COLD NIGHT

It’s a beautiful night;
The moon is out;
The stars twinkle.

The dark sparkling river
Splashes up and down;
A soothing music for my soul.

Somewhere in the concrete jungle,
A cricket hum;
Drowning the monotonous
Hums of the machine animals.

Downtown the lights are on—
Orange and bright,
Blending with the silvery moonlight.

I stand above all;
I can see the town from here.

People are moving about;
I look down upon them
And my stare connects them
To the emptiness of the space above
And the emptiness within them.

My soul wishes to fly,
Soar high above;
And be free from the fetters of life,
and live for eternity.
It’s a cold night;
and I retire to my empty dwelling.

[This poem has been entered in the Monday Poetry Potluck on Jingle Poetry.]

 

I HAVE LAIN

I have lain –
In the arms of men;
At the bosoms of women.

I have lain –
But feared in the arms of husband;
Failed in the arms of lovers.

I have lain –
And indulged in the lust of heart;
But avoided the lust of flesh.

I have lain –
In the imagination of dreams;
In the face of reality.

I have lain –
with pain;
And with happiness.

I will lie –
In my future;
And in my death.

HAPPY HEAVENS

The heaven must be happy today
blue sky
birds fly as the rainbow
drinks from the river beyond
the light drizzle tickles my face
as it tickles my soul
ah my soul!
captive of my body
one day would be free
to fly with the bird
slide on rainbows
drink from river beyond
what will this world remember of me then?

[This poem is entered for Monday Poetry Potluck at Jingle Poetry and the theme for this week is magic and miracle, wizardry and wonder.[

THE LITTLE GIRL LOST

God’s angels delivered her
into this world with a silver spoon
in her mouth, but not so lucky.
The rich little heiress; daddy’s girl,
fought not to let him hurt her;
she had lived only eight summers then.
The horses on the ranch were ridden
by her father so was she ridden,
only she wasn’t a horse,
but one of God’s own sweet child.
The all knowing mother,
a dumb dummy spectator to the incestuous act.

Growing up girl: a free spirit; an angel’s entrance,
deemed to change her life. With his help
dragged herself into fashion & glamour world;
sex, alcohol,weed and drugs followed–
vulnerable, among with like hippies;
easy prey to opportunists.

A knight in shining armour, knocked at her door,
sweeping her off her feet.
He willed to turn it round for her,
change her world: she chose the fallen angel over the
chivalrous knight.

So trusting, a simple word of
sympathy and lo! She was won.
Her trusted angel paved her way to her destruction.

The knight she so willingly rejected–
dejected married someone so unlike her–
the only one she gave her heart to;
her first and last.

Deserted, betrayed and pocket turned out;
dived deep into drugs, drowned into alcohol–
even more into debt–
bared her flesh nude for debt, to get the next pint.

Human, an ordinary– comes to rescue:
for the love of the little girl–
who she wasn’t anymore.
Running in the opposite direction of life–
away from–
the girl she was;
the life she lived before the angel;
the love of the knight:
the freedom she so much
sought. Rehabilitation didn’t work
magic for her.

She had seen 28 winters;
got the liberation she so needed in life; from
her father, life, the angel and knight.
Vulgar beauty, yet lilies;
Mona Lisa smiles–simple, yet mysterious.
Found her way, yet
The little girl lost.

THE CROWDED LONELINESS

My computer is on and I think how to begin.
The page remains blank and I am still thinking.
My heart is empty and so is my house.
I walk out of my house and I see the familiar
Phuentsholing. People stream by me and I hear them talk.

The streets are crowded and yet
I am lonely. The streets feel as empty as my house-
As lonely as my house, as lonely as my as heart,
As lonely as my life. I have been physically lonely
For over one year, but emotionally lonely
For times I have not counted, four years? Five years?
Well, it’s not like I don’t like solitude,
I do. I value it so much so that sometimes I am desperate for it.

Crusoe must have felt like me, the difference is
He was lonely because he was alone, but I am
Lonely even among hundreds of live souls
And I am like a walking corpse, moving around senseless,
Only if someone stopped to notice the loneliness on my face
And the almost dying smile, and still it is a smile,
Better than the blankness of everyone’s face. I look for something
In the crowd but I don’t find anything. I want to talk to someone.

Words are lesser; where is my inspiration?
I wonder how Homer evoked the muses, Standing on the beach of the
Aegean Sea; before writing the ILIAD,
‘Cause I can’t and don’t know how to.
Milton must have sat blind and called on the muses to help him
Remember Adam and Eve; he did and created a masterpiece.
I am neither Milton nor Homer; I am not them but I am a poet in my own right.
They might have stood alone in their places, like I do in the crowd;
I am not writing an epic on the Trojan War or human creation,
I am writing about my loneliness, the loneliness I felt yester evening:
(It’s already past 1 in the morning now.) Yet the muses don’t come to me.

I smiled at someone but I didn’t get a smile in return
Still I smile at anyone who passes by me.
They need my smile as I need theirs to help me get through
This lonely life. Smiles or no smiles life goes on
As mine did. I am lonely sometimes but I am not sometimes.
So I look at the times when I am not: life goes on.
I love it. Crowd will come and go,
so will smiles. Yes! Someone noticed my smiles and
returned it. See there are people like me out there;
different though. We yearn for the same things:
A simple smile and our day are made. Muses or no
Muses I am done with my poem. I still smile at people and
They will smile back at me as I walk a lonely road;
It will help me keep me on the right way. Maybe
We will all find our ways back to the lives we all want to live.
A life of solitude and a full life; fully lived with no grievances.

2008