With his oddities and quirks
“Oddball” they named him
With the name came the perks
Of doing things at his whim!
Dinosaur eggs- at an exhibit at a state fair
Decorated roadside pillar
Cee’s Which Way Photo Challenge: 2015 Week #3
Rome
Frost
Resilience
Heart broken,
Hopes trashed
Fate laughing
At you, unabashed
All your dreams
Lying shattered
Everything that
To you mattered
Lost in abyss
Never to be found
Vast stretches of
Emptiness all around.
In this landscape
Bleak, dismal
Future appears
Dark, abysmal.
***
Slowly, stealthily
Darkness gives way
Almost imperceptibly
Creeps up the day
A day brand new
With hope, brimming
Just as the last glimmer
Of hope was dimming..
Hope now stands
Resurrected
Dreams have now
Been redirected.
Bent but not broken
You spring back again
Promise of a new day
Has dissolved the pain.
One Word Photo Challenge: Indigo
Equal and different
Martin Luther King Jr.
Equal born, equal in death
Why on the earth then do we fret
About our differences while living
When death is equally unforgiving?
We all go through life somehow
With an attitude of being holier than thou
Condemning every viewpoint that may appear
Different from the ideas to which we adhere.
Why do we try to impose our will?
Why do we try so hard to drill
In others, our customs and specific ways,
Convinced that we are right always.
Using superiority as a pretense
Sometimes we resort to violence
In base attempts at subjugation
Of those who resist our domination.
***
Can we appreciate and share
Cultural diversity everywhere
Learn to celebrate our differences
Soak in varied experiences,
Differences may seem too great
Ideas may appear disparate
But understand that deep inside
All of us, similarities hide.
Empty-handed we were born
Empty-handed we return
To the earth when life is done;
So love and tolerance we should learn.
Change
Be the change you wish to see in the world-
Gandhi
Caught in the drudgery of an insipid life
Residents shuffling their unwilling feet
Their days devoid of love, or strife
Nothing to keep their mood upbeat..
Dull, colorless days with air thick and stale
Uninspiring landscape, completely bare
Where a ripple, before spreading would fail
In the languid stillness of the air.
The slippery sands of time that shift
Seemed to leave untouched this place
Upheavals elsewhere would fail to lift
The thick sheet of languor off its face.
****
Until one day a sagacious man
Traveling on foot day and night
Into this sleepy town ran
Bringing a ray of hopeful light.
Being as different as he could be
A new perspective did he display
A look at this town’s passivity
Did not cause him much dismay.
He was full of vigor and mirth
Recounting stories of adventures wild
Welcomed in every home and hearth
He enthralled every adult and child.
He raised citizens young and old
Out of their collective torpor,
Suddenly everyone was bold
Rising from their stupor.
The merry man went on his way
To a new land, to explore
The change he had brought was here to stay
Exciting things were now in store.
****
It may take just one man’s desire
For massive changes to occur
Good ideas spread like wildfire
When everyone does concur.
Cee’s Oddball Photo Challenge 2015: Week 3
Glass sculpture at the Corning Museum of Glass, New York, depicting what I like to call “Medusa’s head”
Philadelphia Magic Gardens- decorated with glass and plastic waste
Sculpture at “Grounds for Sculpture”, Hamilton, New Jersey
The virtue of patience
Our willingness to wait reveals the value we place on what we are waiting for…
-Charles Stanley
All her wishes, wants and desires
She wanted at once fulfilled..
The overflowing cup of her patience
Was always to the very brim filled.
She wanted instant gratification
Irrespective of the need
Her hands raised in supplication
She would pray fervently indeed.
As a five year old she had
Quite a precocious conviction
That what she wanted really bad
Would soon be in her possession.
*
So the years went flying by,
She blossomed into a lovely lass
Slowly she came to realize why
Her dreams had been made of glass.
First love tugging at her heart’s strings,
Arduous search for gainful employment,
Taught her patience was a virtuous thing,
Leading to eventual enjoyment.
*
The more you wait for things to come
The sweeter the fruits they bear
Patience always accompanies wisdom
So wait for what you hold dear!
Floral dreams
“I must have flowers, always, and always.”
― Claude Monet
In the depths of winter, I am always thinking about spring…my mind wants an overdose of everything floral.
Sharing the pictures of flowers I have been toasting my eyes with..
Sunday Stills: Night Shots
Linking to : Sunday Stills, the next challenge: Night Shots
Bellagio Fountains, Las Vegas, NV
Lincoln Center, New York City
Holiday Lights Along the Columbus Circle, New York City
Audacity
There was a time
When she would not dare
To speak up her mind
She would not share
Ideas, that in their singularity
Could have stirred up a storm
She would not have found solidarity
In going against the norm.
**
She saw the world around her
Changing at a reckless pace
She remained a silent spectator
In a rapidly declining phase.
Until one day she took stock
Of all that her loved ones had lost
The revelation came as a shock
This is what her passivity had cost..
If only she had interjected
If only she had been brave
May be her ideas would be accepted
May be something she could save.
**
Not all was lost, she realized
She still had novel solutions
She could experiment, she surmised
Not thinking of retribution.
With newly found audacity
In waters new she took the plunge
With steely resolve and tenacity
Self-doubt she did expunge.
And then, to her pleasant surprise
She gained so much more
Than what she expected from the prize
Prompting her to further explore
The limits of her recalcitrance.
She let her ideas take flight
And marched past every resistance:
She had finally learnt to fight!
Passion...unbridled 
