Lady Fair

In the garden with my lady fair
The scent of jasmine filling the air
With moonlight shimmering in her hair
Two souls as one, with love to share

It would be this evening in this garden divine
That I would ask her if she’ll be mine
Hoping it would be a yes, for all to be fine
As without her love I would surely pine

As the stars appeared between moon and land
I took in mine, her tiny hand
I offered to her an engagement band
“Yes my darling I will” hearing this I felt so grand

The stars and moon they shone so bright
The garden now forever a delight
For me she would soon be wearing white
I was the happiest man alive that night

Technological advances for healing
Or for building weapons for destroying
Life saver or life taker
Pace maker or code breaker
Brain scanner or pain maker
MRI or TNT, CPR or GPS
Atmosphere pollution of nuclear tests
Political and particle fallout
Creating pitiful government handout
Chemical cocktails to restart the heart
Or redesigned to blow us apart
Scientists engaged in saving mankind
With vaccines and medicines to find
Developing compounds for various uses
Governments money leads to abuses
Why use up intellectual resources
To sustain life, prolong life and save life
Then use these same resources
To maim life, debase life and end life
Technology can be creativity in reverse
Professors Engineers and Assemblers
Are misguided missiles of industry
Ending or sustaining misery
Lining the pockets of corporate giants
Or strengthening the hold of tyrannical tyrants
A fight we have to endure hand in hand
It’s nature and not the nature of man
You may suffer or it could be quick
Tick....tick....tick.....tick.....tick....tick
BANG

I The Wishing Well

You think that being a Wishing Well
Would be a very good profession
A hole in the right location
Water added for effect
Just wait and monies thrown in
You would be so very wrong
So I’ll give you an explanation
For I am but an halfway house
I don’t make the final decision
I have to listen to all the wishes
I have to make a choice
I pass on those wishes based on merit
Others I disregard
I hear wishes based on torment
And wishes based on greed
Wishes based on sorrow
And wishes based on greed
Wishes based on loss
And wishes based on greed
I have to understand inflection
To justify my reaction
When I hear these words
“I wish my Father could die”
Is he is ill and in great pain
Or does he own a large plot of land
I once had a man with gold around his neck
Gold on his wrist
He dropped a sovereign into me
This alone would have satisfied many wishes
I wondered as it fell would this be for health
No it was extra wealth
My bed is not a good place to be
Among the route of all evil
And the evil that lies within
If I were allowed a wish
This is what it would be
That there were no need
No need for a wishing well

A Moral Tale (in Limerick form)

There was a man from the city
Who was annoyed with earthly depravity
He built himself a rocket ship
So out of this world he could slip
For a new life on Mars, with no gravity

This same man from the city
Thought he would find blissful eternity
When half way through his mission
He had a collision
That would bring him back to reality

And as he was tumbling
He heard a strange rumbling
A Martian ship on its way back
They stopped, they had a chat
Said the Martian “why are you grumbling?”

I find Earth far better than Mars
As my planet is littered with scars
I’m going back to rally my troops
And send to Earth exploratory groups
Your people, we’ll displace to the stars

After surviving his fall
He found Earth not bad at all
And he warned of impending invasion
Saving all life from every nation
So remember this when you set out your stall

Earth may not be healthy or clean
To leave you don’t have to be keen
And it doesn’t take drastic measures to show
That you should trust the Devil you know
For the grass on Mars isn’t green

SPIRIT of the FOREST

Morning takes so long to arrive
In the depths of the tangled forest
Where the trees cast a dappled light
And the mist lingers long

The mist swirls and dances
An eerie hypnotic trance
A ghost like apparition
In the dew spread grass

Where the sunlight falls
Prismatic reflections appear
Shadows take on ghastly shapes
Distorting the refracted beams

As the ground absorbs
Heat from the suns intrusion
The mist slowly elevates
A million demons in the air

They float and weave
A web of gothic confusion
Linger a while in the treetops
And slowly disappear

Night engulfs, its time to haunt
And morning arrives so slowly
There once again revealed
This mystical spirit of the forest

Deepavali Wishes

Please forgive any inaccuracies in this offering
It is written from the heart and not the head.

