Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Behind Bars in the Mind - Two-liners for Everyday Living (Series 3)

 A problem easily solved
Often returns unresolved.



Now and then I jot down ideas as they come spontaneously at work, leisure and even in the middle of the night. 

Ideas are fleeting, they just disappear and are difficult to recall.  Fortunately, with a notebook at hand, I was able to capture  and transcribed them painstakingly into two-line verses. 

Here are some I wish to share in this blog and on Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-the-air) 

1. A boy gets to be a man when a man is needed;
A man gets to be a boy in times unheeded.

2. Beauty seen once may break many hearts,
That heal soon enough as the image departs.

3. To endure the pain of hatred,
A leader’s wisdom often dared.
 

4. Only good wine grows mellow with age;
So does a good man into a sage.

5. Beauty builds upon beauty,
Ad infinitum to eternity.

6. The past may leave remnants to the future,
New to the young while dying bit by bit.



7. On some mountain top, one’s echo is clear and loud;
In the market place it dies, so in any crowd.

8. A clenched fist softens under a blue sky,
Like high waves, after tempest, die.

9. If a little in me dies if only someone must live,
Here then, Lord, here is my whole life to give.

10. The man that you see today
Was the child of yesterday.
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The wind whistles a wild song through the trees
Before it settles into a breeze.
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11. He who nods when old is wise and deep,
Save he by the fireside asleep.



12. How seldom, if at all, do we weigh our neighbors
The way we weigh ourselves with the same favors.

13. We say we do not have the time, is an alibi
To indolence and loafing, letting time pass by.



14. Ephemeral are the ways of our lives
Watching not the sun to set and rise.

15. Yield or refuse, a woman is delighted,
Silence her excuse to decide instead.

16. Virtues suddenly dawn upon him,
Who, behind bars, hears a mournful chime.

17. Passion and lust to a prodigal son,
After the desert blooms, it returns to sand.

18. If the world is going to end either in fire or ice,
Altogether we die once – not twice.

 
Atacama Desert in bloom

19. What is more mean than envy or indolence
But the two themselves riding on insolence?

20. The worst persecution is one of the mind;
That of the body it can undermine.
Acknowledgement: Internet photos

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