Tag Archives: thoughts

A Hunger Artist

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Amid cheers and taunts
Of oblivious onlookers
The hunger artist honed
An obsolete craft

They all waited, but soon
Tired of waiting
Urged him to speak
And voice his cares

He – having nothing to declare
No grudge or whim to propagate
Stayed silent and watched
The voyeurs drift away
Leaving behind an elderly man

“On which day are you, my son”
“Thirty six sir, with sufficient strength left”

The old man sighed and sat before his cage
Together they waited for the voyeurs
Until they crossed the fortieth
And then walked away

Wasting Away

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In the evening
When my day begins
The promises and chastises of last night
Lie somewhere at the back
Not forgotten, but diminished
By the drone of the morning

And all I do
During the evening when my day begins
Is wait for the night
To renew the vows
That help me sleep
And survive the drone

One of Us

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In the beginning
Mere sustenance was an afterthought
Beside that river and under that sky
Each day we conquered all

The tides responded to his words
The clouds to the whims of his breath
The pace of his outstretched arm measured
The ascent of the sun and the moon

I – affecting nothing and no one
A reluctant bearer of truth
Just sat and heard him speak
Fearful of his touch

How well he could see the stars
But didn’t account for their delayed sparkle

Fame

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Rose
Fragrant and with a deep blush
Fairest among your kin
Only your muddy waters know you
Only they hearken to your song

Later – when shriveled and gray and lost
Your worth in your remains will be discovered
And all will hearken then
Blind to this other
Rose

A Certain Friend

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We spent the entire evening
Speaking between silences
About art and sports
Literature and cinema

Our minds like the proverbial peas
Savouring the similarities
That overcame the awkwardness
And offered refuge from the mundane

But I fret over the day
When interests and facts fail
And the mundane is all
That can break the silence

How shall we speak then?
Our hesitancy might undo
The best of our efforts
Leaving nothing and no one

So accepting the failure’s familiarity
We’ll dream about the triumph
That might have been the beginning
Of something unfamiliar but eternal