The Here And Now
for the meantime take the here and now
what choice do we have?
we are beggars we have nothing
we were taken here
without our knowing we were naked
we were spanked on the very first hour of our arrival
in mother' bed in that cheap government hospital
there were no fathers or priests or
politicians
they heard our first cry
and since then
life begins to have no meaning
what we have is the here and now
but will that be an end? a misdemeanor? will that be a burden
forever? a curse?
a suffering that is senseless
a sorrow that is soaring and roaring?
the here and now is in our palms
look at it closely, there are tiny lines there
the directions and instructions are there
embedded
we shall trace where we are and where we are going
in the tiny lines of our palms
we locate our hidden fortunes we shall find where the secret lies
the real meaning
of this existence and if need be
we must create and invent what we will be
in the future
let us see from our feelings the coolness of blue
the fires of red
the clouds, the sun and the moon all lie in the hold of our hands
from this here and now
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Related quotes
The Patteran
From over the leagues of ice and snow, and the miles of scorching sand;
From back of the days of long ago, and the lonely sea and land—
To the end of the world and our Gipsy race, to the death of our dark-eyed line,
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine,
That the world shall know and my name shall glow in the light of the aftershine—
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine.
I have given them health and strength, pure blood, clear skins for a glorious youth;
I have set in their souls contempt for sham, and a deathless regard for truth;
I have bequeathed the spirit to fight, I have given the will to rise,
And the slumbering fires of Hate and Love in their dreaming, dreaming eyes.
That the world shall know and my name shall glow in the light of the aftershine,
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine.
I have given the love for their native land, wherever that land may be
(My children came from the East, my friends, and round by the Northern Sea),
And a son of a son of mine enemy, to the end of his treacherous line,
Shall be stricken to earth, if he dare but speak, by a son of a son of mine.
That the world shall know and my name shall glow in the light of the aftershine,
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Mistake
it was a different thing that you see
from that you feel
a war between the bulge of the eyes
and the pumps of the heart
the lines of the palms are clear
nobody wants to mind now
in the middle of too much desire
it is the heart that wins
slashing the blinks of the wondering eyes
the lines of the palms are clear
there is no doubt
the heart bleeds upon its mistake
and begins to remember the veils
and the sonorous sounds of the funeral bells of
the little town
the lines of the palms are clear
there is no doubt about it
at the end every part shall accept the fate
no regret
once again the self rides upon the wings of destiny
until the final word of the years rest
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Life-Giving Spark (Revised)
Creating meaning for ourselves is a sublime
experience, the young are instructed to believe
life is meaningful, yet cannot feel it that way,
we only learn through experience
If we don’t learn to create meaning we will
suffer senseless phenomena instead of life;
some exult in depressive sensationalism as
it is more exciting than unfounded optimism
Most prefer the pain of rebellion to resignation, yet
as long as we create our own meaning, those who
indulge in the macabre by seeking suffering in
depressing intrigues, cannot touch us
Since life seems meaningless a quest is needed
to make sense of existence; I learnt meaning was
not hanging around just waiting to be found but
existed only in feelings
Mixing life’s ingredients like ancient alchemists
produces results, adding our own passion as the
life-giving spark, attaching ideals to beautiful scenes;
I honour these visions in my dreams
Pay homage to origins by cherishing favourite
stories and authors, find new perspectives and
unexpected aspects in the same, well-known
material whenever I look again…
poem by Margaret Alice Second
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For Wanting To Write....
perhaps, because of this
i may end up
with a head cut, or
a body shredded like
cheese,
tired limbs like
burnt toast,
perhaps because of that
i may not reach
what destination is reserved by
the lines of my palms,
perhaps i may not even end at
all,
because here you are
reading these lines
and you will like them
not because they are as palatable
as exotic friend frogs
but because you have felt sorrow
and have the smell of pain
the sound of acidic rain
over your hair
now melting and before you notice it
you too have become bald
because of having known much
than what is permitted by all these lines
it is about us,
it is about our being part of this vast
nothingness
sands of the desert
light of the moon spreading on sands of the desert nights
hushing wind
taking all the possible directions
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Poet As A Pornographer
without the contours of the body
where shall the poet be?
without the feel of the palms
skimming through breasts and thighs
where can his poems be?
he cannot live on those clouds alone
he has no words that must dwell in air
his rhyme and rhythm are on their prime
on the hips and legs
that which lies between and not beyond
creates the meaning of his lines
the hair and nose and tender loins
the lips and tongue and cheeks
the poet takes some flowers and smell them
but with her something crawls in his head forever
do not judge him for he is happy and
he does not really care about what you say
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Morning (Poem From The Movie Il Postino)
Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,
smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round:
you have moon-lines, apple-pathways:
naked, you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.
