Love is a cloud
Roaming the sky of dreams
When it rains
Originates flowers of passion
Driven by solar carriage
Fueled by Moon's grace.

No climate can stop the season
Take it easy and enjoy the breeze
The stimulating drizzle
Validating your rhythm.

Let us not be wed
By clergy's verbal fog
Or through the fiction of State's seal
Neither of which ensures
Love's appeal
Let us not get hitched at all
For Love despises chains
Let us just ride
On waves of faithfulness
Free of promise, paper and point
Let us run wild and glide
Over the fence of freedom
That custom installs
The clandestine halls
Awaiting our trespass
To celebrate the union
Of a witch and a sorcerer
Of two rebel souls.

Ah, let them fool me
With their fettered flaws
Their freedom is but lettered laws
And their fancy, out of lee.
Their claws, though I could,
I would not wring to tears
I would not lease
Their learnings to fear
For I'm certain
They can not rule me.

It must have been yellow
But I saw blue
A trick of mind, of eyes perhaps
A chest of treasure my heart recalled
But my mind saw the sea
My eyes caught sight of hyacinth
My days are filled with doubts
Leading me to walls of auspicious delay
Friends of sky safeguard my freedom
Silver mysteries kick-start my rhythm
Where to go, what to do
I do not know till the moment arrives
I'm an archer in the midst of targets
But I wouldn't shoot without bets
Apples, oranges, strawberries
Make unconventional wines
Blue jays, cardinals, hawks
Carriers of lofty signs
My mistakes are breaks
Among fast-moving flock of exactitude
My horse is wary of the right roads
Afraid of skidding across the courts
Whose lips should I read
And how should I read them
Manners hidden between the lips?
Tenseness, directness, amusement
Or just pure nonsense
I will not be correct in my solution
For the lips are moved
By unseen masters
Controlling the moment's evolution
Sureness, Sureness you are a fraud
Authenticating my display of doubt.

Soothing shadows surround me
You whom i never met
Offer me love and comfort
In the church of darkness.
I search the moments in vain
For some sensuous touch
Some scent of unearthly perfume
I only find the headlights
Of slow moving vehicles.                
I can not shake out
The sensation of soft sin
Ravaging my bones
I bow down to respect
The mysterious mist
To ask forgiveness
But the moment has long gone
Gone into the galactic dumpster
Yet its residue resides
In everlasting look of madness.

Tonight I write down my sadness
With lines echoing your memory
The silent cloud bursts into tears
As if it knew my sorrow
I used to be your cloud
Wandering the sky of your heart
You were my best friend
And at times upon your sensitive frame
I poured down my rain
In faithful drops of feeling
Other times I would unload my devotion
With generous caress of kisses
Upon your stoic countenance
My soul is sad
And will stay sad
Till I rediscover
Your magnetic might
Till I rediscover
Your charming light
Wherever you are
Whatever you doing
In the afterlife
Know that your son
Will never eschew
Such paragon of virtue.

Calm down my heart
You have fought many fights
And won almost all
No more shall you be encouraged
To fight others' arguments
You have proven your warriorship
To war birds above
No more should you battle
No more should you be in the middle
Fighting for justness and honesty
This world shall never be entirely right
So rest and enjoy your remaining days
With the magic of your soft side
The side that can make a horse
Whinny with pride
The side that birds vie to possess
The side of forbearance and virtuous vibe
You were tossed into valley of shadows
And came out in one piece
Yes my heart you've earned your feathers
You were never afraid of dying of death
And at times in solitude
You sought quietus
My beloved heart
You were thrown into madness
To be trampled on to be subdued
But your resolute rebellion
Saved me from caving in
From giving up my free spirit
Now my heart you deserve quietude
Your peaceful time is on the horizon
Bask in the spirit of Sun
Settle in the silver of moonlight
And explore the skies
Of impossible dreams

My imagination is crazy wild
Wilder than Poe's poems and stories
Wilder than Nature's fury
Nothing seems impossible to construct
In its enchanting forge of creation
My imagination climbs
Wherever logic crawls
Sometimes I knock on its door
When I cannot get off the floor
Sometimes it pulls me in
Like a maniac magnet
For it misses my playful madness
When I'm fit squarely on its wheel
It thrills me to visit the hills
The hills of visionary transportation
Where my senses get satisfied
Through dreamy flights
To supernatural heights
Where self is no longer itself
But a pair of variegated wings
Soaring the sky of bliss
Whoever or whatever created mankind
Perfectly knew in advance
That without imagination
Human race wouldn't be able to survive.

