Never mind
whether it's far or near
as long as you travel well
and need not shed a tear

Fear is that force
   that's beyond the self
   if you could be its master
  you would conquer all else

The punk drove his car in rage
mistaking that for courage

Too many places are crowded
    too many people in every part
    I am never upset or disappointed
    there's plenty of room in my heart

I am not a member
of any tribe
all else despite
only to my own integrity I subscribe.

I choose above all my being alone
every such moment more of myself I come to own

As I reach my last throe
my moment of truth I would know

What seemed a promising encounter
   too soon it did end at some dismal relationship-counter

Don't complain to me
for such I have no real pity!

Does the fault lie
     with the world or me?
     I've found it hard to say
     each individual is an ambiguity.

Don't treat
         my retreat
        as despair or surrender
        I do not quit!

Every self
   in isolated silence
   is somehow fragmented
   its inner sorrows are beyond utterance

They didn't know me
but to judge they were too eager
the said I was a nitwit
like none other

I like Ralph by a long mile
    (he was intellectually impaired)
    but when we met he would smile
    and 'Good day, sir' the same words he said.

More die of boredom than hunger
   a common disease--no laughing matter!

Myself I implicitly trust
I don't need to wear a mask

No
'let it be'
for me
I must grow.

I have lived
life I have cherished
if tomorrow I were dying
there would be no reason to grieve

A slow learner
    I was indeed
    count myself lucky still
    I committed no misdeed

I had to struggle
  in my youth, all alone
  the wrong advice I received
  I had to chart my destiny on my own

I was cured
     of my boredom
     when I found
     my freedom

Ah, human cruelty!
     I weep for humanity

I don't have to plead
I've everything I need

Come in, stranger
outside it's cold and raining
I'll put on my kettle
let's drink and start conversing

The feeling was appalling
   when I was found out
   never to steal again, I did vow
   of honesty I had never since been in doubt.

Living in post-war dire poverty
       often my parents quarrelled over money
       my siblings and I in a quiet corner hid away
       such incidents I've not forgotten up to this very day.

How, oh how
to paste back
fragments of broken glass
in a lifetime?
realisation
always came too late
pitiful, sad

the fields are now
covered with weeds
overgrown--dead
are the plants and roses
the trees are sickly and barren
once home to many proud song-birds
the stream has ceased
to flow--the sun its light
no longer stays to shed
the landscape is mute
and coal-dark-- desolate
are the hills cloud-hidden
the winds they moan
as they travel alone
down the sombre valley
overlooking a dying sea-bed

the heart is regret--ridden
aching, crying. pleading, bleeding
but there's no resting shade
night turns on its revenge---unforgiving
taking the side of the aggrieved
and those left bereft
by the cruel, heartless and faithless
such they deemed punishment- deserved

the stars look down in contempt-
from affliction and condemnation
the perpetrators they can't escape.

There's the partial
  remembering and forgetting
  even fragments thereof
  are as alarming

  memory never sleeps
  ever asserting---overpowering
  reason,  all senses abandoning
  leaves its victims trembling

that which hurts most
thrives on past-digging
it takes delight at unguarded moments
in relentless tormenting

ah, how fragile is human being
ever in the roughest storms cruelly tossed
striving, struggling, sighing,  lost
in pain, in angst, in regret unceasing.

I choose nothing to hold
and thereby become whole

Person-fragmented
    too long self has been neglected

Not wanting to be chosen
     I avoided a lifetime of burden

'I' deleted
  self no more
  never to be defeated
  nothing to score

Me, a page
  not a portfolio
  quickly read
  nothing left to follow

Let things be
    live freely

Yourself you imprison
with too many words-- drop that poison!

This is what
   the day would say:
   trust yourself
   follow your heart's way

Trying too much to be
        courts frustration and misery

Luggage
   I have none
   all discarded
   task done

There can be no true freedom
without sacrifice of impeding elements

All the world's wisdom
is futile to me
if I've lost my freedom

There can't be true freedom
when some fear in your life still does loom

Curb not your freedom
    it's that which gives your life
     the fullest expression

   or you'd but be a voice
   in the desert  most desolate
  not a single word of yours would be heard

Those who have tasted freedom
will die to defend it
to live under slavery
would be worse than the worst death

There's no happiness
without freedom
no freedom
without self-understanding
and letting
go of the past-
the self  must be
without cleavage
its thinking
must not be smudged
by what  went before-
the best yield
can't be reaped
by an infertile field

the old self
has to be reformed
or there would
never be true freedom

We will never be free
unless we fully
allow ourselves to be

Grant me
freedom
and the rest
of my life is set-
wisdom
if there were
to be
I can wait
to celebrate

to many
life is tyranny
holding them
by the throat-
they live helplessly

no Ubermensch
am I--only human
struggling to become
never Promethean
striving for the best
of humanly possible outcome

I brush away time
with it I've no business
my life it will not encroach
I create my own happiness

even when
the last call
should come
I'll accept
in gladness-

in the freedom
that I've inherited-

I'll have no fear
nor regret
what I've desired
myself I've made
there's sweet peace ahead
nothing, nothing at all
have I lost nor surrendered

If love
weren't freedom
would it have
any worth?

Grant me freedom
over wisdom
it's that which
knows no age-term

Wisdom
without freedom
is tantamount
to mental prison

What I write
might not be right
but I'll not be stopped:
free expression is my right

when such freedom
is stifled or suffocated
democracy will witness
an instant moral death