haiku

cobwebs from corners
through treasured icons reaches
for my dusty soul

"benign mother" excerpts

fiendish gloom robs heart of its warmth;
thoughts have turned pale and cold
sole query does my mind raise
"Has the spring lomg way to come"
robed in anguish, wake i, all days
sighing over duties undone, prayers unsaid.
sins make a grim dance on my eyes,
wonder how large a troupe they are.
i don a cloak of ritual penance
still withholding my goodness,
makes unfeeling vows before Lord
knowing each word waits to be broken

ad libs

the old organ reworked
had sung with the cantor,
an incognito i've never seen,
before the sexton dumped it.
now pedals fitted, bellows mend
keys reset, lid hinged, polished over
it finds a place of rest
by the wall of the prayer room.
uncle's boy wss playing tenor
with bass accompaniments after
his lessons was a rare sight
even more as he left the place.
when i sit working the pedals
groping keys with a single hand
it's nothing but a puerile vigour
or unquenched curiosity, not more.

the statuette of sancta dymphna

I found her in a trashcan
nose, chin, pedestal chipped off
the sword still thrust down, in hand,
showing what she is composed of.
there was not she used to be
she was in a nook in the niche,
overhearing the pious pleas we
at the Lord and His Mother unleash.
when i retieved , she was decapitated
thought i'd fix it with a dab of glue.
her ancient broadsword incapacitated
we have to forge one new in lieu
to connive this inadvertent iconoclasm,
to fracture these embodiments in plaster
that sooner we may gaze at chasms,
our ways to the heights hamper.

disillusionment

i always saw him shrouded in mysteries
and he was carrying some too.
i was gripped by admiration
he dropped in on my dreams
speaking cryptic allusions.
i never thought of him
when sleep parted my eyes.
it started when we started
speaking, it just crept in-
the disillusionment- he was
ordinary but climbing heights
i dont want to look at.
that was the secret in him
once known, i've never dreamt of him.
(rendering of a prose by ms s reka)

discourses on pain

O, its paining terribly, brother
why this irk at this late hour
know not what trouble brews
choking me all these weeks
O dear its but a reminder
all pain comes with tags
attached with no loose
ends,but neatly laid out
perhaps its a pain you bear
and so a loved one you spare
promptly of this woeful care
that way very sweet it fares
then i should want more pain
if i could, of the same vein
but dont send me all the same
until my restive soul is tame