Tag: poem

The Wounds That We Carry

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Life is a bruiser; exacts its price for living.

The young girl falls and hurts her knee,

gets up in tears, yet floats away on lightest feet – all pain so readily forgotten.

Forgetfulness of hurt gets harder as we age; petrification of the self sneaks up on us unnoticed.

The broken heart, the friendship lost, ambition unfulfilled, stay with us as mementos vitae.

–

Poor Nietzsche had a lot to say on pain and personality:

what does not break you makes you stronger; full natures will recuperate and brush aside.

This may be so, although the issue is, in truth, what strength should serve?

Eliminating pain is not the only aim and worship of the frightful scars should not be entertained.

Becoming strong enough to not be strong, to that we must aspire!

To smell the rain worm’s summer paradise you need the nose’s softest flesh!

The Other

On By phulsrojIn American elections, poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

When tragedy is big enough

the numbers numb.

A million dead cannot be mourned

– in singularity   –

My God! there were so many.

 

‘It is what it is’ makes no allowance

for reflection or regret;

it adds indignity to ignorance,

and gives the lie to a most basic truth:

that other lives have value – same as yours!

 

Such statement from the one who took a sacred oath

is wrapped in our failure

to pierce the veil of the preposterous;

gains credibility because we see one tear, but not the many.

So our heads, with all their calculation, must tell us that a million deaths are each a tragedy,

and that the anger and demands must capture that which our hearts can never hold – the suffering of multitudes, each Other being one like us.

War in the Heavens Poem

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On the occasion of the recent Russian test of a space-to-space weapon:

There is a poetry to outer space……

There is a poetry to outer space

that often is forgotten in busy lives,

that’s crowded out by many crises here on Earth,

that is ignored, with cosmos milked for money.

Yet, outer space is first of all a place of wonder,

a place where peace and co-existence rule.

Minerva’s realm is now in danger – with Mars ascending!

The endless void so full of freedom is turning into one where power governs,

where Darwin’s ‘eat or being eaten’ can reign with utter arrogance –

a place of dreams transformed to tragedy.

Where outer space was free of arms till now,

there is a rush towards destruction,

a vain attempt to scare the other.

As always, all will lose when guns hold sway.

To yearn for Eden that we lost is not the time–

to shield the heavens that we’ve got is what we owe posterity!

I knew……

On By phulsrojIn poetry, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Not just about corona:

 

When history will judge the tragedies of our time,

say not, how could I know,

say, as is true, I knew.

The serpent’s egg was there for all to see.

It could be crushed

but envy, greed and hatred made it hatch,

and inner exile made it grow.

We put false prophets on the throne;

they made us handmaids of calamity.

The currents of the past should save us, so we thought,

yet we refused their helping hands with indolence,

and put the fragile ship upon the rocks.

Oh yes, we knew, although of wisdom most deprived!