'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