If you decide to sulk in a corner and languish,

You are in for a lot of needless anguish!

If you easily give way to despondency and despair,

For a lot of trouble you should yourself prepare!

If you are crazily self-obsessed,

Consider yourself by the devil possessed!

If you are given to wanton lying,

That is before death dying!

If you are just greedy for more and more,

Rest assured that you have let your good sense go out of the door!

Since life gives you choices, do wisely choose

So that life doesn’t become around your neck a noose!

Why not choose to flourish

And your soul nourish?

Why not be loving and grateful

Instead of being bitter and hateful?

Why not the advice of the sane and the noble heed

And do every day some selfless good deed?

Why not infuse new blood into your life– a game of dice–

By every welcoming morn trying something new and nice?

Why not the small things of life savour and relish

And let the very thought of hopelessness and angst perish?

Why not?

Arun Bhagat

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Never thought life would come to this,

The days of yore will be so sorely missed!

Never thought that human contact would become so rare,

And by stewing in our own juice, we would so miserably fare!

Never thought that we would become prisoners in our own homes,

And on our misery write countless tomes!

 Never thought that fear would so stalk the land

That, even in the deepest crisis, none would offer you his hand!

Never thought that, even in today’s time, illness would take such a heavy toll,

And death will be on such a roll!

Never thought that nature would thus mock our much vaunted mind,

And like this put us through the grind!

Never knew that it would thus put us through the wringers,

And many of our own would just slip through our fingers!

Never realised that had we not taken nature for granted,

Perhaps so many of our ongoing nightmares won’t have us haunted!

#arunbhagatwrites #poetry #poeticoutpourings #outpouringsofmyheart #writer #indianwriter #englishpoetry #poetryofthesoul

Arun Bhagat

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This is a nightmare without any end!

Why should we otherwise pretend?

The way lives are being snuffed out,

About nature’s unprecedented ferocity there isn’t any doubt!

The way the Covid juggernaut does roll,

It is taking such a heavy toll!

The way we are losing people all around us,

To our morale and sanity no good it does!

While unspeakable pain sears the land,

Many a time we can’t even stand with the sufferers and lend a helping hand!

The way we havoc with nature and humanity played,

We should see it as tragedy tailor made!

Nature has its own way to get even with us,

We all should have known thus!

Our self-made destiny we can not escape,

The shackles of our karmas we just can not shake off or break!

This is divine retribution playing out,

Howsoever much we may rave, rant and shout!

Let us snap out of our delusional hubris and for our collective sins forgiveness seek,

Because God sides with the truly contrite and the meek!

As they say, the gentle and the meek shall inherit the earth,

Let us of the above words realise the true worth!

Arun Bhagat

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I saw a man on a roll

Because he had no goal!

He had no baggage to carry,

For nothing was he going to tarry!

He was without any encumbrances,

In his way there were hardly any hinderances!

He was a man on the go,

Ready with life to flow!

He was a bird in swift flight

Because of everything he made light!

He had no possessions,

He was devoid of any obsessions!

He had no pretence

Because he only cared for life’s essence!

He had nothing to hide,

There was no reason for him his time to bide!

He had no feet of clay,

No base passions could him sway!

He lived every day as if there would be no other,

Oh! How he loved life, brother!

He would be one with the elements,

In the clear waters of his life, there were no life-choking sediments!

Then something jolted me out of my sleep,

And the loss of that creature of my dream made me almost weep!

Arun Bhagat

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So complex are we that we don’t even ourselves know,

Sometimes this and sometimes that line we tow!

We get swayed,

Tempers get frayed,

Sometimes we shine bright,

At others we cower in fright,

Sometimes our euphoria we can not contain,

At others we find our spirits so difficult to sustain!

Sometimes certain goals we so much cherish,

At others we want their very thought to perish!

Sometimes we love so madly,

At others we forsake that love though sadly,

Sometimes we proudly wear our ideals on our sleeve,

At others their demise we proclaim and grieve!

Sometimes we so divinely bear our cross,

At others we we get mired in muck and dross!

Sometimes to lofty heights we rise,

At others our pettiness we so much abhor and despise!

That is why we don’t know ourselves much.

Our wildly swinging contrariness is such

That from one confusion to another we lurch,

And flit like a bird that has not found its perch!

Arun Bhagat

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Have a twinkle in your wrinkle,

Defy age and let there be in your voice a tinkle!

Remember that age is just a number,

No need to give up and go meekly from dumb to dumber!

Even if the flesh is weak, keep your spirit soaring,

No need at all to make your life needlessly

dull and boring!

If your life is imbued with zest,

You will not be cowed down by age, the pest!

