These vines of doubt entangle me
Ensnare me in this darkened cage
Each line confounds, embitters me
And shrouds me in benighted rage
In white dreams I imagine me
A shining knight of sky and earth
But light of day proves: oh, poor me!
I’m but a speck, a pebble’s worth!
And so these lines, in spite of me
Come sputtering in halting train
These verses dark accuseth me
I crumble ‘neath my dreams, all vain.
On This Resolution
This New Year
I have made
This resolve:
To pare down
This one life
To slough off
Vain desires
Like snakeskin
Discarded:
An offering
For Your blessing.
On Sungkai
Early morning
And I am on the road again
Not quite sure
For whom
And for what
Life is full of such
Moments of incomprehension
We often do what we must
Even if we are not quite sure
For whom
And for what
And when and how and why.
On Your Online Profile
I stumbled onto your online profile today
On your corporate website
With words like
Excellently and
Well-known and
Visionary
Encrusted like jewels
On a bed of warm, mediocre poop
Of course, your online profile
Would omit the things
One would be embarrassed to
Speak about in polite company
And in highfalutin conferences
And in royal courts
Like how you left those bruises
On your wife
In places no one could see
Like how you abandoned
Your children
In ways no one could ever recover from
Like how you chased down
Your current younger wife
In ways she herself
Would wish to never remember
But you can rest easy
Because your online profile
Would keep all those things
Well hidden
Like your own life, and who you really are
Hidden away so well
Between those lines of blind self-praise
That you now hardly know
Your own self.
On Lies Now Known
Our lies, they would rather not
Be seen by the prying eyes
These lies they burn red and hot
Yet hide in the night’s dark guise
They hide in the plots we make
They nest like the coiling snake
They fest in the illest will
They pounce with the venging thrill
Your lies I cannot abide
Now seen by all, wide and far
No more can they twist and hide
I know you for what you are.
On The Sin of Pride
I keep a watchful eye now
For age-old sin of Pride
(We hardly use that word now
That word - Sin! - we deride
It’s very nature, quaint now
Yet one more Truth denied
And Virtue, set aside now
Lo, Freedom’s deified!)
Yes, Pride is all around now
Its seeds spread far and wide
It grows in every heart now
It blooms, and needs not hide
Pride grows with zest and verve now
Mulched with our deadened eyes
Black mirrors in our hands now
Pride’s gardens multiplied
Alas, this is the way now
Our lives suffused with Pride
The original Sin now
Prized, what was once decried
One wonders for how long now
We’ll let desires decide
Will we break free of Pride now
Or endlessly abide?
On Beseeching
Every kiss of wave to beach
A silent prayer to beseech:
Glory be to God!
Glory be to God!
Glory be to God!
On This Beach
Amidst the bleating of the cicadas
And the purring of the waves
I felt the sudden urge
To make ablution
And pray to Him on the sands of this beach.
On The Arc of Time
In praise of Time, this thrumming beat
This silent rhythm of Life’s heat
Within the pauses of these lines
Time ladles out our lives divine
I celebrate the arc of Time
The metronome of God Sublime
With ev’ry second measured neat
We live in midst of Time’s swift fleet
As we survey the darkened glass
Of future hap’nings yet to pass
Time feels like treacly liquid’s flow
The pace of life feels leaden, slow
And yet in future when Time’s drum
Has faded past, How far we’ve come!
We would exclaim in disbelief
Time’s flown away like Fate’s sly thief
In such arch ways Time plays its ploys
As we endure our woes and joys
Though trapped we be in Time’s taut cage
Against light’s dying, burn and rage!
On Language
Our Language is our fam’ly tree
The ties that build affinity
With words traversing waves of thought
The gap between us fades to naught
Out of the kiln, the words that build
Tribes, cities, armies, courts and guilds
Cementing ties of human hearts
Foundation for the sciences, arts
Thus Language forms the grounding strong
For human life, its wax and throng
To depths of seas and heights of space
Its thrumming drives the human race
Alas its boon hides darker tones
For language also marks the zones
Between a commonwealth of us
Against the others we distrust
Without a common lingual sphere
Communities cannot cohere
From babel curse of estranged tongues
Flows mistrust and committed wrongs
So you may think ‘tis insensate
For nations to compel, dictate
One Language to unite them all
Must we be caged in one tongue's thrall?
Such is the fate of nations blessed
With populace diverse, now pressed
Into each other's common fate
Be it with joy or teeth agrate
This babel curse need not be rued
Variety is a gift imbued
Unto those nations such as ours
Rejoicing in our hundred flowers
A common language bridges, brings
The people all together, wings
Of peace take flight in concert when
Our hearts unite in common ken
And that one speech need not efface
The shared melange of varied race
That makes up nations on this earth
Where each one owns their human worth
So let us celebrate, rejoice
Humanity in one shared voice
With pride our anthem loudly sung
In warp and weft of one shared tongue.