Crimson
What makes
tonight’s tropical wind so cold
I wonder how the trees will survive
Come and kill me, engulf me
in your wild currents
in you, I have heard, everything melts
You, the one who remains on my dreams
your beauty; like the dew atop a rose
your kisses, wet and full with a thousand dreams
This land of masons, of men and women
such simple and true; amongst them
I am but a lost cause
Love has sown its seeds; water and fire
smiles adorn mouths, full of hope
bodies, fresh with the drizzles of spring
Crimson, green and pale
what a vivid tale; a kind of a rare solstice
that hides everything, leaving a few colors behind
On understanding and other such myths
1.
There is a void
I try to fill
It’s impenetrable
I toil nonetheless
I attach it to people and things
equally in-vain
It is my Nessun dorma
a sleepless lament
Logic has failed me
and religions have mislead me
mostly
I look at the old people
they look so calm
beyond the fading lines
maybe they weren’t what they are now.
2.
There’s fire and moon
from where it all began
to create the un-made
to annihilate the created
create
a voice said
and it all came to being
Reminiscences
linger
mountains, rivers, oceans
people
3.
Mithyaa
you see all of this,
you, me, this world
is a magnificent lie
said the poet
before he was pelted with stones
Smallest amongst the atoms
Expansive than the sky;*
some said he disappeared
some said he was dragged from a bridge
before being killed
Gods, they said, came down and took him along
unto the heavens
we believed them.
4.
The layer thickens
the songs we sing
the love we make
the sadness we feel
The pain that’s throbbing in my knee right now
All beyond a broken veil, the discernment
a mere illusion
brilliantly
ornate
* These two lines are a loose translation of a poem by Tukaram, a sixteenth century Marathi poet.
Civilizations
“You breathe, thanks to the phytoplanktons”
expounds a wise man
“April is the warmest month”
sighs another
But it doesn’t matter –
shadows
linger along the silent white wall
in an eternal stupor
a slow humming wind
drags along like a tired caravan
on this dry , drawn – out afternoon
parched by a lonely sun
A wind-chyme
makes a feeble effort –
twinkles the dust – laden remnants of leaves
a stillness is stirred
fading to the gray;
Civilizations
lie
cold and buried under.
Anant has been writing poetry since his late twenties. He attempts to explore the intricacies of the human mind and the cultural milieus that it breathes in through a conversational style of poetry. His poems seem to emanate from an urgent and pressing need to ‘word’ the abstract. He blogs at www.newagepoems.blogspot.com and has been publishing his poetry through numerous social media groups. Anant lives with his wife and son in Herndon, Virginia, and can be reached at anantdhavale@gmail.com.
Image © Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons