crystal planet

Tanka

2012-01-27T02:45:00.001-08:00

a full moon
appears from behind
rain clouds--
the young bride
hides her face in a veil

2 Haiku

2012-01-19T02:43:00.000-08:00

1.
angry voices
at the market--
a child cries

2.
multiplying
without answers …
malignant cells

garden Buddha - haiku

2012-01-13T06:51:00.001-08:00

garden Buddha--
the hummingbird hovers
over a bee balm

in my dreams - tanka

2012-01-13T06:50:00.001-08:00

sipping
a cup of lemon tea
this winter...
a butterfly seeks refuge
in my dreams

Haiku (6)

2012-01-07T22:17:00.001-08:00

1.
cemetery yard --
eyes blurred with
last spring

2.
the child
calling out to a star
Daddy…

3.
calloused fingers
wrapped in new gloves
the dying flame

4.
flying red ants —
how her words sting
afterward

5.
fourth date —
showing her the letters
of a love lost

6.
a tramp
summing up his laurels
New Year’s Eve

Waking up to a gloomy sky

2012-01-07T22:13:00.000-08:00

You crossed my dream again
your hair disheveled in winter
a solitary willow on the road

I nurture saplings
and you put on my grandmother's rebuke
a gray-haired piercing spectacle

Your words sting afterward
flying red ants that swarm in hundreds

Years have flown with incoming
and outgoing of monsoons
with non ending drone of crickets

The sky percolates tears at times
a few settle as beads on the web
spun by a black widow

There is hardly any light in the house today

I can hardly bear the knuckle pain
setting my curtains aside
searching for a half alive sun

parched leaves ( haiku )

2011-12-23T01:11:00.001-08:00

parched leaves--
she straightens out
a crumpled letter

Rain at twilight

2011-12-20T21:35:00.001-08:00

Have you noticed diamonds
para-trouping

Have you watched the rain
trickling down the broken face
of a loony rag picker
resting over cobblestones

He watches the crows shaking off
in a flurry
what they cannot hold

Fractured clouds allow the last light
to glitter in his downy eyes

Yet he slips and falls

Darkness deepens the moss-
-covered walls of the city
amid people and cars hissing around

He feels his stubble
the stubbornness of coarse bristles
growing on his soft flaccid skin

the oddity of bright halogens
lighting up the potholes

Crickets drone their night song
a lullaby to his ears

Haiku

2011-12-20T21:31:00.000-08:00

temple bells
again and again
the beggar’s call

***

boundary wall—
three guards and a dog
basking in the sun

***

The man lying next to my bed

2011-12-12T22:06:00.001-08:00

He's obese, double-chinned, middle-aged.
He can mumble a few words as and when
his memory allows him. Met with a mishap
in some early spring in the altitudes of Himalayas,
and lost his locomotion. Days are only numbers now,
so are the nights. He lies composed in a hospital bed
next to mine.

Each day his wife visits him, a frail woman
with a morbid face, and begs him to utter her name.
He observes her in silence. Maybe

all he remembers are the pines and rhododendrons,
the wildflowers and the dictionary of birds in the lap
of ancient moss-ridden rocks.

He takes scarce notice of me, with his eyes glued
to the ceiling fan. Gulps down food, water, medicines
when told. Sleeps when told.

I watch a physiotherapist folding his arms, limbs.
Up and down. Up and down. Then sideways-
left to right, right to left. The man struggles hard

to stir up the patient, to somehow impart a rhythm
to his stiffened existence. The patient mutters at times
the names of places of an earlier world

where morning fog gives way to the splendor
of icy peaks

but then he shudders
as leaves do
amid the shivering tone of autumn wind.

empty hall

2011-12-12T22:03:00.000-08:00

Haiku :

empty hall--
a black ant roaming
for morsels

Tanka version :

the hall
sans the usual crowd
and hubbub--
an ant searching out
leftovers

It is never winter

2011-11-30T03:04:00.001-08:00

One evening is not enough
to forget you
and the colours in your wings

You sing around
my enticing hummingbird

Unfailingly
the more I grow cautious
of the winter that has frosted
my hairs

You talk about next spring
the hues that would burst out
around us

Haven't I asked you to leave
to go to some land unknown
and make it your own

Yet your moves so deceptive

Bring to mind a silvery night
near the beehive caves of Ajanta

When I
when we
were much much younger

pollen drift (haiku)

2011-11-22T20:19:00.000-08:00

pollen drift--
a butterfly stuck
to wet paint

12 Haiku

2011-11-21T06:37:00.001-08:00

1.

