Time

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Eyes were new and so were the bones

Frolicking, chirping without moans

Summer-Spring of life with flowery frill

Universe sang just chill, chill, chill

Autumn’s still glowing with a bright light

Yet sinew’s losing that omnipotent might

Dawn, day and dusk have a strange new feel

Universe is singing chill, chill and chill

A time will come when harvest is done

The mind will long for the hidden sun

The sleepy physique will show time’s weal

Universe will whisper chill, chill, chill

The body and mind will be full of mirth

Awaiting keenly for another birth

 

 

Posted for Bjorn’s hosting Sunday-Mini-ChallengeTime-travel  where we are to write a poem using past, present and future time in the same poem @ Real Toads

 &

 Sharing with Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

A Simple Prayer

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Thank you for the Home so sweet

Thank you for the Souls we meet

Thanks you for the Bards who sing

Thank you God for everything

 

Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif ~ Gratitude@ Poets United

How to Sleep

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Switch off the world

That glitters on screen

Or buzzes in your ears

At least two hours before

You go to bed

Hang a No Entry board

Inside the beautiful premises

Of your mind

So that no unwanted thoughts

Lay siege to your fort

Even if they shout outside

In their glaring silence

Simply ignore

Talk less

Food mustn’t be heavy

Neither for the body nor mind

Take a simple book

Even a children’s book would do

Mustn’t read lying

Sit and read

It’s good if the bed is comfortable

But mind needs the real relief

There’s no need to panic

If sleep doesn’t descend on the eyes

Read

Feel happy

Close the book

Switch off the light

Lie down

Rest

Good Night

 

Posted for Gabriella’s prompt ~ A How To Poem~ @ Poetry Jam

Enticement

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Luscious life luring

Oh to leap or not to leap

Let’s give it a try

Either we get it or dream

Both delightfully toothsome

 

Posted for Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

Health

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Give something healthy

To the body

To the mind

And to the soul

Everyday

 

Rule the taste buds

Never let them be

Your lord

You are not the body, are you?

 

Be the ring master

Lash your mind

To go through

The fiery rings of restrain

If a tiger can do that with flames

Is a human a lesser being?

Practice is the key

And knowledge is mind’s food

Be selective for the mind’s diet

It should listen to us

For you are not the mind, are you?

 

Select dawn and dusk

To be with the soul

Feed it with the soft hued sky

Don’t be surprised

If events made of words

Want to play as pranksters

Frighten, excite or annoy you

Let the belligerent words

Rise out of the blue

Let them jostle and fight

Let them raise a hue and cry

Let Paris elope with Helen

Let a Kurukshetra happen

Be the witness

Simply a witness

Keep a watch

For a long time

Be amazed at the power of words

But don’t you ever mingle with them

Why should you?

You are not words, are you?

Keep a distance

And see how one day

All these fizzy thoughts

Burst into nothingness

All the waves recede

Tranquility reigns

And omnipotent Dweller

Of the body shines

 Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif~ Health @ Poets United

Identity

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If you ask me who I am

I’d say a rivulet perhaps

Originated from love’s paradise

Flowing all life

Discovering surprising bends

Towards an unknown infinity

With the dream

Of giving up this identity

To become one with it

I have sung

Danced

Mingled with many a stream

Our kinds varied

Nevertheless we grew

Together we made this journey smooth

Over jagged rocks

I have moaned

Even have frozen

Suffered separation

When parts of me

Branched out

At different times

Taking new course

But the flow is not without joy

I’ve loved this life

In this long pilgrimage

I have seen the sunrise

The moonlit silver streams

And also a Pole Star

My wavy notes dream

Of never losing the way

 Into some dreary deserts

Rather as the time will draw near

Let the dark sky twinkle

With the hope

Of touching the Infinite One

 

Posted for Brian’s prompt Identity @ Poetry Jam

Cold

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Fragrant dawn

With sweet date palm juice

Come winter

Posted for Haiku Horizons prompt ~ Cold 

Love in the Time of War

World War II Picture Hyde Park
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When little hands pick food crumbs

Cities bellow fire and wrath

Death promises a visit to all homes

The busy Swans’ shenanigans

Petrify all sobbing Ledas*

 

We see old peasants till lands

Youths drown in their beloved’s eye

Life dances out of dark wombs

White shroud begins to melt

Crocuses smile all over

 

 

*Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda. Wikipedia

 

Posted for Kerry’s SundayMini-Challenge ~ In Other Words @ Real Toads

 

&

 

Shared with Poetry Pantry @ PoetsUnited      

 

The poem is also inspired by Thomas Hardy’s In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’

 

What Swims

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Amazing!!

They are swimming!!

One year old babes!

Swimming!

Amazing!!

 

Amazing is this human race!

They can kill their own kind

And burn their face!

 

An unpredictable kind

No one knows

What thoughts swim in minds

 

May be a gigantic mushroom

Snuffing out all life

Or

Birthing of a Christ!!