Don't know exactly who I am
And what I'm meant to be
Just following the hello signs
Laid upon the trail of my being
Keeping my feet loose and raw
In calender of surprises.
The day that I stop learning
My heart's magic weaves a cocoon
The day that I stop teaching
My mind's ocean becomes a lagoon
I have a tender spirit
That won't stay a minute
In trawls of social mood
Or the chains of pendant feelings
There is a spell on my candle
To surpass the air
Leaving behind earth and water
And merge into incorruptible fire.

Nature's law is my shield
And its grandeur, my sword.

Follow us naked Moon
Follow us to the North
Where your soft light
Be caressing pinnacle of pain
Be easing sun beaten breast
Or to the South to redeem our sins
Bestowed upon us by our fathers
Sins rooted deeply in our purpose
Naked Moon your silver spears
Don't care much for East and West
A routine you been ditching inch by inch
So we just move up and down
Like a yo-yo played by Sun
We shall play the role of a pawn
Plotting ways to become a queen
To break the insensible System
And protect the King of dreams
Naked Moon you are a globe of salt
A cobalt of crystallinity
Orbiting in a near perfect circle
Give us a portion of your dark stuff
Give us our daily doubt
Enrich our curious character
Give us the magic we deserve
Follow us to the end of curve
Leading us from behind
Protecting our impressionable minds.

One cannot perceptively
And comprehensively write about death
And the obvious reason is
One is alive when doing it
Death remains an idea
For as long as breathing exists
And ideas are as innumerable
As the grains of sand
Even when individuals,
Preferably adroit writers or good poets,
Who have undergone
Near-death experiences
Can't fully set forth the ins and outs
Of death because they were not
Privy to the total experience.

The fact remains that we must all die
And be done away with our ****** forms
And transcend the physical world
And where our souls go is up for debate
They surely go somewhere to become
Part of an incomprehensible whole
And whether we come back to Earth
Or remain out there, is another subject
Giving rise to theories or assumptions.

Death is favored by the ones
Tethered with terminal illnesses
Unwavering cruelties, emotional agonies
And a host of other circumstances
Involving the parameters of evil
So contrary to the popular belief
Death can be gratifying even magical
And I would go as far as saying
That death is a cure a panpharmacon
For implacable sufferings stemming
From the imperfections of this world.

I do not have a preference for where I go
After I die as long as it is not
A place described by world religions
Other than that, the road to
Indistinct reality is wide open for me
My spirit maybe zapped
To a poetic paradise
Due to the curse of being a poet
Then again, I may end up in Dante's
Inferno which wouldn't surprise me
For I have not been a very good
And upright man in my affairs
I wanted to be decent and virtuous
But I couldn't, I couldn't because
The world around me wouldn't allow it
Despite all my efforts
To disentangle myself from its reality
That wrapped itself around me
Like a vise grip
I'm a human, weak and unpossessing
Of iron strength after all
So I surrendered to pressure
And entered the turf of temptation.

Hens scampering in the village of Parma
Appeasing the rooster's pride

An acre of corn nestling
The soft serving Earth

Some light years away
The explosion of a star
Extends the reign of darkness

Kristina in her T-shirt
Looking at her **** in the mirror
Wondering how much firmer they get
She is nineteen years old
And wants to become an artist
But her mother has other ideas

The clock chimes the midnight hour
And Tom is sitting in the dark
Debating whether to do it or not
Whether to dispel the itch or wallow in it
He is idyllic and knows nothing
Of politics, nothing of religion
And nothing of death

In the street corner
Harlots talk about tricks
Talk about positional preference
And talk about cunning
One day they are the masters
Of their worlds and the next
Objects of subjugation

A ****** of crows circle overhead
The pitch of their cawing growing

The clergyman wearing a purple robe
Pays tribute to ****** Mary
He is positive that his moralizing sermon
Would enlarge his drove of disciples
His submission to the Cross
Is double-edged: one about God's work
And the other about mammon

