sinning mankind
to give and forgive them
God’s sole avocation
earthly sojourn
man prepares for return journey
to eternal abode
spiritual blackmail
way to earn earthly riches
to unethical clergy
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Spiritual Hawkers
Come all ye heavily laden,
Come all ye miserably burdened brethren,
We will give you spiritual rest,
Believe us, our offer is the best.
You need not pray
For your daughter’s wedding,
For your family’s blessing,
For your son’s job,
For your husband’s drinking spree which causes you sob.
We have prayer warriors,
Who will carry all your woes to the heavenly barriers,
As your personal faith couriers.
Yes brother and sister, you need not take trouble to pray,
We have our prayer towers,
Which will intercept on your behalf with heavenly powers.
You need not read any Bible verse,
We are here to tell you how to free from curse.
We will give you the gist of the Bible through our grand mother fables,
Which will further impress you with our mighty babbles.
You need not repent,
You need not convert,
You need not justify,
You need not sanctify.
Just leave all your burden on us, we will take care of the rest.
All that you will have to do is,
Just for the glory of the Lord, share with us your purse,
We will redeem you from your curse.
Just give us your tithe,
We will protect your faith,
And take charge of your spiritual fight.
You know, we are faith healers,
Contemporary religious rulers,
Universal gospellers,
Mighty radio and TV speakers.
We can speak in angelic tongues,
We can bind the powerful satanic wings.
We can summon Seraphim to join us in our praise and worship.
We can go to heaven and sit on Cherubim before His Lordship.
Just repose your faith in us, we will take care of the rest.
Brother and Sister please don’t believe any false doctrines.
Our doctrine is honey and sugar, theirs is staid saccharine.
Don’t go to any other church,
For fellowship and spiritual perch,
They will destruct you, destroy and lurch.
Don’t go to any Christian group, with spiritual hope
They will destruct you, destroy and dupe
Don’t believe any pastor, preacher or evangelist,
You know, they are on Beelzebub’s muster list.
We alone can ensure you a guaranteed heavenly passage
We can only show you the mighty Lord’s visage
We are the Lord’s sole commissioned servants,
Revered biblical authorities and theological savants.
We are Messiah’s modern messengers,
Self appointed heavenly harbingers.
Religious dominance is our autonomy,
Don’t question us, it is blasphemy!
My Morning Walk
When it was yet dark, wakes me up from sleep, my faithful alarm clock,
Prodding me to go for my reluctant morning walk.
When I venture out for my ritual stroll, the street dog greets me wagging her tail,
But because of my canine scare, I shoo it away with a shrill wail.
Some women in all their fine attire and make-up start their dawn time amble,
As if going to a TV studio for a shoot of a reality show of gold hunt gamble!
An acquaintance with a good family background enslaved to alcohol,
returning from arrack shop after his first dose of booze,
Wishes me in superfluous respected protocol,
enacting innocence on his face in an obedient freeze.
A rare scene of a hen and its brood of chicks just released from their coop,
Stirred my childhood memories of my grand pa’s home strewn with fowls troop.
Milk maids nudge their Buffaloes in to colony for their lactic business binge
Laborers heading for their work, take tea at thatched hotel on monthly account fringe
As I reached the main road, young boys and girls jog in their colorful track suits,
Athletes wearing over-alls, busy themselves with their running pursuits.
Middle aged women with their bulged bodies walk briskly at their best to
relieve of their menopausal woe,
Aging men hit the roads burning out calories to
get rid of their andropausal blues.
Much exploited City beautifiers wait at sanitary office for their muster rolls,
Before they disburse to various roads and colonies to resume their conservation roles.
Little underprivileged children, the unsung eco heroes, picking up rags and non-biodegradable waste,
Pitiably lurch on roads with hungry stomachs filling up their polythene bags,
to earn few bucks in a haste.
On my left, right and front at near distance, green hills appear in their grandiose elegance,
But the red and brown cancerous quarrying patches on them reveal man’s greedy irresponsible indulgence.
Small temples, petty shrines and Christian worship centers sprouted on both sides of the road,
Reveal the exploitative religious splurge of spiritual hawkers’
and religious brokers’ creed,
And the horrifying materialistic self seeking devotion
of new age people’s greed.
On my return, I encountered a Swineherd,
who was in search of his pigs,
When he loudly called out to them in a weird tone,
they rushed from nowhere and surrounded him in merry jigs.
My Bible tells that the Ox knows his owner and the ass, his master’s crib,*
My morning walk taught me, even a pig submits to his master’s grip,
But the man with his sullied psyche, plans against his brethren to mug,
And fails to heed the tender whispers of his divine master, remaining a mere prig!
* Isaiah 1:3
Two Trees in my Front Yard
Since two decades, I have been watching the Mango tree and Margosa tree
Growing-up fast, straight and strong in my front yard, inspiring my writing spree
The local authority sown the Margosa sapling as part of avenue plantation
And forgotten it there after, in callous disgusting inattention
My neighbor planted the Mango tree out of his sheer botanical attention
And he continued to care for and nurture it with environmental adoration.
But, both the trees survived the onslaught of nature and lived to give me inspiration.
Fowls of the heaven thronged the two trees for victuals and habitation,
And their chirps, squeaks, tweets, twitters and flutters have no limitation.
Parrots in all their grandiose hovered around them,
Especially in summer season for Mangos, sweet and plum.
Twittering Sparrows danced and dangled,
On numerous Margosa branches mangled.
On the top of their branches Crows built the nests,
Munching the white ants and pests,
Occasionally enjoying the stolen food fests.
