POETRY BY PHIL DASS

Poetry through the ages

Phil Dass

July 24. 2023

Dreams are just that, juxtapositioning of sane thoughts, memories, and mundane happenings
in an unconscious mind: Loki unleashed playing havoc and mischief, intertwining, and yet,
sometimes, there is a narrative sane between inane editing, pain or fear outlives the dream,
and you wonder, what would Freud say? Never mind, dreams are just that...

December 2022

They have chosen the word of the year, gaslighting by one,
And goblin mode is another. I wonder how soon all the words
Will change and make me redundant as the dead sun
Of another world? Hold on please, I am one of the old bards…

2.

Stop a while and ponder on your thoughts that prompt your will
To action. What you think is what you become, they said,
And they also say. good intentions will lead you to hell…
I wonder if things will be better or worse when I am dead?

3.

Brevity, you are life. Short, abbreviated sometimes, stretched
to infinity in others, you personify this life in blankness etched,
bound by emotions, material possessions, ethereal passions…
You are short but the threads that hold you are long and wretched.

4.

When you fall, don’t roll, goes an old Keralite adage
So there are many wise words passed on through generations
But alack, we know only so few wise people and fewer language:
In fooldom we languish, with a few pearls to light up our stations…

5.

I think therefore I am said, Descartes. I write therefore I am.
But I think before I ink, though I believe everyone should foot.
Everyone speaks, don’t they? So, they can write, even if it’s on a lam:
So write then, whether anyone reads or not, is definitely moot

6.

50 per cent is instinct, another 20 per cent must be genetic influences,
That leaves only 30 per cent for us to make our lives better:
Education, profession and circumstances dictate our affluences
But in the end we are turned into dust and ash, never mind our confluences.

7.

They say, a tree is poetry and some fools in passion, define their love,
As poetry in motion. What do you call, if you fall from a tree and break
A bone or bones or die? Did poetry kill you? A tree and a love are similar,
Admire it from afar and you are safe. Get close and you are in for a wreck…

8.

Karma is an Indian word, anglicized and demonized as a bitch:
She is not. If at all anything, she is like a good old sweet-hearted witch.
The good we do, comes around back to us in measures small and big,
The evil we undertake just melts away, like the anomaly it is, a glitch.

9.

You lie even when you don't say anything, when your words could
Have made a difference to this world, to the moment or later perhaps:
Yet, mind not my silence in the face of growing disenchantment, I would
Rave and rant, I would surely...but deceptive is wisdom, the truth entraps.

10.

Gibran, Ghalib, Kabir, Wordsworth, Shelley or Shakespeare,
So many to imitate and write words pristine and glorious:
Oh, that I could...  I feign to be a poet when I am just another wordsmith
Fooling around with words, hoping to make sense of this life spurious...

11.

Orange, till yesterday, I thought was a colour strange. I wrote
Many summers ago, when I saw her dressed in the colours that slew:
I should have waited before I inked that thought and took a vote,
Cause years later there was “Orange is the new black” and I knew…

12.

Yesterday I dreamt that I was handling a gun
It seemed like a great bit of fun.
I was shooting at someone very far away,
Thankfully for me, he (she?) seemed to get away.

13.

Of friends I can say so much and more, through thick and thin
We have been through decades of companionship: silly conversation,
Stupid incidents, wry moments and we have come to this din.
Most of all, we know each other in and out, nothing to hide nor ration…

14.

I have lived my life like it is to be lived. Some good, some bad,
Some just like that. I wish now, that it could have been varnished
Lightly by logic and rationality, but then it would be just another cad,
Not living like it I did. And now I live, wiser and ever so lightly tarnished.

15.

Her dark eyebrows, are like rivers long gleaming
in the night, circling the fabled cities of Xanadu:
She's the muse, the ruse, the clues to this dreaming,
This life. What can I say but bid her adieu...

16.

Faith is superstition by another name: belief comes through
Wanting to believe and so you do: The world would be so much more
If people could be kinder and gentler, believing in goodness true.
Yet, life moves on with all its ills, its false gods… all in ample store.

