I looked into the horizon
immediately transformed was I
the most alluring rainbow
greeted me from the blue sky--

I saw the most lovely woman
she stared longingly into my very eye
then she said to me tenderly:
' For true love I'll readily die

  come, come to me
  if you love me you can fly
  you'd end my restless search
   that was why you walked by'.

    Suddenly lightning struck
     it blotted out the entire sky
     she disappeared with the rainbow
      weeping alone and bereft was I.

Lone sunset figure

walking home after the plough

watched by sky and trees

Person-fragmented
    too long self has been neglected

Life is mostly unexamined
it's as though people live
more in constant strife
than being alive
externalities command
(' we have no choice
  but comply' )
the heart and its contents
are neglected and with time
disenfranchised
mindlessly set aside--

how the contagion infests
within the corporeal frame
it spreads far and wide
feelings so long detached
hardly awakened
or gentleness shed
even love grows weary
affections have long died--

survival
what an ugly word
when life is only butter and bread
but not counted as absurd-

where's the song
of joy and love?
where's the laughter
that should behove?

where's the poem
to sing of the day's sunshine?
where's the story
to warm the heart for a lifetime?

where's the embrace
of innocence?
where's the tenderness
to replace indifference?

where's the rapture
and kiss of youth?
where's the empathy
to wipe away the rude and uncouth?

where's the measure
of the sublime and good?
where's the optimistic cheer
to dispel the gloomy mood?

where's the generosity
to share and give?
where's the humanity
others' sorrow to relieve?

where's the surrender
to nature and its beauty?
where's the wonder
the harbinger of immortality?

at the last hour of night
by the lonely sea I ruminate
whose murmurs of man's misery
and his plight sigh and resonate.

Life is more
about opinions
than persons

Truth got up one morning
and in astonishment it did ask:
'How do I know whether
I'm real or a bluff'?

There are places that welcome
others bid me keep away
I regard them as points of time
remnants of seasons or just a day--

wherever I wander, in weather rough or calm
'happy arrival' I could never say*
forbidden places hold dark secrets--the sublime
belongs only to the heart which defies moral decay.

Life-- a word that a thousand meanings does bear
the choice is yours, everyone's, let's share:

fundamental
elemental
experimental
accidental
incidental
­intentional
causal
conjectural
possible
conditional
traditional
c­onventional
controversial
suppositional
developmental
mental
physical
moral
durable
curable
deplorable
m­easurable
disputable
fragmental
tribal
fictional
factional
frictional
divisional
vital
pivotal
trivial
philosophical
nonsensical
centripetal
centrifugal
divisi­onal
oppositional

I should allow fellow-writers to continue
that means everyone of you.

For me the years
have been factored
such couldn't be added
nor subtracted--

life could be viewed
from the serious or absurd
yet the same theme does pervade
much of it does bruise and hurt-

whatever the sages have said
I  surmise mankind is girt
by externalities beyond
its control-- so many fall on dirt-

I am glad to be a stoic
much have I contemplated
mindless of tears and fears
unfazed though unregarded.

Let every moment

every encounter

be a silent prayer

You've got me
totally wrong
I'm not legendary
nor Promethean -strong

only an ordinary bloke
who've just arrived at the block
with his many frailties and warts
who never has claimed great were his thoughts

Trees laden with fruits
swinging in late summer air
a few drop on ground

Two birds in the air
wing-to-wing in quick chatter
gunman awaiting

Life is the possible
  the impossible set aside
  I could not sprint nor run
  only taking the smallest stride-

  living, loving, feeling, experiencing, exploring
  discovering, wondering--minus every pride
  with both hands daily in humility labouring
in  my contented heart with peace I abide

Sadness----fear not

     every life is affected

     shut it never from your thought

     it has to be borne and confronted

a letter received
tears fell from the maiden's eyes
door shut with a bang

Do not seek in me

your image of what I am

I have flaws too many

for me to deny would be a sham-



come then, if me you can accept

come of your own free will, I should not implore

such that we would neither have cause to regret

and will cherish our affection more, much, much more

No perfect love
no perfect moment
no perfect life
no perfect person-

no perfect poem
no perfect prose
no perfect sunrise
no perfect rose-

no perfect song
no perfect singer
no perfect thinker
no perfect answer-

no perfect beauty
no perfect Nature
don't read my poetry
it hardly brings rapture.

Old home utensils

rugged beauty in kitchen

forebears remembered

I'm applying for a job
   not my wife Susie
   yes, she's a dance-girl
   why do you disqualify me?

I wondered first as a child

I next wondered when I came to my youth

I wondered further in my middle-age

life was with me but it didn't often soothe



and now in my dying days

I wonder why I should have wondered

should have left behind the rude lacuna--

much of life borders upon the absurd

I've hardly started
even at my wintry years
still at the early pages
of life's book -- some tears
there are but fewer fears-

I've never walked away
but looked squarely
at life in the face--

no story of worth
do I have yet
what I've written and done
I'm glad to forget--

no claim can I make
brittle and fragile
are the words I say
I still miss by many a mile

and so I walk my way
to history I couldn't belong
better to leave things to rest
than to sing an empty song.

Pleasing myself
is acceptable and fine
as long as others' interests
I don't undermine.

