I hear you, little brook as you babble in my ears, I hear you too, little girl, crying in your mother’s arms, I hear you, lawyers, strident and demanding. Some voices are pleasant, and some can be soothed with toffee, some carry on like there is no tomorrow, Some silence themselves to echoes that are…
Thoughts from a hospital
At least now that I am not chained to the bedanymore, I can have more lucid thoughts.I walk this room, stretch myself and again countthe days till I can go home. Outside,people come and go oblivious to my eyeswatching from a window aboveas they go about their daily lives…Standing in the shade, looking bored, chewing…
On the 30th year…13.05.2023.
In the end it was easy to leave you. Your body burned on a raging fire and I was told to not look back, Although I would have, had I been told that ghosts would then follow me home. I would welcome those ghosts, Offer them tea or something stronger Only for news of you….
To Ipsy, sometime later. #glopowrimo #promptday30
Today’s prompt (day 30 and the final one of this challenge) is to write a palinode – a poem in which you retract a view or sentiment expressed in an earlier poem. So I have chosen a poem that I wrote earlier this year, based on another prompt where I was to give life advice to…
Muri Ghonto * #glopowrimo #promptday29
Today’s prompt: write your own two-part poem that focuses on a food or type of meal. At some point in the poem, describe the food or meal as if it were a specific kind of person. Give the food/meal at least one line of spoken dialogue. I. There’s a lot to be said about the…
given #promptday28 #glopowrimo
(Today’s prompt is to write an index poem.) Heat. Humidity. The smell of tuberose and lilies. Of course roses. In many colours, more roses than ever given while she was alive. Family, friends. Talking. The dead have to be given a send-off. The priest mutters, he is late. The room is full of things to…
The wolves of want. #promptday27 #glopowrimo
The prompt: Write your own poem titled “The _____ of ______ ,” where the first blank is a very particular kind of plant or animal, and the second blank is an abstract noun. The poem should contain at least one simile that plays on double meanings or otherwise doesn’t quite make “sense,” and describe things…
Bad bitch puppy #glopowrimo
In my father’s office room there is a little girl in grubby clothes and she will always be there, laughing and hiding under the table with the charts and maps and papers with her scabby knees clasped against her chest next to the cupboard with a thousand drawers. But in my mother’s room there is…
the path #glopowrimo
It’s a narrow path we walk, as a poet I know its nameAs a mother, I balk, with you, I’m uncertainThe many roles I wear, mother, daughter, professional,Daughter-in-law, aunt, sometimes a confessional.I know you do not understand me as sometimes I know not youIt’s just one of those paths we walk, things we go throughYet…
Birthchart #glopowrimo
My father sits up on his bed, the room is dark, the curtains drawn. We all know he is dying The birth-chart is next to him contains the date and time, and I dare not look at it. I look into my page, I do not know how to read the stars. Years have passed,…
restless soul #glopowrimo #day23
“I have lain those beasts to rest,” I declare, pacing by the litchi tree, “the ones snapping at my heels, begging me to train them… I have set them free.” You take a sip from your glass, “really?” “I have, I have slain those demons that were yanking at my chains banished them from my…
Slant of Light #promptday22 #glopowrimo
Today’s prompt (day 22) is to find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read – and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of…
Calm #promptday21 #glopowrimo
(Today’s prompt is to choose an abstract noun from a given list and then use that as the title for a poem that contains very short lines, and at least one invented word.) How calm you were the day you died, watching me running pillar to post getting untied getting things done, things that were…
Lesson: day 41523. #promptday20 #glopowrimo
Today’s prompt: Have you ever heard someone wonder what future archaeologists, whether human or from alien civilization, will make of us? Today’s challenge is to answer that question in poetic form, exploring a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist? “This was a beautiful planet, see how it…
Monster #glopowrimo #promptday18
For this challenge cast your mind back to your own childhood and write a poem about something that scared you – or used to scare you – and which still haunts you (if only a little bit) today. Bolero does something to me when it plays I am un-Ravelled resting my head upon upon my father’s…
Rant #promptday18 #glopowrimo
Today, the challenge is to write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet. After the ablutionsBefore the briefComes the callingDark and deepErrors are earnedFears unfathomedGrief is goodHeals the heartIncantation idealJokers in jestKnow the knaveLemons for losersMedals in mauveNothing is not nothingOfcourse you owePoets are peopleQuietly…
