Skip to main content

EPIGRAMMATA

Black tea, a new day dawns. Trees dice
the sunlight turning blinding white
into playful delight. The soft tinkles
of the anklets on your feet: is silver's

beauty still in its cold shine? The heart
amuses itself in teaching what it never
understood. Stained-glass window shadows
on the floor paint a fresco: nature also

makes chameleons that contrast with her
butterflies. Smileys on the screen, this
heart enchants itself with your imagined
smile. They're sodium chloride, but by

what chemistry do tears wash away sorrow?
What am I - a body and brain, products of
carbon concatenation chemistry hurtling
into nothingness. I live on coffee and

black depression, neither water nor fire
touch now, of my shell what is left to hurt?
Few thing delight one as fried maida and
petty triumph; my memories have erased you.


Published in GloMag April 2019

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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|

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.

Sunday is...

...a late morning, a tumbler of degree coffee, a birthday greeting to a friend (thank God for Facebook), another tumbler of coffee... ...a hot water bath, catching up on weekly politics, rice and bitter-gourd curry with jeera rasam and pickle, a long unhad siesta... one murukku made from old rice, ground by hand and made in coconut oil, one piece of jangri - not too sweet - washed down with hot degree coffee... a walk with the dog drongo-spotting in the garden, and old family stories with mother under the jamun tree... ...a little poem, a bit of light reading, and an interesting online chat on the Dhammapada... ...and finally an ascent to heaven with curd rice and vadu-mangay, before the fall to the netherworld of Monday.