FRIENDS, TODAY

Are you indeed my friend ?
Let us for some time believe so
Or for convenience

I have forgotten what friendship means
Perhaps someone can remind me
Perhaps not

I have been to long in the world to believe in love
And also too long not to

I know too much about how people use other people
Or one another

It’s just another word one uses
Let it be
We shall see

So how are you today ?
And what can we talk about ?

I could tell you about how I made yogurt
Or how two young people eloped
And got married today
Yes ,really
It’s quite inconvenient , but there it is

It may not matter to you
How does it matter to me either ?

But it passes the time

Perhaps it’s time for tea
Already
Shall we ?

( Amita Sarjit Ahluwalia )

27/6/2020

ISLANDS

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ISLAND PHILOSOPHY

I’m done , Donne
Today , everyone of us
Is an Island

All islands are
At bottom , one continent
Oceans divide

TROPICAL ISLANDS

We shall see how
She sells sea shells
In Seychelles

So vibrant
It could win an Oscar
Madagascar

If denied
A visit , I turn vicious
To Mauritius

I never saw
Sea lovelier than
Off Seychelles

Clove scented
Breeze from the Island
Of Zanzibar

Unguja, Pemba
Beautiful Spice Islands
Of Zanzibar

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ISLAND LOVE

Island of Gold
In the Ramayana
Sri Lanka

Across the Straits
Siṃhaladvīpaḥ
Lion Island

Mummudi Crowned
Cholamandala
Island of Cholas

Eelam the Home
Tambapanni Island
Copper Red Earth

Sarandīb it is
The finding of an Island
Serendipity

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ISLAND FOOD

Rhode Island Red
I love both the fowl
And rosy egg

Sea of Custard
Islands of Meringue
Snow Eggs

---

Reuben Sandwich
Thousand Island Dressing
So New York

Creamy milk

From calm Jersey Cows
Island gift

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      Amita San Sakura 

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Have Faith in who you are child.

Have Faith the sun will shine.

Have Faith that better days will come .

Have Faith that you are Mine.

Have Faith against adversity.

Have Faith to stand up tall.

Have Faith and be a beacon .

To Shine among it all.

You were the stranger who came to see
The indifference of their words to our sentences:
You said:Forgiveness is a forgotten word–

But apt words appeared as in a crossword
And though you were masked,your eyes smiled
Like a prisoner’s that had captured a flight of birds–

Observe,you said,the folded palms of those who seek
And the raised arm of those who hate.Observe,you said,
The impatience of the drooling mob–

Reflections don’t always make us wise
Refraction does
And the silent stare that does not flinch–

You said that to find your voice you have to listen:
Some feel the need to kneel in prayer or protest
And some kneel to kill.

Equality for women?

International Day for women,
Only one day a year good Heaven,
And other days,
Be in a haze,
Question on equality,
To accept or practice amity,
Or suppress, oppress,
And invite unnecessary stress.

Ladies, why not grasp a boon
Instead of waiting for the moon,
Which waxes and wanes
Shockingly bringing a bane?
Instead invite assiduity and creativity
With patience and all positivity
To become independent financially,
To be able to provide for yourself and your family.

Being self-sufficient,
You will invite contentment,
Why expect equality
When you can be self-sustaining fully?
No need to seek for approval
When you can provide withal,
With plenteousness,
And heaps of joyousness.

Become your own guiding spirit
To be always fit
Mentally, spiritually, intellectually,
And certainly physically,
Otherwise expecting would be
Trying to find an oasis in Sahara Desert,
Or the Kalahari Desert,
Or the driest one, Atacama Desert.

I will dive without fear
Deep into your heart
Deeper than the surface
You allow people to see

I will explore recklessly
Deep into your soul
Deeper than the story
You ‘re willing to share

I will wander aimlessly
Deep into your past
Beyond your fear and doubt
Beyond your inhibition and limit

I’ll meet you there
With unstoppable passion
And unquenchable desire

A deep craving in my veins
For getting close to you
Indulge want’s

only what’s from you
In the silent shadows
Abandon us in oblivious bliss

I will, with love & determination
Yet will you dare to let me
Take the plunge?

I will with love…

What if the word ‘Identity’ vanished
from books and bowls of language platters-
that serve spicy peppers coated with saccharine chocolates
that glues to the root cavity
to be ruthlessly extracted with the tooth,
for the decay
induces a  twinge
that travels like a stream
meandering its way
through the uninhabited ,
untamed terrains.
The identity dish savours the palate
lending a prismatic taste to tongue,
but pokes a tint of colorlessness
in the  gushing waters of the self
that flow to reach the source.

(Published in Setu Jan 2020)

I tried to find happiness
In those things
That the rest of the world did
But,
I only ended up realising
That mine is none other
Than a fate of a dark poetess!

The ways of the world
Attract me not
In whatever I do,
I find emptiness
And wherever I go,
I feel like
I am a ghost ship
Roaming towards
There where none shall 
Be able to see me!

Still,I keep on trying my best
As, in the very end,
I live on the soils of this Earth
And it becomes my duty
To merge in with the rest
As,
It is well known
That birds of the same feather
Shall keep on flocking together!

Yet,
Each time I glance into The Pond of Truth,
Along with the rest of the world
I realise
That they have no wings on their backs
While mine are golden shiny ones!

I wonder then
If this is why I find no happiness
There where I see it most
With others, who,
Are supposed to be of my own kind!