Wish I had That Chest

Wish I had that chest
Measuring 56inches
Wish I had that tongue
That all duel clinches!

Wish I had that skill
That twists the words
Wish I had that stone
To kill two flying birds!

Wish I had the hordes
To raise me overhead
I'd be the high heaven
To eat of god's bread!

Devotees to shout my name
On the roads and media
I know they'll all vanish
But I 'll be in encyclopaedia!

A man of clay I'm here
A bag of flesh and bone
Today I move on the earth
Tomorrow I will be gone!

Xavier Bage
Tuesday, December 18, 2018

This Foul Poisoned Air

Lies and twists truths he

Over the speakers loud,

His sins he so cleverly

Hides under a holy shroud!

Misleading the simple folk

To dark forests of doom,

Where they find him a deliverer

 to bring greater gloom!

One lifted over the heads

Above the gullible minds

Has torn the soul of the soil

Thrown the pieces to winds!

How many will be victims

Of this foul poisoned air!

How many years will pass

For our thoughts to be fair!

Xavier Bage

Tuesday, Dec 04, 2018

Enemies Let's Remain

Enemies let’s remain

For it suits us best

That we don’t rest

Our weapons of pain!

If we stop to injure

what will set rage on fire

Our minds in hate inspire

Let not kindness lure!

In wounds let bodies bleed

Let more be surgery strikes

Contempt our fiery heart likes

Bullets and bombs we need!

Doves of peace in death fall

Entangled on border  wire

Let violent words transpire

Our devotees to enthrall!

Xavier Bage

Sat, Nov 24, 2018

Night is Never Silent

An airplane flies in the near sky

Trucks on the road rumble by

A distant train whistles, donno why

Night is never silent , it speaks.

The factories may be asleep

Markets may be dreaming deep

Their noises in busy minds leap

Today and tomorrow within wreaks .

A lonely bird on a tree cries

As the only branch it nests dies

Has seen truth of life and lies

Yet, the  Bethlehem star it seeks!

Xavier Bage

Friday, Nov 16, 2018

Portly Men in Politics

I wonder how the present

portly men in political profession

Do things that are dishonest

Utter words that are false!

Don’t they have  conscience?

The  person on the prime post

Roars, sings in impolite tongue

Holding the devotees in trance

Making them clap wildly in praise

Is  impoliteness in political science?

Xavier Bage

Wed,   Nov  14,  2018

Sardar, You Must Be Proud

O Sardar, aren’t you happy?

Aren’t you happy that your fans

Who rule this nation of one billion and more

Have erected the tallest statue of yours.

Taller than the Lady of Liberty

And reaching higher than the Buddha!

And more sublime than the Redeemer!

Your head peeping into heavens!

You can be seen from  distant kilometers

By even those who know nothing of

Your contribution to the nascent nation

Sardar, you must be proud!

O Lord Ram, aren’t  you exhilerated ?

Aren’t  you exhilerated that  your devotee

The powerful CM has given your capital Ayodhya  

Back to you and assured your milling  subjects

A huge temple superbly majestic in grandeur

An airport to revere your father’s name

All your pains of the  unjust exile and

 the travails of regaining  your queen

from the clutches of the demon king Ravana

are going to be rewarded amply

by the hordes of  devotees of your name!

And they wish your powerful name to place them

On the throne of this land of many religions

O Lord, aren’t you thrilled?

Xavier Bage

Fri, November 09, 2018

My Love Like a Fresh Moon Rise

I don’t know where she is

I don’t know how she lives

It pains my heart in the core

She the first love of my heart

Who couldn’t be my life’s part

Far from each other our fate tore.

In some distant foreign  lands

She lends her serving hands

Has she reconciled to her pain

In  my memory does she pine?

Am I alive in her as she is in mine?

Or in everything does she abstain?

Will she to me some day return

Will tides some day our way turn

Can I make of my love a present

Thorns my heart have tattered

Dreams cruel winds have shattered

Poles of my tent pitifully bent!

Tender  memories to me  oft flow

Turning my sad dark room aglow

Transporting  me to a lost paradise

How long this breath may prolong

Some day it must stop the song

My love, like a fresh moon rise!

Xavier Bage

Thurs, Nov 1, 2018

The Times and The Hormones

 




















How those little girls who used to play

in the village meadow

And used to go to the government primary school

have changed.

They now ride cycles to their high schools

and to the tuition classes

With a mobile attached to their ear

Chatting, giggling, loudly

And sometimes whispering softly

When they don’t want other ears to hear!

