LIFE IS A RIDDLE

What were you before being born?
What are you now n here?
Where will you go hereafter? -
These questions haunt the mind
n set it in restless motion.

Life is an impregnable riddle.
Sphinx-like, difficult to solve,
neither sole body, nor sole soul,
but an admixture of both.
Virtues n vices are its ingredients.

To follow it aright, you needn't go
after the masses in the street,
nor after the tinopalish leaders,
who are all transparently naked
below their shining white apparel.

Solitude n silence
may taech you more of Life,
of common evil n of good,
than all the world can;
but first sever the thread of illusions

LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES

I was born to be agrarian
in the sleepy lap of Nature,
but became a professor
with my academic venture.

I dreamt to be bureaucrat
riding the horses.
but became a civilian
hounded by the bosses.

I wanted a pack of sons
to illumine my house,
but got a pack of daughters
amid grudge n grouse.

I passed those exams
which looked to be tough,
but failed in those
which seemed to be untough.

I heartily greet
life's little ironies
that make us men
with additional calories.

MAN AND BEAST

Man n beast
have lived together
for ages past.
But in nature
n habits, they
are quite apart.

Being cerebral, man
thinks n acts
more wisely than
beast. But in
sex n impulse
beast is man.

Both eat, sleep
n copulate alike;
but then drift
quite apart like
a river boat
on turbulent waters.

In copulation, beast
may be more
exposed n vulgar;
in manners nil,
in culture zero,
in habits uglier.

But the beast does not aasail
his breathren without
a definite purpose.
Man is selfish,
down n out.