Do be honest
     don't shove me away
     how many times
    do you grumble a day?

It does not bode well
  love that requires reminding
  romance has long vanished
  love is withering

Only they can open the lock
they hold the key
if it is lost
don't look for me

I don't want to be rich
nor to be clever
all that I wish
is not to be like any other

Many I did meet
each claimed to be a hero
sadly almost all
ended in zero

The world is too much
        self-enamoured
        I have to find my exit
        or end my life being smothered

...but we choose
   our self to deceive
   look not elsewhere
   we create our own grief!

That was so long ago
       that person I understand only now
      little did I then know
      the me that I just found!

Reading at night
     a new world I discover
     all the hours I own
     in this blissful wonder

Let me write
what I may--not in riddle
I might not be right
but would cause no trouble!

There's no reason
for optimism--at least not now
the air is choking
civilisation has about lost its knowhow

there's every reason
to be pessimistic---a frown
is written on the faces
of people I meet-- in town

and country-- desperation
looms with the lockdown
cities are dead, people live in dread
the fragile are facing a nervous breakdown

amidst this savage ravage
wars and conflicts still abound
the worshipful pray and plead
as hopes turn to dust and drop on the sombre ground

The language is the heart of the poem.

Let the words of others illuminate......I am not yet....I must wait!

..but no one
handed us the hemlock
that which is before us
is our own concocted potion
but we would not admit
it is poison

we are yet
to drink the glass
as the moments pass
we would somehow
not forget
for some undefined reason

first we doubt
then wither
further down
we fall asunder
waiting for another season

to come around
to question
our very existence
in our words unspoken

we would look
through the day's sky
and tremble in adoration
at the beauty
that refuses to die
and our despair-spells
would have broken

in that enlightenment
the veil is lifted
sorrow is forgotten
the waiting glass
would be cast
aside--- nothing
that is life
shall be stolen

To learn, we must first be humble---our teachers are all over--if we should meet one,  we should not miss the opportunity.

Confucius 6th century BCE wrote:

I walk with two others and I am sure to count one as my teacher.

In HelloPoetry, we meet so many fellow-writers and admire each for their individual gifts.  We are not here to compete but to share.
we give credit where it is due; we encourage young and new writers; we admit the weaknesses of what we write; the more we endeavour and learn from others, the more we would mature; writing is an endless journey and we should savour every moment before us; let us look into the infinite beauty and wonder of life and the exquisiteness and aplendour of words and language;; let us open our heart before the fraternity and sorority of fellow-writers; let us make the world a better place through our utterances;  
this is a universal platform for us to stand on to express our originality and creativity for which we owe the founder a debt beyond words.  

The world is saved not by food alone but also by the nobility of the human spirit, the powers of the mind and the sanctity of the human heart.

By the way
I can't buy
my way
through life

all I know
is I am just
a passerby

just to
keep an eye
whatever
the way

I'll dance
laugh and sing
and will happily
say some day
'Good-bye!'

Every word spoken
  has something left behind
  it lifts the moment
  or leaves a scar on the hearer's mind.

  I would choose to be dumb
  rather than be callous or unkind
  speak to me as you may
  if the right words you could find

The becoming
    is not yet
    it's still early morning
    there's nothing to celebrate

    life is the waiting
   so many in yearning forget
   each moment is testing
   patience--  useless to fret

   the greater the longing
   the tighter the closed gate
   of time-  agonising
   the restless heart that couldn't wait

   joy will be in the offing
   on an unsought-after date
   with long-suffering love in flowering
   its wonders and bliss never to fade.

There's a Centre
                         within each heart
                        hidden, latent
                        but could be
                       reached and touched

                       beyond thought
                        reasoning and logic
                       which when illuminated
                       will light the once
                       lost self into the Right Path

                      where the Stream
                      is clear, transparent, calm
                      not a single ripple
                      would stir nor perturb
                      and the mind is nestled
                      in the Endless Nowhere
                      beyond every earthly scheme
                      or the most ingenious human art

                     come, o come Silence
                     Source of all Goodness and Grace
                     come to quench the thirsty
                     and feed the hungry
                     come, o come to stay
                     nourish, nurture, bless
                     in abiding, never to part.