An osprey swoops down
And catches a trout

Silver and gold are bought and sold
In the marketplace
Asteroids surge through
The incalculable Space
Time effects and erases
Prospects of understanding

Mason is an obscure poet
He admires Rilke's philosophy of writing
Even though he is well educated
In aesthetics of language
His own poetry verges on insanity
He says: either mad or dead

The General brushes his mustache
He is about to give a farewell speech
To his subordinates
He is not going to ignite them
With bravery or his achievements
Instead, he is going to stab their spirits
What do they know
These fancy pants of generalship

The lioness fails to make a ****
Oh, but there is another prey

The Heart aches for peace
For eternal release from the binds of
Temporal tricks
The Mind, whether a master or slave
Miscalculates the essential needs
And the Body, sanctuary of soul,
Craves for food, ***, rest and breeding

Czeslaw Milosz would have been
The President of the World
Joseph Brodsky:
His Secretary of Independence
Robert Frost:
His Secretary of Freedom
William Butler Yeats:
His Secretary of Peace
Pablo Neruda:
His Secretary of Pleasure
Only if Fate had been kind enough.

Many doggedly believe there is one God
Ruling as a divine singular entity
Stamped with omnipresence
Omniscience and omnipotence
Agnostics take the safe route rather than
Shouldering such unclear creed
Atheists do away with
The existence of God altogether
And there are others who put
God's adversary on a pedestal.
It wouldn't be off base to say
Their views are self-satisfying
That they pick and choose according
To the depths of their understanding
Of course external means have a hand
In forming their ideas that may
Or may not transmute over time.

Nobody can confidently establish
The existence or non-existence of God
Whether it is all good or not so good
In terms of actions and directions
But the crux of the matter is:
Some force must represent the good in us
It might as well be God, the Almighty
The Creator, Allah, Father or any other
Handles that we may come up with
To exemplify goodness for mankind's
Perception of Devil is not all favorable.

God's spirit can be omnipresent
Only if it is residing in everything
And if that is the case, it stands to reason
That such spirit be omniscient as well
For it can sense what you and I
And other life forms are aware of
So its omniscience could be a package
Of ongoing knowledge so to speak
God's spirit can be all-powerful
Only if the entirety of human beings Resolutely believe in its omnipotence
Which is another way of saying
Fear of God begets good behavior.

Is it not wise and practical to pull God
Out of the grips of religion
Out of the clutches of theologians bent
On furthering their versions of theism
And isn't altogether safe to do away
With God as peak of authority
Perched high upon the clouds
Prepared to punish or to reward.

God's spirit can be thought of
As the epitome of collective goodness
An instrument for thwarting evil deeds
Good spirits do not give orders nor do
Intimidate and nor do misguide
They deal in uprooting mental weeds
Which disturb the thought process
As well as blurring the vision
An amazing feat sustaining flow of creed.

God's spirit or the existing goodness
In the world, serves as a shining beacon
Waiting to bring home
The vessels lost in the mist of pessimism.

Guardrail of goodness goes far and wide
Even in territories suspect
Curtailing the range of danger
And evil's prospect.

Of course bad things happen
To good people all the time
Nature's calamities and Fate's tragedies
Cannot be mastered neither can
The atrocities of unrefined minds
But the important thing is
The sustenance of goodness
For without it
Our world would sink into Hadean abyss.

My life has mostly been
Foolhardy and footloose
I hardly ever follow man-made rules
How to experience Elysium's ray
When felonious fools
Govern the pulse of day

Life's waves are packed in a whim
Or waltzing rocket of a fantastic dream
Life spills art into potter's clay
Or the canvas making the painter's day

Life's wagon is steered by fact and fiction
Conveying mysteries and mores
Who knows of tomorrow's scores
When today's order ends in suspicion

Life may be a heavenly enclosure
Rolling round the belt of blessing
Or a dungeon dull and depressing
Illuminating the dooming share

Life of a bird, an animal or a plant
To Nature's beauty lends a hand
Whereas humans commonly defile
Mother Nature's artistic style

Life could be a balloon ride peaceful
Or a runaway ideology generating war
Life tailors tragedy purposeful
Or fashions fortune going far

The looks of Life
Are numerous to fully mention
Besides, I'm not wise
To the entire dimension.

