Life

                  @NKS

The Bard said, “Life is a play”

That the man has to perform a role

Till the curtain falls one may stay

And then none bothers the lost soul.

I say,” It is not play but a dance

We all dance, and we are audience

In one music but with different tones

Do we move our limbs, bodies and bones.”

“In attempt to look nice to crowd

The dancer plays all tricks to draw

The attention of all around

Fair, foul, ripened, or raw.”

Some dance swirling each hand

Others put one palm on the waist

And some others move left & right

Yet others move forward and behind

Dancers are watching other dancers

Trying to compete, imitate or excel

Passing remarks on fellow performers

Each one doing same in the dancers’ cell

Dancers keep coming, dancers keep going

But the floor is always intact

Goers go unnoticed, comers come with swing

And join the crowd, and start the tact.

Rat-race goes on and goes on

Nothing new happens on the floor

Yet the dancer feels he has won

Or lost the eternal dance-war

None is a loser and none the winner

What bothers is a fake competition

A mock-war yet a sense thriller

All is Maya’s veil and the effort in vain.

Come What May

                                                     @NKS

After two scores and ten,
Often it occurs to a man-
Something stirs in back of mind,
When one stares years behind.

Ahead one sees a silhouette,

Which one had not thought to see

Until that time, in worlds different,

That were in joy or in pain spent.

Then, slow or fast the years pass,

And the form grows & grows thus

Becoming more and more so clear,

Until it takes a shape familiar.

With it comes a sense of fear,

A melancholic despair-

An angst, a ‘nada’ unknown before,

Feeling of futility- a kind of bore.

As the years climb higher & higher

And the shape starts coming closer,

One may show one of two reactions-

Shrink back, or grow intentions.

To challenge that form or that shape

For a fight, and not escape-

In thought weak, meek, and defeated,

Alive yet but as good as dead.

I, a soldier, not learned to surrender,

Intend to fight and live as before-

Bravely staring it yet not giving up,

As long as body keeps soul in its cup.

Let none assume me a setting sun-

Pale-red and fading while getting down,

Life never meant much to me afore,

And the shape was many times so near.

That its appearance has been much known,

Accepted it have I as mocking clown.

“Dare me! ” say I, “if guts ye have”-

I won’t beg for mercy for outcomes grave.

‘I have lived my own way of life’

Full of challenge and of strife.

What I achieved or didn't is my own,

Bestowed upon me? I accept none.

So will I live, as one should live,

And accept ultimate- what I believe

As destiny not so bad or so good,

A game that loosing is not to brood. 

This poem is also published on: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/come-what-may-13/