It's useless
      to ruminate
     that which was once desired
     it's just too late!

Though I have long burnt
             that particular letter
             my eyes still well in tears
             when its contents I remember

Leaves of late autumn*- deep brownish
       and delicately yellowish
       my weary heart has ceased to be pinkish
       all I inherit in old age is that which is greyish

Eager am I to learn
      but aspire never to be wise
      it is to grow, not to burn--
      such a desire would but agonise.

If just for a single day
you could cease wishing
I would say this:
you would have avoided the punishing

For such a long time
   I've not touched my violin*
  it is mute---its voice is stolen
by someone I once loved---Irene!

To be best or first?
  that's not for me
  life is too short
  I don't want to court any envy

'Everyone must wear
    a name-tag'
    should I? indeed
   nothing do I lack

I would never seek
    that which others regard as miracle
    the impossible I don't attempt
    only the possible.

My enemies would remember me
when I am long dead
as for my friends---soon enough
me they would forget

I can't say yes or no
the simple truth:  I just don't know!

...but reason we have over-rated
   it's too stern-faced and brutally cold
   it has to be restrained or uprooted
  we will never be sold or told-

   I'll love without assigning any reason
  my heart is sure, steadfast and bold
  in every weather and every season
  I'll allow my love to blossom a thousand-fold.

The half-truths
  we live with---ingrained
  in our brain
  we couldn't dislodge
  they will come to re-roost
  time and again

  too used we are
the same pictures
we paint and re-paint

ah, it's not that hard
others to deceive
before them to pretend
none would detect
we'd achieve our end

half-truths enamoured
savoured by some many
it's a lifelong game

no one does die
on account of it
so where's the pain?

I do this
you do that
not illegal
we are both glad

you do that
I do this
we bother no one
nothing is amiss

you are rich
I am poor
I care not
I don't implore

you are poor
I am rich
come share my meal
your shirt I'll stitch

you and I
we both live
harm we cause not
there's nothing to forgive

I and you
it will come--that final day
there'll be no more you and I
as each quietly walks away

None other is to blame
each chooses their own shackle
walling themselves in all corners
with every day as struggle

so easy and convenient
trying to talk oneself out of shamble
habits are worse than tyrants
the perennial source of human trouble

Count me out
let others choose to malinger
the sun is setting in the plain
the moment that's now would not come ever

count me out
the day has been heavy labour
night should be a reward
for every honest deed and endeavour

count me out
I've no business to speak of any other
life is an open door
all are entitled to leave and enter

count me in
let me be the true lover
of all things that bless
and are beautiful--forever!

By the faraway shore I lonely stand
the sea's mystery unfolds before me
I feel the pulse of the soft gentle sand
and have a foretaste of the kiss of eternity

Places I have not been
but there's gain as such
things that are on hand
have taken my time too much

so limited space is contained
in my heart-- I'll but welcome love's tender touch
places I leave for others to explore
content to live a life without regret or smudge

Life has no recourse
but only to the self in particular
the most intimate source
of every thought and endeavour-

whatever the season or cause
there's no reason for surrender
if the book of life needs a clause
it should read:  sow first, later to gather

I would come to know
in time when I'd be redundant
the sunshine would have faded
and I'd be life-abandoned-

youth was once proud and loud
busking in hours resplendent
then came the winter of discontent
with all its dreams being forgotten

Grant me the gift of small words
that I might speak in simplicity
then my heart will smile and bend towards
their tender beauty and clarity.

Forbid that I should ever plead
for the loud, grandiose and ornate vocabulary
my voice would but choke and die
in that tainted and blemished artificiality.

