Prose Poem: “I don’t like poetry”

sunset

Whoever says, “I don’t like poetry” is a liar. Poetry exists everywhere. It’s in sunrise, nightfall, rain and thunder as much as it is in a mundane book, bed, mantelpiece or window. It’s in a new born babe’s first cry as it is in a flurry of birds shearing through the skies like jets on 4^th of July. Whoever says “I don’t like poetry” has never really listened to the random sounds that make up words that make up languages that make monkeys human. He has never been swept by a mother’s eyes brimming with an ocean of love, nor admired old lover’s holding hands, holding canes crossing the road of life.

But if he truly has never seen nor experienced any of that, he hasn’t yet lived, nor loved. Pity the man who has neither lived nor loved. For if he did, he would never have said, “I don’t like poetry!”

Hope

If you have seen your own house burn to ashes, and your life’s work undone in a matter of hours then you have probably entered the darkest, deepest recesses of your heart. Doves and Peacocks don’t live in these dark corners. Skies are perennially dark. Nights are so cold you think you will not survive to see the day. And yet you do! A tiny flicker of light burning in a hearth several houses down keeps you warm through the night. Sooner or later, the tide turns and a new day bursts. The garden of your heart blossoms with spring once more. Thank God for the flicker of hope that waivers but never dies.

Prose Poetry: Under my Skin

Prose poetry at a glance: A prose poem is any piece of verse written using the normal typography of prose, while maintaining elements of poetry, like rhythm, imagery, metaphors etc. Here is my contribution.

Under my skin:

She has a tendency to get under my skin. I try to shroud myself under the cloak of propriety. But she spots me. Ushers me to the coffee shop and calls out for “A tall Blonde with milk and Dostoevsky”. Then devours a donut and washes it down with Milton. Her words sizzle like ice on embers of coal and I vaporize like a puff of black magic. The book club was just an excuse. She has infected me like a parasite and spread irreversibly through my blood. Then slapping Dostoevsky on the table she says, “Pain is all pervasive. Love is redemption”.

An ode to my sister

Two circles traced in the sand by a wistful finger,
Half burned candle forever stuck inside grandma’s candle holder,
A pair of reading glasses resting on your dog-eared copy of Wuthering Heights,
A balmy conversation shared over a hearty meal of vegetable kofta and rice,
Something’s are just meant to go together; like a thread through the needle’s eye.

You and me only a few years apart. “Why did I follow” you ask?
How else would I lay claim on all your childhood toys, even your one-eyed
plastic doll the one whose eye you filled out with a black felt pen.
We were four braided pig tails, four blinking eyes, two impish heads lying side by side staring at the ceiling, wondering how we could cover it with the star studded sky.

Do you remember those endless nights rehearsing your Shakespearean school play? “To be or not to be”, was never a question you asked again. You always knew what you wanted, even when you said “I have no clue”, and how often you said it too? The sturdy doll house you built for me out of cardboard and keen imagination. No scissors and glue can build a childhood haunt that sturdy. I still owe you a “thank you”.

You saved the few shillings we got for pocket money in some piggy bank hidden far out of sight. Yet you always had enough to buy us a treat after school; an ice-cream for you and candies for me. And on the way back home you would share stories you read in class. And oh the stories you would conjure, I soared like a bird in each one.

We crawled on our knees raiding Tutenkhamen’s grave in our mere wall-papered bedroom, and sailed the lost city of Atlantis in our bath tub using spoons for oars. The street lamp outside our room shone brighter than full moon through the wooden slats of our window shutters,
throwing silver ribbons of light that always guided us safely back to home. We were savages who plundered books for adventure. Imagination is an endless playground for the young.

Adventure we found like all who grow up to live their life. We were two circles traced in the sand; delicate and precious. Like sugar cookies cut out of the same dough. Something’s are just meant to go together, dear sister, so I followed you into life like a thread through a needle’s eye.

Point Dume

You would have to know the hills
well enough to spot this dirt path
that meanders for miles across the
hills, like a dog aimlessly chasing sea
gulls in mid flight.

Even the cool breeze is drunk on sea
salt, and wears the guise of a flower
girl today who runs with her arms
stretched wide trying to catch life
with both her hands.

These hills that stand tall and erudite, these
too have known to heel obediently like the
tired, thirsty dog that heels and then leaps into
the water for a swim; they too bow down and
taper into this rocky path that meets the deep
blue.

Here everything is forever Zen. The golden
shore studded with piles of rocks like a
crowned queen languishing in her reprieve
while the waves adorn her feet with green
anklets of sea weed.

Overhead fly a poem of birds in practiced
symphony, offering a silent praise to this
prairie of priceless perfection.

Life is…

empty when full
and full when empty.
Like the chaotic symphony
of the colorless cocoon
(no larger than a thimble)
unwinding into a mile long
silken yarn.

Waiting to be woven & inked
with jacquard pots of red & gold
into a scarf that bears artistic witness
to snowy wastelands of icicled mulberry trees.
Underneath which sits a fair maiden shy of her
own reflection in the bubbling brook, spinning delicate
sighs for her lover. And around her Chinese letters
rise up in air like prayer.

