Haiku - an attempt

Night’s murky curtain falls
The wind wails, whispers dread songs …
Wrap dreams in cotton wool


Brown leaves burning
Red hibiscus sees prancing flames -
Will this fury abate?


Parijata blossoms
Fearful of the sun’s fiery stare
Fall, kiss the waiting earth


Juicy watermelon
Inviting red. Slake thirst –
No, not a mirage!


A glum plum
Plastic fruit tray dull red –
Shall we ignore it?

'The Angry Wind'

Perhaps appropriately, today's prompt is to write an angry poem. That is, a poem about someone or something that gets angry. Could be a person, animal, or even them there angry clouds. As usual, I'm excited to see which unexpected directions y'all take with this prompt.

‘The angry wind’

The wind whipped the lone tree,
slashed it in places,
shook it like a rag doll,
dashed the nascent fruit
to the earth,
snapped branches
tore the leaves,
swept them away,
in gusty rage.

Its fury spent,
it howled –
low, eerie.
It moaned,
it moaned.
The piteous moans
seemed to say
to the tired tree,
‘You birthed my anger,
caused it to blow
all over you,
by standing
in my way.’

The tree spoke,
‘My piteous form
reminds you
of your anger.
Makes your angrier.
You have done your job.
I will do mine -
Stay rooted.’

'Brown'

For today's prompt, I want you to pick a color, make that the title of your poem, and write a poem that is inspired by that color.

‘Different experiences of brown’

I think of you
when I think of brown in its different forms.
No, not really!
But that’s okay.
Let me fabricate this story anyway.

When I see
pensive brown eyes suddenly sparkle and dance,
forgetful of silenced dreams,
coloured glass bangles on a sun-burnt arm
of an old woman wink and flash,
a kindly elder firmly clasp the thin brown hand
of a child nursing a scratch,
an old man, his skin the colour of baked earth,
sport a fawn T-shirt and walk a jaunty step,
I think of you.

When I see
the muddy brown churnings of a river in spate,
the dull brown of the earth thirsting for rain
the taupe gray of trees stripped of leaves
the dusty brown of the hills in a sun daze,
the dirty brown palm fronds and coconut shells
dashed to the shore by the contemptuous sea,
I think of you.

When
the heady aroma of roasted coffee beans
fills the room and fills me with coffee desire,
the tender sweetness of toasty chestnuts
reminds me of winters in a different land,
someone begs for a hint of cinnamon
in a cup of inviting hot chocolate,
a child licks the golden brown honey
off of a warm brown buttery toast,
a friend craves for caramelized walnuts
and pears cooked in sweetened red wine,
I think of you.

When
terra-cotta horses, elephants and birds proudly stand
beside bronze and brass statuettes of deities
on a mahogany display cabinet,
and uniquely cajole your attention,
I think of you.

I think of you
when I think of brown in its different forms.
No, not really!
But that’s okay.
Let me fabricate this story anyway.

'All I want is for you to know'

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem with the following title: "All I want is (blank)," where you fill in the blank with a word or phrase of your choosing. Some example titles, then, could be: "All I want is to eat fried chicken"; "All I want is world peace"; "All I want is for everyone to tell me I'm beautiful"; or "All I want is a handful of quarters."

‘All I want is for you to know’

All I want is for you to know
that I will never cease to grow.

When the sun gathers its light
and gently falls the night,
and days add on to days,
and months swell to years,
should you pause to look,
you might see me
in a more generous light.

All I want is for you to know
that I will never cease to grow.

'She walks in haughty'

For today's prompt, I want you to take the title of a poem you especially like (by another poet) and change it. Then, with this new altered title, I want you to write a poem. An example would be to take William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow" and change it to "The Red Volkswagon." Or take Frank O'Hara's "Why I Am Not a Painter" and change it to "Why I Am Not a Penguin." You get the idea, right? (Note: Your altered poem does NOT have to follow the same style as the original poet, though you can try if you wish.)

(Byron’s ‘She Walks in Beauty’)

She walks in haughty.
An ego gone potty!
Oh dear, oh dear,
do you her fear?

She spits rapid fire.
You stoke her ire!

Her need for praise dire.
Should she a flatterer hire?

Her life in a nasty mire.
Should she her god wire?

For her songs, no buyer
Not one in this choir!

When we of her really tire,
push her into a quagmire?

Rotten thing to do sire!
Won’t dissolve her ire.

Instead, give her a lyre.
Save her from ego’s fire!

Will her pride retire?
Easier to deflate a tire?

She walks in haughty.
An ego gone potty!
Oh dear, oh dear,
do you her fear?

