En-dash
Here’s the rub: The line breaks work. Trust the artifice — It passed the Turing test.
Aareet Mahadevan
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Sixty
In quantum computing, a qubit exists in multiple states, at once without contradiction. In language, her words are mine and mine, hers. respect & regret. love & duty. loss. Perhaps this is how mother returns to me. Perhaps this is her hand in my hair again.
Barefoot
Mohan taught me how to drive. Mohan, who struggles with bipolar syndrome. Who spent his whole life numbed, muted by the lithium. After years of odd jobs, he found something steady at a local leather factory. We climbed into the sofa-bench front seat of our rusty, trusty fiat. I was at the wheel. He rode pillion. I felt like a million bucks. Hands on the broad wiry steering wheel. Mohan, quite wiry…
तोड़ती पत्थर / The Stone Breaker
तोड़ती पत्थर वह तोड़ती पत्थर; देखा उसे मैंने इलाहाबाद के पथ पर— वह तोड़ती पत्थर। कोई न छायादार पेड़ वह जिसके तले बैठी हुई स्वीकार; श्याम तन, भर बँधा यौवन, नत नयन प्रिय, कर्म-रत मन, गुरु हथौड़ा हाथ, करती बार-बार प्रहार :— सामने तरु-मालिका अट्टालिका, प्राकार। चढ़ रही थी धूप; गर्मियों के दिन दिवा का तमतमाता रूप; उठी झुलसाती हुई लू, रुई ज्यों जलती हुई भू, गर्द चिनगीं छा गईं,
Bharatanatyam
When I was a child I was terrified by the Bharatanatyam dancer. How their feet thundered upon the stage. The kajal extending the eyes to their temples. The crimson lips in their garish grin. The whiteness of their eyes and teeth within. I hid behind the frayed edges of Asterix the Gaul, pretending I couldn’t feel my stomach drop every time my mother’s heel strike went off beat. And the teacher…
बातें / Words
बात करने से पहले, ये सोचो ज़रा क्या वो करेगी, किसी का भला ना ऐसा कभी, ज़बान पे तू ला तोड़ डाले जो दिल, किसी और का। ज़बान नश्तर भी है, है ये मीठी खजूर ये गली भी दे, बोले “मेरे हुज़ूर” जो औरों से चाहे, वो इसको सिखा बात करने से पहले, ये सोचो ज़रा। बात की जिसकी, मैंने होई और था बात की जो थी, कुछ और था
Beauty and the Beast
I like ugly words ogre and rickshaw brink and denude words you drop words you swap to beautify your rhyme maybe an ogre is a beast a rickshaw is a tuk tuk in a cooler clime What makes a word ugly? is it the shape of your mouth when you say it? Is it the scrape in your throat when you say screech Or the way your tummy twists when you say glug
Lately
The world looks like a billionaires’ playground wrought of sycophants and wannabes I’m tilted in my mesh backed ergonomic chair feeds feeding my brain the next great concern for the end of the world that comes with a conditional statement branching outcomes for the bourgeois A defiant disconnection in my connection to a planet determined to drive us out or into the ground found wound in cables…
Inheritance
Who will inherit the remnants of your life? And if they do, what will they find? The fading print on old receipts from travels made through a hurried life Too many purses once collected for their paint by hand or cottage chic Shoes with asymmetric wear from where your weight inexpertly held you close to ground for fear you’d fall from the gloried heights you held in mind Softened cotton…
Glass Trophy
Have you seen those glass trophies? the ones with the chamfered edges, completely transparent, etched lightly with the details of your average accomplishments. You might see through one to another award won sitting forgotten behind this modern monument like a pixelated reality. Participation awards pretending to reward enthusiastic participants transparent in their guile fragile as their glass.…
Alternate
मैं हूँ एक और हूँ मैं दो हमारी दो है ये और वो two sons to a mother two mothers to a son two fathers and a brother yet a father none
Airports
I remember when airports were filled with families. When airport security understood that things are forgotten and that relationships have unfinished business. When you could say goodbye to someone you love at the gate and then let them walk aboard to wave at you from their window. When you could watch, as their jet pushed back from the terminal as though the ground itself withdrew at your…
Jasmine
Why does a plant as beautiful and fragrant as the jasmine shed its flowers? Perhaps it is content and it wants nothing more than to share its beauty with the world. Perhaps it is satisfied with its colour, its shape and its smell. Or perhaps it is not and gives of itself anyway.