The Koel perched on the Mango tree, eating tender leaves, coos melodiously.
Her soul mate on a distant tree, replies in bustling razzle adoring her amorously.
Cute squirrels hop and jump from branch to branch all over, cheerful and free.
Butterflies in different hues and colours dance around to one’s glee.
An occasional Pigeon picks up a leaf or grass blade.
A Myna parades its beauty jazzing in tree’s shade.
These two trees are also dear to my fellow humans,
Not just to the birds of sky and ravens.
Under these trees my daughter and her friends played their childhood games.
On Shivaratri@ it is the favorite spot to spend the night, to my neighborhood fasting dames.
The seasonal shepherd rests under their shade with his herd.
Feeding his sheep with few leaves of the trees, he eats his rice with chilly, onion and curd
Completing her sales beat, the fisher woman squats under tree shade,
Smoking a hand made cigar, checks-up how much profit she made.
My mobile Launderer parks his flat push cart under the tree,
And knocks my door to collect my clothes for Istree.*
A poor beggar,
A wandering sluggard,
A tired Rod bender,
An Ice fruit vender,
Find the tree shades ideal to relax and rest,
Not able to afford the comfort of fan and AC, they find it the best.
These two trees dutifully fulfilled the purpose of their life,
By providing shade and rest to the people in strife,
Giving room to the shelter less birds,
And by feeding the hungry men, birds and herds!
But the man with brains fail to realize the purpose of his life
And just ponders for the riches, luxuries and comforts for him, his children and wife
@Shivaratri= A Hindu festival
* Istree= Ironing (in Telugu)
Growing-up fast, straight and strong in my front yard, inspiring my writing spree
The local authority sown the Margosa sapling as part of avenue plantation
And forgotten it there after, in callous disgusting inattention
My neighbor planted the Mango tree out of his sheer botanical attention
And he continued to care for and nurture it with environmental adoration.
But, both the trees survived the onslaught of nature and lived to give me inspiration.
Fowls of the heaven thronged the two trees for victuals and habitation,
And their chirps, squeaks, tweets, twitters and flutters have no limitation.
Parrots in all their grandiose hovered around them,
Especially in summer season for Mangos, sweet and plum.
Twittering Sparrows danced and dangled,
On numerous Margosa branches mangled.
On the top of their branches Crows built the nests,
Munching the white ants and pests,
Occasionally enjoying the stolen food fests.
The Koel perched on the Mango tree, eating tender leaves, coos melodiously.
Her soul mate on a distant tree, replies in bustling razzle adoring her amorously.
Cute squirrels hop and jump from branch to branch all over, cheerful and free.
Butterflies in different hues and colours dance around to one’s glee.
An occasional Pigeon picks up a leaf or grass blade.
A Myna parades its beauty jazzing in tree’s shade.
These two trees are also dear to my fellow humans,
Not just to the birds of sky and ravens.
Under these trees my daughter and her friends played their childhood games.
On Shivaratri@ it is the favorite spot to spend the night, to my neighborhood fasting dames.
The seasonal shepherd rests under their shade with his herd.
Feeding his sheep with few leaves of the trees, he eats his rice with chilly, onion and curd
Completing her sales beat, the fisher woman squats under tree shade,
Smoking a hand made cigar, checks-up how much profit she made.
My mobile Launderer parks his flat push cart under the tree,
And knocks my door to collect my clothes for Istree.*
A poor beggar,
A wandering sluggard,
A tired Rod bender,
An Ice fruit vender,
Find the tree shades ideal to relax and rest,
Not able to afford the comfort of fan and AC, they find it the best.
These two trees dutifully fulfilled the purpose of their life,
By providing shade and rest to the people in strife,
Giving room to the shelter less birds,
And by feeding the hungry men, birds and herds!
But the man with brains fail to realize the purpose of his life
And just ponders for the riches, luxuries and comforts for him, his children and wife
@Shivaratri= A Hindu festival
* Istree= Ironing (in Telugu)
About me
I am Ch J Satyananda Kumar. A retired employee from Visakhapatnam Port Trust, Vizag, AP, India. I am 54. I am devout Christian. Having deep belief in Jesus Christ. I read my Bible. I do a little bit of preaching and at times share the word of God with congregations. But I shun the deformities in the institutionalized religion. I believe that there should be a direct contact between God and man. No intermediaries!
I am a person with social consciousness. I am a consumer activist. I started the Consumer organization called SCARE (Society for consumer awareness redressal and education) in 1992 and have done lot of active service through it for many years. Through consumer advocacy I helped hundreds of people to redress their grievances. I also help people, when they don't get their retirement dues and the people who have several problems. I solve those problems by guiding them to take up with different consumer fora, Council for Fair Business Practices, MRTP Commission, Institution of Lokayukta of A.P., Banking Ombudsman, Insurance Ombudsman, Director of Public Grievances (Government of India) etc.
As a person I love literature. I used to write stories and articles during my youth long ago in Telugu. After wards, when I became busy with my job and other social activities, there was a long gap in my literary pursuits. Literary interests have been rekindled in me, of late because of availability of lot of time after my voluntary retirement from my job and with the encouragement of my only daughter, Supriya. Of late, I have started writing English Poetry, which I contribute to Muse India.com, Poem Hunters. com, Poetfreak.com, Voicesnet.Com, Coffeeconnectionpoets.Com and Poem-N-verse.co.uk. English poetry is my latest passion.
Mine is a small cozy family. My wife, daughter and I. We are living happily in our little flat at our picturesque colony. The two trees in front of my flat are the greatest inspiration to me for my poetic musings.
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