It's not the world I've done with
(I don't go out seeking any enemy)
but one person--the singular-
the most unaccommodating---ME!

Literature is life

life is literature

herein is found

every rapture

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

Space has its language

heard only by artists' ears

and seen through their eyes

She ruminated
      her cup of coffee not drunk
      eyes looked faraway

Be harsh with me
hide nothing
insincerity and hypocrisy
is the killing thing-

I would know then
and cast aside my guessing
it's a grievous malaise to pretend
regrettable, hideous and de-humanising.

If I could set my inner ecology in order

there's little else I would desire more

What's the nature
of our heartland?
can we touch it?
do we understand?

What's its colour
its shape and terrain
green as the field
or drought-driven?

What tone does it speak in
is it harsh, gentle or plain?
does it hide its secrets?
does it labour in pain?

What should I do
its love and confidence to gain?
a thousand times I've tried
but ended sadly in vain.

Conscience only needs to whisper
it's louder than the harshest thunder

The heart goes out
for* someone
unconditionally
it seeks to give

It has an equal right
as reason--
unreason!

We look unceremoniously
at our heart's dark corner
we weep in silence. What are we
harsh, mean, absurd? Seldom tender?

For another life we seem
mindlessly to hanker after
while our best dream
we leave behind-- what grievous error!

Now--Zen-
not the future
no then

what is
is not what's before
just know this

Zen-
enlightenment
no need to elsewhere bend

Zen
nothing to hold or mind
the moment--nothing beyond what's at hand.

Where is the defeat
when you are still standing
firmly on your two feet?

The past is the future
the present is but a bridge
for crossing over

there the life of things to come
owed its genesis to the planted seed
that would yield the eventual outcome

without the pivot in the first instance
nothing would spin or come about
it was the very cradle of every experience

infant sounds became words and then came the sentence
life is the forward ****** to the vastness of future time
the child will become the parent and grand-parent--the logical sequence.

If yourself
you should judge
do be gentle
we're all fallible

never forget
the past mistake
is a lesson acquired-
there'll be a better take

as with time
you forward travel
the dark will give way
to the light--once the veil

has been lifted
it's all clarity ahead
be gentle with yourself
let no tear be shed

' Point of no return'--it makes no sense
as there had been a past, so there will be a future tense

This I must master:
   never complain
   none likes the grumbler
   who's a bagful of grievous pain.

Cactus, cacti
fungus, fungi
locus, loci
alumnus, alumni-

it's just about singular and plural
no reason at all to be hysterical !

About others we can sometimes be curious

but we should never be life-detectives -that's odious!

As we prune our overgrown garden

our mind we should too in greater measure

to remove the trivial, the dusty and the inane

only the beauty and the wonder to treasure

Insider
outsider
not me-  like none other-
I'm a self-sider!

TIME-STRADDLERS

We are straddlers riding
on the back of time
clinging precariously to its sides
between the now and future
unassured of any final outcome-

lost in moments of loving and hating
laughing and weeping
hoping and despairing
dreaming and waking-
winning and losing

what's that we can count as our own
at the end when all that we would but inherit
is old age and its decaying hours?
the youthful field would have lost its glory
and nothing is left of all the summer-flowers--

my pen would have been dry
my words, feeble and faint
no valiant song would spring forth
from my mouth, nothing radiant
would come my way but the day's long sigh

in the horizon mist hangs heavily
dust seems to cover my weary eyes
my voice has lost all its vibrancy
nights come too soon and darker are their shades
the world is no longer mine and my lonely tears I hide.

The years--what did they say
that I had grown old and senile?
there's still throbbing sap in the ageing tree
its trunk, branches and leaves would still last a while

never mind the young offshoots nearby
that have joined the shared foliage
they will be the sprouting voice of the future
the flourishing flagstaff that will carry the message

that all life is one and existence
is a cycle of eternal recurrence*
what had gone before would give way
in gracious gesture to a fresh in-coming  -- radiance

never loses its glow in the overall of both the young and old
there's light still in the warm and generous day
the ageing tree once provided lovely shade to weary travellers
it has had its times of glory--what more should it say?

This is the angst
  the self-afflicted addiction
  the obsession
  the oppression
  the desperation
  the cul-de-sac

   the load on the back
  heavier each day
that won't go away
  

    the heartache
  the pain
  the desolation
  ( no hope of consolation)
   the conundrum

  the doom and gloom
  the nightmare
  the dark closed room
  of the mind
  with no door
  to escape
  from
  
  vox clamantis in deserto
  (your voice no one would heed
   only the desert wind and sand
   would hear your cry
  as you linger under
  the mocking sky)    
  
  terra incognita
  the mirage
  the struggle
  (never know
   where to go)
  
   the lacuna
  the grey area
  the questioning
  the doubt
  the slow perishing
  of self
  the absence
  of enlightening
  

   the tortuous path
  that must
  be trodden
   as long
  as  life subsists
  all alone

  but when
  would be the end
  of the sojourn?
  as this is no man's land

  why the seeking
  to know?
  what to know?
  how to know?
  what's the compelling need
  to know?

   question after question
   knocked back in mockery
   the perennial rude reply:
  'No, no, no!'.

   another voice
  descends from nowhere:
  ' Why can't you allow
    things to be so?

    look at the flowers
    in the field
    nothing do they know
    yet in such glory
      and splendour they blow'.

