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…