I am dying because of you

I gave you love pure and true

but all you gave in return

was your damned concern

with a boo and parleyvoo.

 

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SONG

 

Nothing is impossible to my redeemer

Who measures the foamy sea in his span

He feeds the finny kinds of the unfathomed main.

How much more, man, will he not remember?

 

He cares for the sparrow and forgets not the ant.

The elephant’s share is made superfluous.

Even plants are not forgotten in his supplies.

How much more, man, will your needs be made scant?

 

Then my soul, cast away your shallow anxieties.

And throw your burden on the Provider.

Your God the Almighty father – the protector

And the pilot of your uncertainties.

 

He who was, he who is and he who is to be.

Savior worthy of praise: supernal Lord.

Whose loving kindness surpasses eternity.

Whose fame all generations sing abroad.

 

THE CUPID DART

(The scene is set.  The body is feeling restless on the bed)

 

THE HEART.  (with indignation).

Oh prodigal feet.

Where did you stray,

And took us the way

You sent us today?

Behold how the state pulse beat

With the throbbing heat

Of some unknown secret.

 

THE FEET. (vexed).

Oh, impudent heart.

What is our fault?

For playing our part.

All we do is only to obey

What the state mind convey.

According to his plot.

 

THE TONGUE (adding in accusation)

Oh wanton mind

Why did you plot such a plan,

To send the state feet on such errand.

And set the rest of us on the run?

Behold how my appetite

Sicken for some secret rite.

 

THE MIND.  (in retort).

Ungrateful lot.

If I did, and so what?

What right have I not

To use what part

Of our realm for some common aim?

Send, I sent the feet.

But what is my blame

If some inquisitious pair

Refuse to reserve the limits

Of their uncivil stare

To bargain the realm

For a dream?

 

THE EYES.  (in defiance)

Unfaithful multitude.

Stare we did stare,

 But in sober mood.

Only to compare.

And what crime is it to admire

If not, alack!

That talkative had gone that far.

With a remark.

To compliment some desire.

 

THE MOUTH.  (crossed)

Alas! poor me.

It was only my duty

To greet wherever we meet.

And smile in exchange for a friendly treat.

But mine is not to ask for the price.

If that unscrupulous person

In his tricky guise

Had not played the pun.

 

THE SECRET AGENT. (in agitation)

Oh, sower of discord.

This is treason against the state.

To accuse a poor blind mate.

Of conspiracy.

Is the greatest hypocrisy.

In deed and in word.

If I may beg to tell you.

The story as it stands true

The seed of instability

Passion and discord in our state.

Is that Cupid dart

In the records of the Heart.

 

LIFE

Life is a transient flash of spark.

Within incomprehensible gloom

With a moan of terror from the womb

And a groan of horror to the tomb

One may hardly enjoy his welcome

And he is ready to embark.

 

NATURE

Variety is the beauty of nature

Abnormality the wonder of it.

Prodigy is its miracle

And appreciation is the key to understand all.

 

LAUGH AND BE MERRY

Laugh and be merry

Around the monument of joy

There is company

Dancing like ants in a convoy

But when grief approach his lamp,

Friends scatter and lovers flee.

Then, weep and be sorry,

For adversity is the key

To discover one’s destiny.

 

ALUTA

When tyrants ruled the word

And there was no shelter

For the brave nor coward

God ordained Aluta

As students remedy

To defy tyranny.

 

Aluta is student’s knowledge; Aluta is wisdom!

Aluta is student’s courage; Aluta is student’s ransom.

 

BEAUTY

Beauty clothed in penury

Is a buried glory.

 

THE ALUTA ANTHEM

When the aluta bugle blows

Where will be your stand?

When the aluta spirit glows

Will you wear the red band?

 

Chorus

We engage in bloodless fight

To achieve our human right

We fight with peaceful force

For the sakes of freedoms cause

Ours is compromise truce

Whether we win or we lose

 

We the aluta flag is raised

Will you too advance?

And when the enemy is faced

Have you thought of your chance?

 

Chorus.

 

When the aluta news is spread

Will you help campaign?

When the great song the banner lead

Will you join the refrain?

 

Chorus.

 

THE PARTING GIFT.

Keep this memory for yourself.

On your heart’s most secret shelf.

And if someone should ask to know

Say, it is your personal woe.

 

AL SALA.

Lord, give me anything from above

Only sanctify it with love.

Thou may give me poverty.

To protect me from envy.

If prosperity shall win me jealousy.

 

Give me a woman of mean art

But let her not break my heart.

 

On the expiry of my lease.

In my struggles with disease

Let my enemies tease

But still let me die in peace

 

•  

Anger is a ginger

Essential but bitter.

 

•  

When I went to Tess, I studied Tess

And when I came to wife, I married Tess.