Those little girls are not children any more

The hormones have done their work

With the passage of time

Attractive features of womanhood have appeared

on their angelic body of yesterday

Those girls are not innocent anymore.

They  tell lies to their parents and

Land in places different from what

Their mom or dad they told

They do things what their mummy or papa

Don’t expect of them in their dreams.

These girls are angels no more.

The times and the hormones

have done their work on them!

Xavier Bage

Sat,  27 Oct, 2018

His Voice and His Words

I heard His voice

in the chirping of the birds,

in the whispering of the wind,

in the murmuring of the stream,

even in the silence of the night;

but He spoke to me  clearly in words

when I opened His Book

and read it with a listening heart.

Xavier Bage

Friday, Oct 26, 2018

My Childhood Sits There Somewhere

The blue hills afar touching

Black and white clouds above

The green slopes nearby mild

Rolling down to the happy brook

Rushing like a restless child!

My childhood sits somewhere

There in a meditative mood

Under a green shady tree

My memories like angels holy

Flying about feisty and free!

How my heart longs sighing

In waking and in my dreams

For those hills and tea estate

Far from that singing brook

Who knows where flings our fate!

Xavier Bage

Wed, Oct 24, 2018

Because He Suffered the Whiplashes

Because He suffered the whiplashes

The scourges on my back don’t bite,

Because he was nailed to the tree

The life’s nails have become slight.

The wound in my chest gains power

‘cause a spear pierced his loving side,

His sacrifice on the hill  redeemed me

I live because for me he willingly died!

Xavier Bage

Sunday, October 21, 2018

First Thoughts

When the tender light of dawn

Heralded the approaching day

And the birds sang their first song

On the silhouetted branches of trees

I woke up and raised my first thought

To the Lord God, my adoration bowed

The thirst of my seeking soul is quenched

And my whole being rejoices in His gifts!

Xavier Bage

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

The Quarrel On The King's Highway

 

The quarrel on the King’s Highway

The Rajpath of the largest democracy is no different

From what we see and hear in our mohallas

The opposition leader called the top executive

A thief for the arms deal he secretly made

With the President of a European nation

And for the country nephew he made a middleman!

For bypassing the accomplished national builder

And depositing unconditional trust on a greenhorn

Who hasn’t assembled a toy airplane to date

The responsibility of building fighter jets

To secure the motherland from inimical neighbors

What can the businessman do,

though for two generations reputed he may be?

The powerful call the boy many names

They employ their departments to malign him

They drag his family members

And smear any relative of him they find

All the media cannons they could turn at him

All the ministers with any voice

Male, female, blogging and slogging!

How could the young son of a gun

Have the temerity of pointing a finger

At the graybeard, with no children to rear

And no wives and women to please

With no safeboxes to store stolen money

How could the baby born yesterday

Dare to challenge the saintly man on the throne?

We’ve heard some great historian said

So truly, “Power corrupts

and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Arrogance and belligerence are its illegitimate brood.

the boy is saying things which are rattling

The powers that be! Why so?

People can sense the truth of his words!

Xavier Bage

Sat, 29 September 2018

Jehad on Love

My son keeps a computer institute

And he is a good teacher

So his students swear

Boys and girls from reputed city high schools

Come in batches morning and evening

Young women aspiring to land jobs in firms

Young men with ambitions in corporate

receive classes in Irfan’s Computer Education Institute.

He is a handsome twenty-nine year old

I ask him many times to marry

And bring me a daughter- in-law

He says, “When I find the right girl,

I’ll surely do your wish.”

One day, he brings a young woman

To me and says, “She’s the one.”

I gather after some minutes of conversation

That she is the only daughter

Of a businessman in the city

And that she belongs to the majority fold

Something within pricked me

Will her parents and her people agree to

This inter-faith meeting of hearts?

Irfan and Ishita say, “We are adults. We love each other

And can’t think of marrying anybody else.”

They exchange garlands in the court of law.

What I fear happens

Men in khaki knock at our door

Question Irfan and Ishita

Find nothing to incriminate them and go away

Next land a gang of musclemen in shiny cars

They lift Ishita away

Another lot vandalizes Irfan computers

And abduct him with force

His lifeless body is found

Beside the railway tracks not far

The Police say it’s suicide

But I’m sure in my heart

It’s a murder, cold-blooded!

Xavier Bage

Tues, 25 September 2018