Destiny Poets
Uniting and celebrating the best "Writers" and "Poetry" from around the world centred out of Destiny Church Wakefield
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* 2013 * : A month by month retrospective
JANUARY : – Calcutta Confessions – Mukherjee Twish
FEBRUARY : – Landfills – Reena Prasad
MARCH : – So what happens to the words that I read ? – Martin Waterhouse
APRIL : – As your beauty unfolded – Jan Christian Sorensen
MAY : – Kaviguru Rabindranath Tagore – Ampat Koshy
JUNE : – The infinite mirrors of Ocean – Iulia Gherghei
JULY : – Listen to the Whirlwind – Ogunjimi James Taiwo ( Poem of the Year )
AUGUST : – Tapestry,silhouettes and ink – Iulia Gherghei
SEPTEMBER : – Dhaka University – Moksedul Milon
OCTOBER : – Kunjumon – Reena Prasad
NOVEMBER : – On Children’s Day – Nalini Srivastava
DECEMBER : – On a Pier – Rahul Aithal
JANUARY 2013 : – Calcutta Confessions – Mukherjee Twish
Week I
How strange must we be?
Strangled by forces of love, must we desert our very humanity in the pursuit of a sick, lost cause?
And then, must we celebrate it, immortalize it, and eulogize it, with an ink like this on a paper like this, until the night of the blind?
But, when the blind poet finds his light, it burns him into ashes.
He wakes up in a body bathed in sweat, in a mind brimming with memories of feverish nightmares, train of eerie episodes that his miserable, mortal soul sprinted through, in its snatches of solace in the guise of slumber.
Until the planets stop, the spirits breed contempt for all that is contemporary.
Week II
When all the steel claws have crumbled into lustful rust, the dust clogs the lungs of the poet from the beach town who wants freedom from freedom’s phantasm, while breathing his last on an imported harmonica.
Confused daylight invades the smug darkness of his idle workshop; glides over the ancient spare parts waiting to be assembled at the bid of a beggar.
No shattered glass shall wield a piece sharp enough to bleed his consciousness to death, to life, or the heaven between.
Until the planets stop, diseases and disorders will define the destinies of well-educated minds.
Week III
A rave underground life, a visual constraint, a girl with big eyes and a sprained ankle will mock the myopia of patriotism.
Howard Roark and Dean Moriarty will meet in a room with two and a half windows and analyse the angst of Antoine Doinel.
Summer-burnt faces will fill the rectangular spaces of this decaying city; their sweat pores will swallow all the clear streams of labor; our robotic protégé will spit our daily deities out, like morsels of an inexpensive delicacy; sticky, skinny, bony, bare and bruised.
Until the planets stop, my private London will lie rotting beneath a murky green pond.
Week IV
I met a misty-eyed woman on the train, who leaned on the rail, her pretty nostrils dancing to the invisible rhythm of the odor of perspiration. She sustained my city tonight. Tomorrow, the stench will be unbearable for her.
FEBRUARY 2013 : – Landfills – Reena Prasad
Reminiscences stuffed into frayed pockets, she walked
in no particular direction, going as far as house waste goes
in search of a treasure trove of stinking landfills
Tattered as her life of forty, are her gathered clothes
Fading grey underskirt with trailing,weeping ends
ignorant of the boundaries that defined the sari-remains above.
She poked around the stagnant mound, not particular about any find
Bits of plastic, broken bottles, an abandoned diary of teenage throes
All lay in companionable silence in her brown sack of unwanted orphans
She picked in silence, watched by a scraggly, one-eyed, stubbed tail cat
Twin wandering souls, united in casual neglect, relegated to the night-soil trenches. Previous birth karma, wrinkled noses, anti-beggar sentiments and disgust
compete for supremacy.
That reminds me so much of TS Eliot
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots
The fading grey underskirt and the stub tailed cat are only too familiar
MARCH 2013 : – So what happens to the words that I read ? – Martin Waterhouse
What happens to the words that I hear?
Do they float into one, and then out the other ear?
Or does something more horrible happen in my brain,
Are they pulped into mash and never heard of again?
Or do they just echo around my skull? It could be,
Because that would explain all those voices in me;
They never use words I’ve never heard before,
I always understand what they mean, and what’s more,
Some of the speakers sound like folks who have said
Enough over the years to have filled my head.
I know one of them sounds a lot like my Mum
And wants me to calm down when I’m having too much fun.
Or are words recycled and stored in my mind
On well numbered shelves, so they’re easy to find,
And when I’ve got something to say, and I speak,
They’ve been taken down and dusted all ready for me.
Because that would explain what happens to people
When they know what they mean but they’re just not able
To find a word, and it’s on the tip of their tongue,
Instead of the shelf it’s supposed to be on.
So what happens to the words that I hear?
Do the words full of joy explode into cheers?
Do the sad ones melt and turn into tears?
And what about the big ones like onomatopoeia?
Do they dazzle then buckle and crumbling disappear …?
So what happens to the words that I hear?
I asked a wise man once, but it’s still not clear.
He said, “What happens to those words is obvious indeed.
They go to the same place as the words that you read.”
APRIL 2013 : – As your beauty unfolded – Jan Christian Sorensen
As your beauty unfolds before me I am reminded… That no matter how well you guard something it can always be lost… Or in this case did I give it away?
As your beauty unfolds before me I am reminded… That you cannot walk forward to a place that you have already passed… And you should always welcome a new day with more joy than the last…
Much smarter now… There are urgent matters at hand… There are urgent hands that matter… Touching places that have not existed… Until your beauty unfolded before me… Gloriously…
Until your beauty unfolded before me I thought passion existed only in the minds of Poets and songwriters… And it seems I have become one of them… Because You have become my favorite song…
And when I am not singing it I hear its music as I recite… Words that describe you…
And words that can’t describe you… Tapping my feet as some type of continuous applause… This would have been strange behavior…Before your beauty unfolded before me Passionately…
Until your beauty unfolded before me… Time had a pace that outran me… During workdays and lonely days… Time had another name Loneliness…
It is Next time, your time… That is what is important nowadays… The next time I am next to you Precious time… No longer my enemy
Before your beauty unfolded before me… Instantly… Isn’t it funny? That a heart once so weak Beats rhythmically sending a message… Through the jungle that announces… A new space inside of itself where only visions of you cover the walls…
With unfolded beauty… That caresses every sense… Touch everlasting and untouchable…
Since your beauty unfolded before me… Tastes like what Mama puts in her food…
Since your beauty unfolded before me… Smells like the grass after the rain falls…
Since your beauty unfolded before me… Sounds once foreign sound like we…
Since your beauty unfolded before me… Mercifully looks like you…
Since your beauty unfolded before me… Standing there in an archway with my Heart… Secure in your hands… Its fluorescent light only out shined by the smile you wear for only me…
A slight tilt of my head enables me to recognize Love… Beautifully… Gloriously… Passionately… Instantly… Mercifully…
As your beauty unfolded before me Finally I did understand…
It was in my darkest hour that I realized the light came from within… That was when I truly learned that I wasn’t blinded…
My eyes were closed…. All this as your beauty unfolded before my eyes…
MAY 2013 : – Kaviguru Rabindranath Tagore – Ampat Koshy
Your shadow fell across my mother and father.
I listened to the Song Offerings’ best parts
learned by heart by my loving father,
heard my mother speak of Paresh Babu
as one of her ideal characters from books.
I read Wreck but was blown away by Gora
for teaching me how to invert a tale,
subversion before the word became common;
agreed for that you deserved the Nobel.
Heard of the man from Kabul,
felt sad when the Homecoming did not take place.
I wanted to be Upagupta, love Chandalika and Kadambari
did not like the essays that showed intolerance.
I keep on multiplying my reading of you.
I loved Shanthi Nikethan so have not gone there.
Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj
impressed the Mar Thomites
(my mother was one before she wed)
who believe in ecumenism and wider ecumenism
and impressed even us C.S.I.
I taught your anjalis, archanas and Yeats’s introduction
so many times that I lost count –
my students blown away by ‘my’ insights.
Some shadows seem to grow longer as time goes by.
I no longer know if you are a curse or a blessing.
I only know your shadow now covers
– your songs, plays, paintings and all –
the entire horizon
while others who think they love you threaten
to blot out my cheerful, pure blue sky
for daring to think your lesson to me was
that I can be as great a writer as you
even if, unlike you, being born in a dull time
I cannot be as epic, collosal or epochal.
Happy birthday, Gurudev;
not to the you they all bow down to,
the one they think none can equal or surpass,
stunting all growth with that narrow view;
but to the one my mother and father
inspired me with, to take up the pen, among others:
The one they loved and passed on to me
in the same mode as you
in a clear, lyrical, simple and purely Tagorean way.
JUNE 2013 : – The infinite mirrors of Ocean – Iulia Gherghei
Why do we call this planet Earth
when it is the vast waters that gave him the colour
no matter where you look a tide
will answer the moon call
a breeze will caress the seagull wing
a blade of sand will sting a thirsty eye
Where else but at the shore we will meet
the horizon line uniting sky and ocean vastness
a kiss in the infinite mirrors
a taste of no boundaries
a fear that the next tide
will slap and crumble all your certainties
When if not in the middle of storm
God becomes a dry shirt
a farewell tear
a letter never to be mailed
a list of sons abandoned at the shore
Again calm waters, little joyful waves
enormous blue wearing a sky
breeze to comb my curly hair
Ocean, the moon lover, you,
hung my star in your tide!
JULY 2013 : – Listen to the Whirlwind – Ogunjimi James Taiwo
I will consume; Oh yes, I will
I will ravage; don’t doubt me I plead
I see blood even though the world can’t see.
I see death when life is what your preachers preach.
I feel it approaching, the consuming anger of the wind.
They want us in chains; will we allow them I ask?
They like us jobless; should we sit under their tables praying for crumbs to fall off their laps?
They thrive on our fear; should we not dare to take up the fight?
They like us fighting ourselves; should we not forge our path?
The world stands watching; waiting to see if we’ll get it right.
The helpless kneel praying; hoping we’ll neglect our fear.
The enslavers sit in dark corners watching; keen to see if we’ll bring our words to life.
The one question lies hanging: Who will bell the cat?
Listen to the whirlwind as it speaks in clear tones.
Listen to the whirlwind as it promises to sweep through and pull down their poles.
I will come when the eyes of the people are opened.
I will sweep through, visit the oppressors and break their stranglehold.
I will not come when timidity still reigns supreme.
I will not come when your voices are not united in tune.
I will come when your minds are made up.
I will come, I am coming, and they will fall.
Listen to the voice of the whirlwind as it promises to the oppressors death.
Listen, they say, or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.
The anger of the People will come as a whirlwind; it will cleanse, it will consume.
Listen; oh listen to the voice of the whirlwind as it calls out in revolutionary tunes.
AUGUST 2013 : – Tapestry,silhouettes and ink – Iulia Gherghei
A tapestry of promises I seen in your
shadowy eyes
your silken syllables have woven the sonnet
for our moonlight serenade
the silhouette of Love passed through our loneliness
our senses laced in a kiss:
a velveteen touch of the night breeze within,
carried away on your fragile lips
a rose, a stolen heart, a dewdrop rolling on my cheek
fragments of paradise, the echo of a forgotten symphony
the eclipses tattooed deep on my retina
you in your intoxicating splendor
me, starry-eyed, wooed,
completely lost in ink
gathering rhymes
alleviating beaded sighs of pleasure
poetic delirium on ice
SEPTEMBER 2013 : – Dhaka University – Azmm Moksedul Milon
Seven long summers, I slept in your lap,
With thousands thirsty bugs in your sari
And millions mosquitoes over your head
Sucking all my jaundiced blood drop by drop.
In rainy days, I heard you cry and sob,
Seeing me take some stale rice and rat-smelt dal
And live on just two modest meals a day,
Turning myself into a bag of bones.
I used to wake up late to miss my milk,
And save some coins every cloudy morning;
My friends and field work used to freak me out,
You just warned me not to miss the tilting.
