Rise! Above Them All - II

['Look around you, take a good look, at the faces you see.
Are you sure this is really where you want to be??'
...A tribute to Sir David Gilmour, who truly took his music and song-writing to the next level, and elevated all those who listened to him make love to his guitar. Sir, one day, I will learn to fly, and  it would be because of you.]

In this fish-eat-fish world,

No sooner have you spawned,

Than you're picked up and you're hurled

Into a kindergarten pond.

You eat, you eat- you soon outgrow

Your friends in the kiddies’ pool;

That's when they pick you up and throw

You into a bigger school.

In school, they feed you so much stuff

That your stomach’s about to burst;

And no matter however tough,

You’re expected to come first.

So you ingest, you swallow, cram

More than your belly can contain,

And puke it all out in your exam

And come out tops again.

And now, the time, it has come close

To leave your schooling lake;

But you don’t know which one of those

Many tributaries to take.

Before you have the time to think,

You’re thrust into one of them;

And unlike in the lake, you sink,

For in current, you cannot swim.

We drift to a destination

Known not to any in our stream;

We drift along in a direction

Away from our dreams.

They all crowd around the money,

Like fish do around food;

And if there’s less, (oh, it’s so funny,)

They eat each other too.

To be in another tributary,

Oh, everyday I wish!

But each of them has the selfsame misery-

I wish I wasn’t a fish!

And then, of food, a little morsel

Drops into the river,

Dangles above my fin, dorsal:

I know it is a sliver;

It’s been lowered by men who'll
Eat you, fry and cut you into pieces.

But if you don’t catch it, then you'll

End up eaten by your own species.

I take the risk, I grab the line,

Send a tugging through the string;

The very next moment, I’m sent flying

As if on a wing-

I rise, ascend and then I wait

Till I break the water’s surface,

And when I do, I release the bait,

Flap my fins at a frantic pace.

In life, you can achieve a number of things

If only you do try;

I learn to use my fins as wings-

With them I learn to fly,

Far above the madding crowd

And the pointless competition.

Now I'm floating amidst the clouds-

There’s truly no sensation

To compare with this:

Suspended animation, a state of bliss.

Can’t keep my eyes from the circling sky,

Above all of them, now risen have I.

Many Mothers

[An elegy on the death of a city.]

In faith, I am the offspring of

Not one, but many mothers:

Each one of whom helped in my upbringing

One way or the other.

I used to live in several parts,

One mother made me whole;

One mother gave me a beating heart,

Another gave me a soul.

One mother, she educated me,

She taught me all I know;

One mother more, she fed me so

I did healthy grow.

One other set up businesses,

So I could be employed;

And yet another built houses, so

Of homes, I wasn’t devoid.

They made me who I am, through

Contributions big and small;

I love my mothers, I love them

Equally, I love them all.

My mothers love me back, but they don’t

Love my other mothers;

They all cling on tight to me like

I were only hers.

Two mothers catch my legs, and

Two others grab my hair-

They all pull me towards themselves

As if I were only theirs.

My mothers, they all bicker, trying

To prise the others’ hand;

They send their wrists and their fists flying,

Of which many on me land.

They riot, and they hurl abuses,

They fight over my name-

I die not because of my bruises,

Oh, I die of shame.