Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar Poems

The distance is which
The one above wants from the one below
And which the one below
Does not want from the one above.
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I feel high thinking that I am held high.
I stay high refusing to be held low
I am shy doing anything so low.
Let me stand like a tree to break in storm.
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Where one gets one’s leeway
There he exerts efforts,
His fullest, to achieve
What you want him to.
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Barked at, don’t bark in turn.
Though kicked, don’t kick in turn.
You should not afford to turn
A dog or a donkey.
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Obstinacy and shamelessness,
Ruthlessness and pitilessness,
Violence and false promises
Aren’t held as vice in love games
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Pleasure of luxuries,
Pleasure of victories
Or pleasure of any other kinds
Cannot stand against
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The death at adulthood
Cannot take away
The joy of the childhood.
The death of love
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The chaste, the depraved and the whore:
The chaste one suffers from the sacrifices
Of pleasure and hence demand respect.
The depraved one indulges in secret
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‘Happy birth day’, I need not say to my kids.
‘Happy Christmas’, I need not tell my spouse.
‘Happy New Year’, I need not say to my siblings.
Wishes are to the people mentally away from us.
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What for does a man want a wife-
To ride or to lie on? It is like asking
What for does a man want a house-
To own or to live in? Own it to keep it.
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