Earthly time is fine despite Death
The eternal dark out of which
Shadows creep sparking illusions
That hold sway over dreams.
I came from darkness
To store the burning Light
That echoes the yells of creation
Toward some demotic destiny.
Achievements soothe so little
Within the web of eclectic waste
We tend to call societies
Run by the elite undergrowth
Who pay no heed to evergreens.
It was only yesterday
When i first went to school
When i tasted my first cigarette
My first beer, first *******
When i wrote my first poem
And many things in between
Well, out of long list of vices
Only cigarettes have survived
And they probably will
Till my stiff body
Touches the cramped coffin.
Scoop me up Ursa
In your *****
My spirit shall bask
Playing heavenly marbles
Within the volatile void.

Of one essence in creation's mold
Our souls are organs
Of a cosmic whale
Swimming the ocean of Time
In search of destiny divine.

When an appendage
Is suffering in pain
Others must apprehensive remain
If some members show no pity
For another's afflictions
The appellation of Human
They can not retain.

Poetry is a gateway to salvation
Where day is subjugated
And darkness reigns
Where dying drains
And spirituality, illuminated.

Tongue is derived
From striking feel
Fusion of words
Portray the deal.

Poets whether inferior
Good or great
Unload the gratifying freight.

A loving touch of a lion
The spark of a smile
A sudden burst of laughter
The paintings in sky
A lone traveller
Bound to nowhere
The drizzling of autumn rain
Stillness, flow
Detachment, devotion
Testament to poetry's motion.

What songs should we sing
In praise of sunshine and
Magic of moonlight
In praise of Nature's beauty
And Animal Kingdom
In praise of solitude
And matrimony
For speech alone
Cannot be captivating
We need Music and Poetry
The twins of creation's kindness
The reasons for hope and peace.

Poetry fuels the fire of fairness
Preserving humanity in life.

Limpid waters reflect
The shadow of sunset
Chase has long been interred
In catacomb of dreams
And roar of thoughts muffled by age.
Stripped of but all verve
The shriveled fingers dip in
To ripple the reflection of night
Toward the fringe of life's purpose
Toward destiny's flowchart
To galactic conglomerations
Or a shaft of light
That carries with it
Aeons of dictatorial abundance.

Colored clouds furnished the sky
Pink, yellow, orange and white
Imparting mystic images
Stimulating the view
The messages my heart decoded
To be from fire eroded
The gods and goddesses of yore
Rejuvenating my calor
The caress of passing breeze
Seemed no longer mundane
Flock of birds wafting above
Deity formation in disguise
The rays of Sun a rapid river
Flowing into ocean of air
In high plains i heard a whisper
Soothing my wounded crown,
Inebriating my spirit
Such calmness i had never felt
Such state far beyond pain
As the moments began to last
Intensifying my soul's goal
Time admonished the Earth to roll
And diminish the light fast
Where day endured becoming past.

I'm sitting alone nostalgic
Kettle's been boiling for a while
Water nearly gone
What was it to be made
Coffee, tea or brew of quince
With a touch of tarragon
In your antique pocelain mug
A windfall from college days
You called it a talisman
Cast out of immemorial lands
A sign you must take to heart
And chase your feelings
With reckless mind
Without help from anyone...
Feelings that show you the way
Toward Elysian fields.
The water is all but gone
A drop or two for fond memories
We might have beaten the odds
Planting love in ******* mold
But enchanted by dreams
You chose to contain your love
And follow the singings of your heart
Though you have long been gone
Your illusion still lingers on
Tempting me to feed your love.

Only you are more beautiful than you
Thousand flowers can't beat your bloom
You are a mystifying marvel soft as down
An awakening airing the gift of dawn
Gods must have been high or highly fine
To fashion something incredibly divine.

With lips of rosy gold and emerald eyes
With dusky hair and shapely eyebrows
With sonsy face and alabaster skin
With chisled nose and voice of serene
You are the lone star in the sky of mortals
Shining with fantastic materials
Your flaming aura captures vanity
Topping the height of urbanity.