The festival of lights is upon you
May you all remember it well
Achieve your personal victory
With the evil that you dispel
And when you light your candles
When they are shining bright
Floating away down the river
You become aware of your inner light
The harvesting now is over
And I hope that in your private field
That you have tended with so much love
Crops, your dreams have produced a hearty yield
Like Rama’s conquest over Ravana
Good against evil forever should reign
In the harmonious state of Nirvana
All this with your faith you gain

I wish this upon all my poet friends
And this world as a whole
That without hurting others
You can achieve your personal goal
So have a very happy Diwali
And a prosperous new year
A heartfelt wish to all that I hold so dear

MELANCHOLY MOOD

Woke up this morning in melancholy mood
I can’t begin to wonder why
The sun is shinning oh so bright
And birds sing in the sky

The more I ponder the more I brood
Upon this question of why
The sun becomes less bright
And clouds appear in the sky

All I know is this can’t be good
As I continue to wonder why
The sun through the clouds must fight
And give glow once again to the sky

Then when I’m out of the wood
And I’ve solved the question of why
The sun gives way to night
And the stars appear in the sky

Sleep is such a nourishing food
That satisfies this hunger for why
The sun now a wonderful sight
And I wake, as one with the sky

Omnipresent Crow

Love them or hate them they’re always about
They take no notice of whatever we shout
Throwing stones and waving of sticks
They win in the end with cunning tricks
One will distract you, and when you turn around
Another pulls, your dinner to the ground
So voracious with chicks to feed
Theirs is sometimes a greater need
Now these birds that we all malign
Are created to a higher design
We have to be grateful to these Crows
A fact that not everyone knows
If they were to go, we would be ill and unfit
They’re our natural waste disposal unit

Earthquake
Ground shake
Land, home and bone break
Heart ache

Volcano blowing top
Lava flow can not stop
Destroys a lot
Whilst burning hot

Earthquake all at sea
Wave forms can not see
Tsunami hard to flee
A deadly killing spree

Hurricane deafening sound
Devastation bound
Ripping from the ground
Raising all around

Typhoon too much rain
Can not drain
Flood the plain
Suffer pain

Long droughts
Total routs
Farmer doubts
Nothing sprouts

Land slide
Lost hillside
Downward glide
Many cried

Nature has no borders
Does not follow any orders
Uses no bombs and mortars
Does not give any quarters

DIVIDED WE FALL

In this divided world of torments untold
War, Famine, Poverty, Atrocities unfold
With man hating God and man hating man
Rich against the poor, they know that they can

We were told in our early years
Stand up and fight our inner fears
Meaning of this is lost in the mist
Man divided, fighting hand and fist

As years roll by we all look back
At all that we do so surely lack
Compassion for others love for all
From now on let us make it our call

This we must do before it’s too late
By holding hands and forgetting the hate
Working together to a common goal
Trying to make this crazy world whole

ACCEPTANCE

I am no leader
But a pawn is their hands
I am no teacher
But I have learnt
I am no preacher
My belief is my own
I know what is right
I know what is wrong
At least I think I do
As my leader my teacher my preacher
They told me so.

WRITERS BLOCK

What is this, they call writers block
Is it a safety system that has a lock
An impasse from brain to expression
Preventing any form of accession

Can it be used in our favour
Thinking time for us to savour
Or is it yet another trifling annoyance
That quells the ardour of our flamboyance

We all suffer this mysterious illness
When our minds are filled with stillness
Maybe it’s so we can take a rest
So our next work will be our best

It puts a bar on our meditation
Alas there is yet no medication
We have to relax and let it heal
Again our thoughts to pen reveal

Do not treat it as an affliction
Have faith in your own conviction
That you know you still have the ability
Writers block is not the same as senility

MIND WARS

My mind is like a battlefield
Thoughts fighting to be revealed
An explosion inside my brain
I have scars from my last campaign

With thoughts that have to be said
And thoughts that should be dead
Playing a game of tug of war
The winner, expression to explore

Some thoughts there in my cranium
Are as deadly as enriched uranium
The mushrooming clouds my vision
With power of an atomic collision

In my skull the cross bone sign
Beware of mines, don’t cross the line
I must ensure that only the truth
Wins this fight of nail and tooth

Maybe I need a peace keeping force
A pill to pop or a therapy course
An internal conflict for the mending
My right to democracy defending

Silent Wishes & Secret Kisses

She is a Goddess of the silver screen
Every one of her movies I have seen
She’s such a beautiful Bollywood Diva
And I have little chance to ever meet her
For I am a lowly vendor of sugared chi
With nothing about me to catch her eye
I have many pictures of her on by wall
Hours spent gazing upon them all
There’s a poster of her pasted high
Behind my stall in central Mumbai
Every day I raise my eyes above
I can not openly display my love
I just have my recurring dream
Where I’m a hero, and in the final scene
I rescue her from a villain’s evil intention
And in this fantasy of my own invention
She loses her heart to me alone
The happiest ending I’ve ever known
But alas I wake up to reality
Knowing that it could never be
But I’m allowed my silent wishes
And the thoughts of secret kisses

