All that cannot be left behind

loosened
dandelion tufts
sail in the breeze
my wife’s wheelchair
makes a creaking sound

**

the room
devoid of words
carpeted with dust
it's still ten past nine
behind a plastic bouquet

**

rain brings
known scent
of freshened earth
on a pond surface
circles overlap, and fade

**

[ Title inspired from U2's "All that you can't leave behind"]

Storm Tanka

(TANKA)

I.

cover the path
with red petals
beside my window
your unbridled hair
rustles through branches

II.

your tears
bathe the earth
fill up potholes
not the darkened corner
in your eye

III.

you breathe your last
i get consumed
in silence
electron-arcs
rip shadows apart

Fade out

A nagging drizzle
bathes pinnate leaves,
I enjoy the luxury
to loiter with my beliefs
as I listen to the verbal opulence
of raindrops
that gather inside an earthen pot.

A melancholy flute
guides me to a little flower shop,
the wind informs
about a plane crash in Mangalore,
over a hundred voices
going silent in the haze,
over a hundred vessels
getting emptied in the rain.

the impasse

Had Jesse Owens tried his hand
as a sharecropper when at high school,
he might have ended up
being a landlord himself.
Instead, he chose the track as his lifeline.

Within forty-five minutes
his soaring resolve
made him a monarch.

Had I joined the service of a clerical staff
years ago, I might have been
by now, the head of a blissful family
with weepy kids and a beaming wife.

Owens didn’t take long to perceive
his ‘inner potential’.
Neither did Dylan.
Nor did Neruda.

Only, the literary journals
where I send essays, poems & short stories
do not seem to care
to reply.