sky, said he.

Stretching through slick emerald trees,

All the way to Tennessee,

And beyond to the wildest prairie,

There are stars, everywhere you see!

So when with love, hope, joy and pain,

You’re sequestered and everything’s in vain,

Revisit your lonely balcony,

And then, there will be.

Stars in your sky, stars in your sky, stars in your sky,

Promising Eternity.

Believe me.

My affection is a wayward thing

My affection is a wayward thing,

Flying here and there, far reaching,

Trifle tumultuous, violating,

for absolute freedom, aspiring.

My affection is a wayward thing,

like a child in all innocence, weeping

Clingy, emotional, solvating,

in entire streams--consciously recurring.

My affection is a wayward thing,

Shelter in you, seeking,

And when all the shade moves away,

terror rips the soul, it frayed!

My affection is a wayward thing,

an easy timidity to win over,

a little heart, sweet to melt with supple kindness,

An ice-cream, a bear hug and a compliment today,

My affection is a wayward thing.

The Flute

Into my flute now, if I could breathe,

I would breathe slow, in gratitude,

As ageless voices echo deep,

They rebound back, in a dance of music.

Into my flute now, if I could breathe,

I would whisper a song of gratitude,

Not of love and gain, or loss and pain,

But of unbound simplicity, unexpressed.

I’d tell my instrument of a listless night,

Of long years and shadows, now gone by,

A transient discord of horror, and then again,

A bursting melody, not in vain.

I’d tell him of this special soul,

The one who creates music in expertise,

Drumming this vibrancy, unparalleled,

I’d tell him of the minstrel of a far off grove.

I’d breath to my flute, a harmony, a soul,

A voice unheard---unheard before,

And I’d like to tell him, that although,

I cannot tame the winds into a waiting fist,

I can call the music my own!

The flute is eternally mine,

But sometimes, a lungful of winds do visit.

As I breathe in and out,

They echo back, unceasingly, never to leave, never in relapse.

The surging waves never damping---the laws of nature, to impudently defy.

It unwinds, tangles, like a tiresome stray,

But the stubborn music, familiar to flute, my child, has come to stay, has come to stay.

The songbird spoke at 2:49 P.M., for the favorite musician of the far off grove.

More fortunate than I?

The fair has come to town today,

And the mud roads I trample,

In earnesty, to kick up the dust with trinket-bound feet,

And a traveler’s stories to hear.

The tramps are all huddled and still,

The travelers bicker and joke,

The accomplished smile through fish teeth,

And showcase treasures galore.

We endured the far off lands,

And these are our trophies, they say,

Trudging through the desert sands,

Foreign mountains and orange sun in may.

To win and fight for all that’s sought,

We plundered fearlessly, and sacrificed,

And this is the fruit of sweat and blood,

The sweet riches that in pockets jingle.

It means we’re brave, and there’s no cause for treason,

It robbed us of our youth and age,

And yet, we are the kings of our lands and reason,

Reasoned the old man today.

He felt himself a fortunate creature,

And I was glad that he couldn’t see,

The veil that hid the coal-black eyes,

Brimming with genuine pity.

I left the tramps to gape at glimmering treasures,

Founded and unfounded,

For they might win a thousand more,

And never as I, be fortunate.

In my heart, I know love,

And to be loved back, ardently,

With all I hold dear to me.

That, more than he!

For he was but foolhardy,

To travel the many lands and fight,

Historic wars and fatigue,

To collect for himself a few coins

Pitiable!

And for I might be just a somebody,

Who’s little and doesn’t matter much,

But in my heart I am satisfied,

That I am fortunate, more than that shallow soul gone awry.

And hence, I walked away, more prosperous than everybody.

For the richest fortunes are intangible, you see.