Bitter Gourd #glopowrimo #promptday17
Today’s challenge asks you to write a poem that contains the name of a specific variety of edible plant…. “This karela* is the sweetest,” you used to say Plunging your knife and fork and cutting into the flesh I never could figure how you enjoyed the bitterness That made us all gag and make funny faces. That…
Ma (09.10.1935 – 15.04.2023) #glopowrimo
you had the softest hands, your palms smoothed by years, the lines erased by time. How I held how I held those hands in mine, whispered in your ear that it was okay to let go. Not the suffering, not the pain, nor the hurt we caused each other, none of it matters anymore. I…
Role Model. #promptday15 #glopowrimo
Today’s prompt: Think of a person, real or imagined, who has been held out as an example of how to live, But…. As you lie drawing your last breathsThis is not easy to say.Yet it’s better I expressWhat I need to say some day. Mothers are to be looked up toIn Hindi movies, paragons of…
How do I hate You? #promptday14 #glopowrimo
So today is a prompt to parody a famous poem. Of course, I chose the one by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How do I love thee, let me count the ways?” So here goes: How do I hate you, let me count the ways, Actually hate comes with a breadth and height You cannot. So I…
The elephant’s tail #promptday13 #glopowrimo
I love that story Baba used to say A long winded One About the cruel mahout And His elephant on the run. He chased The pachyderm Over hills and vales Cities and by-lanes In sun and rain And caught up Finally When The tusker tried to escape down the drain. Wide-eyed I’d listen As…
The poem #promptday12 #glopowrimo
The poem I was writing died a nasty death it got sucked into listening to what the judge said . The Courtroom was packed, the crowd surged and in the stampede the poem was murdered. It reached out bloodied hands and in it I found A scribbled note telling me I had to go on….
Morning chatter #promptday11#glopowrimo
(today’s prompt is to play around with overheard language. My daughter was a chatter-box with her mouth running a mile a minute and I remembered those mornings when she would play with her food and talk ninety to the dozen about everything under the sun!) Why do we have sunflower seeds? Do I HAVE to…
The Hugli river. #promptday10 #glopowrimo
The Hugli today is not the same as yesterday and the water snaking will change soon. The Hugli today water changes by the second yet remains the same, much like a woman. The Hugli today wears a robe of consistency yet her very soul is one of change. The Hugli today is a toddler and…
Love #promptday9 #glopowrimo
(The prompt is a sonnet, so here is my take on it, a “Sonnet Sunday” of course!) Love was a thought I loved when I was young Over love many a sad song was sung The sad songs are the sweetest, don’t you think? More so when mixed with friends, regret and drink The first…
Hector #glopowrimo #promptday8
(The prompt is elaborate so I will not set it here. Make of the poem what you will…) The pool blazes in the sunlight Lit by fires that have no kindling The smell of smoke that is not there Abrading my skin, have I touched a nerve? Hector follows me in the pool at Pailan…
The things I have. #promptday7 #glopowrimo
(Today’s prompt is to write a poem that plays with the idea of a list. So here it is, list of things I have with my father who I lost almost 31 years ago… miss him everyday.) I have sea beaches where we looked for sea-shells, And we spent hours making sand castles I have…
Ashanti #promptday6 #glopowrimo
Today’s prompt is to find a poem in a language you don’t know. Now, read the poem to yourself, thinking about the sound and shape of the words, and the degree to which they remind you of words in your own language. Use those correspondences as the basis for a new poem. The poem I…
Mother #promptday5 #glopowrimo
For today’s challenge, write a poem in which laughter comes at what might otherwise seem an inappropriate moment – or one that the poem invites the reader to think of as inappropriate. My mother lies dying, I find bits of her scattered about the house. The first to go were dentures which she spat…
Dawn #promptday4 #glopowrimo
I wait for you where koels sing in the darkness just before dawn, when the day is yet to take wing I wait for you where koels sing promising a new beginning, sweet notes heralding your return I wait for you. Where koels sing in the darkness just before dawn.
there is joy…#promptday3 #glopowrimo
For today’s prompt I have taken a poem that I love and turned it on its head. The poem is in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore and I have given a rough translation after my work for reference. There is joy there is birth, the rejoicing of a farewell There’s also unrest, there is pain, hopelessness…
Significance #promptday2 #glopowrimo
Ghosts swimming over the city snarl and growl in flashes of light soothing the wails of the new-born the unused words of the thesaurus. In the flesh of murdered milk in bloody shadows that speak only to me and the centauride that will not be taught the insignificance of our existence.