Like the old Ant you kept advising me,
But this Grasshopper indulged in idleness;
Seven Late Autumns, I missed my harvest,
But you kept feeding me with what you had.
When all my little hope used to wither,
Like the leaves of the trees by my window,
You watered it with the tears of blessing
And helped new hope sprout and rejuvenate.
What I am today is what and how much
I drank from the little springs of knowledge,
Gushing out in stream of your skinny breasts
That still do suckle thousands thirsty lips.
OCTOBER 2013 : – Kunjumon – Reena Prasad
Sprawled near the shop door
dangling coir, bright plastics, baskets
flimsy balloon balls, flower pots
and you-
a fallen statue reeking of neglect
Irritating to bustling feet
but they stepped over your motionless form
and left the air fouler
with curses that you inhaled
You were the underworld
without the beard, gun or pot belly
ribs painfully embossed
upon your sallow youth
We fattened up our kids
using your nightmare shamelessly
Mariamma
the luckiest woman of all
three hefty sons she had
A thief, a madman and a drunk but no girls
so wasn’t she blessed!
Septic tanks and cow urine tanks called you
armed with a bottle of the cheapest toddy
you swung down holes
where no devil dared to breathe
scooping up discarded human bits
Our girls under your protective stagger
safe as they quickened their steps
from the lonely bus stop to the
lamp-lit shadows of motherly forms
none would look at their budding youth
while you thrashed out your lungs
and limbs at the road romeos
Kunjumon, you fell out of life suddenly
just like you did everyday
but among the fallen
you still stand tall
NOVEMBER 2013 : – On Children’s Day – Nalini Srivastava
Ingenuity and credulity,
Mark their wisdom.
Big innocent eyes ask
Thousands of unspoken questions.
They mark the survival of humanity,
And with them we are so inhuman.
Being almost unwanted and uncherished,
Are they just pests crawling on earth?
Born out of a human’s choice,
They are left to beg and eat.
Whether orphans or orphaned
They are children too..
What is our future?
If we treat them the way we do.
DECEMBER 2013 : – On a Pier – Rahul Aithal
* 2014 * : A month by month retrospective
JANUARY : – The Dawn of a Change – Ogunjimi O Joel
FEBRUARY : – 1947 – Sarita Jenamani
MARCH ; – In Winter – Michael Yates
APRIL : – Autism – Neetu Wali ( Poem of the Year )
MAY : – The Picture – Sana Rose
JUNE : – Golden – Witty Fay
JULY : – Blank Diary – Maaya Dev
AUGUST : – Fakery – Reena Prasad
SEPTEMBER : – Weighed against the ashes of the tears – Keith Wallis
OCTOBER :- Not This Song – Never – Marieta Maglas
NOVEMBER :- Seashell – Rahul Aithal
DECEMBER :- Wild Meadows – Sunita Prasad
JANUARY 2014 : – The Dawn of a Change – Ogunjimi O Joel
FEBRUARY 2014 : – 1947 – Sarita Jenamani
They depart
And more houses sink
into darkness
The street shrinks a little bit more
Night clenches
the morbid left-over light
From the Tower of Silence
flocks of fear-symbols descend
in quest of a morsel
Those remaining behind
continue to slumber
under a thick layer of indifference
They wake up
only to move
from dream to dream
and murmur
unanswerable questions
They depart
And life shrinks
a little bit more
Sarita Jenamani
MARCH 2014 : – In Winter – Michael Yates
In winter we become crystal, blood
coagulates, turns cold
like the skin of ages,
loses its colour. Say
we are transparent, but we could
be invisible except old
breath hangs in the air, engages
attention, gives us away.
In winter we are thinner than
the surface of water, light
as dead butterfly wings.
We use our voices only
to exercise our lips; scan
the sky for sign, bite
into a glut of sour things,
notice the road is empty.
In winter we marvel we survive
the small hours given us, we
list tiny predicaments, ease
the fright in our brains
with memory, strive
with dead spirits to see
a hint of ourselves, freeze
attitude so one thing at least remains.
APRIL 2014 : – Autism – Neetu Wali
Regret the mismatch
Wish I was like everybody else
Not because I want to
Don’t want them to take
The trouble of reaching
My levels
Though they think
To be better off
I know I am the special best
How magical
Balanced steps to a misbalanced life
Dis-balanced steps to a balanced life
I heard a friend is around
Hiding behind that corner
Enough for me for the rest of my life
Why then change
And honestly speaking
Have a secret desire
I pray for them
To be deprived of
Such wonderful life
MAY 2014 : – The Picture – Sana Rose
I can see the distances growing,
The childhood rhymes fading,
The lollipop memories melting,
The irreversible gluey drops
That can’t be savoured nor
Saved for another day…
I can sense the gaping holes,
The frozen icicles in souls,
The rain-washed, lonely strolls,
The one-sided page left behind,
That can’t be imprinted nor
Scribed for another age…
I can see the fingers unwinding,
The held hands departing,
The dripping dreams returning,
The new green leaves curling
Back into their branches –
A picture of non-existence…
– May 15th, 2014
© Sana Rose 2014
JUNE 2014 : – Golden – Witty Fay
As in the petals of roses after the hoarfrost,
A sickening shade of late bloom
And whithered summers.
Barely the metallic shine of your gaze at dawns,
As you unfold from my touch.
Rather the vivid yellow of canola fields,
As they encircle my waist into unfolding grace,
And distil my laughter
Into the slippery dust of your lens.
As the age of our youth,
Brief, yet meaningful, summerlike mostly.
Like the oyster that adorned the fleece
At the depth of a forgotten sea.
And, definitely, the music that comes
From the swing of things.
As for the rest, I’ll come to you in colours.
JULY 2014 : – Blank Diary – Maaya Dev
A blank diary lies on the desk.
hiding the purpose on its pages.
It is willing to absorb
the unkempt emotions as ink.
Moisture of ink is ready to get dry
as scribbles of an untold tale.
It may reveal its destiny as testimony
through mysterious mist as saga.
The papers are fragile so as fingers.
Thin texture may not bear the accumulated weight
of emotions the heart carry with much ease.
As all emotions are frost in compressed past.
The chamber is sealed by the present
and key is lost in the depth of future.
But the heat of burning memories
melts the chamber creating flash flood
and gush from the heart as tears.
It reflects on cheeks as rainbow hues
masking the melancholy in its splendour.
The destiny of diary remains blank
as it never got wet by ink or contrive the tale.
Heavy emotional down pour rewrites
the destiny of an unwritten tale.
Diary got into the shelf as a mundane routine.
While disclosing a truth of life for us.
‘Some tales are better left unsaid’……
AUGUST 2014 : – Fakery – Reena Prasad
The mirror was always enchanted
We have fought our way into it
to get whipped over what we desire most
The sunlight is polite
It stays behind brocades of heavy clouds
keeping away from illuminated beings
It is the dark heat
sweltering in the trodden pavements
that now lines our thoughts
Burnt sockets
where eyes might have once
seen past the horizon of lack
An immaculate waist
A beautifully arched eyebrow
An angry sun tears at motherhood
We have picked up stray suns
that gnaw into our fabric
while we sweat
A beach album
snuffs out cheer from the lives of those
without suntan lotion
Envy eats us for breakfast
alarming us with the un-shareable
unenhanced images of our lives
Honey merely tastes like more malice
Greed branded as ambition
chews up the spaces between skin and soul
Somewhere in this voyage to One World,
our nights wade through rainforest tapestry
stripped of any fragrance
We hang on to sensory orbs
spinning past
our etched lifelines
A giant advertisement
blots out the old sun
Give it a decent burial
From post to post let us run
Could there be somewhere
a better sun?
Goodbye to
…awkward pauses
There is always a key to depress
SEPTEMBER 2014 :- Weighed against the ashes of the tears – Keith Wallis
Untidy time and tide return
as blood unfolds
and houses burn,
as children cry as they journey on
to other lands
for theirs has gone.
And limbs lie strewn across their way
unattached
from easy prey
who simply lived before migrant fear
destroyed the old
and they fell victim here.
And all who seek to move frontiers
with bomb or gun or knife or spears
should place them in a balance
weighed against
the ashes of the tears.
OCTOBER 2014 :- Not This Song-Never – Marieta Maglas
In the night the song waves start to disappear
Like white trees, when there is no one their fall to hear.
Earth’s shadow hides the moon, a harp without strings.
Lasting love shines on crazy engagement rings.
What does love mean, when the elves come life to cheer?
In the night the song waves start to disappear,
And in the moonlight your feelings become blue.
The flowers cry for our time with tears of dew.
Bud butterflies become whispers in our dreams
To complete our entwining in the life’s streams.
In the night, the song waves start to disappear
On the moon, a double-meaning pamphleteer.
The green knows that through the darkness shines the light.
And love has sense, when the saints pray for the height.
And life blooms, when the God’s angels hurry near.
In the night the song waves start to disappear.
NOVEMBER 2014 :- SEASHELL – RAHUL AITHAL
Sprung from the depths of the sea-
lay half-buried in the sand,
Shelled with stories and mystery
of the deep, brought to the land.
Often unnoticed remain,
mingled with pebbles ashore.
Adrift in the soft terrain
the relics roll and unfold.
Should I pick up to picture
or let it nestle, linger?
DECEMBER 2014 :- Wild Meadow – Sunita Prasad
I carried,
Those wild berries
In my fist,precious,
Like my old friends.
Reminiscing the lost childhood,.
Those were the paths,
Where childhood left footprints
Etched on its barks,
The birds homed,hopes danced
Wild berries rested among
The tall sentries of time
Fanciful abundance leaped,
Where innocent cherubs laughed
Through the tinted canopy.
Those were the days
Where freedom breathed freely
The carefree days
Had an essence,
A vigorous zest for life
And the spirit felt the breezy sunshine.
And now, the glazed reflection
Reflects in the shunted vastness,
A bleeding,chaffed soil, seeking refuge
In the heart, of an aquamarine gorge.
* 2015 * : A month by month retrospective
JANUARY :- Invoked – Lopa Banerjee
FEBRUARY :- Shadows of my Poetry – Shamsher Singh
MARCH :- A Lovelorn Gypsy’s Last Love Song – Shashikala Sasidharan
APRIL :- Ashtavakra – Vineetha Mekkoth
MAY :- Exchange of Sorrows – Reena Prasad
JUNE :- Living in the Shadows – John Anthony Fingleton
JULY :- The Last Whistle – Rekha Moothedath
AUGUST :- New Delhi 1966 – Vijay Nair
SEPTEMBER :- My Own Water Diviner – Witty Fay ( Poem of the Year )
OCTOBER :- The blow ,the glow – Mangeni W.Obwaya
NOVEMBER :- Stone Eyes – Elizabeth Kuriakose
DECEMBER :- Promise of the Morning – Kamlesh Acharya
JANUARY 2015 – Invoked – Lopa Banerjee
Time had sung its inevitable song, a body
That had once planted a tree of love,
Had burnt to its last finishing embers.
The face, hung in silence, floating around
Unspoken words, etched in the timeless annals of memory.
The face of life, a sudden, elemental burst
A gleam of hope along the rusty corridors of nothingness,
Hungered for the pitter patter raindrops of a moment in time,
In the plastic quiet of the hospital room, death waited,
A silent companion at the next station, while life
Chewed on his final wishes of a succulent meal.
The finishing touches of words, beneath the breathing tube,
The pinching ache of the intravenous, the seeking out
Of lovingly knit faces, the hands gripping unfulfilled promises
A flash of seconds, then hanging loose.
Life had been beckoned in an unknown itinerary.
Twenty-one years since the sun had last gone down,
Memories unfailingly water, nourish the roots, the leaves,
The fruits the tree had borne, while the face
Hangs in the wall, a dusty portrait, in a home full of the living.
