Respect

SOURCE

 

I want to tame

that feral child

living within

who often

sits on my tongue

or on those tapping fingers

and blurts out.

Shh, shh.

No hurt word child.

Be the lemon flower.

Play with the bees, sunbirds…

nestling in the flower-cup

sweetening their mouth.

That glint of light

in their eyes

is love, respect

for this white cup of petals.

Store nectar-words, dear child,

unfurl thy petals-

wait-

for your bees, sunbirds…..

 

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

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Bliss

 

On certain

moonlit nights-

I give my words,

my thoughts,

a break-

all go

while I am awash

with dappled darkness-

my soul attuned

to milky night

with an ear

catching the note

of Raga Abhogi*

birthing from the Sitar

inundating me in bliss.

 

 

*A raga or ragini is akin to a melodic mode in Indian classical music. Raga Abhogi is a night raga sung or played in early night.

 

 

 

Posted for dVerse Quadrille ~ Bliss hosted by Bjorn Rudberg

Dream

SOURCE

 

What was desert-reality

is fading away

in the foggy haze

of a dream.

What’s rising

is a little emerald oasis

of happy trees

where laughter

hangs like bunch of berries.

I have hunger-

I have thirst-

for I have been walking

in sandstorms since ages.

Yet they roam,

haunt the streets

to uproot dreams.

 

 

 

Posted for Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

 

Nature – A Haibun

 

A five year old me standing near the hedge fences on my first day for school: Photo taken by my father

 

 

In my bumble bee days I also had wings. I’d stealthily flee from study books and pour my soul on the hedge fences and watch the mother Bulbul incubating three tiny eggs with Kathamrita* eyes in their twiggy nest. The eggs were always three; never four or two, with purple sprinkles on off-white shell. When the teeny tiny hatchlings without eyes opened their mouths they were almost like baby Gopala’s** showing His Ma Yashoda the universe. I’d often fake their mother’s call when she wasn’t around just to see those large hunger-holes quiver for food. Their father, who would always be nearby in the mother’s absence, of course disapproved my curiosity. His angry alarms and flying over me flapping wings rather noisily sent me inside for fear of rousing my grandpa’s wrath. What hunger! What growth! Both parents fed them in such quick successions that I would often worry about their stomach. I took it upon my duty to shoo away the scheming cats whenever I happened to be there. Sometimes there would be nasty ever-hungry red ants in files and rows before it was time the fledglings could fly safely. Sometimes I would see one chick less and grieve over whatever had happened to the poor angel.

 

 

Those butterfly, firefly days did not last long. Change like the Bengal Tiger had me in its grip. I lost my wings to Time just as hedge fenced houses made rooms for the bigger housing-complexes with less greenery, lesser sky.

 

 

Carefree, bubbly stream

Will not stop till meets the sea

To lose all sweetness

 

 

*Kathamrita literally means ‘Word-Nectar’. It’s also a hagiography in five volumes on the life of Sri Ramakrishna, who often likened the eyes of yogis to the incubating mother bird’s eyes. He used to say that mother bird’s mind is in her eggs so it sees or hears nothing. Similarly when yogi’s mind is on God he is so immersed that he neither sees nor hears.

 

**Gopala is the God in His baby form in Hindu Mythology. It’s said that once while playing, Gopala put a little lump of earth into His mouth. So His mother Yashoda was very angry and wanted him to open His mouth. At first He would not listen but when His mother threatened to spank Him He opened His mouth and Yashoda saw the entire universe whirling there.

 

 

Posted for my Midweek Motif ~ Nature: Her Words @ Poets United

Love

PHOTO:  RUPAK ROY

 

There are no suns, moons or stars in you-

neither the ocean, no sky nor even a firefly

ever made any presence about your being,

yet I hear your silent steps in my heart.

 

Your lips are the exotic trees with rare blossoms-

that unfurl their petals not in profusion

to drown me in colors or perfume,

yet I feel their soft touch in my core.

 

You are no flower but a hardened rock-

that rose above brine water of the eyes

of my broken self in a broken world.

 

You rise as did our Himalayas-

with the warm heart in layers of snow

while I am a pebble of prayer.

 

Posted for dVerse MTB ~ Neruda and the free sonnet hosted by Bjorn Rudberg

&

Shared with Poetry Pantry #367 @ Poets United

Flood

SOURCE

Flood is: always,

going overboard.

Not to my liking.

Let me be calm,

be at peace with me.

I pray for placid, deep water

always half inch

below the edge.

 

 

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

 

 

Dream

SOURCE

 

My dreams are not

anti art

but rather a bit Dadaistic

in tone-

cautiously sculptured

in collages

of cut up imagined memory

by an inner ‘I’-

making me ride a hobby horse

and wander

from one cube of darkness

to another

in false reality.

 

 

Posted for dVerse Quadrille #38 ~ Dream hosted by De

Of Flowers and Shoots

SOURCE

 

            I

The flowers of dreamscape

Crossed over to the real world

To be in my tub

            II

Once I saw

Gossamer, scented wings

Of night flowers

           III

Wilting gerbera

Tied up with a silk string

In a bouquet

 

            IV

They glow

The peony headstone spray

In remembrance

 

 

 

Posted for Poetry Pantry #366 @ Poets United

Kintsugi

Google Image

 

I never knew I was so fragile

that I’d be reduced to pieces

like a china cup

at one knock.

Neither did I know

those living close to my heart

were all Kintsugi artists.

They lovingly collected

all the shards, that was my soul

and mended with words of gold.

Now I’m a Kintsugi vase,

broken yet whole.

 

 

Posted for Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Kintsugi: Art of mending

 

Human Trafficking: A Cherita

 

Courtesy: Poets United

 

She was lust fodder.

 

So she had to be sold and cooked

in dark flames of lecherous greed.

 

Yet she couldn’t be consumed

for she’s to be an undying candle flame

flinging away night around her.

 

Here is a LINK, the source of my poem

 

Posted for Susan’s Midweek Motif ~ Human Trafficking @ Poets United