"When ... "

Today is Tuesday, which means two prompts.

First prompt: Write a love poem.

Second prompt: Write an anti-love poem.

Simple as that.

When

Your silence ceases to jar
Is like a melody heard in dreams
Or a new raga sung differently each day
And I am detached.
Won’t you then look for me?

When

I create a poem or an embroidered motif
Not in anxious search of your ‘regard’
But only driven by the need to create
And I am still.
Won’t you then look for me?

When

I see an old man hobble to the temple tree
Gather creamy white blossoms for his puja.
A child pours his offerings into his palm
And I am touched.
Won’t you then look for me?

When

I see an old woman with arthritic fingers
Knit a sweater with coarse wool. Baggy.
Her grandchild wears it and says, ‘Trendy!’
And I am glad.
Won’t you then look for me?

When

I see Ashoka trees from my window
Upright, clothed in leafy clinging skirts.
My spirit soars with their upward thrust
And I am thrilled.
Won’t you then look for me?

When

Vacantly, I look at the dark dark sky
Merge with the dark dark sea
The waves hurtle, lose force, bathe my feet
And I am unstirred.
Won’t you then look for me?

When

I renounce even this need
That you look for me
Turn away from the drumbeats of your silence
Give a deaf ear to the din of my own words
Who will you find
if you come look for me?

"Mottled Brown"

"Mottled Brown"

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem about an object (or objects). Though you don't have to confine yourself to straight up description, I do want you to focus on object and/or make it a central piece of your poem. One of the more famous poems of contemporary literature does this wonderfully in William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow."

“Mottled Brown”

Ages ago, hungry fingers
search lustily for a story book
in a forgotten cupboard.

They find,
No, easier to say -

I find
a mottled brown hardcover copy
of Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge.
My fingertips still carry the memory
of the binding’s grainy texture.
On the first page, my father’s signature,
Like a bird in bold flight.
My heart still bears the impress
of Larry’s healing touch,
his endearing freshness….

I turn
the yellowing pages
(their sickly pallor is okay by me)
that beg for a gentle touch
lest at the edges they crumble

I lose
the book
my lovable companion
with an unappealing look.

I wait
and wait
to re-find the book
I sense
its pages might crack now
at an indiscreet touch

If by some glad chance
I find it,
with its aging spine
and sad pages,
I’ll hold it to my heart
and then …
within it I’ll place
an embroidered bookmark
with cherries red and luscious
surging with sap
full and audacious.

Why this, you may ask
To intuit the answer,
feel it, is your task.

“The sharp edge of a razor
is difficult to pass over…”
Look into your heart.
All is inscribed there
my winsome rover.

'So we decided to sit up ... '

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "So we decided to (blank)" and fill in the blank. Make that your title and write a poem. Some possibilities include "So we decided to plant a tree" or "So we decided to burn a hole in the sky."

So we decided to sit up and take notice of life
Snatch the tail end of vanishing dreams
Get rid of past’s stories…endless reams

Contemplate ‘the reach’ beyond our ‘grasp’
Work towards it here and now
For you know
how the vagrant heart can dart
in moment’s of present distress
and saunter in stretches of dewy grass
(all illusory)
of a fake dressed up past

So we decided to fix our gaze on the present,
lest we pin all our hopes on a future pleasant
and doze in the hammock of a moon crescent

And then cry, ‘Treason, Treason.’
When things fall apart for no reason?

So we decided to sit up and take notice of life
Bury the regrets of a defunct past
For this moment may vanish fast.

'Friday or Monday or Sunday, does it matter?'

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem about Friday. Do you like Fridays? Despise Fridays? Of course, you can also write about something that happened on a Friday--or write an ode to Fridays. Or, as you know, I'm all for seeing you attack this from an angle I haven't thought of yet.

‘Friday or Monday or Sunday, does it matter?

Friday or Monday
or Sunday, does it matter?
Can’t say that Friday wears
a special face for me now.
Or fills me with expectations
special.
True?

Well, almost true….

No longer working,
with a son at college far away,
I can create a Friday mood
when I choose:
a play, a concert,
a dance recital, a discourse,
a movie, a book store.
True?

Well, almost true….

Each day brings its mixed fare.
For you to separate grain from grit
and change the day’s fixed writ.
Each day offers the Ugadi chutney
(the New Year special chutney),
with its different ingredients:
tamarind juice, jaggery, salt,
chili powder, fresh neem flower,
raw mango pieces.
The different flavours of life:
sour, sweet, salty, spicy,
bitter, sharp and tangy.
So choose your flavour
or blend of flavours
for each day.
Can one?