Naked, you are blue as a night in Cuba;
you have vines and stars in your hair;
naked, you are spacious and yellow
as summer in a golden church.
Naked, you are tiny as one of your nails-
curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
and you withdraw to the underground world,
as if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores:
your clear light dims, gets dressed - drops its leaves-
and becomes a naked hand again
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Our baby boy....
When your mother was crying in pain,
I took her to hospital, then I heard your
mother's loud scream along with your soft cry
Your mother brought you into this world as an angel.
You were lying next to your mother innocently
My son, your cry brought tears of love in my eyes
When I looked at you first my heart filled with happiness
You were looking very healthy boy
You were trying to look at me through your fresh new eyes
I saw your tiny legs were rocking in the air
and your tiny hands were clapping for me
I gave one of my fingers to you to hold and you held me tightly
and you want to kiss my finger too
When I wrap you in my arms I felt that my dream come true
We waited for you so long and your arrival made our house lighten
God has listen to our prayers and given you as his gift.
I will be watching you growing up and teach you all the good things
You will be learning all the best and I am sure that you will show me
your best when you wear your cap and gown on your graduation day.
poem by Ravi Sathasivam
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The Meaning Of A Poem
THE MEANING OF A POEM
The meaning of a poem
Is written within the lines
And between them.
It is outside and around,
Under and above
Where the simple sense is.
The meaning of a poem surrounds and embeds it,
And forces it to twist and turn within and without itself,
In more directions than it itself knows.
The meaning of a poem burns-
And aches to show
Where the wound is.
Oh scars of words and simple singing melodies of light
Where is your balm of thunder and dawn, now?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Yours Is Too Crude
i felt the surface
yours is crude, too superficial
but i do not mind
i keep touching it and slide
my hands around
the edges of your thing
and then i reflect upon
what i have been doing
yes, yours is more like mine
crude, superficial
straightforward, and
flowing
soft like sky blue linens
and cheap for the mindless public
but we continue doing it
day by day
truly, sincerely, and
therapeutically
what we do
does not kill us anyway
in any way
we have found expression
in words
and pity (and love perhaps?)
yet look at us
we do not appear as beggars
wearing dark glasses
and holding a tin can on our hands
we are here
to speak but i guess
we never beg
for ears
we have legs to stand
throughout this agony
and then the children
come around us
wondering if we are humans
confused if they too shall be like us
everyday we keep repeating
what we are
and then the world knows
but keeps on spinning
the morning light still lands
on the lines of our open palms
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Impromptu No.4 In A-Flat Major
Freedom to choose, oh yes, I can choose
to focus on translations - or write a poem
and delight in singing lines, feeling guilty
about my escape from tortuous life
I may not escape my job of grinding words
and lines, crunching melody, rhythm and
sound - leaving meaning only - which
pays the bills and buys pretty things
Reading discordant and dissonant texts
that hurt ears and eyes - but all choice
entails responsibility for consequence:
Who can be free in choosing between
the devil and the deep blue sea, why al-
ways negative outcomes irrespective of
choice? If you do you suffer, if you don't
you simply suffer another way
Freedom means choosing between all
kinds of suffering - whatever we do, the
result is guilt and misery, meaning we
can only choose how to deal with life
Smiling while praying for quick release or
cynically surrendering to life's vicissitudes
bowing in bitter resignation - freedom be-
comes a choice between attitudes
Acceptance or rejection of every condition,
it's tiring to be angry all the time, easier to
laugh, La Comédie Humaine is fun, we all
fall down and get up a million times
Crying would spoil the mask we wear, lay
our secret feelings bare - we can gravitate
towards laughter wherever it rings, as long
as we can resonate with its happiness
In spite of sinking in quicksand, we can sing,
until we are beheaded at the guillotine or
hung upon a cross, we can be as pious
or as raucous as we choose
I choose piety because it is more beautiful,
if our lives have to end in tragedy, I want
mine to please with harmonious lines -
listening to spiritual renditions of
Schubert - Impromptu No.4 in A-flat major,
Boccherini's Minuet, Debussy - Clair de
Lune - while taking leave of life to
continue existence somewhere
beyond Planet Earth
beyond this universe where visual forms
suppress the sound of metre and melody,
only one meaning allowed, symbols
reduced to define a reality
Stripped of all emotion, where association
and connotation are outlawed - we are
changed into a workforce bearing the
yoke of life while being robbed from
Imagination and feeling...
poem by Margaret Alice Second
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Meaning
Why you keep
Peeping into
Boloji? !
