Tag Archives: poem

A Few Senryu [Day 13 NaPoMo: Senryu]

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[Senryu is a Japanese style of poetry that’s identical to haiku in form, but different in content. While haiku rely on images (usually natural and often seasonal) and the juxtaposition of such images — devoid of analysis, commentary, or judgement — Senryu poetry explores human nature. In other words, while humans appear rarely in traditional haiku (and, when they do, it’s as a part of nature;) Senryu are always about humans and they do present commentary — often intended to be humorous.]







two dodge bird poop
the missed credits himself,
the struck curses birds



when floors must be swept,
some needn’t be told, some must,
and some told they can’t



extroverts
having virtual parties,
while I read



Blake said,
“The cut worm forgives the plow.”
What of the plowman?



boredom exempt:
creatures who use their teeth, feet,
or their brains



the hungry snake
doesn’t begrudge the winning
chameleon

POEM: I’ve Seen Sunsets [Day 12 NaPoMo: Rondeau]

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[A rondeau is a closed poetic form of French origin. It uses tetrameter, a half-line refrain, and rhyme schemes of aab and aabba. The first poem I ever learned by rote, “In Flanders Fields,” is among the best known English-language examples of this type of poem.]

I’ve seen sunsets in colors bright.
I climbed Phnom Bakheng for the height
to peer above the canopy.
Fire orbs dip to Andaman Sea,
and I crossed isles to beat twilight.

 

Hues: royal purple to blazing fire light
I’ve watched Midwestern skies fade to night
from a tower above the trees.
I’ve seen sunsets.

 

Seven ridges of varied might,
were stacked from tree- to snowcapped-height,
and a different scene for each degree —
as painted clouds flared windward to lee,
and I watched from an idyll campsite
I’ve seen sunsets.

POEM: Train of Sleep [Day 11 NaPoMo: Free Verse]

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waking in a train car
at the rail yard
slouched in the darkness —

but not pure darkness
because the lights are always on at the railyard
and the pale light shines in at strange angles

slapping the window makes your palm hurt,
bruising the bone of your thumb,
but gets you no closer to being free

trying to wedge your fingers between
the rubber ends of the sliding door panels
proves useless

the door doesn’t give way — weakly —
as it does when a running rider
slips a hand in at the last second during rush hour

nothing to do but to try to go back to sleep
but your mind races with what you’ll say
how it’s “a funny story”
or
indignantly, “isn’t someone supposed to check each car?”

of course, they are, and they did,
but the driver, eager to get home,
just peeked through window into that last car
and didn’t see the person huddled
in the backward-facing first row of that last car

mind-racing, and butt feeling the hard seats
you can’t fall asleep,
and you wonder how you ever did

but, eventually, you do

you wake in the train car
still at the railyard
but without the darkness

because a bright light shines in your face
as someone says,
“What are you doing here?”

Rainy Day Tanka [Day 10 of NaPoMo: Tanka]

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[A tanka is a Japanese form closely related to the shorter form, haiku. In fact, a haiku can be thought of as the upper phrase of a potential tanka. Traditionally, the tanka (a.k.a. waka) is a 31-syllable poem. In modern notation, the additional 14 syllables are  put into two seven-syllable lines below the three haiku lines, i.e. 5 – 7 – 5. (That said, there are many — myself included — who feel that the 5 – 7 – 5 – 7 – 7 approach applied to English language poetry loses the sparse, Zen feel of Japanese poetry because English syllables can be — and frequently are of — much longer duration. Personally, I’m more partial to the 2 – 3 – 2 stressed beats approach.) Historically, a haiku presents an image devoid of analysis or commentary. In Tanka, there is a pivot and the lower phrase often presents a response to the image.]



dry season
afternoon downpours
come daily
like one bird nesting
in another’s nest


soggy forest
oppressed smoke hangs low
unseen, but smelt
bone dry wood exists
but only within flame

 

drippy garden
a bright orange flower
hangs its head high
you warm my mind,
if not my bones



Cloud Ruba’iyat [Day 9 NaPoMo: Ruba’i]

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[Ruba’i is a Persian form of poetry written in four lines, i.e. one quatrain. A ruba’iyat is a collection of such poems. [These quatrains aren’t necessarily thematically or narratively connected.] The most famous such collection in English translation is Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam. In English language ruba’i, the most popular rhyme scheme is A-A-B-A, but A-A-A-A is also popular — not to mention dispensing with rhyme altogether.]