My aim in life is simple-- do the doable to the best of my ability--not to measure myself against others,  for life is not about competing with or outdoing others but self-becoming.  

I can't lead nor change the world and should only be concerned with creating meaning for myself - it's in the humble pursuit of ordinary daily things that I can find my worth, self-respect and, none the least, my limitations.  

Let me remain an ordinary person, live an ordinary life and die happy and content as the world goes by without me being noticed or known for I would have deemed this life of mine to been lived in the way I most value and cherish.  Death is the ultimate humility and has to be embraced and accepted -- it is not a blemish nor a killjoy but rather the summary and sublimation of a life that has been lived in fulness and  gratitude.

I didn't bring you any present

but would never think of being absent

Lush olive orchard
standing on what was a swamp
patience rewarded

Nice to meet you, Dr Solange,

Life has thousands of facets and affects people in different days. Writers, especially poets,  see life  more transcendentally than prose-writers as poetry, like music, speaks beyond the bounds of words and often seeks to express the inexpressive, the mysterious and the fathomlessness of feelings and emotions.

At the pinnacle, the true poet is almost a mystic.

  I am a learner and still don't qualify as a 'poet'.  

Best wishes from Melb

Wisdom teeth I have
for sure--so what?
but wisdom I have none
I was never smart.

There's nobody better than our father
exception!  Our mother!

light flickers from boat
under the brooding night sky
fisherman still hopes

We could find
   without seeking

   We could understand
   without knowing

   We could love
   without reasoning

   We could live well
   without questioning.

Go forth into the day

         in unheard prayer

         pave kindness on your way

         be the unseen sorrow-healer

Life as is gratuitously  bestowed on me

      I will ever cherish but never blemish her beauty

The HM warned us all
'  Don't you dare steal a chalk'
  We kids saw him take home a box
  which he hid in his bag as he furtively did walk.

In lonely alley

umbrella shelters lovers

love gushes like rain

Why do we frown on our self-pity?
Is this wrong?
Perhaps this is the purest pity.

This is the perennial bane:
much of life is unsettled
an unwelcome  situation
faced by most people

At the deep end of life

there's a dark murky river

do you ever dare dive

into its forbidden water?



Oh, where is it, where?

I wonder and I wonder

it can't be found anywhere

I later realise-- it's at my heart's very corner.

Everything
is but a new beginning

Wisdom began
as a toddler
for a thousand times
it had first to fall over

Love at 40 is different
from that of 20's
  at 60,  different from 40's
and,  at 80
  it forgets
  all that which went before

Not yet
just a flicker
a hint
by dint
of time's
deliberate holdback
of what
the heart desires

not yet

an hour
seems a day
a week
a month
a year
an eternity

it's a test
(the most trying?)
can you wait?

hope is far away
love does seem
so blur in the mist
your dream
held in suspense
your boat
stays stagnant
in the stream
of lost hours
and you would go
nowhere

not yet

though the day
languishes
in silence
evening sets in
soon enough dusk
its lengthening shadows
will cast

but patience
has its limit

surely
the approaching night
will be kinder
and the sufferer
would find comfort
and rest after
all this while

( oh no!
nothing has happened
nothing at all!)

what's next?

is the gate
still locked
and the wanderer
is shut away
and all pathways
are blocked?

( the stage is set
  to break
  the longing fragile heart
  the drama is over
  and the curtain
  is about to fall)

  midnight
  
   all that is
  is a mocking
  sullen sky

  in vain
  the waiting.

You said I was mean
more to come, the worst you haven't seen!

Life has to be lived
with some tension
lest it begins to sag
and reduces a person

for to rise above
the mundane
one can't afford
to be complacent

look at genius
and people with passion
for the highest they pitch
in every season

observe how
they embrace every moment
as though it's an epiphany
lest its. beauty be stolen

Browning of autumn

mellowing of tender love

hearts in renewing

Reason stamps its feet
and yells: 'Forget!'
but the heart
will not give way
they stand apart
as the past they traverse
the perennial tug-of-war
the inner torture and restlessness-

'shed no tears'
says the former
'tears make me'
respond the latter-

there's no common meeting-place
never are they in consensus
acrimony,  blame and rage
how they loom and oppress-

the human condition and life
what's right and what's wrong?
what and who is the arbitrator?
what's weak and what's strong?

even ageless time gets weary
as the universe it orbits along
every facet of mankind it has seen
immune to its melancholic song-

there's no winner in this war
seasons appear only to fade away
reason wears out and the heart sinks
the  last flicker of light dies out at the end of day.

What does coming out of oneself REALLY mean?

I, then, am but a piece
of others, not my own
I'm a million voices
a creature programmed
from childhood to all later years
I'm to wit not myself--genuine
a misplaced expression
of a collective unknown
for to others I belong-
who, who then
is that individual
who dares to declare?
'I AM my pure-self!'

Once I've successfully explored
the continent of my mind
all other worlds would pale away
nothing better there would I find.

The inner most of the heart
    is never articulated--it defies
    words and smears the truth
    before the speaker's eyes

  and love in its mysterious ways
  appears and parts in so many a guise
  definitions whether from Camus, Sartre
or Wittgenstein sadly fail-- each word corrupts and dies