Life Songs

By Dominic Damian

‘LIFE SONGS’ speaks of various aspects of the diverse aspects and exposure to life. It sings its own tune of faith, the environment, loss, humanity and love. There are authentic original hand selected photos. Each photo or image conveys a story as powerful and as passionate as the poems. The photos especially have their own narrative, or they are intended for tranquility amidst the turbulent thoughts, or to provoke and awaken the conscience of the soul to respond to life. The language is from the gut of the soul not just of the authors life experiences. It highlights specific spontaneous expression and distinguishes the arrow of language from the bow of the specific poem in the book. The unique quality of each poem is in the exquisite nature of poems that were composed intuitively on deciphering and describing life issues through the authors perspective or that of persons. It is driven by unnoticed social events that are witnessed in everyday life of the most ordinary of folks. Nothing is held back. What one sees is what one gets. Sometimes one has to take of his own attire and wear another’s to understand life’s messages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Jun 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781543769326

Dominic Damian

Every poem is a life experience. Each word of the poem is that which emits from within the bow of life that launches the arrows of conscience into the open space and soil of other lives. The authors credentials are not in his academics but as a privileged parent.

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Copyright © 2022 by Dominic Damian.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

CONTENTS

A Writer True

A

Anguish Not For Aleppo

Architect

Birth And Death

Brilliant On The Simple

Claim Not

Fathers Song

Home

Songs From Ward 7U

An Undivided Love

You Are An Indian!

Yet I Love You

My Dear Brother, My Dear Sister

Chinese New Year Musings

Hosana!- Palm/Passion Sunday

How Many Times? – Maundy/Holy Thursday

Rhymes Of Resurrection

Deepvali –The Light

This Summon- A Priest

May His Light -Christmas

‘The Debt’

The Walled Garden

‘Applause ‘

‘The Singing Brook’

‘Be More’

On My Passing

‘When God’

‘Shortest Moment’

March

‘A Tribute To Twins’

Christ Path!

Dont Ever Be Sorry

Apocalypse And Armageddon

Reclaim

Oh Sarawak

Orang Asli – How?

Beatitudes Of Tragedy

Creatures

War Of Wars

Yet One Smiles

Preface

Acknowledgment

The following are music albums from Jan 1513

1.jpg

THE LETTER WRITER -FRANS VAN MIERIS 1690

What is the purpose and existence of a writer’s pen?

A WRITER TRUE

A tribute to Dave & Marianne Kameron, Sherril Louisa Netto Vijayan

(The one who write their lives unconditionally into countless others)

A writer true

Is the eternal beggar on

A deserted lonely street paved with gold.

A writer true

Is the homeless one

Whose home is the world

A writer true

Is servant to a page,

Wielding a pen in hope and

Coating the word with his soul.

A writer true

Will in the bitter coldest

Winter writes of a Spring

He sees not or feels not

A writer true

Blinded by darkness will use

Sight of the heart to write.

2.jpg

Is it a humble pen in service of humanity?

Or a weapon to sow evil thoughts?

A writer true

Is humility cause that will pick up

The discarded fragmented bone and

Search for the meat of Wisdom.

A writer true

Is intuitive not intelligent

The heart dictates

The compassion educates

A writer true

Has emotions of innocence

That flow through the eyes

Of a child

The sorrows he sees are his

Second skin

A writer true

Will always feel that writing from

The deep well of thoughts

Is not personal possession

But communities claim

3.jpg

When one is vagrant destitute, destitute and hopeless – Forsake not life, for each life is a home for such as these

David Kirby, 32 years of age died in 1990 of aids surrounded by his family. The heartbreaking moment is captured by Therese Fare, who launched the photo from the bow of her camera, unleashing arrows of conscience into the world.

A

In tribute to Pastors Noel Joseph Ha Thien Sen and Lim Yoke Cheng

As a student of life

The proposition of acceptance

In humility to invest and engage

The greatest diversity of life that flows

In our path is to be well received.