You are a work of humanizing art
That keeps your mind open
And enriches your heart
Your spirit wanders like the breeze
Spreading the wonders of your kiss
They would lay silver, gold
And diamond at your feet
To inhale the fragrance of your heat.

When twilight settles and shadows rise
To assail the magic of your eyes
Your guardian dragon spews ancient fires
Extinguishing all iniquitous desires
For you are the epitome of natural glory
Portraying Love's genuine story.

Our house is far away
Beyond barren deserts
Behind unexcitable mountains
Where golden meadows thrive
Our house is other side of sorrow
Other side of restless waves
It's behind cypress forests
It is in dreams, in sleeps
Near that sacred garden
Past pear orchards and vineyards
Our house is beyond the clouds
Other side of hopeless pains
At the end of moistened roads
Behind the rain behind the sea
Our house is rich in story
Tales of sour cherry and mulberry
Our house is amidst
Assuring laughters
Full of drowsy souls
It has ponds with patient fishes
Alleys with coquettish cats
Our house is warm and sincere
Old pictures hanging on the walls
Picture of paradise on the veranda
Picture of shoreline in summer
Picture of that day under the rain
Eyes full of tears and a suitcase
Leaving loved ones behind
Leaving kindness behind
Our house is far away
Hidden from world's despair.

There is no insight
In illusion of stories
Beclouding your universal mind
Machination excavates
The earth of character
Breaching tenor of vision
The burning candle weeps
Tears of unfulfilled sapience
In the stillness of night
The fabrication of perception
Disempowers awareness
Compromising clarity
It was yesterday
When roads were unpaved
The spirits untamed
Wise ones were held in high regard
The birds displayed the way
And the Earth rolled unfazed
But today
Today is the face of tomorrow
Promoting future's paradise
And demoting present's purview
Today is the remnant of yesterday's joy
And the prelude to tomorrow's ploy.

Poem is a thing of devotion
That rarefies mind's aperture
To captivate the reader's emotion

Through the winding lane of lines
With unparalled tincture
Matter manifests its mines

As the words waltz in detention
To mold the motion of thought
Rhythm ramifies perception

To reach the crest of credo
Via the voices that rebut
Poem elevates by veto.

Truly gifted poets
Straddle their crafts early on
Some even in adolescence
They have been cursed or blessed
To be kings and queens of utterance.
I never dreamed of becoming a poet
It was furthest from my mind
Then in a sudden twist of eardrum
It happened in my Mid-thirties.

Out of the recesses of Time
Came the lure and a hook
Shining in enchanted brook
And before i knew it
My heart was snatched
And my movements flustered
When i bit on ambrosiac bait
Drenched in Muse's wine
Drugged and drunk
On sounds and images
I struggled in a pool of words
To assemble what held me infused
To make sense of orphaned views
Swaying between shade and light
Like dancers deprived of audience.

My poetic rapture began
In frenetic rain of ink
preposterous in direction
A poetaster rapt on vapid rhymes
With sounds of poetic crimes
But my craft developed
In piecemeal fashion
And rendered my pen composed.

A minnow of long ago
Has grown into a mackerel
And longs to become a whale
In the ocean Ars Poetica
Though it seems a pipe dream.

Blanket of poetry
Shelters all
Be not coy to clamber
The semantic wall
Like a drop of dew
Indigenous insights brew
In lonely and dark places
The star-studded sky
Carpet of evidence.

Poets are strangers in roads of life
Turning hither and thither much
Striving to even the odds

The tale in their gift of hours
Unfolds verse by verse
Trickling their insightful airs

Off which heaven falls the light
That straddles their perceptions
And hooks a halter to their rides

Some reach the realm of stardom
Some swallow the pill of obscurity
Some meander in limbo of words

Would it be worth their while
To buck and unload the reasons
And abandon noble cause

Would it be worth it to discard
The strings of lingering lyre
In favor of earthly cards

Would it be worth it after all
To chase the wind and not catch it
To rig the wings and not match it.

There is an urge behind this beast
That sends it forth to tangible places
Where profundity drives outward
Drying out the wells of thought.
Like a passive dog barking inward
It sways the soul to some failing end
And remedies of it trap the crowd
Who become bound
To its changing faces.