FEBRUARY 2015 – Shadows of my Poetry – Shamsher Singh
The shadows of my poetry
Shadows thy swirling
And, sparrows chirping
Sky and I both are awake
Me with my tears flowing in words
And sky too cried whole night
Paper of grasses became greener with Dews
Oh the greatest irony
All are here listening to my words
Don’t know what these words means
But believe me my silence have infinite poems
For withered yet untethered was my soul
For it was the conspiracy of resonance
That I die every moment to breathe
For a moment of my love
And yes don’t dare to ask me of love
I here say ,Before you and Before all
Am ready to embrace infinite deaths for one live
But again the shakespearean tragedy
Won and I failed
For its written by you, I won’t say by almighty
And I kept dying, dying, dying
But nobody could feel the pain nor my silent sober
They ask what happened??
What should I say
My life is lifeless because so and so..
I don’t need few words of empathy or sympathy
Let you pray for my darling death
My dream, my destiny
That my thrust remained thirsty
With its own unparalleled impulse of love
You won’t see ever,
You won’t feel ever
You won’t understand ever
And the silence of mine is teasing infinite mirrors
But who cares
Neither sunflower stops kissing sun
Nor waves stops drinking the wine
And here my heart is out
And ‘ the shadow of my poetry’
Sprouts but alas to fade only
March 2015 – A Lovelorn Gypsy’s Last Love Song – Shashikala Sasidharan
Gypsies living for the day, it’s joys and sorrows,
Never saved a penny of thoughts for tomorrow,
Spent it all buying solace of that moment silent,
Echoing mellifluous like old songs forgotten.
Searching for some old forgotten poems,
Some savings left of memories’ balance sheet,
Rummaging through yellowed piles of years,
Found old accounts all spent and defunct.
Blank pages stare back a while then diligently stoop,
Back into words lilting on templates of yesterdays,
Tracing the lost face of dreams, fingering through,
Those strands of hair flying with wind to times bygone.
I catch that fragile parachute seed, silver like the
Beard of a lovelorn gypsy singer, treading vast
deserts in moonlit nights, with his sobbing sarangi,
Perched on the memories strung tight and tuned.
One more night he sings, one more love song that,
Hums, cries and croons melodious, resonating…
Within all the pain wrenched out of gut, heart and mind,
Searing the soul evenly, even on such chilly nights.
A lovelorn gypsy’s last love song…
April 2015 – Ashtavakra – Vineetha Mekkoth
Boiling like prawns
in an earthen pot
we lay.
The brine
seeped into every
cell of our being.
Suffocating.
There was nowhere
to hide.
My palms
split into two,
my legs
twisted outward.
Every nerve
racked, tortured
and there was fire raging
where my eyes
would have been.
I cried out mutely
yet there was
no release.
As I twisted out
of my mother’s womb,
my parents unaware
welcomed me.
Smiles faded.
Eyes glazed
they stared at me
cradled in their arms.
Broken, twisted,
skin stretched over
my ribcage.
Deformed.
The Endosulfan baby.
I am waiting.
My siblings will arrive
in similar glory,
cursed in the womb
by the Fathers,
unlived lives shattered,
we the modern
Ashtavakras!
Vineetha Mekkoth
All rights reserved.
Footnotes:
1. Ashtavakra – According to the Hindu mythology, Ashtavakra was cursed by his father while in his mother’s womb because he dared to correct the mistakes of the former. As a result of the curse Ashtavakra was born deformed, with eight crooks or bents (hence the name. Ashta=8, Vakra= bents). He was a scholar and he later saved his father from a dire situation. Ashtavakra is an innocent victim of man’s arrogance as well as a symbol of learning, filial love, patience and forgiveness.
2. Endosulfan – a pesticide which was used extensively in the cashew plantations of northern Kerala, India. It was administered through aerial spraying. This has affected all life forms in the region leading to congenital disabilities in humans as well as animals. After widespread protests throughout the state the government has decided to phase out its use gradually. Because of its threats to human health and the environment, a global ban on the manufacture and use of Endosulfan was negotiated under the Stockholm Convention in April 2011. The ban has taken effect from mid-2012.
(Source for Endosulfan:Wikipedia)
May 2015 – Exchange of Sorrows – Reena Prasad
Why do I write
of flowers that bloom outside imaginary windows
of leaves cried by absent trees
of the stream that stays poised at the hilltop
in the wall painting
real to me as much as it might once have been
when it flowed into the artist’s veins
These don’t exist except in me
and I don’t want to
without them in me
It is not easy to breathe in the odour of living
and to pump out life
though the punished potted plant does it all its life
The rooted ones want to chop off their lower selves
and imagine they will float upwards
The floating clouds drop rain seeds
hoping to latch on to a steady hearth
and clutch a gnarled claw worth of brown dirt
The homeless and the trapped
always in a troubled quest to be the other
not seeing that it would be just an
exchange of sorrows
JUNE 2015 – Living In The Shadows – John Anthony Fingleton
Here no one can see my tears,
Here no voices form my name.
Night and day eclipse this place,
Until my eyes just stare into the darkness
Of unrealistic hope;
Here, only you knew of my existence,
But you stayed silent –
Far too long.
Here is where you abandoned me,
To be devoured slowly by the Shadows.
JULY 2015 – The Last Whistle – Rekha Moothedath
It was a long winter night here
I’m arriving home ,with the wild wind
breaking those venetian blinds
belgium mirrors and dark rooms
Drowned in the snow,wet with dews
forest shivered,bare and naked ..
Stirred by the dying breath of leaves,
Trees waited worst testament of storm
i have been wishing all the way
Without a choice or compromise
Whether i breathe him or
meet him at the grave..
Every beating of my heart
Played a rhythm of secret
through my nerves and veins
Intensely desiring him
In unhappy hours of this journey
No storm could beat me
as those memories did
No hurricanes could toss me
as those words he filled me with..
Would you forgive me again
seeking those days left behind..?
It was an unnatural beginning
And waiting to sum up naturally..
A promise that swift past me long back
Last train stopped in the midnight
through the mist and meadows
My eyes haunted for the sweet vision
Only once before the last whistle..
When the footsteps approached
Its his arms take hold of me now
Now i’d burn myself in the fire
And breathe in closing lips.
AUGUST 2015 – New Delhi 1966 – Vijay Nair
With all the new banians
Neatly folded in the almirah
Father at his rustic
Subversive best
Gestured magnificently- –
Seemingly ambidextrous
Displaying
Two perfect
Holes
In the armpits
Of a vintage vest – –
Entertaining a host
Of faithful relatives
Who came visiting
With guffaws
On sleepy Sunday afternoons – –
Slapping his thighs
While making a point
Urging smug faces
To munch
Monaco biscuits – –
Amma, seething behind
A convent-educated smile
And a tray
Groaning under
Steaming cups of tea
Muttered beneath her breath
As she moved endlessly
From kitchen-smoke
To drawing-room smoke
And back
Exhausted by
The fiction
Of her reality:
“He wears this on purpose
Every time.”
SEPTEMBER 2015 – My Own Water Diviner – Witty Fay
A woman a man leaves
Is bound to smell a cornucopia
Of semantic imperfections
In the way her vowels string
Around her crane-like love,
Up above the snowflaked heart,
Where her arteries bear anatomy.
A woman a man keeps
Is sure to taste of apple fennel
Pistachio apricot in the combs,
The thighs, the whispers, the lobes
Of the dangling guilt of staying
Within the sheltered promise,
Right in the middle of things.
A woman a man de-meanings
And re-meanings first into a noun,
Then a faltered adverb of dainty
Struggle and human awkwardness,
Shall burn and luxuriate in the disease
Of his own incarceration in bareness.
Such woman a man cannot contain.
OCTOBER 2015 – The blow ,the glow – Mangeni W.Obwoya
The blow, the glow,
Flashing on the surface flows,
– A drop on a mirror.
The smile I wear,
Smeared with the hurts inside my core,
– A goat’s smile
Time is young,
Life, a briefcase of thought,
– Hiding sad memories time brought.
Frown with confidence,
Ride and rhyme in happiness,
-Hymns to a grieving soul.
Songs, in grief heal,
Tunes from the hill fill,
-The crevice, time created.
Ask not, about the singing you hear,
For it might take what you most fear,
Just listen and sing along,
And forget, those who did wrong.
NOVEMBER 2015 – Stone Eyes – Elizabeth Kuriakose
eyes shut
he prayed fervently
the pain in his appeal
cruising down his cheeks
opening his eyes
he saw the stone eyes
of the deity
nary a change in
her expression
he walked out
pondering
forgetting to drop
in the temple hundi
the 100 rupee note
he held in his closed fist
realising it only when
bending to put on his shoes
he looked around
he saw the old beggar woman
wrinkled hands outstretched
putting it in her hands
he looked at her face
no god’s eyes
ever lit up
like hers did
he knew
his prayers
would be answered
DECEMBER 2015 – Promise of the Morning – Kamlesh Acharya
Every morning holds
a promise for me.
That unknown moment,
when I return to myself
and shuffle slightly
in the crumpled bed
as I wake up,
holds
the hope of a better day,
the power of my potential,
the lustre of letting go,
the largesse of love,
the fruit of forgiveness,
and the nectar of newness.
Every morning holds
a choice for me –
a choice of choosing
my freedom.
The morning shows me
the beauty of its promise
in the song of a bud
on the same shrub
that sees the withering
of a fragrant flower,
in the shine of the sun
that dispels darkness,
in the gurgle of a river
that is new every day,
in the flight of a bird
that celebrates a new sky.
And yet I hold on
to what I shouldn’t
and let go of
what I mustn’t.
I doggedly guard the pennies
in my tight fists
as pounds pass me by.
Every morning holds
a promise for me.
A promise that
I don’t keep.
* 2016 * : A month by month retrospective
JANUARY : – The Tears of Christ – Elizabeth Hexberg
FEBRUARY : – Where Do I Belong ? – Kamlesh Acharya
MARCH : – When the Night Weds the Sun – Sana Rose
APRIL : – Catherine’s Shadow – John Anthony Fingleton
MAY : – Unique Love – Joel Ogunjimi
JUNE : – You Are The Messenger – Jan Phillips
JULY : – In million hues – Pramila Khadun
AUGUST : – The Infinite illusion – Shalini Samuel
SEPTEMBER : – Levitated – Jan Christian Sorensen
OCTOBER : – The Invisible Painter – Santosh Bakaya
NOVEMBER : – Mom – Witty Fay
DECEMBER : – Restored – Vijay Nair
JANUARY 2016 – The Tears of Christ – Elizabeth Hexberg
The tears of Christ are falling,
on the murdered unborn child.
‘Its only three per cent’, they said,
no reason to be riled.
————————
The tears of Christ are falling,
on children packing guns.
In the name of Liberty,
the reddest river runs.
————————–
The tears of Christ are falling,
as politicians war,
and despairing starving refugees,
can find no open door.
——————-
and
The tears of Christ are falling,
for those who use His Name.
Judge, condemn, misrepresent.
His Heart,
His Walk,
His Pain.
———————
A New Year is upon us,
I pray that the world will know,
His Grace,
His Love,
All hope in Him.
The Way to
stem the flow.
————————
John 14:6,
‘I am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me.’
FEBRUARY 2016 – Where Do I Belong ? – Kamlesh Acharya
I belong to the place where
the lark doesn’t sing because the sun is rising,
but the sun rises to hear the lark sing.
Where the sea doesn’t roar because the moon shines,
but the moon shines to see the waves soar.
Where it doesn’t rain because the earth is parched,
it rains because the sky yearns to kiss its beloved.
Where the wind doesn’t carry the fragrance because the rose bears it,
but air wraps the rose to unwrap the fragrant gift.
Take me to that place where
I can see but I need no eyes,
I can hear but I need no ears,
I can walk but I need no limbs,
I can fly but I need no wings.
Take me to that place where
I can listen to the light
and watch the sound,
where I can taste the fragrance
and drink the wind.
Take me to that place,
for that is where I belong.
MARCH 2016 – When the Night Weds the Sun – Sana Rose
The valley calls it a day,
as it eats up the sun
like in a kid’s
crayon-coloured vista
of the world –
two-hills-and-sunset-with-
sometimes-a-river-from-the-valley.
