These Days

 

Source

These days

It’s so difficult to utter a kind word

Let alone holding a forbidden hand

More even to choose a road less traveled

The Queen of people’s heart* is long dead.

 

 

 

*Throughout her life, Princess Diana was very active supporting many charities related to homeless and deprived children, drug abuse, and victims of HIV/AIDS. In 1987, she shocked many people when she publicly shook the hand of an AIDS patient.Recently Prince Harry founded Heads Together which aims to end the stigma surrounding mental health.  Source: link 1 & link 2

 

 

Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif ~ Social Stigma @ Poets United

 

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This Poem Is…..

 

courtesy: google Image

This poem is a color, a gender and a meaning.

 

This poem is a tiny bloom with a color.

This poem is the upbringing of a girl.

This poem is a magnifying glass looking for a meaning.

 

This poem is born in fire and darkness,

but it has a will to drift in the breeze like fragrance.

It wishes to fling away its pink hue to the blue sky.

It is the core of all tints, shades and tones.

This poem is a tiny bloom with a color.

 

 

This poem is an open hearth furnace.

It is a story of heat to remove impurities.

This poem is suffocation itself and all devouring.

It knows too well how to melt iron and free will.

This poem is the upbringing of a girl.

 

This poem is a pair of curious eyes.

It is a hunt for the essence of all objects.

This poem never tires and has the strength of steel.

The poem doesn’t believe in hindrance.

This poem is a magnifying glass looking for meaning.

 

 

This poem is a fragrant flower

with the soul of all colors.

This poem is the magnificent life of a strong willed girl.

The poem is a quest for finding love and life’s meaning.

 

 

(I wish to dedicate this poem to Adhik Kadam a young man from the state of Maharashtra, India. A Profile In Courage Indeed. Link )

 

The poem is written in Boomerang Metaphor Form created by Hannah Gosselin of Metaphors and Smiles

 

Posted for Sanaa’s Prompt Nights – When diving into the possibilities of Role Reversal – [36]

 

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For Elizabeth’s Creativity Challenge Day 5 where the word for the day was ‘meaning’ as in value.

 

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Also to be shared with Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

 

The Despot and His Subjects

Courtesy: Google Image

Our life is a fire dampened, or a fire shut up in stone.
–Jacob Boehme, De Incarnatione Verbi

 

 

Out of his spinnerets

came those silken threads of lies.

We were led

into that sticky orb web

where he lay in wait for us;

We’re now reaping darkness;

though our hearts are turning into stones

we’re nurturing the fire

shut up there.

He is sightless.

We gather

await

for the strike

to devastate each

spiral strand

with our flame

and birth light.

 

 

Posted for MTB – Caravaggio and Chiaroscuro over @ dVerse hosted by Bjorn

 

Demonetization

courtesy: Google Image

At present we Indians

are living in an in-between state,

neither true nor false.

‘Earn with integrity

Give back to society’

is the new mantra

of our government

these days. They believe,

they are working towards that goal.

So overnight 1000 and 500 rupee notes

were stripped of their status as legal tender.

We are given about two months time

to exchange them for fresh notes.

Apparently it’s all good.

Terrorists are pulling their hair

over their counterfeit money.

Desi* billionaires’ (our invisible potential foes)

spirits nosedived;

demonetization is demonization to them,

while our poor spirits sky rocketed;

‘an excellent move, now see how it feels to lose’,

we smirk at the shamelessly rich,

at the trigger happy terrorists,

at people sitting on piles of cash

amassed through bribery,

feeling betrayed by the govt.

We stand in long queues in banks

outside ATMs, perspire and even die

to have only 2500 rupee notes in cash

yet we praise the move

as in the new year

we are ringing out bribery, terrorism,

smuggling, ‘Black Money’ (local term for cash

stashed away to evade tax)

and ringing in honesty, integrity etc.

I hear from various news sources:

more than 23 billion junked bank notes

are stacked one on top of the other;

the pile would be 300 times

the height of Mount Everest.

I shudder to think of the aftermath,

as the cost to replace the old notes could be

as high as 200 billion rupees.

Have we truly become the denizens

of a bizarre Hyperbole-land, I wonder.

 

 

*‘Desi’ is ‘Local’

 

Posted for my Midweek Motif ~ Hyperbole (Stretch the Truth) @ Poets United

 

Note: This is just a sketch of what we’re going through. I dare say it’s a poem at all.

Love

I’ll garden and tend

a few words

for you only.

 

 

Let me ignite

a spark of love

with the flint of words

that I have.

 

Or I’ll be the crust

and bear the pain

as my seedling words burst forth

shooting up for a sky, a sun.

 

I might even be the night

but I’ll write my love

in the words of stars and moon

only for you.