To see if I've
Written any new
Poetry? !
I've penned a poem
On your heart…
Go and decipher it.
Read in between
The lines…
And decode the
Hidden meaning ;)
That will give you
An ‘out of the world'
Meaning…which will
Change your life…
And give your world -
A whole new meaning :)
poem by Aparna Chatterjee
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Open Palms
morning demands
the laying of open palms
on the table
and the palms agree
and then the wind comes
and took all the lines away
the hands do not mind
this is the last day of the body
the heart is full of joy
the mind has no word
the eyes close
and the lips finally sealed
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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You ask me who am I really?
You have seen my face
You have seen the way I smile the way I bend my back
My shoulder leaning on the door
As though greeting you
A nice day a promising future
The glow of sun
The coolness of the moon
The splash on the clear blue waters
By the pool
By the sea
The sail boat passing by
The ship on anchor
By the wharf
And the cotton clouds hanging
By the green mountains
The poems I write are sad
You read them and you cry
You say you relate
You say you feel
The sadness of my lines
Now you ask me
Who am i?
Was I the butterfly dreaming about the sad man?
Or was I the sad man dreaming about the butterfly?
You are confused
I am not; I choose what I want to be
I am what I am
This moment,
And the moments that you imagine me to be
I write what I want
I am what I am
The lines may be lying
But read them again
I may be somewhere in the lines between
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Beating The Blues
You have seen my face
You have seen the way I smile the way I bend my back
My shoulder leaning on the door
As though greeting you
A nice day a promising future
The glow of sun
The coolness of the moon
The splash on the clear blue waters
By the pool
By the sea
The sail boat passing by
The ship on anchor
By the wharf
And the cotton clouds hanging
By the green mountains
The poems I write are sad
You read them and you cry
You say you relate
You say you feel
The sadness of my lines
Now you ask me
Who am i?
Was I the butterfly dreaming about the sad man?
Or was I the sad man dreaming about the butterfly?
You are confused
I am not; I choose what I want to be
I am what I am
This moment,
And the moments that you imagine me to be
I write what I want
I am what I am
Some lines may be lying
But read them all over again
I may be there
between those lines somewhere
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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344
You have seen my face
You have seen the way I smile the way I bend my back
My shoulder leaning on the door
As though greeting you
A nice day a promising future
The glow of sun
The coolness of the moon
The splash on the clear blue waters
By the pool
By the sea
The sail boat passing by
The ship on anchor
By the wharf
And the cotton clouds hanging
By the green mountains
The poems I write are sad
You read them and you cry
You say you relate
You say you feel
The sadness of my lines
Now you ask me
Who am i?
Was I the butterfly dreaming about the sad man?
Or was I the sad man dreaming about the butterfly?
You are confused
I am not; I choose what I want to be
I am what I am
This moment,
And the moments that you imagine me to be
I write what I want
I am what I am
The lines may be lying
But read them again
I may be somewhere in the lines between
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Short
The depth of life
The length thereof
The depth of a life
The years thereof
The depth of your life
The distance from your first wisp of
Earth's worried air of
Life to the finish line of
A life well lived or of
One which was spent waiting for
The future which may or may not
Hold you in it for
Today is given you to
Make all the difference you can and to
Smell all the flowers you can and to
Love as deeply as you can and to
Let laughter break some ribs and to
Let rain drown your tears and to
Give yourself away and to
Worship as truly as you can and to
Leave your worries in yesterday then
Do the things fear won't let you do then
Say the things that matter most then
Do the things you haven't done then
Do the things you have to do and then
Give a life a meaning
Find life's meaning
Hidden in love's meaning
And your life meaning
Breathing in God's meaning
And pick up a book of meanings
To check the short meaning
Of short and find that that's the
Aching distance from the
First intake of air to the
Last release of the same.