Societal dependency
A disease disguised as validation
Ruling out subjective truths
The indifferent Universe
Testament for choosing
An autonomous path
Being in the dark, is not a valid answer
For exploration of one's might
One may suffer incessantly
In order to lift the doors
One can never reach the zenith
By succumbing to the norms.

The silent star gazing back at me
Revealing the planted darkness
Creeping up my mind
But when did it get there
Certainly not at birth.

Toward Left or toward Right
Each with advantages and disadvantages
Canceling out the ultimate reward
Of coalescing with Creation
Hence, what must one do
To rise above the mist of understanding
The key lies in the fist of defiance.

I am a rebel with a cause
Forging ahead with the enlightenment
Of conforming crowds.

And the minutes go by
So the hours, days and years
The position that once stood so firm
Has expanded into exploration
The daily chores and mores
With bitter or sweet stories
Bind me still to this day
The habit of waking up time after time
Either at daylight or approach of night
And facing the identity of times
The pressure of working slow or hard
Within an established web of might
Which clings like leaves
To the branches of Time
The relations that hooded my selfhood
The directions that booted me
Into realm of rotations
Keeping me circling the same dimension
The brushing of teeth, the shaving
The haircutting, the nail clipping
The eating, drinking, garbage dumping
And many other typical decisions
Hinting at the peace of indecision
And by now you might have guessed
My oasis is repetition's rest.

Sometimes without faith
Things work out fine
Sometimes even God
Can't unravel the vine
Sometimes wheel of Love
Arrives on its own
Other times century of priming
Won't tailor the tone
Love launches without introduction
Myriad advice make it ill-sorted
Sometimes a thousand prayers
Fall prey to breeze
Sometimes without a word
Fortune finds your lap
Sometimes you are a total beggar
And luck is not your friend
Sometimes the whole town
Petitions you
Sometimes I miss the joy of laughter
And my heart becomes
Metal shavings
Sometimes our clear blue sky
Turns suddenly turbid and colorless
Sometimes my breath
Becomes sharp as sword
Sometimes I become fed up
With all of life
Our youth passed away
As if in sleep
Sometimes how soon
Our chances are late
Not my business
Where you are and what you do
Don't go on without Love
For your heart shall grow senile.

By the dawn of day
This parson pilfers
The tongue of its prey
And flutters it at will
Till the shades of evening turn grey
And if fact is there,
All the way into caves of twilight.
It deals with opposition
Quite different way:
A sudden wit, a swift play
Followed by hypersonic heed
And that's it
The enemy is shed
And maintained by lightning whips
Or sweet succession of
Lilliputian leaps.
Don't oppose its sermon for too long
For it stuns the breath
Heaven's assigned it a sign
Lovers can read
And beasts endeavor to destroy it
Welcome its weightless landings
For it never rests
Until nestled by fate.

With an old secret
I sank into her endless eyes
Pondering over laws
That effected such marvel
And leased me to madness
Words were melting in my mouth
She, refraining her turn of phrase
A tear rolled down my cheek
Stirring passion's tongue
A tear rolled down hers
Wielding my soul ablaze
I rejoiced in silence
Lest i betray my confidence
She handled my eyes
Spotting my inference
I could no longer bear
The fruits of my fear
I leaned over and touched
Her sculptured nails tenderly
Freeing my emotion
She smiled coyly
Sealing my devotion.

Rampant lies are skin-deep
Steering the unwitting herd
Bridled truths pierce the bone
Sparking marrow's bird
Shadows fade in the sea of look
Surfing the backdoor brook
Light cries in the dead of night
Lamenting the absence of height
The dual bond conceals parity
Fanning the flames of insanity
The lonely man cries for love
Seaching for meadows of dove
The lone woman dreams of a king
Waiting for the diamond ring
The Earth rolls with double intent
Keeping us in circular fusion
The Moon rotates with triple end
Sympathizing with our confusion
A star fastens my gaze
Stimulating my fancy
In astronomical ways
The heavenly fire plays
With my sense of relevancy
The magical dance craves
For a companion who deserves
The steps of divination
To waltz in halls of revelation
The scientist is lost
In the storm of data's decay
Riggling through the rust
Contemplating the costly delay
The teacher, eager to transfer knowledge
Proposes the learned page
Unaware of the winding thread
Leading to questions unheard
The father promises to play
The mother carries the weight of day
The children weary of their chores
Daydream of magical doors
Am I the deputy of Satan
Or the sheriff of God
They both seem to raise my curtain
They're both anticipating my nod
What should I do without their wraith
Polarizing my life's story
I shall put my unwavering faith
In elements of Nature's fury
What I have said in black and white
May not appeal to color of your thought
And that is fine for such is my song
My right to sing the way I belong.

