By: Mahathi

LONG JOURNEY

You have to make a journey long one day
O friend. No kith, no kin, will follow you.
They shed few tears for you and tread their way.
Your friends and others just pretend to rue.

The money you amassed, the biscuits gold
You stored in chest keep laughing at your plight.
Those men and women whom you helped turn cold
And disperse soon and quickly from your sight.

Your travel through foul lanes and dark alleys
Takes you somewhere into the deep domain.
But still you peep with hope at earthly lees
Where find you hazy thoughts of blithe and pain.

But one, that follows you beyond your life.
Is Dharma you performed in joy and strife.

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GOOD POETRY (Rubaiyat)

What use of writing finest poetry
O poets equipped with rhyme, imagery
And dancing rhythm. Where can you find those nice
Connoisseurs who go through your works with glee.

Composing metered verse became your vice.
The more and more you climb its graceful highs
The more abhor the reigning raucous tones.
In all its din your voice wiggles and dies.

Like skeletons they rattle with loose bones,
But yet ensconsed with pride the thrones
Of bleeding skulls; and spieling long tirades
While standing you’re at corner some with moans.

While becoming are eyes your warm cascades
You raise your hands detesting these charades
And try to clamour, shout and scream “foul, foul!”
At last with great ennui you sqat in shades.

You watch those loud proceedings with a scowl
And all around the poesy world you prowl
A tiger like and wonder what’s so free
In verse and walk away with aweful scowl.

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THE LORD TOO FAR
(Sonnet)
How far is Vaikuntam O Lord with wheel
And conch in hands from earth? A trillion miles
Or more. How can you see our plight and feel
Our pain from there O Lord with ceaseless smiles.

The sages say you have a thousand eyes
And can behold the universe in whole.
At this old age are eyes your working nice.
Can they discern between a hole and knoll?

Forgive my spiel O Lord Narayana,
O Lord Vishnu…What can this mortal do,
Oh struggling and swaying like a straw
In storm. Behold at what I’m going through!

I raise my hands in total surrender.
Come ye apace before my eyes turn blur.

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WRONGS
(Sonnet)

Don’t look you back at wrongs you did. What’s done
Was done O friend … you can’t correct it now.
It’s like you digging the graves of veterans
For some advice. Forget dead vow and love.

The time is like a monster that swallows
The ticking seconds one by one with greed.
All those you save dip into those hollows.
All that past deed is now a withered weed.

You live in duel timeline. In one you take
A count of faltered steps of past and lo
In present you commit the same mistake
Again. Thus live you in eternal woe.

Not that I don’t brood on the past and rue.
I too paint phantom walls with colours new.

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BE IN MY HEART
(Sonnet)
Be in my heart O Lord, be in my heart
And fill my inner world with cosmic light.
Slay spite and envy with your floral dart
And burn ill will with aureole your bright.

O Lord, the world is like a brimming bowl
Of vices all and evil senses my
Are like vile canines ready to haul
The sugary tasting venomous pie.

They say that you’re already there in me
But Maya covers me. There lies the ruse.
Your most inseparable spouse is she.
Can I estrange you both…I have no clues.

Let Mother set You free to live in me
as graced abode of you with immense glee.