Kapok Tree [Haiku]

Taken at Lal Bagh (Bangalore) in 2021
sinuous roots
of the silk-cotton tree;
are they moving?

Bad Anthropologist [Free Verse]

Today, I read about an anthropologist
who was living among an isolated tribe, 
[as anthropologists tend to do]
a tribe who believed that twins
weren't really people,
and that twin babies 
should be left to die 
of neglect. 

This anthropologist, 
like all good anthropologists,
was trained to respect 
indigenous beliefs and 
to not go mucking around
and breaking the "Prime Directive"
[well, that term is from Star Trek,
but good anthropologists have similar
directives -- or, at least, proclivities --
i.e. to be objective,
and - to the degree one can't be -
to recognize one's biases and try to 
note the role they might play.] 

This anthropologist was doing a
grand job of being an anthropologist,
until a woman in the tribe had twins...

DAILY PHOTO: Scenes from Budapest, circa 1999

Dohány Street Synagogue; Winter of 1999
Halászbástya, i.e. Fisherman’s Bastion in Buda Castle
Széchenyi Lánchíd; i.e. the Chain Bridge
Budavári Palota; Buda Castle Palace

Mad Mind-Fire [Free Verse]

My brain is an angry sac of neurons:
hot wired / electrified.

Sizzling synapses ready to snap
and spew seedy scenes
upon this world.

But no one hears a scream
in the dark void of a barren mind:

though the scream radiates outward
as a painful wave of unknown
origin & purpose,

a tremor in the fabric of us

Urban Garden [Haiku]

the city's curated 
garden is both more & 
less than wildflowers 

DAILY PHOTO: Solah Khamba Masjid

Taken in August of 2022 in Bidar

In Tall Grass [Free Verse]

Do you feel unease,
walking in tall grass?

Visceral tension?

A primal impression from a time
when a wounded beast
[on its belly, &
with labored breath]
retained enough energy
for one last lurch
to impale its hunter?

A raspy groan or bloody burble,
and the jerky wave of the grass
might be all the warning one got
before 
The End.

DAILY PHOTO: Knoll

Taken in November of 2021 near Galax, Virginia

Luck of the Lost [Poem]

Being lost
is underrated.

Overblown:
devastating?

But you've not seen
what I've seen:
a world that I 
could not have known,
had the signs 
not been overgrown.

And had I not ventured 
beyond boundary lines,
and tried my very best to find
some ancient item -
long lost to time.

Stumbling,
weary,
but wanting more;

I wandered,
knocking door-to-door.

But none could tell me 
where I was,
because they couldn't
see me from above.

All they knew was that 
I was "here,"
and so, it was as I had feared.

Because I'd left to get away
from here,
in search of some magic where --
an unknown "there,"
far from here.