a murky
anniversary morning--
the red table cloth

2.

our third date
she studies my
palm lines

3.

toying with
pressed rose petals
early winter wind

4.

summer end--
the fan blade knocks off
a butterfly

5.

dinnertime
at the hospital, I wait
for sedatives

6.

at the crossroads
a tramp speaking to himself
my lost poem

7.

shadows
bringing back the anguish
winter without you

8.

summer …
village boys plunging
into the pond

9.

the pensive face
peeled off a tree trunk—
autumn…

10.

the hospital smell
still following me
their forced smiles

11.

the new sedative…
she disappears behind
a veil of thick mist

12.

hospital window—
firecrackers lighting up
Diwali sky

Kolkata, your cold touch

2011-11-11T04:30:00.000-08:00

I never fret in your cold touch,
not even your calloused fingers
agitate me,

You're my old chum, whose secrets
I hold in my bosom, as close

as the petals of a french marigold;
secret vows huddled together, scared
of betraying their own self

You tantalize me with your morning breeze,
the marigolds wobble in unison,

You're the fingertip on a still pond
sending shivers down my spine

And I'm so lost in your loneliness
that my solitude becomes verses

At times I see you reading them,
straining your eyes and wrinkles

And the next moment you vanish
in a veil of thick mist

autumn moon (haiku)

2011-10-10T06:52:00.001-07:00

autumn moon
lined with ripples
cherry petals

Soap bubbles

2011-09-19T06:18:00.001-07:00

Watching the mannequins at a shop window,
their expectant eyes tethered to routine reveries,
I notice a monotony in their smile.

You told me
smiles and daydreams are soap bubbles,
iridescent and fragile, capable of making you
unaware for a while

of the darkness that lingers
at the corner of your eye.

I observe the wide grins
of inert human forms
placed behind clean glasses, and realize

that my existence resembles that of
dummy sitters; each single day imply
progress of identical shadows...

A bubble-maker churns out soft globes
in a flurry; dream-planets keep fading
into the universe

the lull (haiku)

2011-09-13T22:35:00.001-07:00

the lull
after a storm...
trembling lips

Overwhelmed by you, Kolkata

2011-09-13T22:16:00.001-07:00

I do not know
when you became poetry for me
or when your autumn wind brought in
the abounding fragrance of a maiden's hair

I do not know
how these whining buses and car horns
filled up the gaps in our converse

You and me sitting together
at a street-side cafe near twilight
and the sounds of a day transgressing
into darkness

I remember the glint in your eyes
as if they can interpret the meaning
of my fumbling with words

You casually concealed your laughter
with a flimsy innocence

Yet when did I care for your feelings...

You've got to be mine
the rhyme of your life
has to be understood by no one else
but me

You might have had a hundred lovers
but its only me who can persuade you
to immerse in moonlight

our second date (haiku)

2011-09-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

our second date--
still not putting down
the smiling masks

owl haiku

2011-09-07T05:30:00.001-07:00

an owl hoots--
the light ripple
in a lake

The grief that engulfed me

2011-09-01T04:14:00.001-07:00

A wave that engulfed me
when you told you were leaving
took years to subside

That day I realized
a weak scent lingers
after the withering of a flower

I imagine my grief
twirling like snakes made of smoke
arising from a jasmine agarbati
relentlessly taking their forms
endlessly fading into oblivion

From that day I've been living
beside a sea
observing rain clouds fondle the sun
at wee hours

And I've grown accustomed
to the vacant vault of the blue
in autumn

From that day
I yearn to see yellow butterflies
hopping over dandelions

No I haven't re-opened
my doors
yet neither have I ignored
the fragrance of jasmine
or the sounds of the sea

A whiff of breeze blows a dust
of memories
revealing bizarre fossils
this twilight

counting the days (haiku)

2011-08-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

counting the days...
raindrop ripples
on a pond

Traveler

2011-08-27T02:21:00.001-07:00

As I look behind
the road seems to have emerged
from a ribbon

As I look ahead
the road appears to end
into a similar one

Who's holding it straight & taut
this mid-portion of life

I recall visiting pyramids
the tombs made of stones
and wonder

Who could have lifted that last block
up there

I'm told that the wind though gentle
is capable of eroding memories
and I've witnessed the vagaries
of sandstorms

And still I have doubts
how the cool zephyr of dawn
can transform itself

I've wandered through towns
and its market places
I've traced vinegar in the smell
of a cobbler's hut