I had pictured an early moon
when the sky darkened its face,
but the stars on the ceiling
were already in place.
I sigh through the nights,
unwillingly taking strides
with the clock hands
ticking on and on
until daybreak –
another day begins,
another dawn
for birds to rise.
But not for me;
For me, it is night
in a sparkling gown
of blinding white –
saying, “I do” with the sun.
The fireworks when the couple kiss
are their dreams and my pain –
I wait for the valley
to swallow the sun again.
APRIL 2016 – Catherine’s Shadow – John Anthony Fingleton
The frontdoor would slam
And the ‘auld fella’ was off to the pub.
On those winter nights, I would have her all to myself,
The blazing fire dancing our images
Like frog toed shoes, on the diverse pattern of the wallpaper.
Crackling sparks stinging the soot walled hearth;
With it’s light teasing back her lost beauty.
After awhile she would make us both cocoa,
And toast fresh cut slices of bread, over the flames –
A taste and aroma that remains an archaeological treasure,
Forever buried in my memory –
The hot sweet drink seducing my soul, for later dreams.
Then she would lay back her head
And begin to sing.
Old songs, older then her own songs,
Her eyes wide open. As if there were people
Only she could see,
But had been there, waiting on cue all the time.
I would close my eyes and try to enter her dreams,
Cuddling into the womb of her soft voice,
Reluctant to re-emerge from her shadow.
MAY 2016 – Unique Love – Joel Ogunjimi
I could write of love all day long
and tell of its sweet moments in a song,
the painful memories of its loss
And the shattered being that bears the cross.
I could tell of love’s tragedy;
like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Of crossed fate and destiny
and the sweet destruction true lover’s get.
I could write a poem to express
Sweetness and distress,
A poem such as Poe’s
That tells of woes
And serves as a bittersweet dose.
But none could tell truly,
or express intimately
how much love feels
or how lush it blossoms
with innocence and freedom
when it comes and sweetly sweeps
a lover off their feet.
JUNE 2016 – You Are The Messenger – Jan Phillips
Do you feel forsaken?
Is your faith ever shaken?
What to do when it happens
That’s when you take action.
You say a prayer of praise
Then your voice you raise
You sing a song of love
To God up above.
Do you tell those around you
How your love for God grew?
Do you tell them what He has done
That He sent His only son?
Do you tell them you’ve been blessed
By one of the best?
Do you live your life well
So that everyone can tell?
Do you follow God’s plan for you on earth?
Do you know just what it’s worth?
When you accept Jesus in your life
You must be willing to tell of the afterlife.
Jesus lived a life free of sin
He is willing to let you in
Get the message out
Tell them what He’s all about.
You are the messenger
Of our one and only savior.
Tell someone today
And show them how to pray.
JULY 2016 – In million hues – Pramila Khadun
I wrote your name
On the rocks by the mountains.
The snow came
And all was covered.
I felt sad
And cried quietly.
After a month,
When I went back,
Wild flowers had blossomed
Beautifully on the slopes
And your name glittered
On each petal
Like diamonds
In million hues.
AUGUST 2016 – The Infinite Illusion – Shalini Samuel
A basket swiftly skates on a decorated promenade
Attractive and awesome- akin to glittering Gold
Everyone runs behind, some nonchalantly
Some ardently, the rest anxiously
Flowers and thorns slither through its openings
Though it pricks, the whole world follows to pick
A thorn/flower before it disappears on the slippery aisle
Stuck in a thorn/flower picked long ago
Some men wander forever in the lost lane
In the long run, handing over the baton, men sleep
Running blindly, everyone wants to win the race
But none knows what they are running for
For a blessed life, they dream of- I guess
Oh basket, where are you going, I shout from behind
Men say – “Run, Run, Run or you will be stranded forever
Like a river, the basket never touches the same promenade twice”
Won’t the droplets come back to the same river as rain?
Linear it is because limited is our life and memory
We will meet it again and again in the same promenade
Isn’t it a infinite illusion? Time, you keep running;
Let me stop, walk slowly and enjoy the walk.
SEPTEMBER 2016 – Levitated – Jan Christian Sorensen
For moments to share…far to few to bare…
I recall how you picked me up many years ago…
Levitated to be so close to Heaven and you never let go…
ever so lightly in the air…the wind so easily touched my hair…
I had so many hopes kept in you…far to many dreams you blew…
I recall the joy you gave to me as I grew up…
Levitated from childhood to feel that it would never stop…
ever caught up in memory…ever the pain in, I am sorry…
So many days has passed me by…so many years in total deny…
I recall the last time I saw you lay there all pale and grey…
Levitated to face the reality that I’ll never see you another day…
ever so silence I will whisper what I do…after all, forever loving you…
OCTOBER 2016 – The Invisible Painter – Santosh Bakaya
On the undulating meadows stands a cottage small
Painted in hues of red and green.
Next to it a tree stands sentry with a phlegmatic air.
With a mischievous air, the clouds dip low
Over the cottage green and red.
One cloud looks like Joseph Roulin with a fedora hat.
Is Vincent Van Gogh around
Painting the Roulins, one member after another?
Another creeps towards the hat, and tilts it naughtily.
One ancient looking cloud watches with a stiff upper lip
Over itself unable to take a grip.
Clouds and more clouds standing in queues
And an invisible painter splashing hues.
My heart beats frantically
Trying to be heard above the din of existence.
A cloudlet rumbles with rambunctious hilarity
Side –splitting.
The sky throbs with unsung songs
Befitting.
With a shimmering lyricism the air is replete
From the shrubs, squirrels dart in and out, on tiny feet
Stop in their tracks, trying to listen to my heart beats.
And the invisible painter paints on with a frenzied brilliance.
Unfazed by an itinerant songster singing of life’s evanescence.
“Next to it a tree stands sentry with a phlegmatic air.” Wow! beautiful and resonant! kudos poet
NOVEMBER 2016 – Mom – Witty Fay
The luminous clarity of you,
Evanescent and easy when held,
Unsheltered. I remember it to
Be a fair part of my continuum,
The way I strove for balance,
Among the lithe rope walkers
And substituted fear for grace.
Such flickering precision,
Of the lips, the fingers and the
Eyes spoke of a lovable version
Of life itself in its many layers
And I took it all, on the cusp
Of losing myself to the merits
Of you, plentiful and alive.
DECEMBER 2016 – Restored – Vijay Nair
It is true for far too long
Our breathless dreams we let
Drag their tired feet
Down others’ one-way street
But now that you are here
I feel your presence everywhere
And thoughts of shared tomorrows
Lip-lock and make us stare
At crosses on the calendar
Marking memories once ignored
Of moth-eaten lost summers
In rusty trunks, now restored.
* 2 0 1 7 * – A month by month retrospective
JANUARY :- Beyond the Walls – Vatsala Radhakeesoon
FEBRUARY :- Porcelain – Jan Christian Sorensen
MARCH :- Lika A Shade Upon The Earth – Manjeni Wycliffe Obwoya
APRIL :- Speechless – Vijay Nair
MAY :- All Begins and Ends in You – Suzette Portes
JUNE :- Metro Malls – Madhumathy Rajamma
JULY :- The Sheaffer Pen – Santosh Bakaya
AUGUST :- Cataclysm – Swati A.Gadgil
SEPTEMBER :- The Poet that was my Father – Iulia Gherghei
OCTOBER :- Barely Treading Water – Elizabeth Hexberg
NOVEMBER :- A Home Upon The Hill – Bhuvaneshwari Shankar
DECEMBER :- A Carefree Soul – Dr.Nikhat Bano
JANUARY 2017 – Beyond the Walls – Vatsala Radhakeesoon
Walls of intellectualism
block my freedom to dream,
Poetry breaks the blurred prism.
I leap in the air
on the back of a mare,
God whispers,
“For this child, it’s fair.”
Sheltered by my muse’s boldness,
the clouds I caress,
My pains I confess,
God whispers with a pure life
I’m blessed.
Back to the ground,
I’m the lotus in the mud
resisting all of temptations’ buds.
Unbound to previous births, this birth;
Unbound to the better-half, no half;
Beyond the walls my thoughts fly,
Up, high in no bound sky
deeper, deeper beyond the sky
where at my poetry
the Supreme smiles.
FEBRUARY 2017 – Porcelain – Jan Christian Sorensen
You shine like the Moon, the light inside all the darkness…
I am but a shadow of your reflection, the dark spot in all the light…
Your skin so pure and untouched, in a clarity brighter than crystal glass…
If ever an appearance could hurt, your beauty outshine it all so bright…
As the taste of love filled up a cup of porcelain…
nothing of your being is touched and will ever be plain…
Fine lines and features so perfectly shaped, eyes so deep and dark…
From where I am it is slightly obscured, and your shine is the blazing true…
I wish you would come closer, close enough to leave your mark…
In every mirror you paint your beauty, a trace of white in all the blue…
You look so frail and vulnerable but I see the strength in you…
Captivated and seduced I now feel so frail and so damn plain…
You have the taste of infatuation and I can sense your presence too…
The meeting with you has changed my heart to brittle porcelain…
As the taste of love filled up a cup of porcelain…
nothing of your being is touched and will ever be plain…
MARCH 2017 – A Shade Upon The Earth – Manjeni Wycliffe Obwoya
To dust and to decay
to solitude and to silence;
like a shade upon the earth,
is loneliness creeping over me,
and to life comes the long forgotten faces
forming like mists from the silent past,
bygone, bygone are the voices of infancy
voices that long ago grew mute
to once familiar songs we sing no more.
Give me that pipe, ye little piper,
while the wind outside weeps,
Bring me that flute, hand me that harp
when the angry beatings of the rain upon the roof
diminish to tranquil patters upon the sea;
to kill this loneliness that creeps over me,
Like a shade upon the earth.
Let’s dance and dance ’til we drop
and one by one bury these noises
of hurrying footsteps of wounded travellers,
Let’s silence their randomness again and again
die to leave no sound behind;
let mine skill pipe-a-tune,
to kill this loneliness that creeps over me
Like a shade upon the earth.
APRIL 2017 – Speechless – Vijay Nair
Like the bearded old man on a moonlit night:
A worn-out life in worn-out clothes
Standing on a swaying bridge
Singing a soul-stirring song
For an audience of one.
Like the young girl cycling at dawn
Smiling like a wingless angel
In the slowly disappearing mist
With her beautiful hair
Searching for freedom in the breeze.
Like the tired woman in the paddy field
Silhouetted against the spreading glow
Of an unwilling setting sun:
Returning home
Her gait is enshrined.
MAY 2017 – All Begins and Ends in You – Suzette Portes
when once in life someone came
to fill out every inch of you
… then walked away
…leaving every dream behind
was it pain?
or living without life…
in everything we are here for,
there are reasons
…for every reason worth it all
…worth living for in joys and in pain
but sometimes we are just left
for the reasons of being left alone
sometimes we never took the time
to do little things left undone
until everything fades
and all that there was,
…is what is left in our mind
… been there with all the memories to last
then, memories remain
to be there forever
how can we end up
from where we start?
… how can we say goodbye?
… how can i say goodbye?
goodbyes are always the hardest to say
and the most painful to accept
goodbyes are always meant forever
and wishing it back is impossible
we know what is here
deep in our heart,
… wish there was never hellos
… to say goodbye
though it was a chance
for whatever there was
things were just never right
even from the very start
… and ends with “what is?”
… that is supposed to be
which only remains what is in the mind
a thought that should never be there
as it “all begins and ends in you”
JUNE 2017 – Metro Malls – Madhumathy Ramjamma
Past your prime, escalators are a boon.
One step forward and up you go
Then slide on to level ground
Global markets, singing Sirens
Lead you to lands hitherto unknown.
Petrified mannequins pining for Pygmalions
indifferently display the latest in vogue.