 

Or I’ll let my words be the fire flies

weaving dream by their dance

in your thirsty eyes

for a glint of light.

 

This is written for Elizabeth’s https://1sojournal.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/creativity-challenge-day-2/

 

Mask

Courtesy: A Dash Of Sunny

 

These days I put on a smiley face

to hide grief, sorrow etc. when I’m outside.

No one likes sadness. Rightly so.

I am happy so why isn’t everyone happy?

This may not be the attitude

all the time though.

Still I wonder

if everyone really loves

all to be happy .

Today a colleague invited me to her house

to have some chat; she has just returned

from the US where her daughter stays.

When she called

at first I half heartedly agreed.

My smiley mask was jubilant

as it found a job;

but then I refused

as I am suffering from bouts of allergies

and still on medication.

Moreover these days

I am sick and tired of ‘talks’.

The smiley spoke to me

in an unusual somber voice

“But you’re making her sad;

she wants to share

her happiness with you.”

Sorry, little emoticon

you have to be off

my face now.

I’m not in a dilemma.

What I’ve decided I’ve decided.

I would rather complete the poem

and stay in ‘my-space’

than talk, talk and talk

and listen, listen and listen

and pretend, pretend and pretend.

 

Posted for Sanaa’s Prompt Nights: On Popular Demand – Life is a masquerade. You never know who might be hiding behind a mask or façade – [10] over @ A Dash Of Sunny

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Shared with Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

 

Invisibility

Source

Real world is invisible

without the Inner Eye.

It’s a lesson, I had learned.

I had to go through crises

till the Eye was opened.

Some are born with it,

some grow it with time,

and some die blind;

never missing them in life.

I would rather embrace

a colorless, prosaic world

that the Inner Eye will show

than live in a mythic world of rainbow .

If you have it

Not only does this world

become a crystal

but also those who inhabit it.

And it’s the only way

to be spared from

that invisible big bad wolf.

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

Path

 

I have an alone path

of words

that opens up

inside me

when all noises die down.

The light is either my own

or taken from others

who have gone before.

I have now

all the time of the world

to walk forever.

I am glad

I have no hurry

to reach a destination.

I let my brown leaves

have their autumn fall,

and am ever ready

for those winter days

when they will hibernate.

Even if no spring ever shows up

I have still

so many trails

others have left for me

to enjoy the walk.

 

 

Posted for my Midweek Motif ~ Path @ Poets United

 

Obsession

 

Wanderlust-bug

has bitten me

pouring into the veins

mountain songs

of rivers, trees, skies.

Call of dusty roads

now keeps me alive.

The lofty magic mountain

has cast His spell on my soul,

I’ve lost my appetite for rest.

Rudraprayag, Gangotri, Auli, Badrinath

are my new mantras

to be repeated day and night

though one might say

but they are only names

of places and nothing more!

But to me

they’ve become my core.

I am possessed

by the mighty Himalayas.

 

 Posted for Sanaa’s Prompt Nights – Obsession continually fills or troubles the mind – [34] @ A Dash Of Sunny

 

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Shared with Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

 

A Tradition of Recalling Ancestors

Courtesy: Google Image

 

Every year

we light fourteen lamps

in honor

of our departed souls

and to ward off

evil spirits, as the custom

tells us to do

on the day of Bhoot-Chaturdashi*.

One has to consume

14 leafy vegetables

at lunch.

This year too

I lighted the lamps

but skipped that veg-lunch

and sighed,

for I know

this is how traditions die.

*Bhoot-Chaturdashi (‘bhoot’ means ‘ghost’ and ‘chaturdashi’ is the 14th night of the moon’s waning phase before New-moon) is observed on the night before Kali Puja, held in Oct or Nov. This year it was on 28^th Oct.  It is said that on this night the dead walk among the living. The evil spiritual powers are seemingly heightened on this night. In order to keep the evil spirits at bay, people ritualistically observe Bhoot-Chaturdashi every year. Bhoot Chaturdashi is known for the famous choddo shaak, or fourteen types of green leafy vegetables, compulsorily eaten for lunch. At dusk, earthen lamps or diyas are lit in the fourteen darkest corners of the household. This is done to ward off evil spirits as well as prevent them from entering the house. Folklore says that the spirits of forefathers come back to the household on this night. Hence, these lamps also serve to guide the spirits of forefathers.

There are many fables around this day. According to one, Bhoot Chaturdashi started with slacker Brahmin many, many years ago. He and his wife never cleaned and tidied their house, and so, in the garbage spill all over the place, ghosts had started living.

One day, when he got the shock of his life upon seeing a spectre rise from a pile of trash in his house, he and his wife learned a lesson. On that day, they cleaned their home, and purified it by sprinkling clean water off 14 kinds of leafy greens around the house. Source.

 

Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif ~ The Day of the Dead @ Poets United