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| Praxis |
-Brian Mendonca
Sometimes at home
it is difficult to breathe,
Where the breezes are caring
but with an axe to grind
Where the word unspoken
cuts like a knife
And the babble of voices
atrophy the spirit
To claw back your dream
from the shibboleths of ages
To see meaning and fulfilment
in the thicket of your selfhood
To be all you can
even if sometimes you can't.
Vasco
1999
Freedom Song
-Brian Mendonca
On ancient papers
You spewed rebuke
From a father to a son
the words tumble forth
'We had hoped,' 'We had wished'
tumble out in unison
To a bard of the fragments
in a space that is now.
Delhi
1999
Wanderer
-Brian Mendonca
I'm no Fa Hien
Nor Batuta
And I chart my course
in measured paces.
But when on a speeding train
at dark I see
The constellations all aglimmer
with unseen power
My unease ebb
in the clasp of night
And the music of the rails
tunes up my soul.
Goa Express
1999
Slippers in Plastic
-Brian Mendonca
Slippers in plastic
serve as my pillow
on a side-upper berth
in a superfast train.
Where I am going
I do not know
But the rock of the rails
Is music to me.
Goa Express
1999
Traveller
-Brian Mendonca
I am a traveller
of moment
A reveller in risk
Who may pause
in the swirl
of a sea of axioms.
To know
the wisdom of uncertainty
To sport
in the embers of doubt
To cultivate the hymn of transience
To change the panic
into peace.
Delhi
1999
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All poems published in Last Bus to Vasco: Poems from Goa by Brian Mendonca. New Delhi, 2006. Pic courtesy artguide.com(dot)au
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