In air-cooled milieu, reckless youth
listlessly ignore tick-tock rhythms
of minutes and hours. Wide-eyed children,
shuffling grandmas, liveried attendants –
all on fast track. Outside, on dusty streets
heat waves gleaming silver
dance on asphalt roads.
Humming hymns of urban glory
Metro life bursts balloons
filled with colourful confetti.
I like the poem very much, dear poet. I must praise your grasp over the materials and its super poetic rendition. Thanks for sharing.
JULY 2017 – The Sheaffer Pen – Santosh Bakaya
Ah, papa that Sheaffer pen!
“I will write my novel with it.
I will have all the time in the world
After my retirement,” you had said.
Every now and then, you would pull out your table drawer,
Look admiringly at that Sheaffer pen
A gift from your Ph. D student, accepted reluctantly
Lying between stacks of papers and Morton toffees
That you gave us every now and then
When we did something good.
But I was a good – for- nothing. Did nothing good.
I remember, after a sound tongue –lashing
When my ego came down crashing
And I spent a day, sobbing and thrashing around on my bed
You tiptoed to my bedside with a piece of paper.
I feigned sleep. Deep.
You kept that piece of paper under my pillow.
“SORRY”,
You had written in bold letters with that Sheaffer pen.
Papa, you never got to write a novel with that Sheaffer pen
You had hoped you would have all the time in the world.
But no, you did not!
In that ‘Relic’ of a house in Kashmir, you breathed your last
[Ah wasn’t it your dream to go back to your roots?]
With a truckful of books, a trunkful of clothes
A heart full of dreams, and that Sheaffer pen
You shifted base from Jaipur to Kashmir.
I would often glimpse you standing near your study window
Twirling that Sheaffer pen
Looking down thoughtfully at the houseboat –dotted Jhelum.
Your mind whirring, an idea stirring in your mind.
But before you could put it on paper, with your Sheaffer pen
The words left you, and we, the bereft ones were left
Clutching to your memories, and that precious relic
That Sheaffer pen.
AUGUST 2017 – Cataclysm – Swati A.Gadgil
Am I sensing depletion ..
Am I sensing recession…
No, I am not a banker..!
But yes, I possess some treasure,
Most precious to me….
Its my pride and others envy
Self esteem and its sanctity…..
but what worries me
Is it depleting ?
or falling in value
Values? what are they….
Life as shallow as a
stream while it rains,…
Depth and mass,
What does it mean…?
splashing money,
position and graft,….
What is depleting , did I say….
Oh my words go extinct,
values antique….
They suit decor of a
rich living room,
shelved away neatly,
displayed after taxidermy…
What am I talking about..?
Depletion ,..! Recession ,…!
cataclysm…..
Sorry…it is extinction ….!
SEPTEMBER 2017 – The Poet that was my Father – Iulia Gherghei
Dedicated to Grisa Gherghei
The poet was my father
He read his poems to our family friends
And all were mesmerized by them
How wise, how deep, how entangled but also bold
In a time of dictatorship
The poet was my hero
Till one day when the feeble man crawled
from under his own built effigy
Sad day for me
I became deaf to his words
And started writing my own lines
Lines on my own coin
The poet left
Vaporised in some blond vagina
Only then I have found out
that was his pattern
Sliding slowly from one black hole to the next vortex
Blond haired and with witchy eyes
The poet and me lost track from one another then
I remained with the one instilled by him in the cells of my soul
Later, decades later
The poet have raised again from his pit
He stands besides his trees
The trees that in one of his poems were craving
to see a naked woman for they had never been in paradise
OCTOBER 2017 – Barely Treading Water – Elizabeth Hexberg
Barely treading water,
Lord, I don’t know why?
All the dreams I once believed,
somehow passed me by.
———
Do I make a difference ?
Do I serve you well ?
Or am I just a failure?
Sometimes so hard to tell.
——–
I need to feel You close to me
I need to see Your Face
I need to rest upon The Rock
To sleep in Your Embrace.
——–
I need to find a better day,
a better way to be,
then perhaps I’ll get it right,
see the You in me.
——–
But for now Im tired Lord,
I can’t find Your Hand.
This thing called life has got me beat,
and I don’t understand.
——–
So Father, could you carry me,
at least, until I see,
a plan, a purpose to it all,
a reason just to be.
——–
Pity parties aren’t my style.
So this is just for You.
You know,
You see my shredded heart,
Help me shine on through.
NOVEMBER 2017 – A Home Upon The Hill – Bhuvaneshwari Shankar
I will build a home upon the hill
With windows for every sun
Each room with mountain air shall fill
And night and day will be as one.
Bird song will waken the day
While cicadas lull it to sleep.
The fragrant air so wholesome
With shades of
Eucalyptus, pine and balsam
Will make a confluence
Of every room.
In Spring time flowers will bloom
In Summer the drones will moan
Punch drunk on pure nectar
Teetering to the honeycomb
In Autumn the colours will flow
The world will dance
And fall in a trance
From the crystal shine of the Winter’s snow.
The warbling stream
Will feed an afternoon’s dream
Where the muse will descend
Her song to lend
Our blended song shall delight
The daze of moon blanched nights
DECEMBER 2017 – A Carefree Soul – Dr.Nikhat Bano
I feel like a free bird
in the vastness of this dusk;
Though my freedom is confined
yet I smell a familiar musk.
The twilight has darkened
many marvels of the world;
But it couldn’t hide you
in the widespread bits of gold.
I’m stretching my arms far out,
beyond this saffron horizon;
Fingers are groping in the dark
to feel remnants of the gone sun.
Once a carefree soul,
flying in and out of my heart’s door;
Now, seeing a ghostly apparition
floating between my two worlds.
* 2018 * – A month by month retrospective
JANUARY :- Gone,gone is the Country we loved – Mangeni Wycliffe Obwoya
FEBRUARY :- Everywhere and Nowhere – Vijay Nair
MARCH :- Sterling – Swati Gadgil
APRIL :- Can we talk about us my friend? – Sameer Tembe
MAY :- The friend long lost – Nalini Srivastava
JUNE :- Sunday Morning People – Martin Nicholson
JULY :- Pax Vobiscum – Jonathan Huggybear
AUGUST :- The Flood in Aluva – Ampat Koshy
SEPTEMBER :- An Ordinary Night – Geetha Munnurcode
OCTOBER :- High Tea – Vandana Kumar
NOVEMBER :- On the Back Porch – Jan Phillips
DECEMBER :- I am a Poet – Sarala Ram Kamal
JANUARY 2018 – Gone,gone is the Country we loved – Mangeni Wycliffe Obwoya
Gone, Gone, Is the country we loved,
Here time boils the rain,
And memories die with the wind,
When the dawn mist rises;
from the valley that kept our bones,
Peering through the haze,
their images stare, and their songs rise;
And in file they march -leader at the head,
and behind him comes his followers,
to the land we once held,
teeming with life in our dreams,
where pristine rivers run clear,
the grass and trees are all in bloom
the bees abuzz over their blooms,
while the birds drunk in songs sing,
through this world of perfection,
Mine are the elders walking passed in melancholy,
Through a land ours no more.
Sometimes when the evening comes,
and its anger eats the sun-light,
death distills over the water,
when in the shadow plays my imagination
creating the old homes -my people cherished
smoke from lit bonfires curl from their kraals
and in the rivers that roar,
I hear the yells of the mothers
and the laughter of the little children
As in the olden days -the good ole days;
Am I not going mad?
Again, and again and again I see shadows dark
and roars of our antique rivers,
When teardrops turn into icicles crystalline
mourning to moan -the good ole days gone.
My heart is so full of sorrow,
for the generations gone by
And mine still is a heart mournful for those to come,
when a disease eats a village,
It leaves a few to mourn and bury the dead
and through echoes of their footfalls walk
in the absence of their form.
Here lies the country we cherished,
Gone, gone, Is the country we loved.
FEBRUARY 2018 – Everywhere and Nowhere – Vijay Nair
Hanging on the wall is a photograph of grandmother:
Her sepia-tinged impish smile
Drawing you through the black and white mysteries
Of childhood, to the bald is beautiful
Potbellied bloke at the steering wheel
Who finds happiness in the sanctity of a memory
Of clutching her gnarled fingers
During their clandestine visits to the unnamed shrine
In the unbroken heart of the forest
Undisturbed by the bird shrieks of falling trees
Which he now remembers, stuck
In yet another traffic jam,
Between the wild honking and colourful cursing
And the crossed signals of anxious people
Going everywhere and nowhere.
MARCH 2018 – Sterling – Swati Gadgil
I am a woman
I was a girl
I was a baby
I was just a soul….
wonder why
will cry my soul
I was equal
sterling and unmitigated ,
abstract and conceptual….
know not why ?
got trapped in a cycle ,
embodied and trampled ,
clothed in beauty
to suckle humanity….
while being whipped ,
and my wings clipped ,
enslaved in a body
visible and tangible
gullible ……
I forget why ,
I dont have to die
to feel my core
dignity , esteem , virtue and more
conjectural….am I ?
Wish luck to humanity ,
to live until infinity !
femininity versus ferocity
shatters equality ,
celebrations of body ,
celebrations of soul ,
fathom ….
what I aspire
love or fire ?
lighting the pyre
burning desires…..
soul is equal ,
soul is vagrant ,
I crave for justice
I pine to exist
in the master’s piece…….
I am grace
I am pace
I am humanity !
abundance of passion
loads of compassion
I am a woman
I was a girl
I was a baby
I am just a soul !!!!!
APRIL 2018 – Can we talk about us my friend? – Sameer Tembe
Can we talk about us my friend?
After long you met me; like a song
in life filled with insurmountable
deep and never ending void.
as i looked into your eyes,
I felt my childhood running
down those small lanes
where the chocolate seller used
to live.
You used to give all to have them.
The bell of our school,
the long walks near the river
cycling back to home.
All remind me of you
but now you are not talking.
You are asking me about my job,
my wife and you think those are my life.
You talk about money, growth, town.
about death and afterlife.
I am holding my breath,
to listen my name.
I am not in those things
dear friend.
Can we talk about us my friend?
I don’t live to buy a car
I not interested in some property;
you bought as investment so far;
I want to hear how the flowers smell
when we where young.
How we used look at girls in the park.
but you talk about the movie actor,
the new phone you gifted,
or how you spent your holiday in honolulu.
Can we talk about us my friend?
How we used to spend our
lazy afternoon.
Kissing dew drop in the morning.
Sipping the sun in the spoon.
sleeping underneath the stars.
how you felt life was amazing
every moment with you around
was like a never fading star.
Can we talk about us my friend.
MAY 2018 – The friend long lost – Nalini Srivastava
How does it feel when a friend vanishes.
Someone as close as your shadow,
Someone whom you trust
And look up to as next to God.
A friendship that blossomed out of the blue.
Two females struggling their way through life’s odds,
Waiting eagerly ,yet not waiting for Life’s nods.
Hard working moms,working to create wonders,
Leading the brigade in respective fields.
And one day the sparkling star stops to respond.
No parting words,no goodbye.
And the one left wonders – Why?
JUNE 2018 – Sunday Morning People – Martin Nicholson
The sound of people
leading ordinary lives,
People pushing wheelie bins
down craggy concrete drives,
People washing cars
on early Sunday morning,
While other people stay in bed
stretch arms and still are yawning,
People pushing lawnmowers
in Sunday morning sun,
while the sizzle sizzle sound
of a Sunday joint is done,
People playing radios
Old songs that we’ve all heard,
drowning out the trilling song
of every singing bird,
Men back from pubs
Yelling at their wives,
Sounds and sound of people
Leading ordinary lives.
JULY 2018 – Pax Vobiscum – Jonathan Huggybear
I.
As I write this, somebody somewhere in the world is laughing,
crying, hoping, suffering. At this moment, a woman is giving birth.
At this moment, surrounded by friends and family, somebody is dying.
At this moment, somebody is achieving his loftiest ambition,
and somewhere also, somebody is healing wounds of humiliation.
Somebody is staring at a photograph, a memento of youth.
Somebody is gazing at the sea, searching for the truth.
