louis gander, 23 september 2012
The table, set with centerpiece,
fine china, silverware -
and food prepared deliciously
with tender loving care -
and hungry eye, I relish this -
this meal, my daily bread -
then fold my hands and bow my head
before my prayer is said.
I do recite it quick and slurred,
but with the best intent -
and now that grace is said and heard,
it is a blessed event.
The phrases I was taught to say
were pressed down deep in me -
but words are empty without thoughts
of pure sincerity.
Yes, just before we eat, we pray,
but there's a place so crude
which moves us closer to the truth -
that others have no food.
It haunts me as I look around, the
visions of the starved -
who wide-eyed blankly stare at me
behind my turkey, carved.
I see their bloated tummies and
the flies around their eyes.
I hear soft moans from babies lips,
the echoes of their cries.
I taste the mush that they call food.
It lingers on my breath.
I feel the tears start down my cheeks.
I smell the stench of death.
I hesitate with my first bite,
I ask myself, "Do I
really care they're teary eyed
and hungry 'til they die?"
I pray that all the "least of these"
are eating well in Heav'n.
Please help me Lord, to understand
the blessings I was giv'n.
So now when I recite my prayer,
as I sit down to feast,
I ask myself if I'm sincere
and thankful in the least.
For that's when I can hear my voice
ascending to His ear.
He knows if I speak empty words
or if I am sincere.
©2012 louis gander ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
http://www.ganderpoems.org/
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Satish Verma, 23 september 2012
A bucketful of moon
falls on my door
with the smell of a salted night
on frozen shoulders of a punctured landscape.
I start expanding
unseeing a sentimental lake.
Life was asking a very high price
for the purple bruises.
Why do you land on the sea of names?
Only one face sinks in the spill
of words. Would you put the green
rain in my glass of absinthe?
Satish Verma
Weidorje, 22 september 2012
Quisiera tener
el color de tu piel
para no ser tan blanco,
feo y canoso.
También quisiera tener
un poco de tu alegria,
la que me haga bailar
al ritmo del huayno.
Aún quisiera tener
tu facilidad de olvidarse
de las cosas asquerosas
que amargan la vida de uno.
Lima, a 21 de setiembre 2012
Satish Verma, 22 september 2012
Be my soul in outrageous
sunshine of knowledge.
I need a shade of tears.
The barrels were still smoking
after the war.
I will not wake up in morning.
Lightless the day will mourn
for the fallen moon
on the breast of a hill.
Tear down the curtain.
Let me sea the face of death.
I have a long debt to pay.
Satish Verma
Kahlia Mazacalletti, 22 september 2012
I tried to talk to you today, again
It was like an echo coming 'round and 'round
Why is it so difficult to get through to someone
You are always in the attack mode
Waiting to pounce and pronounce
I live in a world of sequestered silence and lonliness
A world of your treason; but I never turned my back on you til now
It has been 14 years of head games but you rolled the dice on me
Being with another woman broke my heartstrings; as you are not with me
Why must you urge the pain to surface so horrifically
Ane when ask, say a simple sentence to try and quench my need for knowledge
I don't know if you have a heart at all
You glide over things , like water glides over a rock
The pain has become to much to bear, I feel hollow
Longing for an easy out; no way to get in anymore
No trust, a factor that should provide safety
Please let me wander; for my heart can take no more
Alone
Esther Thornburg, 21 september 2012
There are days when thoughts,
Like leaves of fall, are blown away.
Winds of the day did not let them stay.
The bang, bang and gusty blow
With its results must go,
Some things we should not know.
It is in silence great thoughts remain
To be written, recorded to retain.
A peaceful time reflects upon the line.
A soft rhythm and rhyme
Is a jewel, a great find,
A treasure worthy to make mine.
Speak softly, true and well
In gentleness, the story tell.
In friendship we may excel.
Gert Strydom, 21 september 2012
To you I am attached
and our love is never only common,
it becomes something that never does lapse,
it expels the great longing
and sometimes its intensity scares me
when continually you look more beautiful.
To you I am attached
and our love is never only common,
it’s much deeper than any other yearning,
when you look at me with sunshine glances
you do look really glamorous
and to me you are of critical importance;
to you I am attached
and our love is never only common.
Gert Strydom, 21 september 2012
How do I tell you again and again
about how true my love is,
when continually I miss you when you are gone?
Sometimes love brings healing to pain
and these feelings I cannot stop
when even in sorrow they are present.
How do I tell you again and again
about how true my love is,
about how much I constantly yearn for you,
that our love brings a sparkle to each day
and is far stronger than any hindrance,
that there is more to love than just an oath?
How do I tell you again and again
about how true my love is?
Satish Verma, 21 september 2012
From the unread book
I look back at three generations, with
whom I was fighting
for a staircase, which did not
take me anywhere.
It was an edge over the wisdom
for footfalls in space
for an apology for an unknown warrior
waiting of a midnight sun
for a foretaste of time.
I do not want you to come
as a pawnbroker,
I have nothing to offer for exchange.
From my grandfather I got his shoes,
my father gave me his eyes.
Still I am groping in dark
to justify the everlasting sky
full of needles.
Satish Verma
Emily, 21 september 2012
How in the world are you of any helpful alleviation,
Taking my self underlying words of stressful misery,
Twisting them into a mere, mocking imitation,
Putting for no effort to to understand nor truly see?
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9/11/12
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