I'm  free of religion, politics and law
The triad of corruption
The rein of my body and my mind
Rests in the hands of my spirit
I'm not above anyone
And no one is above me
I was born unique
Like everybody else
I've kept it that way unlike most
No superbly skilled mastermind
Can infiltrate my being
No cutting-edge mechanism
Can alter the course of my craft
I'm a drifter in the land of mystery
Magical birds shall sing my history.

If the truth is to deny
The agonies that love invites
My heart shall insidiously aim
To ****** her, days and nights.

But as she agrees to bind
And trust in my constant song
I credulously attend
To care for and court her long.

The lost love returns once again
To plow the fields of credence
Moon's divinity  sinks
In sun-baked desert of emotion,
Unearthing buds of rebirth
In the jaws of reason.
What lunacy boils
In the ruse of treason
As the rhythm rigs
The corporeal bliss.

Good deeds and bad deeds
Whatever they brought
To the hostelry of Fate
Another page turned
In the book of Life
Another leaf tumbled to ground
Off the tree of Time
How often
In the midst of graceful shadows
I have been tempted to trail
The vagaries of a moonlit mind
How often
Amid sobering sorrow
I have been led to shed my wings
The road is unknowable
And not knowing takes me home
May your days be springtime
And your spring eternal.

Perfection almost
Paralyzed my psyche,
Should have been a monkey
My head of intentions.
There would have been though
Incarcerating beam
And guilt thermometer
If I had static ego.

Praise to Modesto members
Of this radical society
This medicinal space
That tolls the bells of fellowship
And heartens creative release
Tribute to stalwart members
For each a cog
In a global clock
Turning its handles onward
Toward a loving world
Each a cyber tallow
Melting morsels of care
Keeping the wick of hope aflame
Each a feather
Of a mystical bird
Lifting its wings
To pleiades presents.

Think not
That the journey is fated
For the work remains
And the future is debated.

To whom or what should I pray
The weight of not praying
Is weighing down on me
My parents prayed regularly
God bless their souls
Throughout my entire life
I prayed only a couple of times
Both times to some shining stars
That aligned my heart toward prayer
Through the magic of their twinkle
I once heard someone say
Prayer is best when unanswered
There must be a force behind prayer
Because it exists in every culture
How did it get there remains a mystery
Although some people go wild in prayers
I believe an isolated prayer
Here and there is a healthy thing
Especially, when it is inspired
By someone or something
As in my case by the stars
Needless to say that mine were answered
So why don't I pray more
Well, maybe because I'm not inspired
Or even if I am, I feel shy even guilty
To ask for things when others
Having a hard time fulfilling basic needs
Such as hunger and a roof over head.

I'm not a seasoned poet
As standards go
I have neither the will nor wit
To assemble words that exhale
Sensuous truths of beauty
I have been tossed in poetry's net
To serve and protect its fate
I'm not sharp enough
To detect Moon's climb
For I'm not Archibald MacLeish
I'm no master metaphorician
To equate yellow fog to a cat
For I'm not T.S. Eliot
I'm just here to release the waves
That load my pen to barrage
Their organic ammunition
I cannot delve into the dark show
As smooth as Edgar Allen Poe
I'm not one to sing of love, of wine
For I'm no Rumi nor Khayyam
I can't settle music's dust
For I'm not Robert Frost
I can only write what I'm taught
By the shadow rulers of Art
If Yeats is awake
And Shakespeare watching
If Whitman, Dickinson, Keats
And the rest of the sublime ones
Happen to be espying
They would regard me
As an underling
And that would be a win
For I shall never reach
Their poetic spin.

