Short Poems

O GOD , the cleanest offering
Of tainted earth below,
Unblushing to thy feet we bring—
“A leper white as snow!”

Roam as thou willst through space, thy zenith and nadir unite thee
Both to the heaven above, and to the axis of earth.
Whatsoever thou dost, let heaven be fraught of thy purpose,
And let Earth itself witness afford to thy deed!

Let the man who has and doesn't give
Break his neck, and cease to live!

Let him who gives without a care
Gather rubies from the air!

I know, the sadness
Of a terrorist's heart—
A single heart
That finds it difficult to separate words and deeds,
A heart that seeks to speak through deeds
Rather than stolen words,
A heart that hurls its own body at the enemy—
But it's a sadness always possessed by those who are serious and passionate.

Under a tree, on top of a boulder, in a little rush hut,
poetry, prose, the commentaries, and digests all dwell together.
If you want to burn the old manuscripts in your bag,
you must first forget the books in your belly.

How moving, man and woman singing in one body!
She only hopes for divine aid, her heart out on the waves.
In the crazed anguish of the autumn wind, love's grass lies exposed;
ten thousand leagues of misty waves, the depth of her tears' traces.

Read here, O friend unknown,
Our grief, of her bereft;
Yet think not tears alone
Within our hearts are left.
The gifts she came to give,
Her heavenly love and cheer,
Have made us glad to live
And die without a fear.

Though Samoyeds have gods of carven bone,
And hoodoo-doctors, painted up to fright men,
Go scaring negro boys in Tanganyika,—
I do not flout them.
But goblins clad in black that come to drone
Into the ears of European white men
The priestly fetish-lore of Tanganyika—
I freely scout them.

When John's horse has worked
his days,
then John will loose him out
to graze.
When John is old and wasted—
well—
he'll work until he swaps

Burn thou! or freeze at will—
Man without faith or shame!
Now lover and now foe, and still
In fickleness the same!
Little I prize thine ice or fire
If vain thine amorous flame
Vainer will prove thy senseless ire!