My Poems

Where Beauty Lies…

True beauty is Nature’s beauty

Thus admiring I was strolling

And it was an enchanting evening,

In the West, the Sun was painting.

Suddenly something pricked my bare foot

I tried to pull that thorny plant up by the roots.

‘Oh, no, no. Wait a bit, my boy’, cried the plant

And asked the reason for my rare walk .

‘Oh, that’s none of your business’, I snapped;

‘I just walk about enjoying nature’s beauty’.

Oh, that is great! But what a pity!

Don’t you think I am a tiny bit

Of that Nature’s beauty?

Beauty lies where you find it.

Yes, the fault is in my eyes.

Thinking so I returned home.

And, whenever I pass by that side,

I water the thorny plant from the river nearby.

                                                                                … S. Balakrishnan

1979 Campbell Bay, Great Nicobar.

The day after …

                                               … S. Balakrishnan

The day after yesterday …

The day after my retirement

Everything would collapse, I believed.

So I sneaked into Shastri Bhawan,

The hub of central govt. offices in Chennai,

And peeped into PIB, my erstwhile office.

Oh, my Gosh! What did I find?

Everything was normal, just mundane;

The office stood solid rock

And kept ticking the wall clock!

I couldn't believe my senses, because

The moment I relinquished charge

It would all crack & collapse, I had fancied.

The bitter truth, however, is that

Even my breakfast egg didn't crack open!

What a nut I am, a crank indeed!

People may come and people may go,

But government offices go on forever & ever & ever.

Dejected ..  er…  better call it 'Enlightened,'

I slogged home to crack open the egg.

                     ……. krishnanbala2004@yahoo.co.in