Tag Archives: Verse

A few more – from Suresh Sethi

COVID-19

Krishna,

I know you love to show off your magical powers—

To bring massive upheavals on this earth:

And then justify them with your old excuse—

‘ I have to reduce the burden of Mother Earth’.

 

Hence the great war of Mahabharata;

Followed by countless, wars, floods and famines—

And now Covid-19,

Your latest arrow from your armory of Maya.

( to add insult to injury you admit you could have prevented all of them)!

 

I admit and acknowledge:

 That you are the Big Boss of the Cosmos—

And you are legally allowed to do anything you want to do:

But please for a change—

Can’t you send us the virus of: love, peace & happiness—

I mean just for a change?  


Lullaby

 

Beloved, day has come to an end—

celestial fire gone over the city fence.

Now the night comes a timely reprieve

for a daily panic:

finicky like the street traffic.

 

Set down your limbs for solace

and seek a kiss of grace

Say with a faithful chant: for a lonely want—

a confessional prayer

and go over with reverential fear.

 

Beloved, for a few hours let all doubts subside

and seek shelter in the dark.

Gently go over to sleep;

never mind to-night:

for tomorrow’s chronic rise.


 

            From my diary, November, 1979

 

Winterline

obscures likes wingtips

in the acataleptic shade.

Stars

coruscate like a tooth in the dark.

Pines

are silent in the accrescent cricket wails;

as wind

goes rustling through their blind eyes.

Chill

feeling my bones fuses sleep.

My mouth

is stale with nicotine.

Eyelids

flicker hesitantly like

much discussed ideas half-explained.

Legs

wobble and long for sleep.

 

                                    Poem

 

Already the swollen crevices of the heart

flood the pores of veins;

and memory with her illusive taunts

throws fear’s goblet stains.

 

Outside, winter creeps on soft soles.

The men go about their ways.

Only an occasional exuberance of wind

tells the parting of summer days.

 

Soon the moon will be a copper coin

sky heavily painted with blood;

and my reverberations like ill-begotten sons

shall tear my bed loose.

 

On the last ride when siren’s wail

shall sear through the traffic lights,

and I flutter alone within cold walls;

beloved, please be by my side.

 

 

 

 

               O God!

 

Some times:

let me suck at your breasts

for succor like a child.

 

Some times:

let me sleep in your lap,

my head resting with assurance on your strong thighs.

 

Some times:

with your vast wisdom

wean out my thread of life

from the entanglements of this world.

 

Some times:

show me the way out

from the confusions of dead ends.

 

Some times:

stop this incessant ticking

of the metronome of my head.

 

Some times:

lift me lovingly like a grandfather

who never asks any questions.


 Obituary

Brilliant like the sun at noon,

and reporting like the nervous telephone;

the latest OCA News lies on my desk

with corporate graphs, minutes, tasks

of winter ahead. And embroidered here

on the last page of the year,

‘Lala’, your obituary is cut

out and zeroed like a bomber’s target.

The little extra I know about you is

accidental, the rest between stodgy covers

like any reference stands

an index for the groping hands.

In a two minutes silence

(mutely staring at my buttons)

I pay an official condolence:

You, who were one of us.


                                                                   

Take me….by Himār Arjun Singh

A small poem – just some random thoughts on a late evening – my ode to the beautiful mountains of Himachal.
Take me….
By Himār Arjun Singh
OC 95 | Curzon | Roll No. 291
Economist & Head, Public Policy at Bharti Enterprises
Take me….

Take me to the mountains for I am burdened since long with the pleasures and sufferings of life searching for truth and reality….
The years that have gone by smile back and mock at me for imagining no end of myself in a charade full of deception and ecstasy….
Take me…
Take me to the mountains; the towering heights of which may remind me those forgotten lesson of compassion, kindness and serenity….
Did I live a worthy life is not for me to judge, the judgment of the same is now beyond the realm of my fading individuality….
Take me…

Take me to the mountains in the form of ashes and dust for that’s where I begun and that’s where I would like to finally rest silently…

The Dear Departed – by Ateek Gupta

THE DEAR DEPARTED

IT FEELS LIKE YESTERDAY THAT YOU LEFT
GOD TAKING YOU AWAY FROM ME
WILL ALWAYS BE HIS GREATEST THEFT

I DO NOTHING NOW BUT WEEP
BECAUSE THERE WAS A PROMISE
YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KEEP

NOW MY LIFE IS CLEAVED
IF YOU WERE HERE
I WOULD HAVE FELT SO RELIEVED

NOW I KEEP YOUR BELONGINGS CLOSE
BECAUSE YOU ARE A DRUG
I WOULD LIKE TO OVERDOSE

THE TIME SEEMS TO COME TO A STANDSTILL
THERE ARE MEMORIES I WANT TO KILL
BUT MY LIFE NOW HAS BECOME A BASTILLE

LIFE NOW SEEMS SO TOUGH
THE PATH TO MOVE FORWARD
IS WAY TOO ROUGH

LIFE NOW HAS BECOME LIKE HELL
SO DARK AND BLEAK
A HAPPY FACE NOW I CANNOT KEEP

I FEEL BACKED AWAY IN A CORNER
IN YOU I FIND SOME HOPE
TO COME OUT STRONGER

IT FEELS LIKE A PART OF ME IS SHATTERED
BECAUSE TO ME
IT WAS YOU WHO ALWAYS MATTERED

AROUND YOU I FELT SO SAFE
BECAUSE YOU WERE MY SUPERHERO
WITHOUT A CAPE

WITH YOU I FELT SO LOVED
THERE WASN’T A OBSTACLE
I COUDN’T HAVE CRUSHED

YOU MADE ME WISE
NOW I FEEL THAT
YOU WERE MY BIGGEST PRIZE

IT WAS A GLORIOUS RIDE
THAT WE PASSED IN HAPPY STRIDES
AND LIVED WITH PRIDE         

ATEEK GUPTA
Rivaz House, Batch of 2018

“OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD”

