my 50th summer

Each day the room resembles
a prison cell: walls built with rugged stones,
one pigeon hole window secured with iron bars.

You measure time by the changing forms
of shadows; you look through the iron rods
and realize the river has passed its prime,
slackened by a rising silt.

The river quietly takes it all: neither can it retrace
its path, nor can it revive the ebullience
that has gradually waned.

I observe the hollow of darkness:
my attenuated fantasies
loom like massive apparitions.

They collide with the bolted door.
I hear the sound of shackles.

after the rain ( Tanka )

after the rain
bowing grass tips
become still --
one more day slips by
sodden with memories

through he fog ( Haiku)

through the fog
winter trees re-appear --
sleep-talking

the road (Haiku)

the road, forked--
a white dove eyes East
and West

40th Summer

April enters through window
and in the morning glow he detects
more silvered hairs beside his left ear.

In a nascent summer he discerns
premonition of an untimely autumn.
Each passing day the greenery appears
to be fading by degrees.

He feels the breeze brush against his skin,
which is gradually and with a certainty
loosing its tautness.

Warblers get notably distressed
as days fall; squirrels panic at soft rustle
of footsteps. Trivial lives do read omens
by instinct!

Yet the thirst for a satiating springtide
corrupts him. Somewhere in the distant woods
a fire rages; twilight brings in a smell
of burnt leaves.

He adjusts his camera lens to focus
a flame butterfly.

For the want of springtime

Words flock to me like pigeons
jostling for grain on an April morn
gargling syllables that were dampened
by a heavy downpour

Sun burns a cluster of crotons
leaves bear scars of diverse hues
as the pigeons burble and make
shadows blend with shadows
and separate

Near an alcove they halt startled
by the sight of a bald stump
a severed banyan

The tree that gave the thickest shade
to a traveler

Who returned each spring
to feed the birds

bathing the crotons (Haiku)

bathing the crotons--
puddles reflect the May sun
and her green dress

Beach-combing

Its all about an April
and a desolate sea shore.
An April littered with exoskeletons.
In the gleam of dusk the waters
turn monochrome; I pick up remains
of bivalves and mollusks in a calming breeze,

I have been the vacationer who followed footprints
of a former seedtime,

and in the summers in between
I have built and rebuilt sand dunes, castles, mermaids,
warships and cannons,

only to be leveled out by the waves.

umbrella shade (Haiku)

umbrella shade--
two sparrows chirp
in the afternoon

the morning (Haiku)

a smell of burnt leaves
in the morning breeze
the somber flute

twilight (Tanka version)

at twilight
the opuntia flower
turns orange...
I'm still battling
colon cancer

beggar (Haiku)

the old beggar
croons in a hoarse voice
rustle of autumn

twilight (Haiku)

twilight--
the opuntia flower
turns orange
 
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