Future Generations’ Tear

I am crying not for the house,
That has gone.

I am crying not for the husband,
I lost, I love most.

I am crying not for the people,
Who are suffering like me.

I am crying not for the community,
That is destroyed by another.

I am crying not for the meals,
Necessary for my livelihood.

I am crying but for the one,
That I hold in my bosom.

I am crying thinking for her,
Who had lost her brothers.

I am crying for the generation,
We are leaving downtrodden.

- LP Bastola

(featured in the poetry forum 03.10.12)

editor's note: Cry we must for those who know not to cry for themselves. - mh

A Big Human

Resembles human
Different when talks,
Language doesn’t speak
Arrogance barbs
Like wild lion
A colossal human!!
An idealess heavy head
With a huge crown of dishonor
Visionless eyes hidden under skin
Views the Everest very small
Doesn’t see the human figure
Steps on the head of every human
A cold heart inside the rib cage
A brain damped by the severity of arrogance
A statue of flesh and blood: lack of feelings and emotions
It is not an animal in structure
It doesn’t have human behavior
A miniature of big fish
A resemblance of human
In the nature of a big ferocious shark!!!
Thinks himself a great scholar
By the visionless eyes
Inside no Abraham Lincoln or Gandhi
But within resides Idi Amin of Uganda
Big person remains big
Doesn’t know how to become generous
Generous doesn’t know how to become big.

- LP Bastola

(featured in the poetry forum 12.23.11)

editor's note: Hmmm, we thought bigger was better, but better is served with small actions; no fanfare, no notice or praise. Hard to achieve when living large. - mh

In This Path of Life

The rush and crowd in worship,
These chime, chanting, offerings;
To invoke and gather blessings.
All seems to fall,
Fall into their proper place of chaos.
A chase for their own shadow.
For, peace and power dwell within;
In solitude and contemplation.
Whence truth transpires and illuminates,
A Path with no trail of fear.
Where ideas and hopes spring.
If only we seek this clarity.
Break down barriers and fences;
The volcano of hatred embedded,
Be flooded by love and compassion.
Discern anger that destroys; love that builds.
If only we look at the reflection so fair,
In the mirror of life that never fails.
A destiny in our ploughing hands;
Sowing sprouting seeds of a strong will.
Dedicating to victory and rejoicing failure as a giving of no return.
If only we blend in the heart and mind;
A heart of no vices, given a free ride.
A mind tamed upright in control of life.
Walking in this Path of life;
Let every moment kindle a hope,
A new inspiration and a new beginning.

- LP Bastola

(featured in the poetry forum 10.18.11)

editor's note: Yes, you tillers of the psychic soil, "You reap what you sow!" - mh

Dreamland

In the land of dreamers,
death men and women are walking
counting the days of the wars
to find their new days of a new world.
They have straight faces
and walk straight finding their own ways.
They look at each other straight.
They think straight.
They speak straight.
But they are death statues
walking on the ways of complicated darkness.
Within the colorless rays of the selfish Sun
they don't know their own colour.
If somebody stabs them
they don't feel the pain
because it has been familiar to them.
They don't even know
the colour of their own blood.
(Don't say they are dead,
they will get angry.)
They don't realize the difference between
life and death.
The sky covering them is meaningless.
Beneath them
they lost their own footprints on their ways
could not be seen and followed by others.
For every new battle,
the wombs of the experienced mothers
are the training centres of the unborn soldiers.
But the wombs usually burst into pieces
by the kicks of the babies inside.
So, the soldiers die unborn
in the Gynaecology wards of the hospitals.
The death bodies of the soldiers
will be found scattered and un-cremated
in the morgues of the hospitals
or fields or bushes or
mountains.
The mothers die on the beds or roads or markets
before they see their babies born.
The death mothers wake up
in the middle of the darkened night and running
all the ways possible
holding the burning bamboo lamp
falling from the sky.
Looking at the death faces of the stars
she is asking about her lost babies
that she has never seen.
Then they stitch their own wombs
to give birth to those soldiers again.
In the land of dreamers
Life and death have the same meaning
and same story.

- LP Bastola

(featured in the poetry forum 11.26.10)

editor's note: This dream, the one-time convergence of fantasy and fate, where there is not fate nor contrived destiny; each moment, each peril, must be hazarded. There are points to be won, after all. - mh