To survive simply means to prolong life
And for what?
God's plan or the Devil's program.

I survived many plights
Many traps I escaped from
Though I didn't know why
Was I supposed to be doing God's work?
Or was it the Devil's device
That kept me alive?
I might have been acting on instinct
Or doing the bidding of some
Unseen force interested in my survival.

I can honestly say
That I'm liable for misfortunes
Arising out of my continuity...
Why couldn't I just be laid to rest
And avoid all displeasing circumstances?
Well, such is the way of the world
One is totally unaware
Of creation's objectives
Though some may argue that the purpose
Is the flow of all living things
If so, then how do they justify
The extinction of certain species
And what about a useful tradition,
Belief or culture no longer extant
They did not possess life but
Certainly gave rise to a way of living
Others may say the intention
Is to live a long life
To reach a ripe old age
Which effects expansive experience
All the same, old age presents
Many complications
Not worth putting up with
Besides, so many young ones
Experience the butcher's knife
Through no fault of their own.

It is a given that some are born
Luckier than others
And the ratio favors the unlucky ones
Some of whom fall short of surviving
Despite their earnest efforts.

Oh, the agitation of survival.

I can straight out say that I'm a survivor
That I have passed the test of evil
And to what end:
Desertion of beauty
Exclusion of excellence
And the application of chicanery.

Resonance of words
Sway to-and-fro
In the dead of night
The deep sea welcomes
Swimming oar
Splash metaphores
Fertilizing the white leaf
With bird droppings
The right is a wrong
And left, stone flower
Heaven lives next door
Her eyes a wilderness
Hell is downright here
Blazing a roar
In stillness of poet's pond
Moon reflects
The passion of Truth and Lie
As Morning star waits
To outshine the darkling grace.

Celestial blessings are abundant
Competing with worldly curse
Which shall be the victor
In tours of Human Race
That entirely depends my friends
On the number of dreams
Sailing the rough waters
Or floating on halcyon seas.

The little bird alights
Near the windowsill
Saturated with
Communing eyes and gestures.
Though she would rather
Lay it all on the line
At best she gets away
With a modicum of her tidings
Knowing the moment's impulse
Shall sepulchre her understanding.
But the magic has been done
And esoteric wheels in gear
To rear the revelation ride.

Chattering of china
Twittering of utensils
The scoop of melting grease
Manifesting the release
The smoke of sizzling meat
Saturating the nostril
And the waitress
Half slavish
Flirts here and prattles there
To dodge the malice of moment
In the ring of endless hustle
Where refills are free
And rewinds obliged.

Days are passing faster
Than I can recall yesterdays
The unobservable speed
Taking its toll upon my youth
Leaving me half-hearted
In pursuit of relations.
Is this the way of the world
That strips you of all your verve
For a debt that must be paid
To compensate the privilege
That creation offers?
So what does it all mean
Here today and gone tomorrow
After a lifetime of reflections
I have yet to understand
The true meaning of my own life
Let alone life as a whole
Are we just moving in circles
For the pleasure of unseen forces
Or is there an invisible rhythm
Pulling us like magnet
Into unmistakable finality.
Either way is an insult
To our creative capacity
To our potential as intelligent beings
Then again humans are cursed
With dichotomy of perception
And perhaps this is the reason
For our misguided attempts
To invent utopias and distopias.
Just like water though not as swift
Energy must level itself
Far too few come close
To balanced frontiers
Far too fewer
Experience the coalescence
Of Heaven and Earth
While the rest struggle
In a pool of fabricated policies.

What is a feeling
And where does it come from
Is it a vibration
From the earth of your being
Or a joyous image
Of leaking tears
Is it a ping
In cerebral engine
Or a sting off psychic mirror
Is it a continuum of living signs
Or a spectrum of ancestral mines
Whatever it is
Two things are sure
Once it is owned or disowned
It never leaves you alone.

Whenever I fell in love
With a receptive woman
She went away
Leaving me grieving
The death of chance
Till another woman came along
Making me hopeful for a while
And then she was no more
I kept up with the pull and push
Of this story till it was too late
To keep up with the intention
And I learned that falling in love
Was but a charming illusion
But a mirage of oasis
And the most beautiful lie.