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

 

                                                                 source         

Bonfires

source

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

source

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

Burning Bright

source

Some words flutter with life

In some hands

You could feel their warmth

In their breath

The stony heart melts

Throbs

Dances to their tune

Their facets glow

Brightening up the dark lanes

Of a battered mind

Their sharp edges

Slice off the malignant growth

Of pedantry

All living words

Birthed

From the womb

Of a fiery dream

Are destined

To be stars

To be written in light

 

Posted for PoetryPantry @ Poets United

The Things We See

image source here

I am amazed

At the perpetual festivity

All around us

The moment a lonely shy bud

Hidden from the beholders

Slowly blooms

Opening out her

Hesitant petals

There’s honeyed joy

Everywhere

 

Even in death

There’s no dearth

Of jubilation

The excited ants run

To and fro

With a death news

Hundreds celebrate

And drag a defeated

Dragonfly for a feast

All the blanks

Are duly filled up

 

When my heart turns to stone

The sun still shines

When a mother loses her son in bomb blast

Quietly flows the Ganges

When the air of mistrusts breed enmity

The fragrant lotus blooms

Our loss is only our loss

There’s no scarcity of joy

In this paradise of life

 

Written for dVerse MTB – The ThingsWe See

Broken

image source here

Those iridescent pearl drops

Shoot rainbow

Each one a memory

Of the wave

That rose once upon a time

In a heart

That hid an emerald sea

Where a water nymph

Spoke in the language

Of promise

A twine of love

Labored hard

To string each dream piece

Building up takes a life time

Not breaking

Almost like the snipping

Of a stray lock of hair

Within minutes

The cord is pieced

But iridescent memories

Remain forever

 

Posted for Mary’s prompt Broken @ Poetry Jam