II.
There are moments, when, unbidden, I felt at one with the universe.
I am blessed, as I became witness, when a deeper layer manifests,
in intellect and spirit, in heart and soul, as I soar to a higher existence.
III.
There is peace in moments of serendipity:
a kiss from a child, a perfect shell on a beach, a glorious sunrise.
Beautiful moments I have known, and have known well,
perhaps unlike my shadow, unlike a constant companion,
but like a bird on the window, to alight, to sing, to delight,
but only for a moment – then she soars once more in flight.
IV.
Peace I have found, brief moments in time, they glimmer
like fireflies on a moonlit night. But to Man, grasping for hope,
a morsel, alas, is not enough. There is more to this world,
in our lives, than Mammon’s lot; there is to be found
the nature of angels – joy, serenity, peace and love.
V.
Not the peace of the desert; there is solitude, but only wilderness,
not to commune with nature, but to fight for your soul for eternity.
Not the peace of the grave; hollowed ground, but filled with emptiness,
for our time on earth is but a spark, a glint, in the blinding light of infinity.
VI.
To have peace, some say, is to call for war,
for only in eternal vigilance can peace, like freedom, be defended.
Yet for peace to grow, like a lovely flower, the soil needs not
the blood of a martyr; the altar of peace needs not
the lives of the brave, the righteous and the just.
The cries of widows and orphans shall pass,
as all things pass, but a peacemaker, he who lights our path, is forever.
VII.
There is finally, divine peace, for, at the moment of our death,
a vision opens the eyes of the soul, an awakening beyond understanding,
and that, my friend, is real peace, and peace be with you.
AUGUST 2018 – The Flood in Aluva – Ampat Koshy
The water rose in our house
to the first floor
The water came suddenly
from the river
to where it had never come before
as the dam had been unleashed into it
and it had overflowed even to the midst of the town
We left without further ado
An old man and an old woman
a daughter and her husband who both cannot speak or hear
and a granddaughter who could
the son being away
to the nearby house
of the old woman’s sister
We left like the five find outers and we too had with us a black dog
The house became Kirrin island
The phones died
The neighbours cried
Life does hide
We had to, our time, bide and abide
36 hours they waited
our other daughters
to hear from us
Our grand-daughter charged her phone from a neighbour’s car
somehow
(“Haven’t I told you to put a charger in the car?”)
The water kept rising
to the first floor in our house nearby
It was the old man’s birthday when it started receding
and they could go back to get him a shirt for a change
No calls got through
that the daughter’s husband made
from Bangalore
except to someone in Thrissur
and someone in Thiruvananthapuram
A Rebin who bothered to answer and listen patiently and even try to help at the son in law’s insistent pleas born of anxiety
All lines were bust, or busy
or phones switched off
Getting no news was like eating fire
No electricity, net, little water, less food
A cousin and her husband was trapped in a church with some fifty others
Their son abroad took to facebook to try and help
The children ate fire
Finally a boat came and rowed them all to safety
Water got into all the cars
but the old man’s was kept on a raised platform
and they were working on it
when the floods came
They left
It remained high, stranded
And all that was left was the sound of the water
lapping against the legs of the raised platform
but the car was saved
9000 people in UC College, Alwaye, in a hastily put together relief camp
run only by a few staunch volunteers
waiting anxiously for supplies of all sorts
medical, fiscal, clothing, food, water
and next day a 50000 waiting to register for aid to reconstruction
but an old student of the old man had mercy on him
took him to the front of the line
as he was too old to wait
and got him registered
Cleaning and restoring the house will take ages
How many more such stories
How many months and years
how many lives
and bruises
How much time and how many dangers
How many fights with insensitive vultures
Hear the message the waters left behind
Citizens
time and tide
wait for no one
and do not differentiate between the mad outsiders
not in danger who can say any shit they like
and the sad insiders
who had to face the battle and war
of sudden collapse
brought on by years of neglect to the warnings given
by nature and the wise
At the end remains the task of rebuilding
and remembering the dead
avoiding the poisonous
for there is only one sky on earth
and you will always have the water and the vipers with you
which and whom you have to live with
the next time too
& eat fire
and come out
unscathed, because you are just simple people and true.
SEPTEMBER 2018 – An Ordinary Night – Geetha Munnurcode
Scrubbing and washing daily
On the hearth
She keeps
The grains of labour
In blackened pots.
They talk to each other, boiling,
Of the stories of every hour
Be the force of sighs that help
The flames keep flaring non-stop.
The feminine fingers
Take a boiled grain
test whether done, and
Keep off the pot
Mixing a tinge of salt.
She starts wiping off
The tear-filled dark eyes
Saying
‘To mix with red chillies,
I just smashed the onion springs…’
Into a brim-broken cup
Filling with the moonlight drops
That is showered through the
Gaps on the roof
She pours the gravied rice
blended with grains of love!
All the grievances shred as snow
Dissolves in embraces
When the breeze plays mischiefs,
The branches spray
Thousands of blossoms down.
There isn’t left any mark or scar
as a memoir there
Yet, apart from
The familiarised paths that revolve
There shines the life
In those brightened eyes!
OCTOBER 2018 – High Tea – Vandana Kumar
Seated ‘lady like’ and demure
Diagonally opposite you
We the convent indoctrinated
Skilled in social niceties
Your head shook at the right moment
“No thanks I am done”
At the mention of another petit four
But our cores throbbed
In unison
Wanting to devour each other
Instead of the canapés on offer
The heaving bosom saw your discreet glance
And wanted to dance loose for you
But for the constricting apparel
That came in the way
The self-conscious legs crossed again
Flashes of you spreading them
On verdant lawn
Pounding in open blue sky
Settled on that sofa across
You never did ask how hungry I was
And I, wrapped in bourgeois propriety
Never did tell
NOVEMBER 2018 – On the Back Porch – Jan Phillips
Out on the back porch
Just talkin to God
That’s what I do
In the middle
Of the night
When everythings quiet
I’m on the back porch
Just talkin to God
Now God, I know
I’m not always good
But I want YOU to know
I know I’ve been understood
Your SON Jesus
Oh what a man
As we walk together He holds my hand
I’m on the back porch
Just talkin to God
He’s patient
And loyal to you
He understands me
If He didn’t
Don’t know what I’d do
I’d be in a pickle
That’s for sure
I’m on the back porch
Just talkin to God
Lord, I just want you to know
How grateful I am
To be here for the show!
It looks like somebody
Went out of there way
To sprinkle sparkle dust
All over the sky.
Just talkin to God it’s why
I can face tomorrow
How lucky am I
I don’t have to be rich
Just talkin to God
It’s my pleasure to see
How much He tolerates me
Father I don’t want to take up too
Much of your time
But you know how much
This means to me
Sittin on the back porch
Just talkin to you.
I may not pray just
Like everybody else
But Lord you know I am sincere
I want to ask that you
Keep this country
In the palm of your hand
And God help the politicians
To understand we don’t want
A lot you see, just leave us be
Okay, I’ve whined enough for now
Be talkin to you
out on the back porch soon
DECEMBER 2018 – I am a Poet Sarala Ram Kamal
I am a Poetess
(Everything about a poet/poetess is poetry only)
When I was a newborn
I wrote poems with my four limbs
Throwing them up in the air
Only God knew what I wrote
When I was a little bigger
I wrote poems with my lips
In an unknown lingua franca
Only my mother knew what I wrote
When I was a school girl
I wrote poems on the river water
Which flowed westward
Maybe Arabian sea had them all
When I was a teenager
I wrote poems on the western sky
With my dreamy eyes
On the golden canvas where the clouds rested in many a shape
When I got married
I wrote poems with the broom
On my new home’s floor
They were very dark
When I was pregnant
I wrote lullabies with my breath
Hearing them my baby kicked
And I knew it liked them all
When my child started walking
All my poems I wrote till then
Came back once again
Through those little feet, with their new steps
Now, when the kids are up and on their own
Poems come to me, I pick pen and paper,
Write them; the alphabet is known to the world
Many reads, likes, dislikes …
All poems written in my life till now are there
Lingering in my breaths, sighs and inside the dreams
They are so sweet with all spices mixed in the right proportion
I am a poet, still writing, may be will be writing through my death
* 2019 * A month by month retrospective
JANUARY : – Ellana-1,Ellana-2,Ellana-3 – Pushmaotee Subrun
FEBRUARY :- Brighton – Martin Nicholson
MARCH :- The Incubator – Jan Christian Sorensen
APRIL :- Elegy for Tina.. – Ampat Koshy
MAY :- Way of the World – Tapeshwar Prasad
JUNE :- Where are the Folks? – Abu Siddik
JULY :- I Need To Forget – Swati Gadgil
AUGUST :- Thrift Shop – Joan McNerney
SEPTEMBER :- Complete – Amruta Nerukar
OCTOBER :- Musings From A Rainy Afternoon – Nisha Arudra
NOVEMBER :- Gratitude – Sunil Sharma
DECEMBER :- The poet and his island – Iulia Gherghei
JANUARY 2019 – Ellana-1,Ellana-2,Ellana-3 – Pushmaotee Subrun
Ellana walked full light hearted,
And firm footed,
Praying to the Lord
of all regularly,
For guidance, for
right direction accordingly,
With a thousand and
one thanks repeatedly,
For all her
benedictions,
All, from her
earliest recollections,
Of her dear mum’s love
Her unconditional
love,
Her reason for
living,
Her reason for her
confident being,
Her reason for
fervent faith in the Supreme Being.
Ellana – 2
Her stoicism, her integrity came
Through motherly inculcation,
Of right values, specially integrity,
Shirking laziness and instead inviting assiduity,
In every act moderation,
Curbing hankerings leading to destruction,
Learning to be content,
Giving love, support, and encouragement.
And a thousand other motherly inculcation,
Ellana treasured with great appreciation.
Ellana – 3
Virtue is her inner trait
Wisdom illumines her gait,
Pleasure always at hand,
Pain she bears with a stoic stand.
Her reason brings light
Contentment is what makes her heart bright
Peace replaces in her bosom all scepticism,
Hope shedding rays of optimism,
Her life, though at times burdensome,
With
resilience, made less wearisome.
FEBRUARY 2019 – Brighton – Martin Nicholson
Sunny starling-spattered skies
swirl down to autumn-coloured seafront,
Tides that come and tides that go
a sea that never really was;
A little London by the sea
hums and buzzes
bleats itself;
Blue skies back white rendered buildings,
wrought-iron railings climbing high
look down on busy footworn streets
and many different passers-by;
The little pretty fashion girls
with colour-spangled shapely legs
and huge emancipated breasts,
the ends describing little circles
on their sheer-look cotton vests;
And drunks and people drinking drinks
occupy the monuments,
people sleeping
people begging,
Go North young man
not said but thinking,
youths with nothing but a beer can
just for show or just for drinking;
All these people passed by me,
and all of them were passed by me
in Little London by the sea.
MARCH 2019 – The incubator – Jan Christian Sorensen
It is a time of great words without any value created
a time when few fractions control your truth.
It is a time how great men without value the globe creates
a time when your creation increases inequality and creates a queue.
Rip to shreads open wounds in the surface and burn the soil to sand
blame it all other helped by twitterchat in the thin-lined ozone.
In a time when it has become everything or nothing
a time when the election can be spared and hid by hateful words.
At a time when freedom costs you your freedom
a time when so many are led by the same rhetoric with acknowledging nod.
It is a time when truth is fabricated and forged in sweaty gold
a time when so many have so little to say and so few to say it all.
It is a time when truth is ordered, purchased and paid for
a time when truth digs a gap no longer anyone can cross.
The right to live ripped off by those who never share and only steal
walls and borders raised monuments and flag hoisted.
At a time when ever fewer decide
a time when fear again dominates wings.
At a time when you can of course buy your power today
a time like the one before reversed, now only for contempt.
It has been in time like this, that put your ancestors in the dark mold
a time when you now have to choose only one from your own litter.
