The cicada's plaint

April is the grasshopper's time,
The cricket and cicada's too;

April is the time of flowers,
The time of sweet nectar-filled flowers;

April is the time of singing,
The time to chirp serenades of love;

April is the time of summer,
The summer of May and June;

April is the season of joy,
The joy that seems eternal.

but April's the month of deceit,
The joys are but ephemeral;

April blinds one to December,
And its cold that starves and torments;

April's a cheat and a liar,
April is the cruellest month.

(drawing from the fable of the ant and the cicada)

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She's complicated

She's complicated. She'll charm you with charts, statistics and that corporate smile. But look into those eyes, they're fiercely bohemian. She's complicated. Her chatterings seem to resonate with happy sounds, but listen with the other ear, to an unhidden lament. She's complicated. Her silences agonise, her voice echoes in her absence. And yet there is a mild dread as her name flashes on the ringing phone. She's complicated. Sometimes she's a poetess, shallow, romantic, trying to hide a sardonic, world-weary wit. She's complicated. She could be a spiteful Fury, wrath unabated, but that's just to hide the lamb-hugging girl within. She's complicated. She's an enchantress, a fool, a tyrant, a nurse, an imp, a priestess, but she's generally a good friend. She's complicated. Published in Making Waves - A Poetry Anthology , ed. Pam & Bill Swyers; Swyers Publishing 2011. ISBN: 978-0-9843113-6-1.

Mother

Mother has many names. Anak Krakatau might be one of them, Or Uttarkashi or Qinghai, Haiti certainly is. She's the mother that swallowed Maui into her womb, the mother that disarmed Karna, who led Oedipus to sin. She plays pranks too, in that cheerful way unique to her. We find strange names to give them - tsunami, hurricane. Kalki is another name we've given her, for when she will be an old woman looking for some kind of elixir of youth. Perhaps some quack will mislead her to find it in our blood. She has a heart of gold they say - pure, molten lava, that sometimes erupts on her skin like a ripe pimple. She loves nothing more than the sound of babies crying - orphaned, bloodied, hungry, dying their carcasses feeding hyaenas. But hyaenas are her children too. But she is the green mother who feeds us, clothes us, protects us from the sun's ionizing radiation, we came from her loins, which is where we go.

बर्फी की शादी - बालकविता

बर्फी के घर में शादी है, दुल्हा उसका लड्डू है, माला उसकी किशमिश है, चूडी उसकी काजू है, बादाम उसकी बाली है, चाँदी की उसकी चुनरी है! यह कृति उमर बहुभाषीय रूपांन्तरक की मदद से देवनागरी में टाइप की गई है|

Autophony

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