And I've roamed the graveyards
with their rows of white crosses
jutting out of the auburn grass
of autumn

I've questioned me
Do you see yourself amidst them
the sleeping warriors

I find myself on the bridge of my destiny

One end the bridge
seems to have emerged
from a quiet dawn

And the other lost to a rising mist
blurring every thing lying beyond

leaves dangle haiku

2011-08-20T05:18:00.000-07:00

leaves dangle
in an autumn breeze
string puppets

2 haiku

2011-08-10T22:17:00.000-07:00

1.

a sand dune
furrowed by the wind
grandmother’s face

2.

silent movie—
she refuses
the rose

muffled words

2011-08-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

our muffled words
raindrops gathering
at leaf tips

haiku

2011-07-31T23:15:00.001-07:00

the moon
stuck between bare branches
deer antlers

The woodpecker drumming

2011-07-31T23:13:00.001-07:00

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

2011-07-28T05:58:00.001-07:00

no reply yet--
woodpecker drumming
in early autumn

Travelling down the road with you

2011-07-20T21:31:00.001-07:00

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

2011-07-20T21:28:00.001-07:00

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

2011-07-17T23:50:00.001-07:00

she struts
amid flame trees ...
raging fire

in your absence (Tanka)

2011-07-09T08:04:00.001-07:00

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

5 haiku

2011-07-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

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.

breaking the silence (haiku)

2011-06-30T21:49:00.001-07:00

breaking the silence
of stars and moon ...
night rain

night rain (haiku)

2011-06-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

night rain--
no stars or moon
to talk to

Had you left me earlier

2011-06-30T08:21:00.001-07:00

You lingered around
like a hummingbird, tantalized me
till my love had grown into a banyan.
The aerial roots entwine me now, I feel

stupefied, a dullard before the mirror.
Had you left earlier, I’d have realized
my persistent idiocy. Pardon me
for my short sense of humour, but,

had you left earlier, I’d have declared
“Mea culpa” with an added eloquence,
I’d have finished exploring the moon,
ascertained how empty and how deep
craters can be.

You're still treasured in a copper pod
of my yellow flower tree. Even now,
the petals free in abundance
forming a soft carpet.

Seldom, when a mad wind blows,
I observe the struggle of a candle flame.

Had you left me earlier,
I’d have stepped cautiously, tried to read
the warning signs before stepping
on a quicksand.

thunderbolt haiku

2011-06-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

thunderbolt--
discovering myself
in the mirror

fungus haiku

2011-06-27T03:23:00.002-07:00

the fungus
on moist bamboo--
growing jealousy

nascent love haiku

2011-06-27T03:23:00.001-07:00

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

An ordinary dawn

2011-06-23T21:52:00.000-07:00

In the cobalt hue
softness lingers. For the birds,
it is time to raise the alarm,
for the rag-pickers, a new day
to rummage the earth
for reusables.

The rickshaw-puller coughs
and withdraws one last time,
pulling the rug around him.
It's the end-phase of monsoon.

A dragonfly rests upon my railing,
morning hue on its wings. I watch
its perplexity. The opening words
of a tap stir me. I recall the reddened
moon of the last eclipse.

Masonry work resumes,
the clatter of hammer against iron
rebounds in the neighbourhood.
Darkness fades and reveals
distinct craters all around me.
The stench of a rat's carcass
attracts a murder of raspy crows.

On my verandah,
the dragonfly gone, and with it
the sizzling wings of morning.

Knowing her eyes

2011-06-18T22:52:00.000-07:00

Search deep, within the cobalt waters
like a diver, hunting down the ruins
of a sunken ship. Did you hit upon the treasure?
- Not yet?

You must toil like a sculptor,
carve out the irises as caverns, erect stalagmites
stalactites or even witch fingers, or some
ancient skeletons of prehistoric men.

You say you can be none of them?
-Did you ever attempt scripting verses,
verses that can procreate the Garden of Eden
with mere words and feelings,

Telling her how scarlet can a sunset be
watching the ruby of her eyes,

Telling her how the blink of one eyelid
sets off ripples in quietude.

You cannot play with words even?
Be yourself then. But scrape off
the dust of years that covers you,
lay bare your soul to her diamond-sharp
gaze,

Tell her how idle hours pass
talking with the moon,

And how the lover in you always
takes a beating,

Yet you must never, my friend,
never let a springtide recede
uneventfully.

monsoon haiku

2011-06-16T06:52:00.000-07:00

monsoon--
the pitter-pattering
of words

Alpenglow

2011-06-09T08:35:00.001-07:00

As the daylight wanes
and yet a little remains for poetry,
whispers grow amid the aspens
this autumn.