It is a time of hypocrites and civil servants who can not manage
a time when the power they believe in still delete all traces.
It is time now to say stop and for those brave to quit
so the Earth can turn so beautifully and dancing in the light from our sun.
At a time when we give it all away
A time when getting poor has become a rich man’s sport.
During this it’s time to throw away all that old covetousness
a time when our children have no chances put into their incubator.
APRIL 2019 – Elegy for Tina.. – Ampat Koshy
Someone put some mud in his extended left hand
He looked at it, uncomprehending
Put it in, down there, a voice said
He looked down at his feet
And as his eyes travelled, from left foot forward
There it was
A two foot by one foot hole, dug in the ground
Holding the small box of wood
In a shape he could not describe
Not having the word for it
Ten years old is too young to know much
(Elongated, hexagonal, it was, he knows now)
He could no longer see that face
Only the clean, almost white, yellow of the wood’s grain
Around him the voices which he could not make out, in refrain
of sad song or funereal chant of prayer
Around him the milling crowd of people, people, faceless, faces, known ,unknown, when all he wanted was to be left alone, everywhere
What had drawn so many there?
He opened his hand and let fall the earth
Watched it fall with no sound he could hear
And disperse into its tiny particles
Along with other clods of earth
‘Dust thou art and to dust thou dost return’
Then he understood
Something wet his cheeks burned
He wondered had she discerned
The sound of the sand
Hitting her roof
That it was different
And from his hand
Then jerked
Out of that mad reverie
She was gone
Under, forever
Even her tiny face
Tiny, how funny, so close to her name
You just change one letter and a whole world shrinks and a person is gone
Only the hope was left
Of meeting in eternity or heaven
Or some other life
Or the memory
Or both, or whichever
Was more true
So with Nothing left to do
He left
Before they covered her and the box up
With spades and shovels and picks
Gravely, as befits a new grave
He does not remember if he turned and looked
One last time –
How lame! –
The scene to frame
Not knowing it would never fade…
MAY 2019 – Way of the World – Tapeshwar Prasad
I was not familiar
with this co-walker on my morning walk
Who was striding slowly, barefoot
on a long two tiled bridge –
a road and the rail lines under it
But, his act of finishing his thoughts
and starting it again
drew me a little closer to him –
and I nearly paused my steps further
to listen to his less comprehensible sentences –
Meaningful et al
I knew
I was getting closer to him
by his truthful utterance –
as he was slicing it part by part
He was ragged, and grey of hair
Stinking badly, but
of a princely milieu
I took pause
Under His guidance
and thought about the way of the world –
Those who are self proclaimed rich, have little of their own
Those who are ragged, have all the wisdom to share
JUNE 2019 – Where are the Folks? – Abu Siddik
Where are the folks?
Street is deserted and dull,
Shops some gutted,
Some shuttered.
Where are the birds
That sway on these electric loops?
Where is the shoe-shine boy
Who smiles and shines my shoes
At that corner?
Where are the fruit sellers
Who sit by the wall of this gold showroom
And shout?
The air is heavy,
Smoke smouldering
Burnt tyres and bamboo poles
Scattered, diffused at my step.
An uneasy calm
Lulls the city to sleep!
JULY 2019 – I Need To Forget – Swati Gadgil
I need to forget myself ,
just ignore and let ‘Me’ vanish
my image my identity
my name and ‘Me’ ….
I am in search
of something divine ,
calm and beautiful
full of life ….
energy and peace
I do not know
what it means ?
what am I looking for ,
solitude or company ?
confused , Am I ?
To find a way
I need to lose my ‘Self’ ,
it brings ego
ego brings hurt
hurt brings agony
all in tow ,
a basket full of sorrow ……
hence I start ,
in search of a state
no name no face
no life no trace ,
just peace around …..
world of glow
gallons will flow
mingle and dissolve
this puzzle I solve ,
now I know
I need to melt
I need to forget ……
AUGUST 2019 – Thrift Shop – Joan McNerney
I descend clutching a
teetering banister to the
bowels of this holy place.
A sign welcomes me to
St. Mary’s Basement Boutique
where scent of unloved
clothing assaults me.
I finger grubby blouses
and skirts hanging limp
week after week unwanted.
Where is it? Hidden beneath
mounds of faded tee shirts?
Where is that swag I will
brag on for months?
At last I uncover something
beyond belief….a mohair sweater
snow white with pastel flowers.
A good fit, my prayer answered.
Retired ladies glance up.
They are volunteers filling
another empty afternoon.
The cashier consults her price list.
“One dollar” she says as I reply with
quick “thanks” fleeing blissfully.
When I get home, my bonanza
is baptized in cool water and suds
now reborn, lustrous and all mine.
SEPTEMBER 2019 – Complete – Amruta Nerukar
Complete … is a word that has always intrigued me. I feel inadequate the moment I say that I have completed something.
What exactly makes you complete? There is seeking for stability, security, a sense of self esteem which is considered to fall within the conventional realm. Then there may be the seeking for perfection, even excellence. There is a constant search for a sense of being part of a structure … a social system, a family, a relationship. There is an incessant longing for feedbacks and acknowledgement for the acts that come into being through us. There may be a pursuit towards experiencing a certain role … that of a spouse, a parent, a grandparent. There are milestones we chase, gifts and approvals we aspire for and through all this we seek an experience which is consistent with the ‘logic’ of being complete. Do we find it?
Perhaps…… it is the very obsession with being complete and bringing closure to something that causes the experience of completeness to confound us.
It is the concretisation of the life experiences which keeps us deprived of being connected through the universal continuum.
No one can deny the importance of structures … material and social. They are the very medium via which one can enjoy the tangible experience of the life process. What needs to be understood is that they are ephemeral in their existence as structures and eternally connected as gradients through the story of the Universe.
How about a seeking that morphs through those roles… the one for stability, security, affiliation, approval, esteem, perfection, excellence and then just goes beyond all of this into a space less travelled? How about being inspired in a way that the unknown and unexplored feel like the friend one is looking forward to meeting? To be looking at challenges as an opportunity to experience the splendour of the process a little longer, to be enjoying darkness as it holds within its expanse the possibilities that are waiting to be unravelled, to be enjoying the pain …. physical, emotional because it heralds the coming in of a new state of being, to be in awe of the moment that connects one with the Nature’s wisdom which is way bigger than my conscious awareness ……. To be in Love …. with life ….feeling delightfully incomplete and then …. may be… be blessed in a moment with a rare feeling of having experienced the Universe……complete!!!
OCTOBER 2019 – Musings From A Rainy Afternoon – Nisha Arudra
I’m deceitful enough to believe you’re no one’s but mine
But then you are
When you pour down in all your fury
I see no one but you
And I know you drench no one but me.
I’m deceitful enough to believe our love story is one of it’s kind
And it is
When we are together nothing else matters
I have you and you have me
And we have our endless stories.
I’m deceitful enough to say I’ll love you in my own terms
Sometimes making you beat relentlessly
On the forte of glass I’ve built
And sometimes simply walking into you
Letting you have your way with me.
I’m deceitful enough to believe I care less when you walk away
Even when I burn inside
Knowing how enslaved I am
To your beauty sometimes vicious
Sometimes divine.
I’m deceitful, and I don’t care
For when you come, you come for me
And sketch a fantasy of eternity
Of us forever holding our hands
And watching the world go by.
NOVEMBER 2019 – Gratitude – Sunil Sharma
After the cruel, abrupt downsizing
The man leaves the office, forever
Face downcast, a bag in hand and
Few memories in a grieving heart.
The boulevard does not look like
The one experienced in the morning
Of the wintry New Delhi—crisp and smiling
And the crowded paths, pavements, similar, yet different!
Daily, years together, the man, now in 50s, walked the
Lanes and by-lanes of the Connaught Place
Afternoons, post-lunch, in the company of
Colleagues and friends from the nearby offices for Chai.
All that is past, within 24 hours! He stands at the same spot, near the
Tea vendor; being ignored by the same set; except the stray dog that wags its tail and
Yelps—in pure, friendly delight—at the forlorn man that daily
Fed the emaciated, spurned dog—bread with loving hands!
DECEMBER 2019 – The Poet and his island – Iulia Gherghei
The poet walked in helping himself with a cane
But one could easily see that he caressed many thighs in his time
Whom he then rounded about in rhymes
On his island all the women melt in the Mediterranean sea
So the poet has to leave the verse free
To build a maize of subtle meanings
To lure back the maddened sirens
Maddened by his rocky kisses
The poet was reciting
The poet rolls out verses in an unknown language
The way how he breaths in the h’s is familiar to me though
The sounds emitted are faucal, like spell of some sort
The poet has a warm smile as if he met some old friend
And in his eyes he wears all the warmth of his island
* 2020 * A month by month retrospective
JANUARY: A mendicant’s perspective – Bilquis Fatima
FEBRUARY: Father – Smruti Ranjan Mohanty
MARCH: The ants in my kitchen – Pramila Khadun
APRIL: An Imaginary Friend – Iulia Gherghei
MAY: Wheel – Rahul Aithal
JUNE: The House of Waiting – Amita Paul
JULY:The Never Changing Monarch – Shalini Samuel
AUGUST: The Funeral – Geetha Ravindran
SEPTEMBER: The Embrace – Parneet Jaggi
OCTOBER: Let The Womb Hold – Naheed Akhtar
NOVEMBER: Trinkets – Santosh Bakaya
DECEMBER: Erasure – Madhumathy Rajamma
JANUARY 2020 – A mendicant’s perspective – Bilquis Fatima
Why do you ignore
An empty hand that implores?
For a few crumbs of bread
Or some pennies instead.
A strong resentment in you I feel,
Reflecting repulsion in the glance you steal
Ready with hollow advices to preach ,
Declaring begging a perpetrating disease.
No comforts you offer nor a penny you spare.
Comparing mendicants to criminals is not fair.
For if you are deprived of endearment
Don’t blindly give your judgment.
Addicted to wasting meals ,
How would you know our ordeal
For pangs of hunger buffeting thus,
Seems a relentless curse on us.
Forced to live on others mercy, dying each day of ignominy.
This plight of us brought about by your tyranny.
Your malpractices and selfish schemes, havoc wreaks.
Unfathomable greed makes humanity weep.
FEBRUARY 2020 – Father – Smruti Ranjan Mohanty
My father!
how sweet were those days
when i was at your feet
chanting your hymns
siba sahasranama and mahimna stotra
from morning to evening
how beautiful were those moments
when your temple was my lone asylum
your prasad my only diet
How captivating were those nights
spent in repeating your name
visualising your resplendence
so engrossed i was
could not differentiate
when i was awake
and when i was asleep
in my conscious mind you were
in my subconscious mind you were
in every moment of my life
i felt your presence
and your sweet smile
guided me in each step
In a weak moment
might have craved for
your affluence and splendour
and you gave me the whole world
but took away those fulfilling moments
those fascinating days and nights
that innocent smile on my lips
that simple mind
far away from this glittering word
and its lovely amenities
i lost those beautiful feelings
my heaven on earth
what i gained
everyone knows
but what i lost
i only know
My Lord!
what to do with your spellbinding grandeur
when you are miles away
beyond my horizon and
the more i look at your splendour
the poorer i become
My master!
take away everything you have given
but return me those days and nights
which were once completely mine
let me be at your feet once again
praying and repenting
feeling your presence in whatever
i see and what lies beyond
let me have a bit of the poison you drank
to be of any use
in this cosmic drama of yours
MARCH 2020 – The ants in my kitchen – Pramila Khadun
My kitchen shows my personal touches
And my artistic sensibilities as well,
For this is the place where I spend
A lot of my time
Preparing, cooking, serving and washing up.
Every time I place my chopping board
On my work surface near my cooker,
A dozen red harmless ants approach
To taste the colorful vegetables
Which I am dicing, chopping,
Shredding, grating, top and tailing.
They always seduce me like the Trojan Horse,
With warmth emanating
From their inner selves,
Reflective of their souls
With the oceanic depth of their hearts.
