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…

Maths.

“I am walking at a speed of 6 kilometres an hour.  You start after ten minutes and walk  At a speed of 8 km, How long will it take For you to overtake me?” Those sums  Were your favourites. Along with the tank  That rarely got filled and sometimes  Overflowed. How I hated that morning…

To the crow

I used to hate crows, scavengers of the earth squawking, snatching, swamping the skies when one died, shot by that stray bullet frightening us into the house. But then you said that crows were good that when they eat the food offered to the dead it is as though the dead have returned. Since then…

No poem today

I will write no poem today I will just chill, not fret about meter And spend the morning Nursing my coffee and Sudoku. I will not write a stanza today No deep thoughts to construe, No yearnings to express… No quatrain or haiku. I will binge-watch a TV show About haunted houses or spies And…

The poem I was writing

Died a senseless death The body waits In the crowded funeral homes For the rich In lime covered mass graves Of the poor Tortured and twisted In the agony of birth Breathless and blown By gathering storm clouds The cadaver awaits A decent burial.