 

THE HUMAN RACE

From horizon to horizon journeys the sun

And somewhere along the track breaks someone’s span;

Those who cannot keep up their pace

Drop out from the human race

 

•  

A picture is a piece of pleasure

And an art is a piece of treasure

 

•  

If the creature will not bite,

It will threaten with fright

 

•  

Ignorance is the shame of man’s omnipotence

Curiosity is the grief of his omnipresence

And knowledge is the woe of his omniscience

 

•  

A woman’s love to a man is like pills

For his sufferings and ills

Sweet on the rind, bitter inside

A fair dose heals

An overdose kills.

And underdose causes more ails

 

•  

When found scant when in want.

Petty things become important.

 

ON HIS PRESENCE AT U.S.T

Not to have been here, would have been worse

Not a loss, but a curse.

 

DIRE DESIRE.

It has always been my desire

To find some useful business

To indulge myself.

Something to make my soul perspire

Which though trivial, nevertheless,

Neighbours may delve

And find out how my rent was spent

With the account to God I present.

But when my handicap made me silent

I heard my conscience advise:

“Refrain from vice; abstain from malice

And pursue contentment.

 

LITLE DEEDS OF KINDNESS.

When you meet a friend on the road.

With a heavy load.

Lend a helping hand with a smile

For this, for a while

The foundation of brotherhood

Is laid with gratitude.

For universal harmony

And eternity.

 

Learn to say ‘one hello’ today

To the friend who stray;

Perhaps you may help win him back

From the suicide track,

Thus, for this, at life journey’s end

You may find one friend.

Showing concern of sympathy.

Out of sweet memory.

 

Never imagine your aid too small.

To the distress call

Perhaps by lifting the last straw

Another may thaw.

To learn the reciprocity.

Of giving freely.

And thus by small kindnesses done

Heaven may be won.

 

•  

Life is a library of biographies.

All written in dramatic tragedies.

With structure the same

The occasio is the birth

The fundamentum is the family background.

The argumentum is childhood.

The protasis is youth

The epitasis is manhood.

The Denouement is old age.

The catastrophe is death.

The setting is the environment

And the theme is the search for identity.

 

•  

Life is a race of birds of equal-unequal feathers.

A miserable struggle of millions in tethers.

 

•  

The future is the present’s dawn

And the present the past’s morn.

But tomorrow is today’s birth.

And yesterday today’s death.

 

ON HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY

My autobiography

Is rather a sad story

Of hidden treasury

Full of misery.

But it is not my pleasure

To indulge anybody.

To worry over it.

Or be sorry over it.

Because it is my personal treasure

 

•  

He who smiles to a stranger on the way

Unawares, somewhere wins a friend someday

 

SONG:  BY WAY OF REMINDER

Hey there some all you thirsty ones

Oppressed and wearied with the strife.

Come with your woes and your burdens.

Come home to the fountain of life

And join this sweet song of freedom.

 

Chorus:

By way of reminder

To those who ride the waves.

Raise aloft the kingdom banner.

Of God’s salvation for ransom

And sing to them the sweet anthem:

‘Jesus saves those the grave enslaves’.

 

Hey there come, all you hunger ones.

Return from your futile sojourns.

Come and enjoy the holy buns.

Come with all your grief and concerns

Come to the abundance of peace

To the bounties of love and ease.

 

Chorus:

 

Hey there! why must you must you toil and fret

To slave for a material world?

Come away, dear from all those dirt;

Come within this contentment furled.

Come within this redemption ring,

And help us sing to earth’s new king.

 

Chorus:

 

EPITAPH TO HIS FIRST BORN

Here is sown.

The seed of oblivion

A father’s cherished son.

But unknown.

 

 

PERSONAL GRIEF.  (on the same.)

The sun will set

To soothe regret;

The moon will rise

To heal a hurt.

But where the voice dies,

The echo replies.

 

ON THE SAME PROBLEM (To His Wife)

The sun set unconcerned,

The moon returned;

The world trotted along,

And saw no wrong.

Darling, let us forget.

With the sunset.

 

Life does not entertain

Where two complain;

So, in tragedy’s hall

Alone we fall.

Darling, let’s rise with haste,

For life will not wait.

 

•  

The wise learn from other’s mistakes;

Fools from their personal aches.

 

LINES WRITTEN ON THE BALCONY OF 197 UNITY HALL, UST.

Watching from my balcony window:

The creeping darkness on my right,

The fading twilight on my left,

Different hues of foliage below;

I saw nightfall chasing daylight

In the warp of time with nature’s weft.

 

WRITTEN FROM THE SAME SPOT ANOTHER TIME

Bird unpaired!

Oh strange bird

With identity unknown,

Why perch you so still; alone,

And so mute like a stone?

Will you sing me one such song

To explain what went wrong?

 

Then the bird sang a song

To explain what went wrong:

It seemed like a moan;

But more like a groan.

It explained

Her complaint:

“Anytime a stone is thrown,

The widow and orphans mourn”.

(The complaint when I have heard

I agreed with the sad bird:

“Human joys are decoys

Disrupting  nature’s voice”).