BE ALIVE

Be alive and be lively as we live
God’s gift is our life as he gave
Life is to live, love it and live
Never ruin it for the fear of world
Be alive as we live in it for God

Mother earth and our God the nature
The powerful spirits we rely upon
Rely on us for our edicts of ethics
With their nature of parenthood
Be alive as we live life in earth

Let us sow, sow the seeds
Of good spirits and fair deeds
Agree with our mother, the Goddess
To keep her happy for us to be worthy
Be alive as we live a life natural

Worthy be our life worthwhile
Save the lives that fall down
Tumbling, wringing, withering
Wry not on virtues, keep it alive
Be alive as we live for virtues

Love each other and bother least
Whom we love and why we love
Know the virtues, love them more
For we all love to live in love
Be alive as we live in love

There is no time , when escalation
Blows out the lights of welfare
Confrontations are irresistible
Respond fairly as we can
Be alive as we live for peace

Wreckage of truthfulness and evasion
Of good deeds, order of the day
Clarity is in questions alone
Answers are dubious in sly
Be alive as we live in control

Let our life be truthful beacon
Remain lively in truce for justice
Dwell in the spirit of harmony
Live for the spirit of good will
Be alive as we live life truthfully

ANNIE JOSEPH

This poem was instantaneous, when I read the news about alarming suicide rate in Kerala.

Woes of a Chair

WOES OF A CHAIR
I support the plank that bear
Great men or servants and bureaucrats
To do good or bad sitting on me.
I look like a cloned product,
Alike in the offices and dining rooms
Treat or retreat they do,
Doctor or patient I am needed alike
Sitting on me firmly to do .

I am filling the major place of bureaucracy
For them to sink in me mercilessly
To act like an unmoved mover bitingly
To move the files and people immovable
I am respected if I boss over or break over
Once occupied cannot be emptied
Bureaucracy understand my value well
They salute me till retirement
And on emptying they like to forget me

I am offered often to the liked
But not to the needy or tired
Not to the wandering on search of me
But to the one who empties the pocket for me

Carrying the giants I am broken often
They exchange me and get woven
To use again in the same mode
They use me for their comfort.
Since my relationship with my master
is not the one that is woven
Never remember me once got up
Until searched to sit again

My absence is noticed always
I am pushed and pulled mercilessly
To make space to move around
My presence is neglected otherwise.
Politics played for me is unbearable
Oh! What a paradox my fate is?
ANNIE JOSEPH

WHY I DON’T SEE

WHY I DON’T SEE

Narrates my friend, dew drops, green grass,
Rose buds, fragrance, fashion, notion etal
Everything beautiful or dull, beautifully.

I move in the grass, bushes, snow and crevasses
And all in around and across to feel them
No, I see no dew, dawn, dusk , dull or pretty
I wish to bring out in duty though.
Not that they hide from me, but that
we play hide and seek, and I search always
my eyes (inner) are not open to see them

Dew don’t come to me to hug me alone
Dawn don’t wake me, if I act asleep fast
As I move, I splitter dews that glitter
I break them, before see or feel its beauty
So I won’t see them ever utter in nature

My morning pleasure is my need to mend
For a walk on the black road broad to breath
Where sun light can’t reflect rays that rise
Where dew can’t glitter like glass on grass
Where wheels sway long before dawn is on

Bats, rats, cats and cuckoos I search to reach
Where trees , their dwellings are no more
Nocturnal they are and blind I am in mind
Turn off my computer, and turn to woods
Try to open my eyes and look at nature old

I touch the grass smoothly, dew falls slowly
Slowly that I see it’s full blend and splendor
To narrate dawn, dew and all in its duty
Come out of me as I feel them foremost
Not in animation, but in original in nature.

Inherit the feel of it, to cohorts to come
Be not blind to see nature to venture into
narrate and relish in ethics ethnic entire

To know nature to sense feelings felt
Be sensitive to take pain to share love of nature

ANNIE JOSEPH

SAINT

SAINT
Who is a saint?
Saint is not born
Saint is not selected
Saint is not elected
Saint is not made
Then who is a saint?

I ask God and pray
Make me a saint of yours
God asks me why
I reply with a gleam of shy
Praise, prayers to me
Devotion, decoration
Memory, merry making
All I like for my sake
Says God to me then
You are a big ship
Sent to sail through
The sea full of waves
Waves of truth and falsehood
Go and cross the ocean
The ocean of true and false
God says to me

Flag is shown to start
My sail to cross the ocean
The sail of my life starts
Looking at God’s beacon
The beacon of truth
Calling for a truthful life

A saint in my mind
Shaped as a big steam ship that
Sails across the ocean of life
To reach the shore of it
Filling the decks of it
With full of passengers in it

Who is a saint? Is it
One who lives an enchanting life
One who lives an enclosed life
One who does miracles
On death after a torturous life
Or the one who lives a truthful life?