Well, almost true….

On Friday too
the bitter challenges of life
can catch you unawares!
So decide….
Will you let these have their way?
Cramp your style?
Or wear a smile,
forced at first,
to sweeten your day?
Is this true?

Well, almost true….

Anything can dampen
your Friday evening spirit.
Anything can hamper
your Friday evening plans.
So why not let go
of this Friday evening wait?
Not fall into the weekend bait!
True?

Well, almost true….

Preachy this, I agree.
Why this tone,
you cannot see!
Well, yesterday’s poetry prompt
was not a joy
but an ill-timed decree.
Practice before you preach,
you say.
True!

Well, almost true….

This Friday evening’s mood
was far from free.
Good things seemed to flee.
So I say,
Take each moment, each day as it comes,
A day’s worrying face sometimes a song hums
And another day’s look of cheer in gloom slumps
True?

Well, almost true….

'Every day, I wonder ...' Or 'In random arrangement, thoughts that appear routinely'

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem about either a specific routine or routines in general. Maybe something related to taking out the trash each week or washing the dishes every night--or something more bizarre (yet still a routine).

‘Thoughts that appear routinely … randomly arranged’

Every day …

Wonder if I droop
Who will make the soup?

Wonder why the sun shines
When my day whines

Wonder when my hibiscus will defy
My doggie’s playful digs and say, ‘Fie!’

Wonder about
Mind with useless thoughts crammed
Heart with useless emotions jammed

Wonder about stranded words
The wanderings of migratory birds

Wonder when I am with ‘poem a day’ obsessed
You think I am by some spirit possessed

Wonder if in poems I dabble
Will you groan, ‘Oh this babble!’

Wonder if what I write
You consider trite

Wonder if I lose serious focus
Will you say, ‘Stop this hocus-pocus!’

Wonder about past lives
About future lives

Wonder when this circle
of life and death will end
Should I ask God
a shy missive send?

Wonder when all go away,
Will you a little longer stay?

Wonder if I should be grumpy
When I feel dull and lumpy

Then I routinely pray
To begin with hope each day.

Don’t wonder, I say
How to live each day
Smiles count
The blessings mount

'A fanciful belief some have ... '

Prompt #1: I want you to write a clean poem. Take this however you wish. Clean language, clean subject matter, or cleaning the dishes. Of course, some twisted few will automatically link "cleaning" with hired hitmen. That's okay, as long as your poem is somehow linked to clean.

Prompt #2: I want you to write a dirty poem. Take all that stuff I wrote in the first prompt and twist it upside down. The opposite of clean is dirty; so, do what ya gotta do to produce a dirty poem. (Gosh, I hope this challenge doesn't get too messy as a result.)

This Day 7 poem was written in response to the above prompt.

‘A fanciful belief some have … ‘

Clean the face that gives dirty looks
Clean the tongue that no opposition brooks
and innocently hurls filthy bricks

Clean the fingers that rake muck for others
After all we are all brothers
Tomorrow we shall use sparkling scrubbers

Clean the hands that pilfer honour
Clean the feet that trample honour

Clean the mind that suspects and plots
Clean the heart that distills poison … dot dot dot

In dirty politics clean the dabblers
In a dirty game clean the squabblers

Scrub the mind squeaky clean
Wring out the dirt from the heart
O how the clean emotions nicely squat!

Why put all these super clean images to test?
I will lay me down to rest.
A clean dreamless sleep is best?

'O Siva, O Mrityunjaya'

My landmark poem

Kanchi Kailasanatha Temple
Missed seeing Siva here
as Kalasamharamurti,
as the vanquisher of Time/Death
on two previous visits.
Now a third visit!
Why so many visits
people ask with a quizzical look
foxed by this ‘sacred’ obsession.
‘Nothing of the kind really
I mumble.’

Something impels me to go there
see the sub-shrines so still
with their invisible rishis
meditating ceaselessly
through the clamor of changing times

I adore Siva as Mrityuanjaya
(one who has conquered death),
as Kalasamharamurti
A strapping body
From the top knot
the unleashed magnificence
of wild flowing hair
Arched eyebrows
The expression of the eyes far from fierce,
somewhat difficult to read what the face
eroded by time says
Full lips
Strong shoulders
The left leg bent at the knee
valiantly placed on a low pedestal
The right leg
like a slanting pillar planted firmly on the earth.
The thrust of the trident
like the clap of a million thunders
merciless
invincible

Where is Yama or Kala
as helpless as a rag doll
as puny as a toy bear
Not crushed under Siva’s left foot!
Where is the lingam
with the mark of Kala’s noose?
In short, where is Death,
the impotent one?

