My Poems

                   Where Am I?                       Sonnet 181 Haunts my mind the question -- where am I? Where am I between when life on Earth Began and when whole life fore'er will die, That Earth will see no further death or birth? Came the beginning aeons after the Cosmos Was born, and aeons thence the early humans, But I didn't come then, nor the world's across  Will I await to watch the Comeuppance, If each beginning earns its fated ending; Now I have come, now I will go, for certain,  Though not sure when all will come to Nothing; How long am I then from the final curtain?  Or lodging in the mortal part of Nature, Ere comes the Deathless World of the Creator? ©️ N P Samal 

Entertainment, Come What May                       Sonnet 180 Beef does entertain your soul and fish My soul while neither entertains the soul Of those who feed on fruits and greens with relish. And do remember how the beastly Mongol Was entertained by plunders, rapes, and bloodbath,  And ruthless Hitler by the ethnic cleansing,  While the Buddha walk'd the joyous path Of truth, compassion, oneness, love and giving.  Diverse are entertainers, and diverse Are the entertained, but entertainment  Remains the only motor for all riders Of the mankind van; and, true, the moment The motor stops, then all will swiftly die -- The young, the old; the good, the bad; the brave, the shy. ©️ N P Samal 

             Answer Me, Please!                       Sonnet 179 Will I survive the night that's layin' the bed For me and calling me to go to sleep In her indistinct arms; "No dread... no dread..", Her cradlesinging me for falling deep? Will I be able to behold the morrow  As it unfolds its sunny splendors wide, Over the dew-fill'd medow, drifting billow, And pluck from heaven my lost peace and pride? Won't the night betray me, yielding me Into the eternal hands of death; that when My fighting mind has stray'd away from body, I will fore'er be held in darkness then? But the night does wake me up to the day. Why then the questions do return, please say. ©️ N P Samal 

           Life's Many Meanings                         Sonnet 178 I am at sixty now and life doesn't mean The same what it did mean when I was fifty, And moving farther backward, into a teen, I find each other meaning there is empty. Yet while one man is lost in the sense of toiling, As one to eke out a living joins a racket; Another murders self in a painful longing, Or kills his love in arguing over cricket: Meanings of life do grow on each experience,  Through each path of living paved before us, Which when altered brings the sense a difference, Or it continues with its given status:  Of pain or pleasure, honor or dishonor; All meanings until death don't disappear.  ©️ N P Samal 

                  Whither Is AI?                       Sonnet 177 AI's advancing... fast... and at a speed No sound or light can match; its blanket spread Is touching every life, in need and deed; And seems it ripples out from the Master's head. Humans are but His hands to operate And turning every matter into spirit AI is nothing but Divine Intelligence, Which aims no deaths, but everlife existence.  ©️ N P Samal 

           The Bathroom Singer                        Sonnet 176 From the bathroom comes the voice and plays Around in many a number, gently touching Each lucky soul -- from youth to elder age -- With its enchanting notes of love and longing... But the singer wishes for no credit;  No listeners he does think to entertain, But him, alone, alone to suck each beat, Each tone, each pitch, each rhythm, each refrain, As the showery bathroom's walls replay His romantic, lovey-dovey numbers In the quiet hours each morn, each day In his cube-size happy universe... I doubt the man's self-entertaining soul If to amuse him, he has none in the Whole. ©️ N P Samal