Sonnet: On H I V
In sexual orgies, when immersed you had,
In Adultery, a life you loved to spend,
Much more than wine, women seduced you lad,
Alas! Succumbed to retroviral end!
Was oro-anal sex practiced quite safe?
Was blood transfused, free off the virus load?
Was love you made, worth it in every café?
How long did you walk down the red-lit road?
O sad victim of the AIDS pandemic!
Your days are numbered in weeks, not in years!
Alas! Of mind and body, thou art sick;
Thy self-dug grave, thy melting frame well nears!
Beware Mankind; the scourge could wipe thy race,
If Thou canst wear a renewed moral face!
poem by John Celes
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Sonnet: On the Condom
O sheath divine, of latex- Thou art great!
In serving mankind in these awful days;
Praise-worthy is thy sexual use till date;
Thou aidst both males and females in love’s ways!
What tons of sperms, thou must have prevented!
And helped all ages sense Cupid, Venus;
The STD pandemic, thou curtailed;
And made sex safer, blissful, without fuss.
Thine service to sex-workers knows no words;
Preventing much unwanted human birth;
Alas, mis-guided ones behave like herds!
Unnatural, perverted sex has gained girth.
Thro’ thee, the population-clock is slack;
Adultery, God’s anger are now back!
poem by John Celes
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In Maximum
WOULDST thou be free? I think it not, indeed;
But if thou wouldst, attend this simple rede:
When quite contented }thou canst dine at home
Thou shall be free when }
And drink a small wine of the march of Rome;
When thou canst see unmoved thy neighbour's plate,
And wear my threadbare toga in the gate;
When thou hast learned to love a small abode,
And not to choose a mistress A LA MODE:
When thus contained and bridled thou shalt be,
Then, Maximus, then first shalt thou be free.
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Ch 02 The Morals Of Dervishes Story 12
One night I had in the desert of Mekkah become so weak from want of sleep that I was unable to walk and, laying myself down, told the camel driver to let me alone.
How far can the foot of a wretched pedestrian go
When a dromedary gets distressed by its load?
Whilst the body of a fat man becomes lean
A weak man will be dead of exhaustion.
He replied: ‘O brother, the sanctuary is in front of us and brigands in the rear. If thou goest thou wilt prosper. If thou sleepest thou wilt die.’
It is pleasant to sleep under an acacia on the desert road
But alas! thou must bid farewell to life on the night of departure.
On AIDS
Why get the stigma by your carelessness?
Why hold your life and that of others’ in harness?
Why spread the virus through life-saving blood?
Why pluck a flower when ’tis just a bud?
A victim like yourself, why make your spouse?
Why disturb harmony of your own house?
Why pass the virus to your new-born child?
The disease has no cure and could run wild!
The AIDS virus does not spare anyone;
The victim will meet his/ her grave quite soon;
Others around them too suffer (no less):
The curse could leave many a life in mess!
Go test your blood if you have slightest doubt;
Good change of life, counseling brings about;
Adhere to ART for life and live;
Promising future, new vaccines could give!
poem by John Celes
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Corn Grinders
O little mouse, why dost thou cry
While merry stars laugh in the sky?
Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
Ah, who will ease my bitter pain?
He went to seek a millet-grain
In the rich farmer's granary shed;
They caught him in a baited snare,
And slew my lover unaware:
Alas! alas! my lord is dead.
O little deer, why dost thou moan,
Hid in thy forest-bower alone?
Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
Ah! who will quiet my lament?
At fall of eventide he went
To drink beside the river-head;
A waiting hunter threw his dart,
And struck my lover through the heart.
Alas! alas! my lord is dead.
O little bride, why dost thou weep
With all the happy world asleep?
Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
Ah, who will stay these hungry tears,
Or still the want of famished years,
And crown with love my marriage-bed?
My soul burns with the quenchless fire
That lit my lover's funeral pyre:
Alas! alas! my lord is dead.
poem by Sarojini Naidu
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Another Epilogue to Faith
If thou can move mountains
canst thou move my heart for me?
That it may beat the way it should be.
If I with thee can walk on waters,
canst thou dry the tears for me?
That I may walk in them no more.
If I with thee can do anything,
then why canst I love him back?
