BIRTHDAY BLUES 2014 – 3: STILL CONTINUING AT THE CREASE

I continue to stand at the crease

Hot and dirtily perspiring.

Comforted by a gentle breeze

Fifty five not out and contemplating retiring.

The pitch remains unworn and bouncy as ever

With a lot of foxy turn and bounce

That even the strongest heart or bat may deter

As close in fielders who are friends await to pounce.

The going is really getting tough

The bowling is truly becoming tight

Balls like bullets hit the dirt so rough

Not over pitched but just unhittable and right.

The bowler bowls a beautiful maiden

And the fielders laud and applaud him.

I stand like the pre-retirement avatar of Hayden

Awaiting the next ball; forever to paste ’em.

I continue to stand at the crease

Hot and dirtily perspiring.

Comforted by a warm and gentle breeze

And hope I can score another run before retiring

The crowd keeps cheering me on

and that keeps me onward going

My energy may be going down

But my game is slowly tiring

I continue to stand at the crease

Wondering about my strategy

Can I make a ton with ease?

And pray God grants me life, will and energy.

This poem is just an annually modified litany, which has become more of an annual epiphany.

BIRTHDAY BLUES 2014 – 2: A MYSTERY OF NATURE

It was in the evening

of twentieth July nineteen fifty-nine

full of so much meaning

that the spaceship

carrying this alien soul

entered the earth’s atmosphere

to become whole

and landed at Kalyani hospital, Madras

before proceeding bare ass

to a poor Tamil tax collectors home.

Poor man; little did he know the portent

of impending destiny so potent

and named the alien as Suresh.

Fifty five years later

he still scratches his head

and wonders how the f*

from out of his worthy bed

he could spawn such muck

For genetics could not explain

nor the soothsayer so lame

how such a nice man

an extraordinary Sun

could have birthed

such a contradictory Son

Indeed a mystery of nature

To be unraveled only in the future

BIRTHDAY BLUES 2014 – 1: CELEBRATING NEW BEGINNINGS

I surely don’t believe

in celebrating my birthdays

though I do celebrate

the birthdays of others

including that of my family members

in copious words that appear as  verse.

Those birthdays surely remind me

that I going further down the road

far away from the day of my birth

and I am also getting worse

for the physical wear and tear

does make me fear

the impending end as I know it.

I do have a lot more stories to write

and poems to recite

as well as three children to raise

but then I also do realise

that I need not fear

for the one who got me this far

will certainly help me raise the bar

and live some more

suns, moons and a star.

I therefore now celebrate

Not a day or the end of a year

but a new beginning for sure