This are written between 1986 – 2022

Life is wonderful….

Life is wonderful. Let no one tell you otherwise.

Life is beautiful – encompassed with all things pretty and nice.

Life is bountiful and always springing a surprise.

Life is not all happiness and joy, a long party full of spice.

Life is a package deal. You got to take the rough with the dice.

Life is not all white. Or black. It’s colourful and wise.

Life is a gift–to be opened anew every moment, without a price.

Life is marvellous and stupendous – like the skies.

Life is fantastic. Equally giving to the lions and the mice.

Life is like that. Hard sometimes. Smooth. Like this.

Life is mysterious. A secret that never dies.

Life is great. It beckons you every moment to rise.

Life is ‘Wow’. A hidden gasp. It is love in disguise.

Life is being born again. Not without its thoughtful sighs.

Life is dying a little. When something soft in you dies.

Life is laughter. Loud and boisterous. And long tearful cries.

Life is good. Despite the hatred and the vice.

Life is now. Living with a purpose. Without a guise.

Life is forever. We die as time into eternity flies.

Life is wonderful.  Let no one tell you otherwise.

Kenya, 05 Feb 2014.

Her heavenly eyes are portals

to a strange world,

clothed in mystery:

A world pretty

and fine perhaps, yet,

like a child bewitched,

I prefer to linger

at the wondrous gates,

savouring the delight,

losing myself in a daze

and a haze...

I am the madman

who is more content

with the sight of heaven

than in its possession...  

Dec 2014

I feel like etching a poem, just like that, wanting to see words form out of a blank mind

To render life on this clean screen, and see it come alive: perhaps I will write of blue oceans

Sparkling in the mountains, filled with colorful fishes like the ones in Mayfair Hotel,

Of long sleek dhows sailing in a shoreless sea, pushed by mighty winds on luminous sails:

Or perhaps I should write of the jacaranda trees beside by house, that now are silent and invisible

Shorn of flowers but hold promises of a violet carpet in spring: Yet in my mind I see the colour

Wondrous and inviting, like gates of heaven might be paved with such flowers...Now my mind

Wavers to the pretty girl who lives down by the lane and hear her chatter long after my conversation

With her has ended...  She is pretty as a mermaid and lively as a hummingbird, covering bastions

That are not limited to land or sea. In her I see life in all its bounty, possibilities and dreams,

Passions and goals, love and affectations, yet so unaffected and glorious in her missions:

This be life then and this be a living, I live a little in myself and understanding evening less

Blessed I am but in knowing her for I live a little more and understand life even more...

There I am done with unfettered thoughts and the rambling of the mind on this page,

And yet as in coagulated dreams arising from scrambled thoughts in a unconscious mind

These too are images from a conscious mind, but not irreverent and insane visions of a sleepy night

These are soothing and therapeutic for the unacknowledged soul as it is for the over indulgent heart...

Sept 8 2017

For Suzanne (On seeing her picture in Facebook)

Shall I compare thee to a pretty qasida or a lingering sonnet?

Thou art lovelier than either and yet, a poetic puzzle:

Perhaps you are a Shadorma, or a Sestina in a cute bonnet;

No, you must be more than a poem, a song, a lovely ghazal…

Poor time, splits hairs in despair, as pretty lasses have fallen

In high towers cowering before their limpid mirrors blue;

The seasons too have a bone to pick, for you have stolen

Their thunder, as sunshine seems to have been smitten by you.

Are you a dream, a vision, an illusion or a vixen dear,

Many are wont to ask - Is there one so heavenly divine

walking on this earth in plain sight of humans mere?

To them I say – These eyes have seen this angel fine

From up, close: I’ve heard her speak, smile and engulf

worlds -and this pretty picture is but a poor shadow of her true self…

17 Oct 2013

African Afternoons

Afternoons... tranquil, sober, nonchalant, and insouciant. free of dawn's rich

promises. Void of dusky regrets: Just being there, like a conjunction, a comma.

