Thirst (A Tanka)

Liquid emerald pond

Weary leaves in siesta

A white heron drinks

Poet’s desert heart receives

A crystal shower of words

 

Posted for Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

Awakening

source

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The black cuckoo sings and wakes me up here

At my mother’s home just at 4 AM

The sweet, mellow, enticing darkness of a new morning

Holds my hands and pulls me up

Within half an hour I’m on the road to join the morning walkers

Who religiously walk this unearthly hour

With a dream to shed a few kilos

My dream is to touch that round red shadow that slowly rises

Over the Ganges giving it a saffron hue

My dream is to join the jingling coming from the thicket

My dream is to feast my hungry eyes on the dew laden blooms

And inhale their morning greetings deep within my being

I am tasting a new me

A bursting of a seed that lay hidden for so many years as it were

A new growth

That needs to be nurtured, valued

To slowly deep root, rise upwards

Then branch out

And not thrown away like a serious weed

Feigning the look of a plant

 

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Posted for dVerse Poetics

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Susan's Midweek Motif ~ Weeds/Weediness @ Poets United

Summer in India

source

Mango aroma and green flies

Sweltering summer’s thawing smiles

Liquid fire flowing through kyles

We slowly melt as winter dies

 

Nightly fragrance of white bloom flies

Riding the crest of wind for miles

Mango aroma and green flies

Sweltering summer’s thawing smiles

 Disgruntled humans supine lie

Prickly heat’s torture making all rile

Poor sun turns up as the most vile

The loo’s* made of sapiens’ sigh

Liquid fire flowing through kyles

We slowly melt as winter dies

 

 

* The Loo (Hindi: लू, Urdu: لو, Punjabi: ਲੂ) is a strong, hot and dry summer afternoon wind from the west which blows over the western Indo-Gangetic Plain region of North India and Pakistan.^[1] It is especially strong in the months of May and June. Due to its very high temperatures (45 °C–50 °C or 115°F-120°F), exposure to it often leads to fatal heatstrokes. Source: Wikipedia

 

 

Posted for Open Link Night # 149 @ dVerse

&

Shared with Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

Happiness

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When my little feet

Ran along the track

I thought

Happiness was

The running event

The runner

The track

And may be that red ribbon

Which awaits

For the fastest sprinter

Though it did not take much time

To find out

That a coin had two faces

Happiness and Disappointment

One will come in the other’s trail

This game of coin I played all my life

Until a few days ago

When I was startled

To discover

That happiness always lay hidden

In the heart

And nowhere outside

Only it had to come out

Cracking the shell

And spread over the vastness

Giving every object

A new light

Every bend

A new view

Happiness is the sharp, pointed

Nib of a pen

And is always filled

With ink of light

And ever ready to write

The story of a life

 

Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif ~ Happiness@ PU

2 AM

source

Thus Spake The Gita

 

When the weary eyes

Of householders

Are fast closed

At 2 AM

The Yogi’s eyes

Are ever awake

&

Are the only light

In the darkness

Showing

The path

To God

 

Is it?

May be….must be…

 

Posted for dVerse Poetics

Touch

source

The moon’s moist eye

Stares at me

I whisper

‘I am rusty and broken’

The breeze

Overloaded

With tuberose scent

Stops

Listens

Gives me

A fragrant hug

And softly glides away

The moon’s eye

Glistens

Sheds

Silver drops

Into my soul

Breaking

The flakes of darkness

I am awakened

To a glowing beauty

All around

 

 

Posted for Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

Waves

source

Will the moment surface

When the dark dolorous waves

Will cease frothing and crashing

To sheer ripples

Then leisurely

Lie supine

Like placid tranquility

In my heart?

If that ever happens

I will play with the pebble

Of Thy Name

The game skipping stones

And make it touch the calm

A hundred times

And be a silent witness

To the ripples of Thy Light

Swirling up higher and higher

Till a huge tsunami

Of Thy Love

Swallows me up

Forever

 

 

Posted for Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Waves 

She Pawns Her Life

source

Death looms large

Their hoofs dig dust cloud

The springbok mom

Can’t leave her newborn

Alone to be crunched and gulped

Down that “fearful symmetry”*

She has other thoughts

And adopts her stance

To play with Death

The drama unfolds

On that grassy stage

She becomes a dancing nymph

To ignite the wrath of Death

Towards her

The blazing sky

Adds fire to the hungry eye

Thus the exposition

The rising action follows

With a long, long chase

To that climactic point

Of lightning flash of acrobatics

Then

The sinews of the “deadly terrors”*

Relent

The weary and exhausted cheetah

Slows down

He is back to the clan

Head hung and tongue out

Falling action indeed!

Catastrophe is avoided

Now for the revelation

Joy cavorts

In springbok hoofs

Of mother and child

Happy Mother’s Day!  

From a poet of a land, far away. 

*words within inverted commas are taken from Blake’s Tyger

 

Posted for Poetry Pantry @ Poets United       

From a daughter

goddess Durga: source

I look at you

Your dedication to spin love

To form yarns of warmth

Wrapping our olden days

The image of goddess Durga*

Comes to the mind     

When I think of you

We saw only two hands

You had surely hidden the other eight

Affection

Always flows downwards

We wouldn’t have believed it

If we hadn’t seen you

What are mothers made of?

Sunshine, Manna and pilgrimage

 

 

*Hindu goddess with ten hands

 

Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif ~Honoring Our Elders @ Poets United

A Language

National Geographic Space Picture: Source

I wish to include

Everything

In my lines

To give every object

A cozy feel

To make them happy

For being

Denizens of verses

Let the lines be made of birds,

Stones, woods, rivers,

Ice and fire

Holy men, sinners,

Hunger, riches

Venom and nectar

Let the pages be filled with

Dull, drab, dreary

Death and destruction

Let the words sing

In unison with shamans

With shrewd Machiavellians’

Expedient aim

With sighs of the oppressed

All reasons have rhyme,

Trajectory of their own

Light dots in heaven

Speak in harmony

In a perfect rhythm

Does this universe move

Poetry is the language

Of Existence

So we live and die

 

Posted for Poetry Pantry @ PoetsUnited