A NEW DAY DAWNING

The sun appears at the edge of our world
Opens her lips and smiles her light
Morning has arrived, gone the starry night
Once again dormant life unfurls
Plants and insects clear their eyes
As a new cycle of life is dawning
Night has given way to morning
Many sleepy flowers uncurl and rise
With the coming of the giving rays
Butterflies dry out their outspread wings
In a far off branch a black bird sings
Ladybirds on pearlescent petals laze
Crickets jumping transient shadows
That move with the passing of time
Ants filing up a leaf in a military line
Lizards rustling, hidden in hedgerows
Beetles of shimmering iridescence
Shake a leg or two or four or five
Showing happiness at being alive
With sounds of varied cadence
The spiders repair their broken webs
Frogs croak as their tadpoles swim
The cobra displays “I’m the King”
And roses raise their colourful heads
All so happy that its morning
In awe of this brand new dawning

HE-MAN COWARDS

I feel anger for a man who thinks like this
That he gains respect with his iron fist
Who beats his wife over all or nothing
Forgets where he placed his wedding ring
His strength is there to forever defend her
And not for playing the big pretender
In public smiles and holding hands
In private blatant punches he lands
She tells the doctor she fell down stairs
“He didn’t hit me” she always swears
Now it’s her, that’s acting defender
To him she will always surrender
Through thick through thin or on the edge
He forgets that when he made his pledge
To have and to hold and forever cherish
Is different than “do what I say or perish”
He treats his wife with utter disgust
Uses her only to satisfy his selfish lust
Men like this are cowards, they live on the border
Between sanity and an acute brain disorder
If a real man confronted him and told him he was vile
This privately hard man would turn and run a mile
For his wife something fundamental is sadly amiss
She is always the only loser in a situation like this
This is not a mere drop in the ocean
As men like these are not out in the open
The poor women have so much more to lose
So they just shut up and take all the abuse
These monsters are aware of these facts
So they continue with their violent acts
I do not know the answer, but I know the score
Something has to be done must amend a law
These women must be protected and assured a future
Offered help, to escape this physical and mental torture

The Colours Of My Love

From the first moment I saw your face
My eyes filled with a purple haze
From the first time I spoke to you
I blushed with a pinkish hue
Am I looking through rose coloured glasses
Or was I succeeding with my flirtatious passes
I decided to cut all the red tape
And trust fully in the hands of fate
You said that I was a very bold fellow
If I’m anything I’m certainly not yellow
I asked you to accompany me
On a trip to the azure sea
As we lay upon the golden sand
I reached and kissed ivory hand
The sky turned a disturbing black
Come my love we must hurry back
Next day under a still grey sky
I saw you with another guy
I was browned off, going green
Trying to fathom what I’d seen
Would the air turn to darkest blue
Will I have to fight this man over you
I went red when you said it was your brother
Now was the time to introduce you to my Mother
She was tickled pink that I had found a girl
Who she thought was a precious pearl
She whispered that we should wed
And share whatever lay ahead
I asked you on that very night
If you were prepared to wear a dress of white
And walk with me, the alabaster aisle
Your rose red lips formed a smile
Your answer gave me a honey glow
And I would be your forever beau
On that day under the sky so blue
The day we both said so true “I do”
You were more beautiful I have to say
Than your lilac, rose and lily bouquet

I MISSED YOU

Do you remember back in class
When I tried to make a pass
I wrote you a little note
“will you be mine” I wrote
I folded it into a paper dart
And directed it towards your heart
It just did a loop and landed on Andrew
I missed you

Then later when we arranged to meet
And I promised you a treat
We set a place we set a time
I would ask you then “will you be mine”
I was ready hours before, raring to go
And then the cursed bus was slow
Supposed to meet at one, I arrived at two
I missed you

Much later, in the cafe that night
I hoped you would not fight
Over a glass of claret wine
I asked “will you be mine”
I produced a diamond ring
So nervous I dropped the thing
It landed in your stew
I missed you

Married now for two full years
With much love and no tears
I’m so happy all the time
That I asked “will you be mine”
When you were away having our child
I remembered how you smiled
While my love for you just grew
I missed you
But I still get a smile and a wink from Andrew