Some thoughts from an OC – Suresh Sethi 1961-66

WRITINGS by Suresh Sethi

Suresh Sethi  E-mail: sureshsethi49@yahoo.co.in

My poems have been published in:

Poetry, Australia : Australia Five Poets Magazine           

Journal Of South Asian Literature:USA

The Canadian Forum      : Canada                                         

Queens’s Quarterly        : Canada

The New Quest               : India

Indian Literature              : Sahitaya Academy–India

The Penguin Book Of Indian Poetry: India 2012 

Signatures                : National Book Trust Of India 2003

19 Poets Ed: Keshav Malik : New Delhi 1981

The PEN                          : U.K.

The P.N. Review             : U.K ( Carcanet Press) 

The Colorado North Review: USA


Born:1949, Ferozepore, Punjab and went to school in: Bishop Cotton

School-Shimla (Himachal Pradesh). Did graduation from Punjab University in Chandigarh. Worked with a MNC for twenty-five years before taking early retirement to devote my self full time to writing. Married with a son and daughter.

I have translated more than thirty books of OSHO from Hindi into English. These books include a wide variety of discourses of OSHO on the Saints of India, The Upanishads, The Gita & day to day problems of modern man. I have also written a weekly column for the English Daily—The Tribune, Chandigarh  and for the Punjabi Newspaper `Ajit’ which is published from Jalandhar-Punjab.

I have also published a collection of poems in Punjabi.

My first collection of poems in English: Musings Of A Tom Brown School Boy– was published last year by Authors’ Press, New Delhi.

                                                                                Suresh Sethi


Musings of a Tom Brown School boy

High up in the Shimla hills, I stood

my gaze through the big passes

of Himalayas. Splashing overhead

a restless raven tips its wings

on coniferous pines. This land

with a boundary stone, strange flags,

traditions, mottos, was mine,

as my youth tied to expensive tags

of English breeding, stiff upper lip,

and my tongue was taught to wag

to prosodies of Harrow and Eton;

house spirit, school song, the discipline

of a Spartan, and the confidence

of the conquerors and the manners

of an English gentleman.

In the long, cold and austere dormitories,

home was just beyond the valleys.

All these years of homesickness,

brought no images of a mother’s pangs

of separation. All those years now haunt me

of an unfulfilled promise.

When the school padre opened the Bible,

in Shimla’s elite and venerated public school;

with his starched cassock, sonorous voice

booming in a hushed cold class-room

with our faces cupped on elbows, expectant,

we listened. In the cool breeze of the Himalayas;

he talked of Jesus healing the sick, the great

victories of king David, the Acts of Apostles;

and the stories of the Prophets.

Eagerly we took notes. Our minds on the exams.

In private we devoured the passages

of king David making love to his wives,

and wondered how a holy book

could possibly have such vulgar details!

The padre talked of the resurrection of Jesus; the

tricks of satan:

with sin heating our flushing faces!


 In a Himalayan churchyard

(at the grave of Headmaster R.K. Von Goldstein)

Now you lie on this consecrated ground,

And exiled stoic facing the charge to the very end.

Here, in a famous resort of a Himalayan beat

Snow is relaxing its grip; springs’ levers

Are opening dark pores; tenderly like healing fingers.

From below the railway gauge whistles

Noisy, gate crashing tourists to this town.

Through the key-hole I see your last night,

In coveted silence, listening to rich baritone tunes

While you lovingly mull over

The England countryside of the twenties.

Gently patting your Alsatian dog,

You sip brandy, cigar smoke curls up to the ceiling.

On your lap is an ode of Keats.

 A cool dependable full-back who term by term

Handled the bully, the underdog, the tongue-tied

With an equanimity of a commander—

And set a personal example of courage and honor

`play up and play the game.’

Taught us to own up to life in toto.

Now in an alien land under a modest headstone

The shades travel further and leave you alone;

But this is exactly how you would have wanted it;

Knowing that a man can clear space in any wood,

Ignoring titles, footage but still stick to his word—

Then let death trip the plank anywhere without a hint.


COVID-19 

Krishna,

I know you love to show off your magical powers—

To bring massive upheavals on this earth:

And then justify them with your old excuse—

‘ I have to reduce the burden of Mother Earth’.

Hence the great war of Mahabharata;

Followed by countless, wars, floods and famines—

And now Covid-19,

Your latest arrow from your armory of Maya.

( to add insult to injury you admit you could have prevented all of them)!

I admit and acknowledge:

 That you are the Big Boss of the Cosmos—

And you are legally allowed to do anything you want to do:

But please for a change—

Can’t you send us the virus of: love, peace & happiness—

I mean just for a change?  


The Oceans – by Vivek Bhasin

How cool
You feel
Walking on
Soft Sand
White Gold
Smiling sure
Windmilled hair
Wind Whispers
Sometimes Roars
Seagulls flock
Busy business
Feet Wet
Shells whistle
How Great
You Feel
Knowing all
Memories return
Love found
Embracing you
Hugging me
Heartfelt Goodbye
Love lost
Nothing around
Blue Sea
Not Knowing
Lookouts posted
Gleaning across
Miles Away
Through Seahorses
They see
You there
Right there
Ships sailing
Nothing around
But you
The Beach…
And Memories.

Life is not always the beach..
You learn survival at BCS.

Bonnie Bhasin
10 June 2020
Sweden