Horizon to horizon, a blue canvas with white plumes, tempt and bewitch

with a story fine every day - of romance and loneliness, animated soaps, and drama.

The morning's a virgin, spotless, sinless, cloudless - Yet the sky betrays the throes

Of a simpering belle in the arms of a vigorous beast. Will its passion ebb away or hold...

White clouds heavy with shades of grey, like pretty spinsters with knit brows,

Dandy across the skies, now threatening to pour, now blown away twice-fold

Today the sky is petulant and the clouds seem to sulk as they stay away

Like romantics in a tiff - each waiting for the other to apologize and surrender;

The fierce sun dances gaily, thrilled in its uninterrupted fiefdom, holding sway

Over the sky and the earth yielding to the evening as it rips daylight asunder

Afternoons, a time to lie in the bosom of a lover, lost in thoughts and wonder-

A time to live, revel and bejewel a somnolent life, not a moment to ponder...  

16 Oct 2013

Just Forbidden

This is life -live it well, he said to the man and the woman, giving them a run

Of paradise: This is your home, your kingdom, yours to do as you please: have fun

Be of good cheer; romance the rivers and the mountains: chase the sun

Across the skies: Do as you please –love, multiply, live, but for condition only one

-See that tree by the river, he said, -hidden and away from the rest, all said and done,

Stay away from the tree, -further away from the fruits that so lovingly beckon;

They are not for you. Why? –They are not for you -or you, they are just forbidden.

The kingdom lay in front of their gaze, wonderful and inviting, the souls had won

Heaven without a price. This is not life, this is not everything, said the woman

-Agreed the man. Of what use this heaven, this paradise, this lovely garden of Eden

if we are kept away from the most precious of all? All through night, day and morn,

They allowed their thoughts, their needs, desires and longing to ferment and churn

And soon thereafter, led by their right, they did it and then, when the deed was done

They knew it was just another fruit, made so much sweeter in being, just forbidden.

Circa 2000

Naturally

Nature is the bloody culprit, the nemesis of hearts, the puppeteer supreme:

She abhors vacuum, oh she does! The universe she’s filled and nothing's grim,

Days and nights, flowers, and noisy children: Colouring everything in sight

And out of: Perfect, without a fault tiny, even dotting up for a starry night.

Nature’s set the game rolling, of making even pairs, in life and without,

Two of everything to set life moving, a million sure - but paired no doubt.

She does not idly sit and watch life wither away – she’s there perfecting

Her spells’ incarnate, touching up skills: Frail mortals flail, easy prey dissecting

Hearts and minds, catalysed with robust visions, showing off myriad hues,

Entranced, emboldened, the wise and the fool succumb to cloned views:

Nature’s got no faults, none: nothing’s too soon, too early, too big or too small,

She's pretty, cruel -a finicky bitch, a sprightly witch: She’s a woman, after all.

Nature’s the perpetuator wily: hearts in vacuum, music-less souls, a living without grace,

Flesh, bones ready to recreate, she spies, waves her wand and all falls into place.

Circa 2000

That Funny Feeling

Love - that funny little feeling - making everything seem nicer: inducer

Of hallucinations wonderful, converting moments simple into eternal bliss.

Eliciting emotions elevated and unparalleled –making a winner of every loser,

Evoking passions frenetic and unprovoked, dispelling gloom, eclipsing this

And that –the harsh rigors of life. Love –splendid, joyful and comical

Bringing immeasurable happiness without a cause but just a lingering thought,

Of the beloved: the love and the longing –now controlled, now hysterical:

Love –a billion poems, written, lyrics romantic sung, stories told by rote

Pushing life along –woven in dreams silken, spun in velvety promises, true and

False: Love –that magical feeling, transcending life, death and a living;

Mixer of souls, creator of fusion holy between flesh and bones: Holder of the clue.

The reasons for living: Love – eternal and consumable, lovable and giving:

How I wish I could go on loving - lesser than I am loved – never little, but forever,

Unacknowledged, passion ebbs, emotions die and heaven rues with the lost lover...

Circa 2000