No truth is above
And no life is above
A life that is truthful
No saint is above
And no sainthood is above
A life lived truthfully

ANNIE JOSEPH

GLADIS

Glad was Gladis immensely
Engaged and exchanged rings
Stepmother sent her in hurry to
In-laws to bury her own worry

Withered was she, bothered nobody
Worried in view but vexed anybody?
Room of groom stepped in Gladis
All in soul gay and gaiety show


Talking to trees and watching nature
Gleaming on secrets groom uttered
One and all were good at a glance
Gladly buttered all the souls, Gladis

Aware was Gladis of the stigma
Sticking to her life and soul
Sin of another brute to brood in life
Carried in womb to bloom or whither

Days went on , months moved on
Loving was Gladis to be loved on
For stepmother and mother-in-law
The life in womb was pleasing alike

Good was Gladis, like her spouse
Mind was holy not the womb in body
Seventh was month of marriage
Gladis released womb another

Holy was the womb born in boon
Bane and pain of it like a bomb
Revealed from the womb unholy
Gladis borne for her own folly

Holy to hold, unholy to world
Grew up the younger womb too.
Womanhood became ready
To bear the motherhood steady



Husband of Gladis the darling
Father of her daughter known
Unhappy to be drunkard grown
Himself for the reasons known

Helpless was Gladis for all in mute
Mistakes were in her basic, strange
Fate to be benign and unlucky
Gladis malignant to be defended

By nature the true stepfather
Gladis’s hubby the revengeful
Made the holy young womb
Unholy in her innocent sleep

Guiltless and helpless by birth
At the age of twelve to involve
The younger womb born holy
Revealed unholy by birth of a boy

Unholy is the younger womb in body
Bearing the sin in soul, not dissolved
Making the act in nuptial unholy
To bear another womb or soul holy

Where is the Baby boy dear?
Knowing not your father
Your pappa but branded grandpa
Will you know when you grow?

Where is the fault my friends?
Does literacy or illiteracy make difference?
Does morality or immorality bear the cause?
Which is the route to blot the root?

Let us hope in our hopes of heart
Story will not repeat in family same for
Rendered out from her womb not
Gladis’ daughter another womb

ANNIE JOSEPH

NESTLE

Where is nestle? Where are my birds?
Dreams are cloudy, smiles are dull
Drops of rain are rare, drops of blood shed
How are they wounded, why are they wounded?
Where are they dumped? why are they deserted?
Why are they not flying?
Are the wings wounded for the ants to move?
Where is nestle? Where are my birds?
Turned the clouds to rain
Turned the dusk to darkness
Turned the dreams to lust, to turn
Life of my birds deadly with ruts
Where is nestle? Where are my birds?
Lonely they feel, lovely they move in thirst,
Lusted by oasis never to reach
My birds fly high to die lulled by pleasures
I lose them for the world unknown,
Where is nestle for them to dwell?
Where is nestle? Where are my birds?
Heal the wounds for my birds to fly
To flutter their beautiful wings
To fly and fly, high and high
To search and reach the nestle
To seek love and pleasure at home
Let me be their nest and nestle to dwell
For them to seek and sit, safe and secure
To sing the songs of love and peace together

ANNIE JOSEPH

Between Us

BETWEEN US
The Distance between us is the disparity in our visions.

I am on the road early morning, walking to the nearby church to attend the holy mass. It is part of my daily routine. On the way I think of hundreds of matters like the things happening around and comparing them with the past and it’s impact on future. Developments possible but not occur worries me. At last I pacify myself thinking that I am successful at least to keep up my neutral way of adjusting to circumstances. Today my thoughts went like this. Does the circumstance form us or we create the circumstances? What is the relationship between my circumstance and me? It is very intimate but for adjustments, I presume.

I enter the church, attend the mass, and walk back home. Again I start thinking of this and that, but especially the material returns of my prayers, which are not, satisfied by the God I call upon. What is the distance between my God and me even after attending the holy mass after crossing 4 kms. a day multiplied by 365 days and again multiplied by years? Oh my God! sitting in heaven, why such long distances you make me walk to see you and still not in vicinity? I am getting old and tired. Which is the way that I can have an easy access to the Omni Potent? I know if I look for only I can find out a way. I start searching the easy way. I see the parallel road and the same beggar everyday walking on it. I understand that the distance between the beggar walking on the other road and me is not much but never bother to look at his face. I could not see it incidentally also because we are walking on the parallel roads divided by a divider. But simply I try to assess the distance between us. I observed it just from the views of people like me. They look up high to see me and look down to see the beggar as I look up to see the God in heaven and look down to see the beggars on earth. But the beggar looks upon all of us like me look up for God in heaven. Though the distance between us is equal, accessibility is unequal. Whomever he begs to is his God or God’s loved ones for the beggar, whereas I search for the heavens to find out the Him who can give me everything I want.

Morning I was returning from the church. Labors of PWD had started the repair work of the parallel road. I watched the beggar coming opposite to me. Incidentally my eyes met his. He showed his palm to me for alms. I had no change with me in the purse kept in my folded palm. I had to deny even a look of sympathy to him lest he asks again. He uttered while passing me “ Amma you are coming from the church after seeing your God and begging him to satisfy all your needs and I am approaching you for a bit of kindness from the abundant of it that your God has given you. We both are begging to Him. He gave you more to share with me. My palm stretched to you is the easiest accessible support for you to catch upon the steps to heaven to see the invisible but Omni potent. If you can’t recognize me you won’t be able to recognize the God in heaven because your God is the kindness showered upon you. That is not in heaven, but is within you in the cells of your heart. Unfold your palm take it out in your palm, keep in my palm as alms and look at my face. There you will see your heaven and I will be the God there, recognized and accepted by you.” Whenever you did this for one of the least important of those brothers of mine, you did it for me”(Holy Bible, St. Mathew 25:40). Until this happens you will be searching your God, never to find. The distance between us, as well as you and your God in heaven, is only of an unfolded palm.” He walked away enabling me to think about the distance formed between us due to the disparity in our visions.


ANNIE JOSEPH