How to swim #promptday1 #glopowrimo
You get into the water, of course, you cannot stand on the bank flailing your hands, you jump right in. Head first, if you are adventurous. I was pushed in the pool as a child, came up sputtering but learned to swim Life is like that swimming pool where I have been diving again and…
Moving on
I want to climb on top of that flag-pole And fling myself on the ground below My body spattering among parked cars, my blood mixing in the rain drenched street. Sometimes that is all I want, to embrace the end, to accept that this IS the end, although it is nothing like I craved or…
last rites
My fathers and I sit by the Hoogly Lit by diyas glowing on dinghies The bustling city with its pancaked lights Refract the water in the fractured night. They tell me how nice it was to meet Yet another uncle who died last week How his son was overtly devotional The words he spoke at the funeral His voice…
Today.
#Sensewrds Prompt 558 each morning I wear the black coat as for the last time, this life minus direction, fingers plucking at scar-strings till fingernails come away bloody. The door opens and a daughter saunters in surprising us from a distant city. where amid dreams in layered flagstones, she lives alone. And the day is…
To Ipsy, age 13.
(This poem is inspired by a writing prompt..”write a poem about the life advice you would give your younger self”) Do not sweat the small stuff But then you already know that. Those Math marks do not matter But the disappointment On Baba’s face? That does. Hug him close, tell him Every opportunity you get…
For the living.
You may think I’m morbid but every time I watch the flames of the pyre it feels as though the fire reclaims it’s own. In the end we are all ash, returning to the earth From whence we were born. In my mind I see you, standing by another pyre Quite unlike this. I see…
The News, 02.01.2023
Four people have been killed, nine injured in a terror strike. Russia continues to bombard Ukraine while members of the Opposition make arrangements for people to rest while walking for unity across the length of the country (the breadth seems to have been excluded)! A young girl died after being dragged for 12 kilometres. And…
For Ziggy
Not the swimming pool. Not the drives or that Maruti van of vintage spirit that you climbed into. Not the Bay of Bengal. Not its indifferent waves. Not the terrace of how it bemoaned the loss of those who left the years, the dates, unimportant. The hopscotch drawn in chalk waiting in vain for tiny…
Full moon again
You sit by the pond in the night and watch your father Crossing the dark grass, blinking through the trees Toward you, the moon balanced in his hands As he ruffles through the night only for you How long have I been waiting, you ask aloud May be forever, answers the night. It must be…
The dead.
The sun sets early in this place And does not return for days From across the horizon Comes the wistful murmurs In voices of loved ones, long dead. There are no human footprints To dispel the stillness with noise No questions that need be answered No cell phone rings to annoy. The living, at last,…
Someone, somewhere.
Someone somewhere is happy today But I scuttled the boat I was in Someone is pleased with her purchases, The path his career is going. Some couples smile and rejoice tonight I thought I would reach the other side Families are laughing over stories Narrated at the table where they abide Some children will not…
Ninety
Someone was talking about older relatives, Nonagenarians. I smiled, it’s your ninetieth birthday Today. The earth still smells as sweet and cradles Those plants you loved so well. When it rains The pond overflows as we splash among the edges Any excuse to jump right in. I still get lost. Meaninglessly in time playing games when …
Eight.
In my mind I am an octopus, the colours of my body Changing as I sleep; the yellows of contentment, The greys of the bleak worries, dyed in bleach. The deep blue shades of peaceful slumber, The frowning blacks as I refrain from speech. I do not speak to the dead bodies anymore I do…
Birdsong
The koel does not know this is a High Court meant only for serious matters, the Benches are for arguments, law and procedure heinous crimes discussed in hushed monotones one does not smile here. The koel sings out, indifferent and clear from its perch up high, no one stops or cares to listen; a voice…
Walk with me…
I have carried you for thirty years in every step, every mis-step I have taken, in delicious, imprudent ways. You were there when my daughters were born, you hid in a corner to hide your tears when I left home that last time. You knew, didn’t you? You knew that my life would move so…
Unawares
the kitten playfully tumbles unaware that crunching tyres will mow it down. the girl climbs the loft unaware that a misstep and fall will render her dead. the man at lunch laughs unaware that that chilled beer will be his last. the widow crosses the street unaware that in seconds, her child will be orphaned. …
blending in
I never smiled much blending into furniture, invisible girl hovering, in a party neither the life nor the soul; My words often fail to translate across the cacophony, specially for people that are meant to matter the people I think I care for. When trying to explain my thoughts, I’m greeted with blank stares nothingness cursing…