Gert Strydom, 18 april 2013
Without you my days are very empty
and solitary,
life seems without its essence without you,
too ordinary
days do string on while from you I am gone,
it’s necessary
to have your company, to see your face
weekends do seem a Godly kind of grace.
Gert Strydom, 18 april 2013
In the darkness you sneak by along with the corridor
and when the floor creaks
I wonder if the people in the house are listening.
Away is the tiredness
when the early morning sun caresses me softly
and awakes me
when you are dressed and looking lovely
and still I am struggling to drive my dreams away.
Gert Strydom, 18 april 2013
On his face you can see that he is getting old,
and he is almost seventy years.
Punctually he is on his post
sweeping my yard with his homemade broom
and with hardened hands he works long hours
in old clothes that has seen better days
and he changes into better clothes
before he goes home on his bicycle.
In the twelve years that he has worked for me
I have seen him in deep thoughts many times
and when I ask him about it
he always says that he is speaking with his heart.
His mind goes back to his beloved Kwazulu-Natal,
to the mountains and the grass veldt of his youth
and to the innocence of a barefoot child
looking after his father’s herd of cattle.
Most of all he misses his family
and tears well up in his eyes
when he talks about the veldt
and the freedom of being a child.
He misses his mother’s maize porridge
from a black cast iron pot
and the meat roasted on an open fire,
the stories told around the fire by the elders
and the singing and dancing of the ladies
with their skirts wiggling
and the laughter
that rings out as if you can hear it forever
and the stars that shines like diamonds in the sky
that is spread all over like a giant glistening blanket
and the moon that reflects on the water of the river
as if it’s taking a bath
and the wild animals that were everywhere
when people were free
but today he lives in a room with his wife
in a suburb of Springs
but sometimes when he has saved enough money
he goes back home to see
how freedom still looks like.
Satish Verma, 18 april 2013
A transient smile lights up a moonless
landscape, catalyzing the woes of
labour of hot arguments. A fragile
peace prevails. When the plot thickens
let me count the bodies in the domain
of a wasted god.
Meanwhile I will get an interim sunless
day to find the mystery of believers.
A bridge had ultimately collapsed.
In the panic room, no image filters.
You continue to draw the nudes of goddesses
and distance yourself from the rubble of axes.
Battle-scarred earth throws up
a severed head of a patriarch
who refused to open his eyes.
Satish Verma
George Krokos, 17 april 2013
Ah! there's a vast world of experience in which to learn what we need
and so everything that we come across may supply an answer indeed.
Intelligence is the basis of this world and underlies all things everywhere;
recognition of this essential fact is a necessity for survival to all out there.
_______________________________________________________
George Krokos, 17 april 2013
There's good and bad wherever you may happen to go
as this world is a play of opposites we should all know.
To be caught up between the two is what we're here to overcome
and after we've gone beyond them both our main job here is done.
_______________________________________________________
George Krokos, 17 april 2013
Whatever there is above can be seen reflected in that which is below
and all that really happens is a confirmation true wisdom does show.
________________________________________________________
George Krokos, 17 april 2013
There are so many things we all have to learn and keep in mind
without which our life would then become an unbearable kind.
___________________________________________________
George Krokos, 17 april 2013
This universe is God’s creation what more is there to say
and so everything that happens in it is a part of His play.
It’s only when something starts to go wrong on a major scale
God personally has to come down to make sure it doesn’t fail.
The world is not perfect though perfection is hidden there
and so every once in a while it requires God’s loving care.
This is also the general work of all spiritual masters and saints
who go about doing their sacred duty without any complaints.
To the people at large this may not be obvious though some would suspect
about the universal maintenance of creation by God and those of His Elect.
Even the forces of nature respond in accord with what has been laid down:
that original master plan which God adjusts every time He has to visit town.
These visits some say are very infrequent and thus too far in between
and so the world situation as it is now is the result which can be seen.
But it’s one of the paradoxes of life that destruction often preceeds reconstruction
and unbeknown to most God did come and leave again inspite of any obstruction.
But God’s not to blame for this as His Spirit is forever here omnipresent
it’s because of man’s forgetfulness of Him that precipitates His descent.
By living an unnatural existence in the world man causes so much harm
to his own kind and the harmony of nature which only raises the alarm.
If, as it is said that, the Earth is the centre of our known universe
then whatever bad happens here must have repercussions adverse.
Like the hub of a giant wheel which gradually begins to break down
the rough vibrations that follow on through are to be felt all around.
And so man seeks to escape from this world he is destroying
well before its own time is up - how the situation is deploring.
In selfish pursuits and mostly to satisfy all of his ignorant desires
man is turning this world into an ash heap after smoke and fires.
The signs are here for us all to see there shouldn’t be any mistake
that the universal maintenance of creation Some One has to make.
Especially on this world here, given that it’s the very centre of it all,
being the only place that we know of where man acts so very small.
__________________________________________________
ratnakar d mandlik, 17 april 2013
Standing in shallow water when it is low tide
Experience one can get there of a life time
When the receding water after a high tide
Washes away sand from beneath your feet.
The surfs hit you hard if to them you stop.
While receding they push you off balance
Pulling you all the while inside the ocean
Narrowing,thus,your life and deaths' gap.
The zig zag line of greenery of hilly terrain
Hiding the beach as also sage like ocean
Even from voyager who has set-in destination,
They guard Ganapatipule like a loyal janitor.
Enchanting is contrast presented by the canvas
Of the silty red soil encircling the beach.
As if they want some thing to us teach
With the green omnipresent floras' expanse.
Equallly breath taking is celestial confluence
Of the deep blue sea with the skyline azure
Where they mingle in union on the horizon
Before the supreme Lord, in obeisance.
-Ratnakar D Mandlik
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