Outfits
How long did you spend Putting that outfit together? How much did you spend to get it just right? You must want to be seen. Don’t you want to be seen? Not really, no - well…not by just anyone but by the right person Someone who sees without looking whose eyes stray without leering. I want to be found by someone who isn’t seeking. I want to be heard by someone who isn’t hunting.
Moon
Funny, how she never sleeps, Takes a long wink every now and then But always shows up Holding the bowls of popcorn Ready for the show. With meadows of Men Streaming from the clouds A worried look, a dreadful sigh A whimper, a winter Every night gone by.
I don't get it
“What’s the point?” she asked. The words don’t even rhyme anymore. It’s just a few sentences broken in odd places. I don’t get poetry. “The point”, I said is that I feel something when I write it - and I write, in the hope that you feel something too. You don’t have to feel the same thing - you just have to feel something. And when you do feel something,
I am where dreamers go
I am where dreamers go in search of fame and fortune. I am filled with famous corners where a famous writer wrote or famous poets preened. In my coffee shops and bookstores you will see the mind adrift with the lurid and fantastic with improbable improbabilities and unlikely outcomes. In my streets I hold, the nausea and putrefaction, the grime, the char, the grease, the wine, the bar, the piece
Outhouse
I closed the gate and left the building that was, top to bottom, painted white. I stepped out onto the construction site where the old brick wall extends into new where crumbled rock and cement nuggets Are strewn across the marbled floors. A veneer of white dust, over everything. The roots of trees on the compound fight to make their way through, cracking the tiles and bursting from unexpected…
Invisible mark
The suction cups left a mark on my replacement windshield. I didn’t see it at the shop. The car was delivered washed and clean, a sparkle in its eye. I noticed it on my drive home, when the bathwater crept off the roof and down the sloping glass. Two concentric circles of clear glue - invisible until wet.
Serene
A pointed trail of aftersmoke, Pierced the deep serene, It thundered past the ears, belated, crashed into the evergreen. The fractal tips and mossy leaves Huddled and pulled in close, Amid the constant interruption Resumed their ancient pose. The virgin snow along the slopes Now tracked in trails of grey, You cannot tell from whence they came, Or where the ending lay. The jagged roots and rocky…
Castle
Once I built a castle, a castle in the sand I used beachwater and brick-on-brick, I built it up by hand. I started at the bottom, I planned to build it up so high, Filled with ballrooms, dungeons, carpet, towering in the sky. You start with the foundation, you must make it really strong, built to hold a thousand people standing solid centuries long. You worry about the plumbing, and where the…
Beasts
There are many kinds of beasts Not all who hiss and growl, I hope this helps you decide Which beasts are on the prowl - First is the beast within your mind, the one who holds your sleep, the one who lies under your bed crawls from the darkness and the deep - it takes your thoughts and alters them, it plays havoc on your brain, once you think you know what’s true,
Three Skips
She skips the stone across the water, Aims as far as the eye can see, Mother, sister and a daughter, It skipped but only three. It broke the placid platform, It sank below the tide, And wandered down the endless depths, To where the sun and earth collide. She dipped a toe into the clear, The cool and watery rush, And pulled it back with lilting laugh, And felt her face go flush -
Kayaks
The silver film spread, pulsing soft, The buoyant plastic held aloft, Bound by rock and rugged beach, Broke by paddles each by each. The gentle sway of little boat, Accompanied by weeds afloat, In ocean water extending west, Seen far beyond eyesight best. Progress slow but progress made, A timid pull follows slice of blade, Sliding forward, then try to brake Lest sleeping monster we should awake.
Darkness
Why do we blink with our eyes closed Do our nervous circuits not tell our brain What’s black is black Blinking will not bring it back Nor blackness fill with light again.