Their pale skeletal arms
seemingly affirms the contrast

between reality and deception.
I hear them talk about me,
about you

about the blushing eastern sky,
yet all that I'm left with: a hint
of lonely breeze

a leaf floating over minute ripples,

a drop of blood
spilled from memory.

Somniscribe (Tanka)

2011-06-06T23:14:00.001-07:00

she tries to decipher
her sleep-writings
the tunneled paths
of moth larvae
on a eucalyptus trunk

monologue haiku

2011-06-02T22:06:00.001-07:00

her monologue
audible after rain --
water drops connect

The indigo flowers

2011-06-02T22:04:00.000-07:00

The petite blue flames
that ignite my mornings
in tangerine autumn

Only paces away
from the rusted milestone
you'll find them

Indigo petals trembling
in a murmuring breeze
like day-break butterflies

I recite to them the poems
of my evening-years

And their bobbing heads
instill in me a certainty

that I keep returning
to these misty hours

As an apparition
or a curtain of rain

Or as one blue bud
longing to free itself
from its own enwrapping
sheath

periwinkle haiku

2011-05-27T05:58:00.001-07:00

periwinkle vines
emerging through the mist
morning butterfly

going down haiku

2011-05-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

plodding down
her stairs, my longest pause
before the last step

absence haiku

2011-05-25T03:17:00.001-07:00

your absence
taking me to a new low--
afternoon downpour

Polish your shoes, poet!

2011-05-25T03:15:00.000-07:00

I agree that words, phrases and epithets
trickle into your cerebellum and engineer
elaborate helical strings that squirm
in the void of immobile hours.

And I’d love to believe that after eons
these obscure strands would interwine
and fabricate cluttered images, and you'd sigh
with a solace for accomplishing a chef d'oeuvre,

Yet it baffles me, why coerce your poems
to give in to the whims of an evil wind, why accept
the fallacy of yielding to obscure omens

when you still have a house, a garden
to protect?

Why pretend to whisper with the papery leaves,
while all they can do is to infest your mind
with countless apparitions.

Have mercy on your verses, poet,
you’re treading on a path that’ll soon
lose its way to wilderness

and you’d again have to start a fire
with flintstones.

Better polish your shoes and step into
the highway instead.

ocean sounds haiku

2011-05-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

ocean sounds
in a hand painted conch --
grandfather's voice

dry whispers haiku

2011-05-20T01:05:00.000-07:00

dry whispers
between you and me
the autumn moon

half-buried (Tanka)

2011-05-20T01:03:00.000-07:00

in the damp sand
a spiral conch shell
half-buried
memories of writing
our names with fingertips

the footprints (Tanka)

2011-05-16T21:01:00.001-07:00

the footprints
near my garden wall
are not hers
china roses wobble
bereft of fragrance

conch shell haiku

2011-05-16T06:20:00.001-07:00

waves rush
in and out of a conch shell--
after life

Clown

2011-05-16T06:18:00.001-07:00

He hasn’t put on his face
today. Forlorn, he walks through
a bronze autumn, mashing brittle

memories underneath,
sauntering bewildered
around mist hidden woods.

Last night, finally, he had vomited his all-
the entire wrath that had piled up
each passing day.

No longer does he have to tolerate
the stale porridge of ridicule,
ogles and mimicry.

Life has given him many autumns.
He is now free, free for his ultimate act.
Let the vacant road and glum-faced willows
be the witnesses.

butterfly haiku

2011-05-13T21:11:00.001-07:00

butterfly--
mulling over options
on a stifling day

Songsters

2011-05-13T21:10:00.001-07:00

Don't fritter away an entire winter
staring out of your pensive window:
measuring depth of snow that has piled up
around your cottage, reading weather
forecasts, trying phone numbers that are
out of your network’s reach. Get yourself
some warm cappuccino, throw a few more
logs to your fireplace.

The wind and the willows and the snow
indulge in a whispering game.
Let them.