That I in kindness may fill what I lack.
If thou could lead the way for me,
canst thou put me to the path
that leads me to forgiveness..
that I may in goodness forgive myself.
poem by Jessel Jane Tevar
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A Romaic Love Song
Ah! Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt,
Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.
Without one friend to hear my woe,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows well I knew;
Alas! I find them poison'd too.
Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,
Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.
A bird of free and careless wing
Was I through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,
I burn, and feebly flutter there.
Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,
The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.
In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline'
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.
My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!
And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?
Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm to bid thy lover live.
My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain
And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults - while mine is breaking.
Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.
My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know
That joy is harbinger of woe.
song, translated by Byron
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A Hymn To Christ At The Author's Last Going Into Germany
In what torn ship soever I embark,
That ship shall be my emblem of thy Ark;
What sea soever swallow me, that flood
Shall be to me an emblem of thy blood;
Though thou with clouds of anger do disguise
Thy face, yet through that mask I know those eyes,
Which, though they turn away sometimes,
They never will despise.
I sacrifice this Island unto thee,
And all whom I loved there, and who loved me;
When I have put our seas 'twixt them and me,
Put thou thy sea betwixt my sins and thee.
As the tree's sap doth seek the root below
In winter, in my winter now I go,
Where none but thee, th' Eternal root
Of true Love, I may know.
Nor thou nor thy religion dost control
The amorousness of an harmonious Soul,
But thou wouldst have that love thyself: as thou
Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now,
Thou lov'st not, till from loving more, Thou free
My soul: who ever gives, takes liberty:
O, if thou car'st not whom I love
Alas, thou lov'st not me.
Seal then this bill of my Divorce to All,
On whom those fainter beams of love did fall;
Marry those loves, which in youth scattered be
On Fame, Wit, Hopes (false mistresses) to thee.
Churches are best for Prayer, that have least light:
To see God only, I go out of sight:
And to 'scape stormy days, I choose
An Everlasting night.
poem by John Donne
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Wine, Women, and Song
As I walk through the stifling heat,
with no shoes upon my feet
I search for wine, women, and song
as I tread hopefully along.
Sweat is pouring and my face is sore
I don’t know if I can take much more.
Where is the wine, women, and song
something’s missing, something’s wrong?
It’s so oppressively hot around here
surely by now I should be getting near.
I can sense the wine, women, and song
I do hope it won’t be long.
I’ve caught a whiff of Chanel perfume,
a sure sign that I’ll be arriving soon.
But where’s the wine, women, and song
that I’ve been searching for so long?
For days I’ve followed the confusing smell
and its made me realise that I’m in hell.
Sadly there is no wine, women, and song,
and this road I walk is eternally long.
poem by Orlando Belo
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Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup Formed From a Skull
Start not—nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull,
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.
I lived, I loved, I quaff’d, like thee:
I died: let earth my bones resign;
Fill up—thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.
Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth-worm’s slimy brood;
And circle in the goblet’s shape
The drink of Gods, than reptile’s food.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others’ let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?
Quaff while thou canst: another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth’s embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.
Why not? since through life’s little day
Our heads such sad effects produce;
Redeem’d from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs, to be of use.
poem by Byron (1808)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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He Gave Me No Meat
My brother, I am hungry,—give me food
Such as my Father gives me at his board;
He has for many years been to thee good,
Thou canst a morsel then to me afford;
I do not ask of thee a grain of that
Thou offerest when I call on thee for bread;
This is not of the wine nor olive fat,
But those who eat of this like thee are dead;
I ask the love the Father has for thee,
That thou should'st give it back to me again;
This shall my soul from pangs of hunger free,
And on my parched spirit fall like rain;
Then thou wilt prove a brother to my need,
For in the cross of Christ thou too canst bleed.
poem by Jones Very
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In Nineveh.
As he of Joppa sought to 'scape
The utterance of the given word,
And dared to get him from the Lord
In a ship down to Tarshish, — know
Thou canst not any burden throw
That was ordained for thee to bear
Though faith may make it light as air.
Though thou within the dust may rave,
Within the dust may rave and curse
Thy being and the universe,
He sends His lightnings still abroad,
Yet plants for thee the shadowy gourd,
And comes so near He leaves a trace
Of beauty on thy bitter face.