I was not born yesterday
I was born, not yesterday when snow fall on the pavement lay with phones of glass and stainless steel plastic cards swiped on winter’s day I was born, not long ago, when no structures held the winter snow no gargoyles watched the people feel their feelings on sidewalks below I was born, just minutes late, to join the refugees in freight, huddled close, slick like eels, and carrying burdens…
Matter of a muse
Every night I come here To look out at the sky It’s a thousand miles around me It’s clouds and passers-by It’s mountains in the distance Like shadows on a wall It’s the sun’s and moon’s insistence It’s a pigeon and its call It’s street lamps burning yellow It’s curtains in the blues It’s children waving hello It’s the matter of a…
Emilie
Down by the water where the ramparts give way where the light gentle dances on a sunny summer day. They sit by the side speak quietly of home strangers, open hearted who tire of their roam. 2018-September-15 Paris, France
Stares
Seeking curious people Preferably endowed with large eyes Dark of hair, And unwavering stare - Must be curious about most things But preferably curious about everything. Not young and not old But just young enough to be irreverent And old enough so one hesitates to offend - By staring back. You will be positioned in public places As the need arises To present passers-by with your inquisitive gaze.…
A Home In Many Places
It was odd, I admit to find myself a home amidst the shelving and rot amidst the battered old tomes. Stories of people, of stories, of things - a decimal labeling of related beings. You punch in and out, tag a card, worn down, slip it into the jacket let your mind wander round. Once you settle in, warm, let your mind out its cage, do you read about the author?
Typewriter
i,m surrounded by a horde of mechanical sounds a melody of gears, click and clack a flurry of selfies then start to go round no pause to think, no slack. maybe they came prepared for their task maybe they,re the wondering type they adjust now the ribbon, replace the mask they start to put paper to hype. no place for an amateur poet it seems no home for the loneliest word
I came to write an epic
I came to write an epic of our ordinary time I strived to make a magic of our duet in spoken rhyme I wrote a hundred rhythms sat staring through the trees I wet my toes in the water as I trembled at the knees I threw a rock in, playful as I skipped it off the grass I broke the flawless surface of a self-correcting glass I knelt my head against the wisdom
Strong Opinions
There’s a time for a book, so patiently in wait, a time for time, a time for life, a life inchoate. It swings firmly back, a momentum of course, a moment of this a moment of that a temporal divorce. It steps into pace, a signal signing strong, a sign of then a sign of now steers you right from wrong. It drives a memory home, a mind that’s holding back,
A Little Bit of Hindi
Perhaps there’s a duality among us a pulling, tugging breadth of rope knotted and dyed in pastel hues a coloured darkness in which to grope Not held by walls or fences high nor by earthen plot on human map not hunkered down or standing by not waiting long to bridge the gap A depth of clearness held afar by misty thought and foggy heart बस दिल में रहे ये इंतेज़ार
Snow School
There’s an unspoken peace about a mountainous place through valley and river and tree covered face - from summit to summit, laid by a sun in a grille, treading thin middle lines light to darkness, at will. A tremendous high feeling, not a singular sound, but the sound of your breathing as your heart starts to pound - Your legs turn to slack, at your unbreakable speed shifting unfocused, from want…
Citizen
There is a fearless leader, Spoken oft in time, His ample swell of Rivendell, is written deep in rhyme. They say this man is driven, By the people in his trust, He does his work by honor, Both what he wants and must. He’s a king among his equals, He’s mighty among men, Kind in luck and kind in rage, He’s worth not one but ten! He speaks his thoughts with measure,
What's in a name?
What’s in a name - A turn of phrase, a brand of dubious value - What’s hot and what’s not - An endless chase, a sign of vague definition - What’s deeper than this - A pound of God, a pinch of creative ideation - And to what end - A wooden box, a river of teary inhibition. But what instead - A hand of Hope, a life of giving back?