Strain your ears: listen to the robins,
the chickadees, bluebirds and kinglets
rehearsing springtime verses.
Not all are migrants.

parting smile haiku

2011-05-13T21:08:00.001-07:00

her parting smile--
the road disappears
into thick mist

leaning on his stick (haiku)

2011-05-10T03:26:00.000-07:00

leaning on his stick
he gazes at the front path --
wilted sunflowers

Late afternoons

2011-05-08T06:58:00.001-07:00

Nearing the end of a long walk
I feel the mellow sun on my tired limbs
my hat covering the eyes
my thoughts roaming with a half-finished
novel

Characters prop up on the roadside
some wrinkled grumpy faces
foulmouthed humans hold out mirrors
concave and convexly shaped
showing me in varied
forms

Just a few paces left to get
a short rest in the cool shade
of that yellow-flowered tree

With butterflies fluttering about clusters
of sweet pea

What could be the purpose of scripting
waned memories amid this April green

Planets would revolve in their own
orbits and small men like us
would fulfill their day's work
and watch their reflections on the pond
quivering in summer breeze

early spring haiku

2011-05-08T06:56:00.000-07:00

early spring morning --
a vendor arranges
the funeral wreaths

the rock wren's song (Tanka)

2011-05-07T08:19:00.001-07:00

in the prayer hall
sandalwood incense
continues to burn
that slow April
and the rock wren's song

raindrop haiku

2011-05-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

raindrops
held in a spider’s silk--
the glitter in her eye

flamingo ( Tanka )

2011-05-02T20:50:00.001-07:00

coming home
after a vacation
I receive her note --
flamingos are perishing
on her island

my 50th summer

2011-04-29T06:42:00.001-07:00

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 )

2011-04-25T23:30:00.001-07:00

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

through he fog ( Haiku)

2011-04-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

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

the road (Haiku)

2011-04-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

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

40th Summer

2011-04-22T21:48:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

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)

2011-04-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

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

Beach-combing

2011-04-18T02:28:00.001-07:00

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)

2011-04-14T21:58:00.001-07:00

umbrella shade--
two sparrows chirp
in the afternoon

the morning (Haiku)

2011-04-10T00:15:00.001-07:00

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

twilight (Tanka version)

2011-04-06T08:03:00.001-07:00

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

beggar (Haiku)

2011-04-06T01:58:00.000-07:00

the old beggar
croons in a hoarse voice
rustle of autumn

twilight (Haiku)

2011-04-06T01:57:00.001-07:00

twilight--
the opuntia flower
turns orange

the face (haiku)

2011-03-31T07:47:00.001-07:00

swan on the lake--
the face in her mirror
not hers

Cinquain

2011-03-31T02:35:00.001-07:00

wildfire
on either side
of a wine-red river
dividing the woods: I’ll never
shrink back

returning haiku

2011-03-25T05:13:00.000-07:00

returning
sandhill cranes--
sprouting crocus

Passing through (Tanka)

2011-03-25T03:15:00.000-07:00

I remember
passing through a tunnel
in a high-speed train
mother straining her eyes
to thread the needle

the sea-bound breeze...

2011-03-23T22:15:00.000-07:00

I was on the verge of concluding
that I've had enough of your
half broken words
halfhearted queries
about a possible early monsoon

Just then the twilight's shade
claimed a cluster of 'forget-me-not's
by the parapet wall

I wondered whether to take a path
that ribboned the hammock
leading to a small wooden temple
with its lone haunting bell

Just then the breeze shifted direction
and daylight decided to linger
around a speck of golden cloud

In that faint light
one tired buzzard landed near me
flapped its wings and inquired
whether I had heard of the tsunami

Its pretentious gaze struck upon me
and the hills wore a mourning look

Was it the wind that was swinging the bell
ceaselessly

In the approaching murkiness
I saw you

A soul-less voice
frigid with grief
muttered

I'm joining the sea-bound breeze, do you hear?

crocus (haiku)

2011-03-23T22:14:00.001-07:00

a heart-shaped cloud
darkens the crocus--
fading train

Rikuzentakata (haiku)

2011-03-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Rikuzentakata--
a family photograph
peeps out of debris

All that is plastic

2011-03-21T06:45:00.001-07:00

The buds are being born,
the morning expectant, like
it was before.

Before the egrets stopped crowding
the little lake,

When the cottage shone with moon's
silvery beams, the willows resembled
sage grandfathers: observant yet hesitating
to comment

When you and me were too minute
we voiced our feelings,

At a time when we didn't hear of oil slick, of black rain,
of tsunami, of global this-and-that,

When autumns were rich as egg-yolk, and we're allowed
to have a dream each day, and in those past springs

Flowers used to bear more nectar, luring butterfly
and honeybee in swarms,

When monsoon was poetry, each drop on the puddle
used to send a ripple in long drawn afternoons,

When winter was a monochrome tv set, crammed
with pictures of the loved ones who passed away,
of the loving joys that were yet to be

Born, just as the buds which are blooming now.
Now that the trees are covered with dusts of centuries,
seas filled with debris, and you and I

Mere minorities, and our fathers and mothers long forgotten,
preserved in video clips, to be run and re-run at will,

And these spring, rain, autumn, winter they can all add up
how much is left and how much could be sowed in the fields

To reap a richer harvest, and to save a little something
for our darker days, for the silvery days,

The centenarian cottage is fading
from our memory.