Haiku is impressionistic music in words

I must learn not to hate myself
for what I have or have not done
as every single such act would reduce my worth
as a human being.

We remembered then
we remember still
Nancy the charwoman
from Summer-Hill*

how the kids loved her
she was always sweet
chocolates and toys she bought them
she gave everyone a smile in the street

her home was humble
she took in the homeless
during winter nights
she served soups with gladness

known for her musical skills
she was the church organist and soprano
(self-taught but could hit the high E)
the best singer Summer-Hill did know

six children's books she had written
200 songs she did compose
the Mayor's Award she won
with the Prime Minister she once did pose

alone she lived by the slow-lane
a lovely garden she did cultivate
stray dogs and cats she eagerly fed
every moment of life she did celebrate

at 99,  Nancy contracted pneumonia, sadly
she did leave behind a will-
(gently she passed away in her sleep)
she gave all her belongings to the Charity of Summer-Hill.

The beauty and fear

life in such suspense they hold

future never clear

He who hesitates

is not lost

all angles he explores

he excels over most

Shakespeare would be a thorough misfit
in our modern age
Hollywood would blow him down
his plays none would want to stage!

I like innocent mischief

        it offers so much daily relief

        of numb reason I take leave

        taking things too seriously is endless grief

Deep down the heart's labyrinth
    the unnameable vacuum
    yet there the tidal waves swarm
    shadows they darkly assume-

    here's shut-off land-- not an inner sanctum-
    would love and hope ever re-bloom?
    all past dreams have been swept away
    for rest and peace there's no longer room.

The Emperor's order I must obey
I'm biding you and our son farewell
several thousand miles away
when I'll return I can't tell-

all able- bodied men have been summoned
to help build the Great Wall
news travel fast--my friends have perished
none has been able to return home at all--

kiss my baby-son for me
he will grow strong and tall
tell him his dad was a brave solider
he heeded readily to the Emperor's call--

I'll write you every night
each letter bears my love and tears
if fate dictates I should fail to return home
I'll remember you both for a million years.

Falling
falling steep
a slip on the way
falling deep

falling
lesson to keep
remembering
even in my sleep

rising
slowly not by leap
falling is awakening
not failing-- a heap

of hope piling
just waiting to reap
a sweet beckoning
as joys gently seep.

The heart is but the microcosm

      of the universe's macrocosm

      which holds it in its gladsome *****

      where love is,  there's the richest blossom

We should be light and empty.

Isn't death so much relief in its nothingness?

Because I love life, death to me is only a metaphor

boatman looked to shore
two hands waving in the air
wife and kids waiting.

Diamond, emerald, gold, silver, wealth
they cease not to seek and measure
but I'm blessed with good health
my peace and contentment is my greatest treasure.

Will America have the Trump-card?
What did Russia really put- in?
Which country was more smart?
What would  be the future political scene?

Melancholy
a half-way house
not a seething road-end
nor hopeless misery-

in-between the heart struggles
to be unencumbered and free
life is a tree with thorns too prickly
how desolate and forlorn is the journey!

5 a.m.

Gentle rustling of leaves from nearby tree
same early bird-song drifting through my window
my eyes were heavy and I was still drowsy-
jealously I clung to my pillow.

6 a.m. onwards to 6.59

The train had its first run around my area
the dreadful clanging sound was too familiar
the neighbour's wretched dog Heather
was barking at the milkman--at six and a quarter.

7 a.m.

The mini-bus had arrived at the nearby school
the kids began to sing ' We Are The Nation's Pride'
Mrs Scrim the HM uttered the same words: 'Obey every rule'
my sleep was shattered--I rolled from side to side.

8 a.m.
     The automatic clock sang: ' Oh What A Beautiful Morning'
     (Getting up from bed was like being summoned to the jail)
      my wife yelled  ' You'll be sacked if you go on lingering'
      this is the pulse of the day--do you understand my sad tale?

Before I could pause
   to look or think
   the moment had turned away
   quicker than a wink
   the day, time, faces, scene
   human voices, the city's stir
   the kaleidoscope that captures life
   at every bend and encounter
   we are the product of engagements
   a thread in the common human fabric
    mysteriously connected
   as binding segments
   though we are in no way related
   had never met one another--

  time is too abstract
  doesn't make real sense
  only the moment defines
  to be retrieved in future junctures
  the now is the living and reality
  in the distant photo-album
when we are gone
we would just be images
and long-forgotten pictures.

Somehow we are
the remnants of yesterday
the angst and despair
brought forward that won't go away-

bruised and hurt by far
choked, we have nothing to say
the murky waters of life rush past
sweeping us the driftwood along its way.

I would surely die
but for my dreaming
the blissful silence heals
I escape people's wild screaming-

I would verily live
for that beyond's beckoning
where beauty and love smiles
and makes my heart singing.

I don't ever want
a second in-come
knowing that killing myself
would be the ultimate out-come

Everything in life
is unfinished business
even love and hate
joy and sadness

Pain and suffering is better borne by willing and uncomplaining acceptance.

old man by the beach
he's my grandpa aged 90
' don't ask me to swim'

I am what others are not
they are not what I am--

there shall never be any convergence
between me and them.