With the conferment of trust

And constitutions unconditional honor,

Choose therefore to accord

The depth of kindness towards

A homeless without hope

A vagrant without vision

A child without comfort

A forsaken without forgiveness

A person unwanted without hope

A voiceless without venom

A trapped without transgression

A worthless without wickedness

A shamed without salvation

A loveless without lies

A scarred without sacrifice

A wounded without wounds

4.jpg

STILL LIFE WITH A COPY OF DE WEARE MECURIUS-ANTHONIUS LEEMANS 1655

A weakest without wretchedness

A person abandoned without abuse

A despised without dungeon

A person insane without imperfection

A battle scarred blasphemous

A dying without light

A sensitive without scandal

A reviled without retribution

A crushed without crucifixion

A person afflicted without aches

A pierced without pervasion

A person oppressed without offense

A crushed without contradictions

A rejected without repentance

A tattered without terror

A torn without tear

Person who may be a key

That will unlock something

Of esteem and inestimable value

More than we can offer them.

They in simplicity may teach us of

True treasure that resides in all of life.

5.jpg

The seeker of dreams in space and stars

We the seeker of dreams

We the awestruck wonderer

We the adventurous wayfarer

We the silent nomad

We the weary voyager

We the spiritual pilgrim

We the lonely traveler

We the wounded healer

Can learn from each other,

And perhaps the most from those

Who whom we think have nothing,

If we illuminate our souls in a dance

To embrace light, with the purity of

Innocence and inquisitiveness,

Paving a way to explore

The mysterious purpose of existence

And meaning of why the different stars

Of imperishable questions and

Light of improvisational persons

Are strung with immense and

Impregnable immortal beauty

In the night sky of our lives.

We may finally find true

Contentment of peace

Beyond wisdom to understand

The reason why:

A falling leaf detaches itself in sweet parting

And glides gracefully to embrace Mother Earth

On deaths call upon the song of the wind.

A seed falls and grows never knowing its roots

A flower opens and smiles for no reward

A rain falls awaken the symphony

Of all creature’s divine

A river in journeys end gives without sorrow

Or regret to a mighty Ocean

A calm sea receives the kiss of the sun

From the painted sky at the end of the day.

All these unfolding may just be the

Dawn of a new beginning

7.jpg

Cloak of Conscience and Tolerance

How many holocausts must we see?

How many genocides before we see?

The brother and sister in each?

ANGUISH NOT FOR ALEPPO

In solidarity with Yemen and Ukraine

Anguish not for Aleppo

When Dachau and Buchenwald

Are tourist convenience of comfort’s conscience

Where an empty soul needs to learn

Of laments that lie forgotten

Anguish not for Aleppo

When the world is wet with the tears of

Rwanda whose unrequited brokenness

Is the impoverishment of empathy

Anguish not for Aleppo

When the voices of Armenia

Are abandoned to extinction

And the light of love is extinguished.

Anguish not for Aleppo

When the unrelenting ache of Bosnia’s loneliness

Remains an unknown despair and defeat

Of hopelessness and helplessness

Anguish not for Aleppo

When the crushing cold of

The unwontedness of Chechnya

Is unworthy of a warm blanket of compassion

And the dreams of despair are in desolation.

Anguish not for Aleppo

When monuments of skulls and bones

From the killing fields of Cambodia

Cannot build a city of conscience

And slay a cruel world that remains unmoved.

Anguish not for Aleppo

When the extinction of Greeks and Assyrians

Are numbers that define and detail

The decency and morality of humanity.

Anguish not for Aleppo

When Dacca’s freedom, famine and thirst

Were embraced by death?

When the virtue of shame

Found refuge in fame.

Anguish not for Aleppo

When the world silence

Is the voice of the pompous elected leaders

Absent and anonymous

Does the sting of death?

Feel like A kiss of love’s last breath

Sweet yet bitter in the parting

Anguish not for Aleppo

When the impregnable defense

Of dignified political composure

Is not breached by the dying hearts

Of innocence and unable to pierce the

Ramparts of each life by the sword

Of thousand fading voices

Anguish not for Aleppo

When is life consumed in