haiku

the moon
stuck between bare branches
deer antlers

The woodpecker drumming

The woodpecker
has been tapping on a nearby oak
since the daybreak.

Its persistent beating
a hollow branch, echoes the bareness
of autumn :

Am I simply a countable head in a crowd,
a leaf on a tree, or a branch,
empty inside?

Am I a poet scripting verses for the wind,
or am I similar to an archaic coin, tossed
to a pauper’s bowl, rattling along
throughout the season?

What about the faces I meet every day
in the marketplace, are their lives
marked by price tags?

I feel for the bird, which needs
to assert its identity

which keeps on drumming
at a roadside park
since dawn.

no reply haiku

no reply yet--
woodpecker drumming
in early autumn

Travelling down the road with you

So often I dream about a summer:
a slim road paved with cobble-stones,
wriggling its way through age-old dwellings

with you by my side. We're both hushed, both
pensive, with hands tucked inside our pockets.
We arrive at an emerald pond

with its population of ducks: dabbling,
quacking, diving into depths of the only syllables
they know. We offer them our sympathy.

Dusk grows, and the alpenglow reflects in your
eye. Soon, a soft fog would further blur our surrounds,
and you'd mingle into dark, much like an apparition.

My lethargic footfalls would ricochet off the walls
of a half-lit bylane, with one or two street-lamps
near its bends.

We are strangers at each others’ door,
yet some afternoons burn into evenings
with our shadows traveling
alongside.

Another dawn

The invading eastern glow
makes me self-conscious and withdrawn,
a purring cat in cozy hours.

I imagine tip-toeing to my attic,
opening an iron chest stuffed with reveries.
Making the minimum of noise, lest the world
discovers my larceny, I bring out

yellowish photographs : our cottage
in its youth, me and my younger brother
busy playing basket ball, mother in her kitchen,

the sausage in our breakfast, father's gruff voice,
slow whispers of cutlery, the fresh heady scent
from our garden, all the trivial details of a Sunday
morning, warms upto me.

A sudden quake disrupts the scene.
Why does the place swing like a country boat?
Or is it me barging against my memories?

There! A thieving magpie enters the room,
snatches my jewels and leaves in a flash -

I'm left with a cruelly lit day.

haiku

she struts
amid flame trees ...
raging fire

in your absence (Tanka)

in your absence
months have piled
into years …
the leaf freed by the storm
now a dot in the sky

5 haiku

1.

thunderbolt--
discovering myself
in the mirror



2.

my nascent love --
the fragrance of tilled earth
after a shower



3.

the fungus
on moist bamboo--
growing jealousy



4.

the violinist
builds up a tune--
clouds swell



5.

monsoon dusk--
her polka dot umbrella
fading

Last night's rain

The night drizzle
for me is more than
simple ecstasy. I realize how

quietude pronounces with each
plopping sound; ripples grow
and die out in intersecting cycles,
similar to my entering your domain
and you into mine.

I pore over the small world
of a puddle. In the mayhem of melodic
raptures, syllables entwine. Words dawn,

echoing my lonely feeling: I'm stranded,
alone in a crowd.

After the rain dozes off, remnant drops
measure the distance
between us.