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

Poetic Justice

source

We are the people of Stupidity Street*

For us remains a blind sky

A blanket of rheumy air

A few dead sparrows

A scarecrow

In a desert

And sighs

Of poets

 

 

*I used the title ‘Stupidity Street’ of Ralph Hodgson’s poem here.

 

Submitted to Susan’s Midweek Motif ~Justice or Poetic Justice @ Poets United

Where I am From

Ajanta painting source

I’m from the Divine Desire

I am the ancient land

Where Rishis saw the Mantras

Written in letters of light

And sang the Vedas

I am from the Divine Desire

I am the ocean

Embracing the streams of all Faiths

In my vast bosom

My face is of Ajanta painting

My two hands are

Chanakya and Aryabhata

My heart is of the Buddha

I speak in more than

Thousand tongues

I am from the Divine Desire

I am the divine song

Sung by the ecstatic Mirabai 

In presence of God

I am from the Divine Desire

I am the Dark Age

Where the righteous suffered

And sinners thrived

I am Suttee

Having climbed the pyre of my husband

I surrendered myself

To the sky touching flame

In many a birth

I am from the Divine Desire

I am a witness

I saw Them coming from other lands

Lashing me with their ruling whip

And trying to break

The backbone of my children

By holding them captive in their own land

I bore all      

Though the wound still oozes despair

I am from the Divine Desire

I am the flute

Of eternal lovers

I am the mother

Of all who resides in me

I am the dust grains on the streets

Still touched by holy feet

Bharat is my name

But all by mistake

Call me India

 

 

Posted for Mary’s prompt Where I am From @ d’Verse Poetics

Quake

Pashupatinath Temple, Nepal

With a reeling head

We all throng

On the school compound

“Will there be another quake Ma’m?”

Asks a little angel

In a quaking voice

“What if there is?”

Quips another

Sounding like a rock

Or like the Temple of Pashupatinath

Without a scratch

Still standing tall

In the foothills

Of the Himalayas

Where Mount Everest

Is mourning deaths*

                     

*In the base camp of Mount Everest 18 mountaineers were killed in yesterday’s earthquake.

                      

Posted for Poetry Pantry @ PoetsUnited