Figurative poems


I wrote these poems while I was still at boarding school. The ‘death’ poem was written at a time in my life when it was as if the spirit of death was making rounds of the neighborhood. I exorcised my fear of Death in that poem. Enjoy.

  1. The Snake
  2. The Parrot
  3. Death
  4. The Moon

The Snake

You vile and odious serpent!
Whom God hath cursed to eat dust
All the days of thy life.
You are among the most beautiful animals,
Yet most dangerous and dreaded.
With your slender body,
Like an earthworm’s
Your long fangs
Like a saber-tooth’s
O ye serpent, how I loathe thee!

The Parrot.

The iridescent creature
That God gave the gift of the gab.
Its multicolored plumage is sure
To remind you of the rainbow’s garb.

A very astonishing feature I fain would say
Is its surprising semblance to man.
Its loquaciousness-an emblem of the woman
And its glitter reminiscent of the woman’s apparel.

Never ending chatter and non-stop nagging
Enough to drive one off the bastions.
Yet nothing seems to be working
To curb her garrulous inclination.

To say naught of her vicious machinations
When spurned in matters of the heart.
For hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
You’ll be consumed in the inferno of her wrath.

Death.

Death
The inevitable end of man
If only I could thwart thy wishes,
I would but win lucifer’s joy.
For ‘tis through him we are to die,
But alas! For we can all but elude you.
This is why I keep saying
If I could conquer you,
I would win the gratitude
Of all mankind!

The Moon.

I love to play in the moonlight.
To see the stars smiling at me
Through the thickness of the night
Which wraps itself snugly round the stars
I love to see the moon’s
Fat and fair face laughing with me.
Like a benevolent father beaming at his newborn.
Like a single currant in a black pudding
In a star studded pudding
But at times I wonder
On why it seems dull and thin
Then ‘tis as though it’s sad
As though it’s nightly revelry has been disturbed
But all the same,
I love to play in the moonlight.