My poetry book "A Loving Embrace"

This is one of my poems, which has been published in my book "A Loving Embrace". 

Who am I?

I am the leaves that rustle
With the breeze that blows
I am the whispers that hustle
Through the wind in the willows

I am the branches that hold
The children of nature
I am the secrets untold
Of the beauty that nature beholds

I am the trunk of the tree
So elegant and strong
And so firm and giving
I am the echo of nature’s song

I am the roots that run
Deep into the earth
Upholding and keeping the tree alive
Giving it the life for which it strives

I am the seeds that when sown
Become earth’s own
Become life’s own
I laugh with life
I cry with life
For I am no more
Than the dust that gives life

It's an all time favorite of mine:) Will post more of my poems later! 


 

Charles Baudelaire

I happened to pick up a book of poems by a late leading poet of France by the name of Charles Baudelaire. I took a great liking to his poetry. Of his history: He wrote most of his poetry in his twenties, and when it was published in 1857 it was the subject of a trial for blasphemy and immorality. He never got married, and for much of his life carried on an unhappy love affair with the mulatto Jeanne Duval.

I have a lot more poems left to be read in the book. But these are the two I really liked, the first one is entitled music and the second is owls. 

Note: Happened to check his poems out on the net, the translations are different. I have the copy published by Phoenix Poetry publishers. 

Music

Music's a sea of sound; and once afloat

My pale star calls

Mist hangs or huge skies loom above my boat:

I raise my sails,

Breast forward, and lungs swelling in the breeze

All muscles tight,

I climb the slippery backs of tumbling seas

Hidden by night. 

Tormented like my vessel by the storm

I feel at ease;

But when the sea is calm and the sun warm,

The waters bright,

Then all I find in the unmoving air

Is my despair. 

Owls

Ranched on the branches of a yew,

Darting red eyes that never blink,

Like Gods to whom the world seems new,

Behold the owls. They sit and think. 

For hours and hours they do not stir:

The sun moves slowly down the sky,

And darkness settles everywhere;

The last sad rays of dayligh die.

The wise man learns, observing them, 

That man, the victim of a will

Incapable of keeping still

Is doomed to pay the penalty

Of never feeling quite at home,

Besotted with the transitory.  

Poetry Doesn't Sell and Ruskin Bond

I love Ruskin Bond's simple verses which are very profound. Whoever knew that this author was actually a poet first, but gave that up because he was told that poetry would probably not get him where he wanted to be- a published and succesful writer. Here's my take on this: 

Sadly, that's true (I know only too well)

That most of the times poetry doesn't sell 

Come the most amazing verses 

All the response they get

Is silent curses and shameless haste

To throw it all away into the wretched bottomless pit

Of unrecognized mounting paper waste 

Heh!!!! 

Here are two of my favorite poems by Ruskin Bond- 

It isn't Time that's Passing

Remember the long ago when we lay together

In a pain of tenderness and counted

Our dreams long summer afternoons

When the whistling-thrush released

A deep sweet secret on the trembling air, 

Blackbird on the wing, bird of the forest shadows,

Black rose in the long ago summer,

This was your song:

It isn't time that's passing by

It is you and I

Raindrop 

This leaf so complete in itself 

Is only part of a tree

And this tree, so complete in itself,

Is only part of the mountain

And the mounain runs down to the sea

And the sea so complete in itself,

Rests like a raindrop 

On the hand of God 

 

Ogden Nash

Reflection on a Wicked World 

Purity 

Is Obscurity 

Tada! I inaugurate my first blog and my first post with a bit of wisdom from Ogden Nash. According to me this poem is very relevant even today. Isn't it? In two brief but poetic lines Nash has summarised the Big Bad World of today!