poem by Jenim Dibie
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The Crooked Ways Of The Tiny Birds
feelings are sometimes like the tiny birds
of summer feeding on a few grains
on the wide yards of the garden where the grasses
spread far
some feels being smothered by the indifference of other
tiny birds
separated by the distance of the long lines of
parallel electric poles
imagine the image of tiny birds sitting in there
looking for pecking
one notices the vastness of the sky
the unfinished climb of the hill
the vanishing paths of trails long untrue
feelings like tiny birds fly away
but there is no reason to be afraid on the
facts of nonreciprocating birds
ah, the world is wide and too interesting
to be ignored
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Looking Upon A Child
looking upon a child i compress my years
like how i keep the lines confined inside my palms.
i stop for while following where the child goes.
his hands are buds, his feet as small as a saki cup.
his eyes as innocent as an oil lamp waking on a dark night.
his hair are soft and silky like a kitten fur
his sounds like the arrival of morning on the grass.
i hold his tiny hands and i am back to my senses.
he calls my name, but i am no longer there.
i am back to my room. It is as crowded as a storehouse
with papers and books and chairs and used clothes hanging
on the beams and walls. Some old figurines bathed with dusts.
Some dried spittle on the floor. Some unopened off-white pages
filled with age.
i wonder, despite this crowd of things and thoughts,
despite the fullness of the wind from the window
there is still the wide vacancy of space. Inside the heart longs.
Inside the sound howls. Inside something so faint shouts.
It is the sound of the child still calling my name.
It is looking for me and i am never complete.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Tiny Feelings 05
Tiny Feelings 05
(Dedicated to Poet Priyanka Bhowmick)
Sick moon upon head
Pale senior lady
Alone blue bed
Body- sick
Mind- sick
Society- sick
Tube-light
Depends on switch
Bliss less life
Tiny ant
March towards infinity
Silent event
Rolling black marble
Dark night crawling
Dynamic sorrow
Cheap or expensive- vital
Win-win economy
Profit loves exploitation
Cool senior night
Melody of silence
Unkind babyhood
poem by Ashraful Musaddeq
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Yours
You brighten up the moon and stars at night
You keep me seeing rainbows in the sky
You bring new meaning to my life, now
I believe in miracles baby I'm forever yours, yours
Tender love's what you're giving me and
You surpass all my fantasies and
I keep thanking the Lord above for
Blessing me with oh so much
Cause I know how it feels to be
part of you boy
Everyday of my life's so abundant
With joy
And I honestly never thought love
could be real
until the angels guided you to me
You brighten up the moon and stars at night
You keep me seeing rainbows in the sky
You bring new meaning to my life, now
I believe in miracles baby I'm forever yours, yours
Lying with you so natural
I never knew this was possible
And it finally feels like my life has begun
now that I can share it with someone
You brighten up the moon and stars at night
You keep me seeing rainbows in the sky
You bring new meaning to my life, now
I believe in miracles baby I'm forever yours, yours
You brighten up the moon and stars at night
You keep me seeing rainbows in the sky
You bring new meaning to my life, now
I believe in miracles baby I'm forever yours, yours
Baby our love will always persevere
Anything you ever need,
You know I'll be right here and
You don't have to worry boy
I won't betray your trust
Because I'm so much in love
Every time your lips meet mine
It still feels like the first time
And if you lost everything
I'd keep on standing by your side
And boy it seems like everyday
I fall deeper in love
Because I can't get enough
You brighten up the moon and stars at night
You keep me seeing rainbows in the sky
You bring new meaning to my life, now
I believe in miracles baby I'm forever yours, yours
You brighten up the moon and stars at night
You keep me seeing rainbows in the sky
You bring new meaning to my life, now
I believe in miracles baby I'm forever yours, yours
Yours
Yours
Yours
Yours
Everything that you do's so amazing
Everything that you do's so amazing
Everything that you do's so amazing
Everything that you do's so amazing to me
Boy
You brighten up the moon and stars at night
You keep me seeing rainbows in the sky
You bring new meaning to my life, now
I believe in miracles baby I'm forever yours, yours
(Baby I believe in miracles because I'm baby I'm forever yours. I believe in miracles baby I'm forever yours)
song performed by by Mariah Carey
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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