Why should your life of listlessness reek

When you have still to scale many a peak!

As you have yet way to go,

Don’t meekly yield to age, the foe!

Keep the banner of your enthusiasm flying high,

Where is the need to die everyday before you actually die!

You are as young as you think,

So why not at age just thumb your nose and playfully wink?

Believe that you are as young as you feel,

That is the best way with your sunset years to deal!

Have a twinkle in every wrinkle,

If at all, let your face in child-like wonderment crinkle!

Arun Bhagat

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Leave Behind A Rich Legacy

Leave behind a legacy of love

That no hate-monger can under the carpet shove!

Leave behind a legacy of affection

That always in the world will find traction!

Leave behind a legacy of caring

That everyone feels like sharing!

Leave behind a legacy of reason

Living without which is no less than treason!

Leave behind a legacy of perseverance 

That is truly worthy of reverence!

Leave behind a legacy of good health

Than which there is no greater wealth!

Leave behind a legacy of feeling

Under the impact of the lack of which the whole world is reeling!

Leave behind a legacy of compassion

Out of which a kinder world the posterity can fashion!

Leave behind a legacy of detachment

That transcends every worldly attachment!

Leave behind a legacy of silence

That is an anti-dote to every possible violence!

Leave behind a legacy of laughter

Than which for a sinking person there can be no better rafter!

Leave behind a legacy of mental acuity

Which is the very anti-thesis of the prevailing mental vacuity!

Leave behind a legacy of sanity

That is far removed from all self-delusional vanity!

Leave behind a legacy of unity

That none can dismiss with impunity!

Leave behind a legacy rich in character and worth

Of which in the world there is such dearth!

#arunbhagatwrites #poetry Hn#poeticoutpourings #outpouringsofmyheart #writer #indianwriter #englishpoetry #poetryofthesoul

Arun Bhagat

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As Vainglorious Narcissists It Makes Us All

Hooked on to our mobile phones,

We have become cases gone!

Who knew seductive technology with all its wooing

Will prove to be our undoing?

When I say it, I might sound terse,

But can there be an addiction worse?

While the hugely disruptive tech holds us in thrall,

And at each other we snap and snarl,

It holds us in its sway

While the last vestiges of our humanity ebb away!

As the social media ironically into anti-socials us turns,

And big holes in our conscience burns,

As vainglorious narcissists it makes us all,

We become puny and it stands menacingly tall!

While we tweet upon tweet,

We have all but lost our bonds sweet!

Engrossed in our virtual fantasies,

We have all but forgotten our all too human ecstasies!

While the unreal world inhabiting  our tiny handsets beguiles us into its snare,

Of the danger looming over our heads we are hardly aware!

#arunbhagatwrites #poetry #poeticoutpourings #outpouringsofmyheart #writer #indianwriter #englishpoetry #poetryofthesoul

Arun Bhagat

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There Was Like Him No Other

We have lost our dear brother,

There was like him no other!

One moment he was fine, the other he was no more,

That is why we feel so numb and sore!

He was a friend of friends,

Something which today hardly trends!

He was gentle to the core,

Can you ask for anything more?

He was generous to boot,

That is the point moot!

He was the apple of our eyes,

So strong with him were our ties!

With a great sense of humour was he blessed,

Always in his laughing clothes was he dressed!

Often in splits he would us all leave,

That is why we all the more grieve!

He was indeed a gentle soul,

That is why suffering on him took no heavy toll!

Gently he lived and gently did he go,

And gently, we are sure, his boat across the ocean of life will God row!

Dearest brother, always in our hearts you will live,

To have you back,all in the world we have we would readily give!

But that is not to be,

The writing on the wall we can all see!

But you will always be our precious part,

That is what we feel and know deep down in our heart!

Composed with great love and affection as a heartfelt tribute to a very dear childhood friend whom I lost a couple of days ago

#arunbhagatwrites #poetry p#poeticoutpourings #outpouringsofmyheart #writer #indianwriter #englishpoetry #poetryofthesoul

Life is a flash in the pan,

What a mystery it is, man!

One moment you are here, the other you are gone,

And, as per our beliefs, a new mantle you don!

And so the journey of the soul goes on

While you reap exactly what you have sown!

Is this the truth or just a construct to make sense of what at the bottom of life lies,

For all we know, it might just be a game of dice!

May be our lives are governed by blind chance,

And we just to the tune of random forces dance!

And lest the randomness of it all frighten us,

We tend to believe in a greater design without much fuss!

Don’t all these eternal questions make life an enigma,

And lend it its ineffable mystique and charisma?

Arun Bhagat

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