TRASH OR TREASURE

google image

I sometimes can’t differentiate

Between trash and treasure

When my father discarded

Those wrapper foils of cigarette

I treasured them to make

Tiny silver cups for the dolls

                 

Who does not value this precious life

But to some it is hillbilly, okie

Redneck or simply white trash

Yet what a treasure is

A bit of consciousness

 

A lot of animals are trash

Because humans can’t eat them

And they are ugly to look at

Or they are threat to your cattle

While we keep on pulling out

The subtle skin on Nature’s face

So pigeons, carp, coyote are trash

Canada goose is a sky carp

But Mother Nature keeps

A sharp look out for Her

Dearest wild babies

 

We better learn to respect

All life forms

Before we become trash ourselves

 

Posted for Laurie’s prompt Trash Or Treasure @ Poetry Jam

 

TIME / CLOCKS

I could taste time’s softness

In the juicy golden mangoes

I could smell time’s fragrance

In the bosom of my mother

And how can I ever forget

That velvet touch of time

In the palm of my childhood friends

I saw time’s soft smile

In my father’s face

When he took that snap

Of his first born going to school

For the first time

Time’s melodious tune

In the voice of music teacher

Still rings and echoes

I always thought time

As slow, tender, loving, friendly, colorful and musical

Until those two unforgiving

Hands of clock made this world go

Topsy turvy, rough and harsh

Dragging time in an incredible pace

To a barren land

To an unfamiliar home

To this impossible world

 Smeared with blood

Where fragmented shelters

Drive everyone out in the street

Where children are fed with bombs

Where only two languages are spoken

Fear and tears

Where the Paradise is lost forever

Mutated Hollowmen have seized this Earth

They will not stop until

Our living place is the dead land

Until time is burned

And becomes mere ash

 

The words in red are from T.S. Eliot’s Hollowmen

 

Posted for d’Verse Pub Poetics where the prompt is Time / Clocks

GARDEN OF DIVERSITY

courtesy : google image

Hill of words

Gathering the crumb

I’m an ant

 

 

Posted @ d’Verse Poets Pub ~ long live the pub

This poem is a river, a man and a forest

courtesy : google image

This poem is the wrath of a river

This poem is the dream of a man

This poem is the story of a forest

 

This poem is Brahmaputra

Its hungry tide laps up land

Crashing, breaking dreams

Before reaching its salty home

It tears itself to countless streams

Taking the look of torn roots

Of a gigantic banyan tree

This poem is the wrath of a river

 

This poem is Jadav Payeng

He is a forestry worker

Living in Majuli Island by the Brahmaputra

The broken nests light a star

In his inner sky

He becomes his own light

And prays for a woodland to take birth

This poem is the dream of a man

 

This poem is Molai Forest

Each tree loves a man

Who single handedly

For more than three decades

Created this tree-land

That’s harboring wild life

And fortifying the island

This poem is the story of a forest

 

This poem is the flow of tamed anger of a river

This poem is the fulfillment of the deep green dream of a man

This poem is the song of the wild in an unusual forest

 

 

My heartfelt thanks to Grace for sharing the wonderful video of The Forest Man with me that was the inspiration of this poem…

 

 

Posted for Hannah’s hosting Sunday’s Mini Challenge : Boomerang Metaphors @ Real Toads

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Shared with Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

IN THE BOBOLI GARDENS

 

courtesy : d'Verse Poets ball

We are partying tonight

Us, the wordy-beings

As our feet strike the dancing floor

Lighty-flighty mighty words

Begin to rise from terrazzo

We are drinking deep

The Soma-rasa* of intoxicating words

Fragrance of exotic sumptuous meal

Soothing our hungry souls

In the Boboli gardens

We all hear the whispering voice

“In the beginning was the Word

And the Word was with God

And the Word was God”

We recognize ourselves

Under this starry night

“We are one"

*. Soma rasa is a CONCEPTUAL beverage of Gods , which is described as Truth (Sathyam), Auspiciousness( Sri:) , light /radiance (Jyothi:) in the Rig-Veda (Wikipedia)

 

Posted for Poet’s Ball @ d’Verse Poets

 

SNAKES

The snake charmer played on his Been*

Gracefully swung the cobra’s hood

We flocked in hundreds to the scene

 

The snake charmer played on his Been

“Crikey**” wasn’t heard in the scene

Spectators were in happy mood

 

The snake charmer played on his Been

Gracefully swung the cobra’s hood

 

*a musical instrument like a flute

**The Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin’s favorite phrase

 

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

UNEXPECTED

When Nature or Fate chuckles at us

We are taken aback in awe

Take the case of “miracle baby”

The mother conceived it

In her fallopian tube

The father was morosely driving

To the hospital to relieve

The mother of her pain

By having it operated

On the way they met with an accident

The father escaped unscathed

Mother received the blow in her

Lower abdomen and the baby

Was forced its way to the safe

Home of mother’s uterus

                 

Or take the case of that man

Whose eyes only saw

The dense black waves and

Made his world the darkest place

No human hands could

Give him back those light

Of which he had no experience

Yet on one stormy day

He was struck by lightning

And Lo and Behold

The world revealed to him

In color, light and joy*

 

So as Mary says we have to embrace

The journey and whatever it gifts us

Joy or sorrow we cannot avoid

 

 

*I came to learn of these two incidents from news channel and YouTube

 

Posted for Gabriella’s prompt Unexpected @ Poetry Jam