Haiku

2011-03-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

1.
counting losses
after a storm
the hazy sun

2.
reading out
list of casualties...
winter fog

Fireflies

2011-03-14T03:44:00.001-07:00

In between her incoherent words
her fading memory emits flashes
every now and then.

She sees no hope and no reason
for an existence as bland and repulsive
as the smell of medics that keeps her neurons
busy.

He must have been there, in that plot of sunshine,
his hair well-brushed, his smile as infectious
as the breeze at the onset of spring.

All she can see through her window is the mist, rising.
Her vision blurs, yet in the marshlands fireflies glitter
in dozens, and she clutches on to the softness of her pillow.

A pendulum swings along its arched path,
red florets fall off from the flame tree, and a white-eye,
utterly cautious, hunts for its prey.

Twilight brings in the fireflies by swarms,
and she feels no need for a candle.

Waterfall Haiku

2011-03-14T03:35:00.000-07:00

the waterfall
dislodges a boulder--
early spring

in a dying breeze ( Tanka )

2011-03-14T03:34:00.000-07:00

after giggling
like a waterfall
she fell quiet –
the flame lilies dangle
in a dying breeze

Haiku Firefly

2011-03-07T04:25:00.001-08:00

I turn pages
of my diary--
fireflies

in tatters (Haiku)

2011-03-05T21:24:00.001-08:00

winter--
the welcome mat
in tatters

off and on (Tanka)

2011-03-05T07:04:00.000-08:00

I flip through
my diary pages
the old paths
off and on, a firefly
emits cold light

Granny's sleeves

2011-03-05T06:56:00.001-08:00

I always found them agreeable and greatly starched,
gentle as her wrinkled smile, cozy as her rocking chair -
much, much before I tasted an anisette of ominous sunshine,
listened in awe to the tired city-tuned machines.

My Granny's long sleeves were embroidered with gold
fables: they smelled of old-fashioned doughnut cakes -
the fragrance of a piteous love that I still inhale
from a tilled earth, after a fresh bout of rain.

Views of a Monk Parakeet

2011-03-05T06:53:00.001-08:00

You know I've often deemed this world as being
a huge trash bin, where you can cast off your withering
feathers, fling the rinds of your thickened dreams
and aging egos,

Where you keep on searching for elusive trinkets
that may tantalize you, coerce you to believe that life is not
an impalpable mess in its entirety,

This is the home of some rare-breed hardcore optimists
who treasure their almanacs, their most precious smiles
which they believe could bring enlightenment.

I remember an earthquake when everything shuddered,
when frantic calls intensified to a deafening roar, when a voice
yelled out amidst the chaos: "God! This must be an Apocalypse!"

And when night turned to dawn the rubble became visible -
but who am I to comment on behalf of an 'intelligent race',
I'm just happy casting off my withering feathers.

In a stifled moonlight

2011-03-05T06:49:00.001-08:00

Glowing eyes of a stealthy black cat
makes me cower; they instill a sense of remorse
as if I’m to blame for the premature wreckage
of yet another graceful spring.

I always dread the feline gaze -
observing me from unusual corners,
mostly at informal moments like when I crave
for a glimpse of Kiliminjaro through window panes.

An ancient breeze heaves a sigh,
alarms the still maze of shadows in the garden.
Mist rises, blurs from my view all other things
but the burn of two probing eyes, tracking my moves
without end.

Flame

2011-02-26T01:54:00.000-08:00

The closing shower of winter brushes city-towers.
Gray-haired clouds stroll with soberness; they’ve joined
one seemingly continual funeral procession.

On such a day the poet loves his inner voice.
His each whisper quivers a famished leaf, each sigh
gets more pronounced as the intensifying drizzle
while the day heads toward its destiny.

Along with a sudden whiff, one Clouded Yellow
flutters in through his window half-opened,
tempts him with lyrics of a faded storm.

Rain, more rain blurs the clear glasses -
his flippant guest settles itself
on an aeolian chime.

[Clouded Yellow ]