Oh, the glorious monotony
of mountain skies
an azure dome
in rare air highs
over the brome
And, too, the lake
glassy tranquil
float duck and drake
in mile high chill
POEM: Blue
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Category Archives: poem
POEM: Silly Cat
I think you know my silly cat
It perches on heads like a hat
It catches critters and sets them free
cause it finds canned food more tasty,
but it loves the sport of the hunt
and can perform acrobatic stunts
between bouts of blissful slumber
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POEM: Storm
storm clouds hovering
birds refuse to sing
torrents are soon to pour
waters will rise through the floor
and this shack will float away
clashing in nature’s fray
and washing out to sea
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POEM: Kashmir
Green, the mountain meadow
White, the wall of fog
Lakes of trapped glacial runoff —
aqua gemstones in dim light
Lines of sheep crisscross
the part lines of trail
that segment the pasture
in Cubist form
Curfew is on again,
“How do you survive with the roads closed?”
“We remember from years ago. There are ways.”
Such a beautiful place
trapped in a cycle of human ugliness
Barren gray mountains —
more than verdant pastures —
echo the Kashmiri struggle
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POEM: Perplexed by Humanity
Humanity, it does perplex
much more than old T-Rex.
Man without his pointy stick
is but a high-grade lunatic
who thinks himself Odin’s son,
but sees a mouse and takes to run.
Drawing himself at the feet of gods,
yet terrified of nature’s odds.
Achieving the inconceivable,
so at odds as to be unbelievable —
at once arrogant and trepid.
Begging waters to be tepid,
our radiated splendor is too scant
to warm a thimble for an ant.
One can never love what one fears
for the test of all one holds dear
isn’t found at an ideal distance
but in the most trying instants.
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POEM: Fog Monster
fog followed us down the valley
in a relentless glacial flow
ahead lea, aft a soft white wall
lost, the mountainous tableau
who is chased by a dragging cloud
pulled over the land like a cover?
it’s not mustard gas creeping in
just water drops caught mid hover
well, i can’t speak for one and all
but i found my pace did quicken
when sound roams free, but sight ‘s restrained
the old nerves tend to kick in
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POEM: Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh
Assembly Building, Chandigarh; Source: Duncid (via Wikipedia)
The best “futuristic” can aspire to is to become retro-chic —
like the ship sets from the 60’s Star Trek.
Yet, we can’t help but try to capture tomorrow, today —
only to create today’s vision of tomorrow’s dystopia.
If Asimov wrote about a man who finished his work at a typewriter
only to catch a trans-galactic shuttle —
what hope could Le Corbusier have of finding the future?
Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh features elegant, broad boulevards —
running straight, intersected only by other broad boulevards.
Perhaps, the future has arrived:
Where else in urban India can one drive a mile
without rounding a corner to stop for livestock, playing children, or a parked truck.
One can cross Chandigarh in twelve minutes flat.
Crossing Bengaluru requires four hours,
non-inclusive of stops for gas and a hardy biryani.
But that massive tic-tac-toe grid is built
of neighborhoods constrained inside block walls.
As one speeds through town, with nary a car in sight, one wonders
where is the life?
is this still India?
have I slipped through a trans-galactic teleportation portal?
Perhaps, the future has arrived:
Where else in urban India can one see:
battleship gray unadorned by marigolds or ochre
and wonder where the windows of the future went
and whether people of the future
ever idly peer off out toward the horizon?
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POEM: The Well
deep down in a step well
where drab green water stands in dry season
where the light is dim and diffuse
except a solitary shaft that dances against stone and murky water
but only when the sun is high
then dust motes swirl in said light
kicked up by nocturnal creatures satisfied by the darkness
because the shadows shun all that isn’t black
I hear the snap of a bat’s wing
but never see the bat that snapped it
nor who made a squeak to go with the snap
it seems like it should feel creepy
to be in a world where bright light fires only a little oval
while all the rest stays sunk in darkness
but how is my terranean world any different?
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POEM: Pile of Lies
they called him “The Kamikaze”
he worked for old mama Stasi
cutting and cupping skull caps
keeping it hush, under wraps
then he’d crash a plane-load of lies
each clad in a clever disguise
dressed up like god’s own truth
sliding past even super-sleuths
a pile of seed for future lies
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POEM: Which World?
sitting upon an old, stone ghat
I felt the flow of what was not
coracles once spun down this stream
like dervishes in a wistful dream
now the dream was cold and lonely
sing songs of the one and only
it doesn’t change a single thing
be that one a drone or a king
I’d followed the drums down into a trance
time was vacant from my every glance
and I’d lost track of which world I was riding