With tranquil, vast expansive eyes,
The females move with passion
Exuberance and coquetry
And the males maintain
The decorum of being gentlemen.
With a camouflaged smile,
I look at them
And I know how guarded they are,
And how they trust people
Only when they have proven themselves
Trustworthy and loyal.
I blow a kiss with glee
When they move back
Behind my cooker,
Their quiet zone, their comfort zone.
When I go on a holiday,
I think of them
And about what they must be doing
In their world of silent love,
Beyond the intangible,
Beyond the apparent
Far from this madding crowd.
Suddenly, my ants flash to my mind,
Climbing the mount of hope
With no rope,
Like a group of white star cabin crew.
They know I will be back soon
And I can see the fireworks blazing
In a glorious moment
When the sound of my chopping board
And knife ring the bells of joy
For the rapprochement.
APRIL 2020 – An Imaginary Friend – Iulia Gherghei
An imaginary friend?
No, I don’t think I had one
The pattern on the curtains scared me though
Rows and rows of monsters perfectly aligned
Waiting for my moment of weakness
Later, the very same curtain will become my princess veil in my daydream play
The monsters got forgotten
But still perfectly lined up
The mirror was my friend by now
There I found my safe place
A dance, a swirl, another pirouet
There I could split up the sad me from
the scared me
Danger lurks in the curtains’ folds
A dance, a pirouet, the news of my dead mother
The news that she was my real mother
The mirror was my single true friend now
Another pirouet and again one more
A perfect swirl
Wings grow on my shoulders
One fluffy stretch and I am next to her
To guide her through the mirrors
MAY 2020 : Wheel – Rahul Aithal
Worldly wisdom the cart loads
to reach somewhere that seems wise.
The wheel eyes the random road,
and the axle squeaks and shies.
The spokes squeak with mighty strain-
align to juggle this weight.
Lose no bearings bogey-train,
and oil the armour of fate.
Wobbly ride across the span-
along rolls the journeyman.
JUNE 2020 : The House of Waiting – Amita Paul
It’s all dust and old newspapers and books and notebooks
Big folio registers and diaries and files
And outdoor clothes gathering dust in heaps
Never disturbed in years now
Boxes made of steel sheets
In all shapes and sizes full of old issues of magazines
Bedspreads and blankets and quilts no longer in use
It’s not a dead house but a dying one
There are smells lurking in its corners
Some dank some sunshiney full of motes
In the air caught in beams of light
From the wide old windows
It’s a shabby tired house , much suited
To slow decay , but proliferating in Calendars
Showing this month this day today
And clocks showing this hour this minute
With a little variation from the bedroom to the kitchen
From the hall to the prayer room
Food is cooked though , mostly fresh
And there is water and tea and curd and fruit
And sherbets . It waits cheerfully enough
For death and the final disintegration
It may look sad but it is not afraid .
There are flowerless flowerpots by the front door .
Few visit but those who do , do not starve
They go with bellies full .
The House of Waiting is absent- mindedly
Sprawlingly , lazily , impersonally kind .
JULY 2020 : The Never Changing Monarch – Shalini Samuel
The bustling road to the distant town with shops and traffic closed- stands numb
The scurrying vehicles fed up and exhausted, stand by the parking lot,
Drowsily dreaming with their masked yet shabbily clothed masters.
The tenants of the empyrean, their only guard and companion.
As I walk sporting a face mask, the green lush paddy fields dance
Or did my mind jump in excitement, I know not-
Hither side of a large pond, I stand and watch the egrets,
The marshy land, the glowing sun, the palmyra trees.
The highway breathes silence but the birds chirp loudly
Or were I deaf to their happiness beforehand, I know not
Hither side of a railway track, I stand and watch the rodents play,
the track, the gatekeepers’ cement bench, the dried leaves.
Yonder, a well-cleaned hut, with fresh neem leaves on its fence
And a pot of turmeric water- the poor man’s sanitizer welcomes passerby
Flawlessly the lockdown days proceed with discipline. It’s picture-perfect.
But the other days, the fear of the disease, awareness disappears- economy reigns
AUGUST 2020 : The Funeral – Geetha Ravindran
In the clumsily shrouded
Backlogs of multiple pages
Torn and worn out
Yet fast retreating
The front line memories
These scattered shards
Yes, these certainly are
My butchered and severed
Mutilated dreams of love
From heart to heart
Once those waved
And thrilled,
Now, seem to die in fret
The weather is funereal
Just aiming at one and only me In havoc,
do taunt me
It’s the ever clouding
Low skies of friendship
Drizzling in the marshes of Estuary,
I am pained!
Totally broken…
None to condole
None to shed a drop of tear
Neither a glance passing by,
Broken my esteemed mirror of
Faithful courtship
My confidence simply spiraling…
SEPTEMBER 2020 : The Embrace – Parneet Jaggi
The embrace that steals you,
like a pearl secretly picked from the sea,
as a tremolo that benumbs you
from the innumerable sounds of the world
to leave you in the company of a glitter-
a matte, flattened, embedded glitter of the pearl,
naked, pure,
in essence and beauty,
deprived of the gaudy finery,
is the embrace one lives for.
OCTOBER 2020 : – Let The Womb Hold – Naheed Akhtar
Grown alike the full moon
Adorned in hues – multiplied
Dazzled her eyes –
Unanimously grinned the lips
Gazing – the loaded cloud
She mesmerized
Of that, she advanced
Sailing along a non-terminated
Voyage prolonged
Since – she originated
A tiny zygote
Fed from the core
Her blood
Drop by drop
She felt
She spent long
Lengthy nights – numberless
Awaited to pacify thirst
Cuddling close – her extended throbs
Her eyes brightened
At the sight unseen
Thence, the darkest smoke
She oversees – on the dusty island
Populated by wolves
She repudiates to open
The gates –
Hearing cries numerous
She pleads to let her hold
The bud about to anchor
Known of unbridled monstrous desires_
Sinful, lustrous appetite_
Of those hungry crocodiles’ bellies
Scratch infants thighs.
NOVEMBER 2020 – Trinkets – Santosh Bakaya
Through the chinks in my curtains,
I see an undernourished woman
with calluses on her palms, dirt on her fingernails,
an equally undernourished, cranky child in her arms
and a cheap nose-ring in her nose.
She picks up a wilted rose, and hands it to her kid,
who bursts into a chuckle of delight at this bonanza,
in which he finds nothing trite.
On an impulse, he flings away the rose,
as now it is a sunray dancing on his mother’s nose-ring
that has sent him into a tizzy.
The sunray now shifts to the bald pate
of an obese man gingerly getting out of his latest acquisition- a brand new car.
The twinkle in the child’s eye has now become a star,
his gaze transfixed on the dancing ray.
His eyes dance with joy at the glint in his mother’s nose-ring.
The man’s eyes admire his reflection in the gleaming car.
These different hues of joy, I watch mesmerized from afar,
wondering which one is a trinket – the nose ring or the car.
DECEMBER 2020 – Erasure – Madhumathy Rajamma
Run the wet mop over the floor,
take a look from a distance,
make sure footfalls are wiped clean –
I give my maid instructions.
Trying to bite the tail end of a dying year
hours and minutes roll over days and nights.
This cozy home treasures a trail
of faded footfalls – a host of trodden
imprints, from toddlers to old men,
wheel marks of potty chairs,
dotted flowers by feline paws,
geometrical patterns from rubber soles,
crutch marks from a son’s tendon tear,
classical dance steps tapping a tattoo.
The reptile motion of a wet cloth
dissolves all these and more.
Like a forgotten family tree
I used to stomp around once
spinning aspirations, scattering
agile footprints everywhere,
like lazy doodled lines.
Now, I hobble all the way
hanging onto fingertips of love.
Like Jupiter meeting Saturn
on their orbit, not bothering erasures
dear ones meet and part
as night dips a round seal
in black ink to wipe clean
the rainbow colours of vibrant earth.
** 2021 ** a month by month retrospective.
JANUARY : Game of Life – Suma K.Gopal
FEBRUARY : Of Death and Illusions – Reena Prasad
MARCH : World Poetry Day – Vandana Kumar
APRIL :My last wish for now..- Nalini Srivastava
MAY : Cobwebs – Russell Crabtree
JUNE :
JULY :
AUGUST :
SEPTEMBER :
OCTOBER :
NOVEMBER :
DECEMBER :
JANUARY 2021 – Game of Life – Suma K.Gopal
On many of those winter nights
I wish to see your breath on the stained glass
imagining the warmth of ease, instead
I get the familiar instant message
explaining the shades of your chase.
Sometimes you surprise me, when
you occasionally hold my palm
that reassures the existence of a bond
and a scent of cigar enters my dream
altering the plot, for good.
Between the reality of the bright day
and the romantic dream after dark
our life sails defying the rubrics
There is no pause to this play, even
to frame a well-captured moment.
FEBRUARY 2021 – Of Death and Illusions – Reena Prasad
There is nothing to fear
when I float, nailed to a watery cross
blue clouds sponging my heart,
the sleepy sun locked in my eyes
my body featherweighted by sandy palms
and a wave comes to play.
It rolls me over,
flips me onto its warm chest
and caresses me breathless
I know death will be
a familiar wave, saltier perhaps than this Arabian one
but I fear the death that lurks in a hushed thought
upon the onslaught of a salvaged memory
that ripples the placid face of an afternoon
while the breeze fans the golden mango tree’s leaves
and sends impish gusts
to ruffle the tail feathers of the mating pigeons
on the parapet
They coo, my death throes echo
and the bleakness that advances
to grip the afternoon’s shadows leading it to
the edge of an ocean where life teems
under every mossy stone
and tries to push me into a whirlpool
where no sane thoughts swirl
A suicide point
where I come to rescue me
to drown some killer illusions
and take home to bed
what is left
of me and the day
MARCH 2021 – World Poetry Day – Vandana Kumar
It’s again a day
One among days
Social media tells me
It’s a day for poetry
Perhaps I had a poem
Inside
Last night
This morning
Your tags killed the fetus
Oh! Poor unborn child
I would have written one
But for your pressure
The rebellious teen
Who just won’t succumb….
Let me meet an ex-lover for tea
Catch him by surprise
The parting after all
Was hardly in grief
Let me buy a dress
With plunging neckline
Smoke grass
Take on dares
I exhausted myself
Writing about the woman in me
Not even been a month
Let me waylay my words
They shall come to haunt
Some day
In manuscripts with publishers
Who never understand…
The rhythm
Of my non rhyme
I am petulant today
I don’t wish to obey
Calendar diktats
The words were mine
All mine
Till the flavor of the day
Buried the poet inside.
APRIL 2021- My last wish for now..- Nalini Srivastava
Now I would like to lie down and just stare.
Now since you are gone, my baby sister,
Suddenly I have got lot of time to spare.
I want to revisit all the moments we spent together.
Recreate or weave in, the childhood net once again.
The memories which have paled with passage of time,
I want to dig them out ,polish and reframe.
I wish I could cuddle you and hug you back,
Resolve all conflicts which were left unresolved.
Trust me I would do anything have you back,
Even if it means giving my life and luxuries away.
Why do we forget the innocence of childhood and grow ?
I wish I could go back into childhood and freeze the time there,
For now I would just like to lie down and stare…
MAY 2021 – Cobwebs -Russell Crabtree
Cobwebs made by a spider
So beautiful and artistic
Looks like expensive lace
Not out of place on palace walls or gentry halls;
To think I’ve got lots of them
On the windows outside our house
I see them glimmer and shimmer in the light,
For the day has begun
On my humble dwelling of a weaver’s son,
I do believe it was mother nature
Who taught my parents how to weave,
The threads are seen in every northern textile town
Flowing through them like an expensive quality woven gown;
I’ll rue the day when I have to ask the window cleaner
To wash the cobwebs clean away
Just like the wool and cotton workers they have gone,
It could be a lamenter’s song
Then I laugh with great excitement
Lots of thoughts and happy memories
Going round inside my head
As I look outside my window
I see the spider spin another web.