Is this after Yama’s release
from under the foot of Siva?
For death’s work has to go on!
I see Markandeya
Yama’s victim
Siva’s youthful devotee
A half-kneeling figure with folded hands
just below the dread prongs of Siva’s trident,
looking up at Siva’s graceful soaring form

Released Yama or Death
invisible here
in this sculpture.
That’s what I feel.

I stand before the murti and pray:
I fear not my own death
But the death of those dear to me
Release me from this fear
and fear of fear,
O Siva, O Mrityunjaya.

'My tree - name missing!'

For today's poem, I want you to write a poem about something missing. It can be about an actual physical object or something you just can't put your finger on (like "love" or "the spirit of Christmas" or something). – Robert Lee Brewer’s prompt for day 6

‘My tree – name missing!’

With the labour of Hercules
(diverting the river Alpheus)
as its backdrop,
my tree labours to rise from the earth
old now and struggle-weary.
Its trunk inclines heavily to the left
and grows to a stumpy height. Pauses.
A hoary deity
it gives out four arms sans attributes.
Has the earth absorbed them?
Or, Time harvested them?
Its four arms,
branches to be precise:
One moves heavily to the left
sapped of life-force
(or surviving on a weak dribble),
sags downward to collapse on the moist grass,
then pulls itself up to slant upwards
defying its own death-wish;
the second one sculpts itself
into a shallow hook
and stops abruptly mid-way;
the third rise higher
with tortured twists and turns;
The fourth shoots up straight
upholding the collapsing honour
of its fatigued family.

A creeper adorns
the short trunk
in a filigree of stems and leaves,
the only lively ornament
of this haggard beauty.

I saw my tree draped
in autumn’s bewitching sadness,
in winter’s somber gray.
And in early spring
when the rest of the garden
was rousing itself into new life
(I abandoned it in summer, for no reason).
But my tree forever heard
death’s dark call,
or so it seemed to me.
Its only sign of life,
dark bean-like pods hanging
like so many tarnished earrings.

For three years I asked its name
on each visit
(I must admit, very few)
A lost traveler hungering
for a definite sign
I asked
the gardener
the security guards
the visitors old and young.
Each saw the tree
called its novel form
by different admiring names
but none knew its real name.
An amused smile at my eagerness
a shake of the head,
an earnest apology -
I got these,
but not my tree’s name.

Revisiting the garden
two years back
I chanced upon a similar tree.
And … with grateful eyes
read the name of my tree
on a simple sign.
Blessed, I wept with joy
to find this precious new link
to my tree.
My tree now named
will remain nameless for you,
till you tell me that you
treasure it as I do.

'Mohini my doggie'

“Mohini my doggie”

Mohini my doggie
likes her biscuits soggy

At night she digs up the earth
of uprooted saplings there is no dearth

She frowns on the rest of her ilk
and dines royally on humble rice and milk

She loves roti and ghee
To see her waggish face, that’s a small fee

She rests on the floor under the tap
I say, “What a cool way to nap!”

When we get back from a movie late,
she greets us at the gate post-haste.

She is as common as they come
Yet to send her packing would be dumb

She was a stray
Now she’s here to stay

When did your silence first ...

When did your silence

first distrust my words?
first circle my words with grave disdain?
first puncture my words to show their bloated emptiness?

When did my words

first dim their power to suit your silence?
first lose their full-throated voice?
first slink away guiltily from your silence?
first feign feebleness even when fully charged?

No matter how much I polish my words
or spruce them up,
they will never have pedigree,
or be good enough for the durbar of your august silence.

So don’t ask me when my words
became what they are now.
Pointless this overload of questions,
this tilting stack of memories.

'The problem with ... '

The problem with unpleasant memories
is that they never set you free

The bad ones like leeches
suck the life juices out of the self’s innermost reaches

They prance around with hideous masks
Who let them in, only a fool asks

The problem with bad memories
is that

if they come in hordes,
into your peace they make grave inroads

if you are in their thrall
you cannot hear the present moment’s clarion call

they stick to you like soaking wet clothes
and that for sure ill bodes

if they get a foot in the door
your present lies squashed on the floor

if you submit to their sway
be warned, you will have hell to pay.

if you tell them timidly to scoot
you will see how brazenly they hoot

In surly seas you welter
your life scurries helter-skelter

The problem with unpleasant memories
is that they never let you be

Outsider

One sullen morning
I stood outside my own door
like a stray dog

With benighted eyes
I stand outside my true self
immersed in false gloom