 

 

Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif~ Swimming @ PU

Dream

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My heart beats with you

When you rise

From the waves

Of golden mustard field

And dance

 

Twinkle twinkle

Bollywood star

How I wonder

What you are

 

Million hearts

Laugh, cry and sing with you

I tell you

You are made of moonlight

You say, “Sweat”

 

Up above the world

So high

Your hearts shine

 In the sky

 

Your words are ours

We gift them to our loved ones

I tell you

You are made of dream

You say, “Industry”

 

When the blazing sun

Is gone

When nothing

Shines upon

 

Our dark cottages gasp for a little air

You gift us a sky to breathe in

I tell you

You are made of grace

You say “your love”

 

You do show your

Magic light

Twinkle twinkle

All the night

 

 

Bollywood stars of Hindi films have been entertaining millions of people for one hundred years now. Films of all genres have been made. Romantic flicks with delightful songs and dances that make the mass forget their sorrows for the time being are all time favorites. The film industry churns out bucks for many a mouth. I’ve included two videos: one is on Indian heart throbs Mr. Shah Rukh Khan & Ms. Madhuri Dikshit singing & dancing in the film “Dil  To Pagal hai (Crazy heart)” and the other is Mr. Raj Kapoor, the great showman of Hindi cinema, singing in the film “Shree 420(Mr. 420, section 420 of the Indian Penal Code covers offences relating to cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property and leads to punishments or fine and / or jail terms of up to 7 years). Hope you enjoy the songs and language poses no bar.

 

Posted for the prompt Dream @ Poetry Jam

                                                                   

                                                        source

To a Hate Campaigner

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I see a man walking on fire

Fire in the shape of words

Rolling down his tongue

Through the lava tube of the frail body

There is a volcanic flow

24 x 7

 

In the stormy Phlegethon*

He is drowning

And burning out

Drifting away

From the magic of life

Where water is love

 

If I had that power

I would make a littoral cave

In his blazing heart

So that he might croon

In spring flower phrase

And change the storm into a zephyr

 

I want him to sing

“Grant me my day

so I might yet search myself

and weep for love of myself”

A phoenix** never fails

To rise from its ash

 

 

*In Greek mythology it is a stream of fire flowing in the infernal region of the underworld.

 

**I like to believe that a man always learns from his mistakes because he is a man.

 

Posted for Grace’s hosting Sunday’s Mini-Challenge: Salvatore Quasimodo @ Real Toads

&

Shared with Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

I used first two lines and the last line of the first stanza of Quasimodo’s poem Grant Me My Day

Fair?

         

Hungry waves pounce on

Tender tasty meat of earth

Tsunami in hearts

Who will ask whom if it’s fair

The dead man sighs with blank stare

 

 

Written for MTB d’Verse ~ Fair

 

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Bonfires

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Each year

Our myth

Comes alive

 

From the pages of Purana

The demoness*

Holika steps out

Taking Prahlad

On her lap

To sit on the pyre

The flame touches the sky

Prahlad lives while Holika dies

 

The intent is to kill

The child devotee Prahlad

Who sees his God Vishnu

In every atom of the universe

It is a blasphemy of course

So the child is sentenced to death

By his father, a demon

To make the job easy

Prahlad’s aunt Holika

Comes forward

No fire could burn her

But Vishnu wills otherwise

So Prahlad lives while Holika dies

 

Each year

The myth

Comes alive

 

The old mother Earth Herself

Becomes Holika

Spreading Her firewood arms

She becomes Her own pyre

Where She sits perhaps mourns

Having lost Her magical charm

She lets Her children set fire

Her sputter bursts into a painful flame

That reaches the infinite sky

We utterly do not know

Who will live and who will die

 

Each year

The myth

Comes alive

source

 

Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif ~ Bonfire @ PU

*had to use this un-English(!) word for a female demon

She*

source

She

Likes to think herself

As a pebble

It’s not out of humility

Truly

She has become one

A rock she was

Slowly very slowly

Erosion began

When those waves were flowing

Over her

She was dragged

Down and down

By the current

Into a dark hollow

Of sorrow

The bruise                                                                                       

Was wearing her away

But she is of rock material

Not so easy to grind her

She has changed her texture

On purpose

She is smooth to touch

Her contusion in streaks of quartz

Glows

That amazing inner light

In multifarious hues

Make others bow in awe

A miracle of God is

She

 

 

*She is a dear friend of mine and my inspiration. Having lost her only child, husband and very recently her father she is still standing and like the mighty pine deeply rooted to the faith in God is braving the storm. We’ve been friends from school and though she lives far away from my town we meet more than once in a year. I am in awe of her.

 

 

 

Posted for Alan’s prompt Pebbles @ Poetry Jam

Dead Man prays

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Dead man wishes

For a body

Any color would do

Black, white, yellow, brown

Any hue

 

Dead man yearns

For a body

Any body would do

A man’s, woman’s or a eunuch’s

A body true

 

Dead man dreams

Of a body

Of any kind

Deaf, mute, blind

 

Dead man badly needs

A home

 

He has consciousness to keep

He will pray for a thousand years

He has sacrificed his sleep

 

 

Posted for Grace’s prompt @ d’Verse Poetics