It's still a beginning
though the journey
of self has begun
as long as it could remember
there is no ending
as the flesh and blood
pulsates in the corporeal being
life looks askance
as each individual
continues in the striving
never comes into terms
with each happening
that which is desired
ends in non-realising

life is a perpetual cleavage
the wanting versus the having
the gap that knows no bridging

Life's major part--in brief-
is lived in the ngawing interim
a bridge to the future unknown
the cross-over from the past's every unrealised dream-

the lacuna, the conundrum, the angst
the contradiction, the mirage--it does all seem
a barren and arid land-- what's to becoming
never ever falls even to the best-conceived scheme

hence, the panting, the gasping
the longing--the darkness without a single beam
after all the struggling, striving and sighing
what's left is but the emptiness and nausea* that perennially teem.

Dear D,

To write is to know oneself better and,in the most sublime sense, to be larger than life despite its pain and tragedy in juxtaposition to its brittle and ephemeral joys.

It is cleansing, purification and consecration  and , at the end of our life, we would have grasped its essence and should have no reason for regret or remorse- the veil has been lifted, the heart and soul are set free and we would have had a foretaste of a Mystery and Beauty that is beyond words and our finite understanding.

In that celestial state, we would have come to know that* pain, tragedy and death* counts for little as it has been overcome by a larger Force in a Dimension that is Eternal Bliss.


Sincerely

Peter

We are different
but bound together
each as a singular witness
to life's drama
and panaroma-
critics, dissenters, chafers
haters,  accusers, grumblers
few as such are
willing acceptors, embracers
non-contenders, life-lovers
having been punished
bruised, burnt, scalded
in the crucibles of time
and there's no remedy
for our  ugly ,scathing
and indelible scars

tossed in the endless
uncaring and tumultuous sea
each element of nature
is but a faceless enemy
that has no heart
to be benign to our humanity

we are each
first and last
a witness
to life's open-lidded
misery

Should I not say then
poetry is its own religion
drawn from the fullest devotion
of the heart and soul?--Amen!

Upon the path of joy and pain
it walks,  touched by every sentiment
the greatest depth of the person
makes its appearance- in loss or in gain.

We, even the most circumspect
       and perceptive, somehow
       have found ourselves skirting
       on the periphery of our life
       and fail so often in grasping
       the true nature and essence of things
       and, in between,  are left dangling
       in doubt, uncertainty, claptrap
       that saps away the life-blood of our being

       like a top in perennial spinning
       in full knowledge it will be stopping
       and fall away after the final turning
       there is but senseless motion with no growing

       if I must love,  the core
      of your heart I should be seeking
       to enter and not be standing
       outside the circle which would
       but be futile waiting and empty desiring

What needs to be sanitised?
   we are not speaking
  of the Covid 19  plight
  but of normal living

  what dwells and festers
  in our mind?  what's its thinking
  in the daily *******
  is it life-enhancing or ennobling

or but the self
in search of gratifying?
the more acquired
the great the aggrandising?

the game has been over-played
the player needs the sanitising
but will turn his back on the call
despite the grievous warning

I couldn't be more
lesser would better suit
futile to self-aggrandise
on a higher pedestal myself I wouldn't dare put

let me face myself fair and square
others rightly belong to a better breed
if myself I could humbly accept
little else would I ever need

The poet dies the moment
in each poem that's written
he has drained the essence
of self-- the most poignant he has spoken

fresh breath he will redraw
upon the next visitation of inspiration
a new world he will vocalise
the dying unto words is his chosen mission.

There's no arriving
even if thought so
by the traveller
the journey is just beginning

the mind deceives
a sticking-point seeking
and speaks: 'all is resolved'-
but it's illusive thinking!

life is a process stretching
to future unknown dimensions
there is no fixed destination
every step is but a crossing

beyond the bounds of the now
mankind is born to sad desiring
the exploring into time but manifests
the heart is still in wanting.