North Indian plains

After stern mountains, dour hills,
occasional cultivated valleys,
this favoured plain, unfairly lush,
amazed adventurers.

Flooded by sun more than monsoon,
plants, animals, men, gods all multiplied,
a windfall treasure trove of tax
for conquering kings of kings.

Aided by priests, this royalty
created a religion to deprive
the peasants of their harvest wealth
and glorify themselves.

Illusion fuelled by deceit
indocrinates the ignorant
with hopes of compensation bribed
by gifts for peevish gods.

Here wealth spreads thin across the fields
but stinks like dungheaps where the rajahs built;
here wives of farmers still can't read
and children beg for pens.

Monuments that amaze the world
survive the centuries built on the backs
of prematurely infirm castes
still defaecating fields.

When I was young at love, the girls passed by
because, not knowing what to do, naive and shy,
I thought I could not offer them things enough
to tempt them to me, fearing their rebuff.

Now I am older and could make them stay
with presents, evenings out, charm all the way,
self-confidence and even a witty tongue,
I only want you and you're too young.

I was gutted, hollow as a blown bird's egg.
Superficially intact, well rounded,
smooth; in fact, so insubstantial any
gust of trouble whirled me round in circles;
winter gales blew me away. Too fragile
to survive for long uncracked, uncrumbled,
here I am against all odds still running
on empty but puzzled, wondering how
to put life back into a hollow shell.

Everything that lives deserves respect
regardless of appearance -
slug and spider,
snake and tiger
glory life's occurrence.

Living though implies no right to life;
some creatures must be killed.
Though prey that dies
won't realise,
its role has been fulfilled.

Harmful parasites, diseases, pests
we kill without compunction;
we poison slugs
and squash strange bugs
and think that's just our function.

Useful creatures also get destroyed
by chance, without intention;
worms can't evade
the slicing spade,
their deaths not worth a mention.

Even cultivating plants for food
destroys some wilderness;
extinct creatures'
unique features
we cannot re-possess.

Men destroy so much of nature's work
some even kill each other !
Should we respect
those who reject
the life right of another ?

Violence and death are natural
for life is nothing sacred
but humans see
society
survives by curbing hatred.

Individuals are barred vengeance
and so rely on others'
views of fairness
giving justice
for loved ones who have suffered.

Men are more than merely animals
because they use their languages to think.
Language enables hypotheticals
combining past and future as the link

to form imagination as something new.
Imagining more than he can really see,
a man can see from others' points of view
and with intelligence humanity

achieves its highest moral attribute
in opposition to the selfishness
of evolution. This new moral route
tempers the drive to personal happiness

in favour of the rights of people quite
unknown, not family or even friends.
Of course, the underlying human right,
the means of reaching all the other ends,

is life itself. A murderer denies
his own humanity. With neither Hell
nor Heaven to put things right, justice relies
on execution not a prison cell.

It's embarrassing to realise just how much I value beauty
when all the time I tell myself it's character that counts.
So when sometimes (amazingly) a woman really likes me
but I don't feel the same for her because she's rather plain,
I actually feel guilty that I ought to do my duty,
respond to her as best I can and hope affection mounts.
The un-lovely are not unloving and shouldn't be unloveable.

Bad dreams

The early hours waiting dawn
exercise powers of memory drawn
from all the years of pallid places,
buried fears and nameless faces,
faceless names, embarrassments,
mistaken blames and harrassments.

Sleeping awake and sinking diwn
in some deep lake where reasons drown,
a mental soup of random scraps
whose every scoop some morsel traps
which, thought they differ, taste the same -
the too familiar flavour: shame.

The satisfaction of the day
in dream reaction leaks away;
what seemed so clever now looks wrong
and weakness ever downs the strong;
now watchers jeer my consternation
and constant fear: humiliation.

The day's events and people met,
the varied scents from soap to sweat,
the scenes imprinted, God knows why,
albeit tinted, past the eye
are disassembled, pulled apart.
and then re-modelled into art -

a work of gaffes and slights and snubs,
of hooting caffs and hostile pubs,
deceits uncovered, lies revealed,
old blunders suffered still unhealed,
incompetence idealised,
inadequacies realised.

Youthful confusion re-appears,
doubt and delusion, sexual fears,
exam room panic, her rebuff
although loved manically enough -
then at a stroke, the morning chime
turns all to smoke - until next time.