Rajnish Mishra writes

Life-long have I envied others many a line

Life-long have I envied others many a line,
Will someone ever envy
One of mine?
My verse born now,
Fresh - dead until read.
Someone, anyone, yes, you -
If only you read it!

Would you call it just fine?
Would it not be dead.
Not dead if read?
Not when, but if?
Not good or bad just read?

I thought of writing lines for you:
Of beauty, of strength, of truth.
A song, just one;
Of hope, of inspiration.
Lines on those themes come rarely now,                                                                  

To write that way in these times is a sin.

These vacuous, vacant, little, listless times.
What use of such pursuits,
In a world like ours,
What’s false, what’s true?
Hate, anger, frustration:
Are themes right for you.

My poems although shallow
From my heart’s depths rise.
They lack in the mass of meaning
Have volume of words.
Not style but sense, nor craft but art.

Who wants to say
Just what they want to say, and stop,
When it’s just begun,
Not half the distance run?
When how it's said,
For how long heard, is half the fun? 

Le baiser de la muse (The Kiss of the Muse) -- Félix-Nicolas Frillié  /Paul Cézanne

 

Rajnish Mishra writes

Immortal I

Alive not immortal am I, not me.

I live, I know, in the end to die. 

I’ve heard it said gods wept and bled,

Like us they lived, and loved and died.

I bleed and weep and live and die,

Yet I’m no god.

Not good, am I?

I’m tired, not dead,

Not I, not yet,

Of feeling like one,

Not being a god.   

Myself should I push                                                                                                                                       

Into myths ever new, and get                                                                                                             

Reborn. Let my mind, the Father,         

Beget his son – The God that’s me.

Mortality -- Paula Visnoski

Rajnish Mishra writes

My River

Soundless stays my river, still, calm, no wind blows.
Dark sky and horizon, and wave-twinkling bands,
A distant din, faint stars and a crescent that glows

With city lights orange over silver-black water, sands.

Black is the colour of darkness they say.
Black is the colour, at night and in day.
Black, it’s black of many an un-fixed hue.

Some nights there are, when the silent river flows
Under the moonless sky: the black of tar.
Some are the nights when black goes with blue,
The colour of night while the young moon glows.
Some are the nights when lights near and far,

Spangle the river’s black, red, yellow, blue,
Lights hurled into sky black; black river too.

 

 Beauty in the Burn -- Stephen Quiller