Thou canst not lose thyself: thou art
The given word; its utterance too
Is in all thou dost dream and do:
All men must hear it, hearing thee:
Thou canst not 'scape the prophecy
Of thy life here, howe'er thou rave
Between the cradle and the grave.
What if thou wert He, being here —
So much of Him made flesh as can
Find its conception in a man;
Thy very breath His own, and thou
The veriest utterance of Him now?
It is His work: — let thyself be,
And He will cry in Nineveh!
poem by Robert Crawford
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Until death
Make me no vows of constancy, dear friend,
To love me, though I die, thy whole life long,
And love no other till thy days shall end;
Nay, it were rash and wrong.
If thou canst love another, be it so;
I would not reach out of my quiet grave
To bind thy heart, if it should choose to go:
Love should not be a slave.
My placid ghost, I trust, will walk serene
In clearer light than gilds these earthly morns,
Above the jealousies and envies keen
Which sow this life with thorns.
Thou wouldst not feel my shadowy caress,
If after death my soul should linger here;
Men's hearts crave tangible, close tenderness,
Love's presence, warm and near.
It would not make me sleep more peacefully
That thou wert wasting all thy life in woe
For my poor sake; what love thou hast for me
Bestow it ere I go.
Carve not upon a stone when I am dead
The praises which remorseful mourners give
To women's graces,---a tardy recompense,---
But speak thou while I live.
Heap not the heavy marble on my head
To shut away the sunshine and the dew;
Let small blooms grow there and let grasses wave,
And raindrops filter through.
Thou wilt meet many fairer and more gay
Than I; but, trust me, thou canst never find
One who will love and serve thee night and day
With a more single mind.
Forget me when I die!---the violets
Above my rest will blossom just as blue,
Nor miss thy tears: e'en Nature's self forgets;---
But while I live, be true!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Friend's Song for Simoisius
The breath of dew, and twilight's grace,
Be on the lonely battle-place;
And to so young, so kind a face,
The long, protecting grasses cling!
(Alas, alas,
The one inexorable thing!)
In rocky hollows cool and deep,
The bees our boyhood hunted sleep;
The early moon from Ida's steep
Comes to the empty wrestling-ring.
(Alas, alas,
The one inexorable thing!)
Upon the widowed wind recede
No echoes of the shepherd's reed,
And children without laughter lead
The war-horse to the watering.
(Alas, alas,
The one inexorable thing!)
Thou stranger Ajax Telamon!
What to the loveliest hast thou done,
That ne'er with him a maid may run
Across the marigolds in spring?
(Alas, alas,
The one inexorable thing!)
With footstep separate and slow
The father and the mother go,
Not now upon an urn they know
To mingle tears for comforting.
(Alas, alas,
The one inexorable thing!)
The world to me has nothing dear
Beyond the namesake river here:
O Simois is wild and clear!
And to his brink my heart I bring;
(Alas, alas,
The one inexorable thing!)
My heart no more, if that might be
Would stay his waters from the sea,
To cover Troy, to cover me,
To save us from the perishing.
(Alas, alas,
The one inexorable thing!)
poem by Louise Imogen Guiney
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Love
1 Canst thou love me, lady?
2 I've not learn'd to woo:
3 Thou art on the shady
4 Side of sixty too.
5 Still I love thee dearly!
6 Thou hast lands and pelf:
7 But I love thee merely
8 Merely for thyself.
9 Wilt thou love me, fairest?
10 Though thou art not fair;
11 And I think thou wearest
12 Someone-else's hair.
13 Thou could'st love, though, dearly:
14 And, as I am told,
15 Thou art very nearly
16 Worth thy weight, in gold.
17 Dost thou love me, sweet love?
18 Tell me that thou dost!
19 Women fairly beat one,
20 But I think thou must.
21 Thou art loved so dearly:
22 I am plain, but then
23 Thou (to speak sincerely)
24 Art as plain again.
25 Love me, bashful fairy!
26 I've an empty purse:
27 And I've 'moods,' which vary;
28 Mostly for the worse.
29 Still, I love thee dearly:
30 Though I make (I feel)
31 Love a little queerly,
32 I'm as true as steel.
33 Love me, swear to love me
34 (As, you know, they do)
35 By yon heaven above me
36 And its changeless blue.
37 Love me, lady, dearly,
38 If you'll be so good;
39 Though I don't see clearly
40 On what ground you should.
41 Love me -- ah or love me
42 Not, but be my bride!
43 Do not simply shove me
44 (So to speak) aside!
