Congregational prayer session
Like the village market I used to go
This world filled with blares
Noises designed to deceive
Pleading to sell and to seduce
Babbling strange impenetrable tongues
Spreading fear of impending doom
With overwhelming wind of din
As earthquake, typhoon and tsunami
In the mist of this cacophony
Take a step and pull away
Listen to the indwelling spirit
The still small voice of the soul
And it shall be well with you

purity in the fires of ravage dreams
speaking talk
awake and lost

stars beneath and above
like heavens shine
and darkness dousing
rousing gardens of ghosts

you were there
once
in the grotto gate
the pale shadow
glimmer of a smile
the ripple of the
minutes settling
like a first
snow

I don't know what to say,
so I'll say nothing,
I don't know how to say it,
so I'll write a poem about nothing and
how not to say it,
I've followed every phase of the moon to be here now,
so here I am,
occupying earth,
her citizen.

I'm a one-woman marching band. Kindred
spirits have taken my hand, there is peace
in the jungle when the lion lies down with the lamb.
There is irony in the poem that finds its own way home.

It is good to work and save
but not from hand to mouth
To work as a common man
is a really hard story to tell

Working at a level as low as ours
with earnings gone on food alone
We have nothing to show the world
when all is drained away from us

Pity the upright common man
whose hope is in all he can do
Be it hard or menial work
It is a careworn strive to survive

The struggle to make ends meet
makes us the faceless fraction
answering yes ma and no sir
who may never live above poverty line