Whether We Like It or Not

 

Whether we like it or not

We are travelers on foot

We walk the whole waking day

We walk the whole sleeping night

Whether we like it or not

We have to lift our feet

and shuffle our steps forward!

We can’t make any excuse

We can’t say, ‘I’m tired

I want to rest for a day

I want to recline on a soft bed’

Forget a soft bed, my friend

We can’t even sit under a tree

To lean again the trunk!

We may own a fleet of luxury cars

But we have to walk with

The barefooted we sneer at

Till we reach our destination

Our steps are counted and

The last stop is prescribed

Whether we like it or not!

Xavier Bage

Thurs, August 31, 2017

Like a Brook Following Slopes

 

He came from the far west

From a country below

Sea level!

With thoughts and experiences,

Which were born below the northern waves!

Under the surface of the hurrying feet

The child of an unlikely world!

He grew up in the outskirts

Went to school like other children

Attended some classes in the university

Read some subjects his mind wasn’t inclined to!

He was not a progeny

Out on making a successful  career!

The boy walking with loneliness as companion!

He dropped out

He went out with those who smoked

He staggered with those who visited dens

He sniffed stuffs with those seeking escapes

He lay on the roadside with those

Who had lost their way!

The young man with nowhere to go!

He didn’t hold a job

He didn’t earn enough

To coax a young woman

To commit her life to him

He just had a piece of land

His father had left his widowed mother!

He never cultivated any vegetable

Or any crop in the piece of the earth

Only wild plants and grass filled his land.

And his life!

Now, he is two scores and ten

That’s his only wealth

He has no wife to please

He is the richest man of freedom

He has no children

to grey his hair with worries!

Still, in lonely nights in his bed

Questions crop up in his mind

Did I live my life to the fullest?

Or have I squandered it as I walked aimlessly

Like a brook following the slopes?

I wish sometimes

Instead of the questions

A loving wife and lovely children

Stood around me!

But….

Xavier Bage

Sat, August 26, 2017

What Makes You Panicky, O Bully?

Are you really strong, O bully?

I see only fat holding to your bones

And a thin skin as its cover!

And you head is an upturned clay jar

Empty of light or water!

You think you‘re brave and courageous

Why, at the appearance of a rat

Your knees rattle and your pipe

Releases liquid on your pants!

Thought you were made of sterner stuff!

Your opponent is pitiably weakened

Shorn of all vigor and health

Why, then,  at every podium, near and far

You never fail to rile him?

What makes you so panicky of the skeleton?

Heaven and the earth know

 So does every citizen soul within the boundaries

That the power is given to you to serve!

And it can be snatched back by the donor!

Isn’t this fact that fills you with shiver?

Xavier Bage

Sat, Aug 19, 2017

Those Brazen Boys

Those arrogant boys out there

They are throwing stones

At the windows of my house

They have already shattered

Many of the glass panes!

They  have grown in insolence

Their bones are longer

And their muscles stronger

They are more in number

They are aware of their strength!

They tease the school children

They tear and twist their books

They stalk the girls brazenly

They are not afraid the law

Just a maid she is to them!

Those bullying brats are

Breaking our family home

My forefathers built with pains

They grin their teeth out

And laugh aloud in glee!

Can no one prevent them?

Can no one call their bluff?

Patience, the Reason is waking

By the din those urchins make

The Queen with Sword will avenge!

Xavier Bage

Sat, Aug 12, 2017