1.)
clouds drift, unrushed, across skies of blue
tranquil spies that follow stuck like glue
no gains or losses are made in this game
for “heed the wind” is the only rule



2.)
to hide a mountain takes a special cloud
the mountain may lack color, but it’s proud
its steely, silvery gray stands manly
so neither white nor grime will enshroud



3.)
still cloud, I find troubling your lack of speed
it’s like you’ve stopped to draw a bead on me
those untethered should take a roaming spree
hasn’t anyone told you that you’re free?



4.)
wispy crystalline cloud high above
your shape won’t be discussed by those in love
’cause no one’s lying back this frigid day
wearing fur-lined coats, and hats, and gloves

POEM: Ode to My Immune System [Day 8 NaPoMo: Ode]

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I

Accused of failing to think about you,
I cannot deny that it’s true.
My lymph bristles with white blood cells
that make invading me treacherous hell.
And leucocytes are just a start,
marrow and spleen each play a part.
I can’t thank you all in this strophe,
but if I could I’d give you each a trophy.

 
II

I can’t say I recall each time I’ve been sick,
but my T-cells must surely have a nice trick
cause they’ve got them etched from first to last,
dating back fifty years in my past.
And if my thymus weren’t a taskmaster
I fear my life would end in disaster
for my body would self-cannibalize.
[And if that idea gives me teary eyes,
tears have antimicrobial enzymes.]
If I had to think about all the times
my NK-cells shivved a potential tumor,
I couldn’t maintain such good humor.

 
III

My ode is almost done, and many were left out.
The truth is there’s a lot that I don’t know about.
So, it’s not that I don’t love my antibodies.
Nor that I think their work is shoddy.
I just didn’t do well enough in Chemistry
to describe their heroism with rhymed brevity.
Skin, lung cilia, gut mucus, and macrophage
each deserve more words up on this page…

than have smarts to write.

POEM: A Few Clerihew [Day 7 NaPoMo: Clerihew]

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Edmund Clerihew Bentley
delivered his sarcasm gently
with just four lines
using the simplest of rhymes



It’s said that Adolf Hitler
shoulda been killed when he was littler,
but maybe he’d not have been reigning
if someone had bought one of his paintings



Edgar Allan Poe
always wrote in the Flow
his secret was a life of melancholy
you don’t write “The Raven” while jolly



President Woodrow Wilson
might’ve lost votes in the millions
think how one would do
with first term Spanish Flu

POEM: Escaping the Frame [Day 6 NaPoMo: Villanelle]

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[A villanelle is a six-stanza form (originally French) in which the first five stanzas are three lines (tercets) with an A-B-A rhyme scheme, and the sixth is of four lines (a quatrain) with an A-B-A-A rhyme scheme.]

a vast grassland spans my field of vision
bison languidly trample the dry grass
azure sky seen in perfect precision

are these the fields the Greeks hailed Elysian?
but while it’s vast I feel it has no mass
perhaps, it’s just hi-def television?

I find my mind is wild in ambition
and ignores the window frame and the glass,
pretending all that is, I envision

but I know I see with imprecision
a glance sees no more than in science class
though vivid, it’s as false as a gryphon

but beauty beats logic to submission
I become one with wind-tousled tall grass
dazed, I’ve lost all mental inhibitions

why would nature thrill in exhibition?
baring beach to beach across each landmass
it’s not to employ more aestheticians
but to drown out distrusting suspicions

POEM: Bangalore [Day 5 NaPoMo; Acrostic]

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Bridge between high-tech and no tech

Also, city of garrisons, gardens, and grandparents

Native of none and yet Namma Bengaluru

Growing bamboo-like with dense patches of people

Artistically eclectic: Kuchipudi dancers to cringe comedians

Lal Bagh calls to keep the title “city of gardens”

Obliging in ways rarely seen above ten million

Rust red and old stone buildings; the city’s grey hair

Everything is possible here

POEM: Away [NPM Day 4: Ghazal]

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[Ghazal is a poetic form of Arab origin consisting of between 5 and 15 couplets. Traditionally, it is metered (how many feet per line varies from poem to poem, but shouldn’t within a couplet,) and has a rhyme scheme of AA-BA-CA-DA-etc. A common theme word or phrase across couplets is also tradition, and it often forms the rhyme. Loss and separation are among the most common themes.]
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In the airport, I think I’ll find a way
to be “he who stayed” as I go away.

“Left” and “stayed” aren’t just matters of locale.
Some who stay, long ago drifted away.

Some retreat within their seats, I speak true.
Body here; mind a million miles away.

Unwalking undead, this kind of zombie.
So, the living must become runaways.

They’ll say I’m playing games of semantics,
but games are done, now I must go away.