45 P'raps it would be dearly
46 Purchased at the price;
47 But a hundred yearly
48 Would be very nice.
poem by Charles Stuart Calverley
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Prayer Poem on World Aids Day,2011
Good Lord!
Do take away this scourge that’s upon us,
and free man from this disease dangerous;
Rescue, preserve our youth in prime of life,
and free us from this hopeless, dismal strife!
Good Lord!
Ignore the blunder and forgive the fault!
Man innately errs in the sexual vault;
Help victims live with dignity, pain less;
The virus grows on in ways most reckless!
Good Lord!
Their days seem to be numbered without doubt;
Let confidence and hope in their hearts, sprout;
Shower your mercy; help the families;
Remove the virus; let us live in peace!
Amen.
Copyright by Dr John Celes 1-12-11
poem by John Celes
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Eros
Why hast thou nothing in thy face?
Thou idol of the human race,
Thou tyrant of the human heart,
The flower of lovely youth that art;
Yea, and that standest in thy youth
An image of eternal Truth,
With thy exuberant flesh so fair,
That only Pheidias might compare,
Ere from his chaste marmoreal form
Time had decayed the colours warm;
Like to his gods in thy proud dress,
Thy starry sheen of nakedness.
Surely thy body is thy mind,
For in thy face is nought to find,
Only thy soft unchristen’d smile,
That shadows neither love nor guile,
But shameless will and power immense,
In secret sensuous innocence.
O king of joy, what is thy thought?
I dream thou knowest it is nought,
And wouldst in darkness come, but thou
Makest the light where’er thou go.
Ah yet no victim of thy grace,
None who e’er long’d for thy embrace,
Hath cared to look upon thy face.
poem by Robert Seymour Bridges
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Sonnet: Man, Thou Must Atone Now
Harass me not, Brother, harass me not;
Thou hast made blunder again, once again;
To have redressed my grievances, Thou ought,
Alas! Thou caused my heart to break with pain.
May be, Thou couldst create my file thine way;
Each person's file is maintained by One Boss;
None can prevent Truth's final Win some day;
Thine paper-work will soon be proved as farce.
Please rectify thine past mistakes somehow,
Lest God's punishment should descend on Thee;
Atone thine sin in action now and Now;
Man's cleverness can fai1 him miserably.
Why pick on me when I had done no wrong?
Canst Thou pay damages for suff 'rings long?
poem by John Celes
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There’s Hope Anew!
There’s hope anew for the PLHA!
Hope that was never, ever before;
Hope that has withstood the times;
Hope that has braved the climes.
The stigma is just vanishing;
The future is quite promising;
It’s no more a scourge of God;
It is just another chronic disease,
Although a cure isn’t yet in sight.
The world is united against HIV/AIDS!
There is loving care for the sad victims;
There is no more discrimination;
Drugs and ARVs have come to rescue;
It is no more a ‘melting disease’!
So, buck up man, woman and child;
A vaccine is in the near offing;
Practice safe sex and take safe blood;
There is renewed hope for all;
There is much life after infection
for the PLHA;
The retrovirus can’t hoodwink
scientists for long!
Copyright by Dr John Celes 6-26-2006
Dedicated to all those ‘in the fight against the HIV.’
poem by John Celes
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To Her I Love
Tell me, thou soul of her I love,
Ah! tell me, whither art thou fled;
To what delightful world above,
Appointed for the happy dead?
Or dost thou, free, at pleasure, roam
And sometimes share thy lover's woe;
Where, void of thee, his cheerless home
Can now, alas! no comfort know?
Oh! if thou hoverest round my walk,
While, under every well-known tree,
I to thy fancied shadow talk,
And every tear is full of thee;
Should then the weary eye of grief,
Beside some sympathetic stream,
In slumber find a short relief,
Visit thou my soothing dream!
poem by James Thomson
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