Lion Hunting

Far away from the plains
I hear the stealthy footsteps
of an unborn Masai searching for a mother.

I hear his spear
pierce the evening and
split open her feline womb.

I hear the painful growls
of a lioness in spasms of childbirth
under the watchful eyes of a golden sun.

Then I hear the ecstatic first cries
of newborn manhood
of mankind born again.

As the sun sets;
here, across an ocean,
I am still waiting for a mother.

Like all men

Like all men
I too knew that
after forty seven year
of happy ignorance
one day I will be
made known the truth.

I thought I could
take it as a Man,
courageously,
standing erect
with clenched fists
and gnashed teeth
behind my mind’s
impregnable fortresses
built over the barren decades.

Now
when those words came invading
like a stealthy breeze
through the little window
I am swept away.

Keep your eyes away
lest you will see me crying -
wailing like a frail new widow
choking in my own tears and breaths
with my face buried in this white pillow
my fists clasping it, my teeth biting into it.

The Middle Path

Like the perpetual sadness
that belie our widest smile,
there is an ever-flowing anger
that lust to burn life
even while weeping for
all motherless children.

Like the everlasting love
of crucified sons
towards all mankind,
there is this abyssal
hatred towards man
and all his kin.

Like the humility in front
of a sick old woman,
there is an unfathomable
height of hauteur
that makes us spit
at all wrinkled faces.

Between body and soul,
with a shared mind,
we are The Middle Path
chosen by some god
suffering from too much goodness
or by some demon
suffering from too much evil.

The Shame

We say
that we are lonely
and so we write poetry.

We say
that we are artists
and so we write poetry.

Aren’t we deluding ourselves?

Aren’t we poets
because we are
ashamed
to go in front of them
with our ugly faces?

Aren’t we poets
because we are
ashamed
to be with them
amidst their ugly faces?