Misfit Gallery
There’s a room at my temple behind the idols and the arch past the fire, round the chariot the backstage of the gods. Where cluttered lie the torches and the robes and the food and long forgotten plaques honor faithful generosity. In this dark and narrow twilight, between hope and despair, unsuspecting children cross blithely from side to side. I know why they have it this place for…
Plaintext Poetry
And look at my words, lying plain on this page. No picture. No painting, no outpouring rage. Just cliche and fragment and tedious rhyme A rhythm gone stagnant and a restrictive Design. I could write about flowers, or greenery trees, I could ramble repugnant, or tickle and please. I could draw you a picture, with worlds of my making, drinkmellow, cloud yellow and tender lifequaking. But beauty and…
Reno
A train station in the middle of the ocean. We’re a hundred miles from Reno and the last Trader Joe’s is gone no hedges all a-thicket no primly pampered lawns. no golf clubs, no graffiti no showrooms plump with cars no schools and no factory no playgrounds and no yards We’re a hundred miles from Reno and we’re not leaving here by chance we’re headed south to connect…
Van Gogh Retrospective
Pardon me, while I interject, Examine this - try to connect, Apply your penetrating stare, Make sense of this poet’s fare. Stare up into the towering mass of bedrock: stone and brick and glass, masking bone and gilded sweat, sketch on skyline, made perfect. Wander through my hallowed halls, Inspect the roof, inspect the walls, serenade your Daisy Dee, my conquests documented free. As you…
Velvet
Now, trapped in this closing velvet cage the villi waving crimson rage the whispers streaming through the gaps lint in lungs set to collapse. The flashing-by of frozen time through dusty thought and weakened rhyme lingers long on tempests new on happy moments far and few. A complex band of made-up time concurrent thoughts now set in line to each contemplate alone to regret, rejoice, relive, atone.…
Vampyr
His stench greener than he was grey his dense demeanour here to stay a tuberculous line marked a forehead lined in time. He walked an unsteady Vampyr walk spoke in foreign tongue heart and liver burned to rock fed to ancient son. Pasty skin a shimmering white sunken eyes wrought once of delight solar hair of silver sheen Roman nose, now broken, mean. plastic rims and measured seam costume dress…
Climber
One step back, a tenor before, Tread forward slightly, a little, some more. Tendon and grip-lock working in stead, A jangle of keys, an upturn of head. Leading forward and end to end, Pinching and plunging a hollowback bend One pull down and bend into place, sit back, lie in, turn about-face. Gently now, swaying, kick off the wall, Swinging and earthbound, in gravity fall.
Two to Tango
There’s something about people that makes them all unique how they see and how they think how they trust and how they speak - There’s a way about a friendship that has stood the test of time a hundred years of solitude for a year of yours and mine There’s a stepping down surrender that’s laid by vaulted stone a twist and turn, a crash and burn, a secret to call your own.
Cirque
Tempered voices, cult conundrum, and a pizza sliced in two rock climber, homely humdrum fungus and mildew crepe lamplight, lucky bamboo, and a frozen two by four water droplets, organic shampoo and a motorcycle roar blue demon, slatting slats, and sunlight in a grille ikea chairs Tron, Bats, modem’s quiet trill heavy heatwire, men and women, try and educate, elastic beanstalk, business…
Jellybeans
Three beans in a jar, and a red ribbon on top, Chrome-silver lid finish, and a piggy in the backdrop. Four candybears sit thinking, on a dusty old balloon, cobwebs strewn sideways, and the piggy bursts into tune The door’s swinging weakly, on a hinge that’s paint bare, the barnhouse roof is bending, to let the sun light up the air The horses are all a-bellow, in the lightning thunder…
If I Knew You
If we met - at some potluck, and talked and laughed and walked. If we sang, like cockatoos gone wild, in chorus, twice, three times, and again, for good measure. If I knew, just how much you like chocolate, and how much you hate it milky. If we talked, about green, and silver, the metal, and bicycles in the sun. If I made a joke, that you thought was funny,
Viva Voce
Dither and tither, helter-skelter rig the gig tether the heather. Wax and wane, inside-out, dance a jig, shoe-shot leather. Dim and dip, dime-a-dozen, fit as a fiddle, light as a feather. Law and order, mortal-bane ring the doorbell I’m going insane.
Preposterous
“Preposterous!” old grandpa said, He clapped his hands, he shook his head, And proclaimed with all his feeble might, That you are wrong and he is right. He stepped into his musty room, flipped the light to dismiss the gloom, pulled his dusty shoebox out, to show you what he was on about. Out came his book of scraps and strings, of greying, stale, forgotten things, pictures of the life…