Later the same scarf tied around my neck
will get caught in the brooch of your breast
pocket and endure a tiny tear
as you pull away from
my embrace.

Leaving me to wonder how many miles
of unwinding, weaving and dyeing do I have to do,
before my life is fully empty of you?

How to create a Master piece

I wanted to paint life in its rich palette of pastels;
corn yellow, caterpillar green, pomegranate red,
a blessed hue of honeycomb gold, aster blue and
random dabs of rainbow.

Determined to create a masterpiece of sorts. I drew up
a country hut with a chimney blowing smoke, a cockatoo cooing
good morning, cattle grazing and birds chirping; hello, hello.
The scenery was idyllic but the passers-by gave it one look and
said it was “too contrived“.

So I drew up farmers and carts, children skittering in the yard,
a garden and a well used windy path. But the Farmers and the children
in the painting looked at me quixotically and said, “Where are we all to live?
In this tiny, little hut?“

So I turned the hut into a mansion, and drew up courtyard fountains,
Rose gardens, stately lounging chairs and a path of white marble.
But they thought it was “too flamboyant, peasants don’t live in mansions!“

So I drew up Skyscrapers, Westminster bridge, Trafalgar square,
Charing Cross station, hawkers selling hot dogs, bus stands buzzing traffic,
and lots of people rushing in and out like blood flowing through an artery. But the busy city people gave it a dull look and said it was “too unromantic, too common place“.

So I drew my final painting; an endless expanse of arched blue skies
and flowing green fields punctuated only with wild flowers. Soon birds and butterflies flew in, followed by rabbits and deer’s for company.

I then stepped inside my own painting and with a sigh of resolve decided to seal my peace. At the threshold of the painting I drew a thick red brick wall and sealed the world out.

Later I heard from the birds and the bees they hung my red brick wall next to Cezanne and Pissarro. Staring at it for hours, they say, “So Impressionistic …So Monet!”

Falling in love

Maybe one day I shall become a poet,
and write a book. Each page will be
enjambed with my tongue.
I shall publish it on recycled paper
and leave plenty of space in the margin
for your notes.

When you chose to relax
with a glass of wine, open my
book & like a dolphin dive in.
Leaving splashes of my words on
your couch.

Do not swim just sink into my poem
and let the music fill the pores of your soul.
For here my reader, my lover you will be
safe forever…

Road to Discovery

I wanted to feel the thrill of the wild zinging through my teeth, so I pulled up fragments of survival into a backpack, enough to keep Sequoia hospitable for a week. And set off backpacking with a group of four, towards the Alpine zone. The deeper we receded into the woods the harder it got staying on the trail. The storms the week before had done a nasty job of hiding the trails.

I must have failed to keep pace with the rest of the pack, for I found myself farther and farther away until the distant heads vanished into the thickness of foliage. Before long instead of following a team of four, I found myself breaking trail through un-trampled greens. The map no longer fit the terrain, the trails were completely disguised with the havoc the storm had caused and there were fallen trees everywhere. As the sun dimmed its intensity, my hurried footsteps got more and more confused. One wrong turn led to another, and before I knew it, I was lost.

Night in the woods descends like a mighty eagle with its wings outstretched. Darkness is sudden and complete. There is no comforting light peering through embroidered curtains, or a mechanical buzz from the kitchen fridge, a sprinkler sputtering off at night, friendly chatter of the TV in the background, or the familiar clatter of silver ware and plates at dinner time. Instead there is the loud rhythmic thump of your heart beating against your ear drums. There are other disturbing noises intensified by the silence of the night. Like the rustling of leaves nearby, a sudden cry that resembles a baby shrieking except it is not, a howl, a hoot and an unnerving pair of yellow eyes watching from the distance…

A small shaking flashlight in hand and a poor job of a tent later I find myself strangely secure. It occurs to me that a human’s most fetal need is the need for security no matter how frail the promise of security may be. Thankfully, the fatigue from the day wraps its sleep laden hands around my neck and drowns me into deep slumber. For two days I hike senselessly around the green corridors of tall trees losing my way constantly. Until several miles, an abandoned baby stroller, broken shards of beer bottles, disbanded backpacks, and several cairns later I am convinced that I am well on the road to discovery.

The search team must have been thick on its trail, for it isn’t long before I hear myself scream, hands flailing like turbines in the wind. As two distant flashes of light glimmer like twin candles in the thick of the night swiftly growing in size.

Weekly Photo Challenge: In Between

‘In Between’ …
Is the difference between the ‘living’ and the truly ‘alive’,
It’s the boundless expanse of human emotions stretching between the two ears,
It’s the time spent sowing a seed to the reaping of corn coyly veiled in silken hair,
It’s the seconds passed between a glance to the sudden recollection of days gone by like an old love song,
It’s the fortitude in waiting for the downpour of rain nuzzling the sharp bark of an angry summer,
It’s the victorious heartbeats hoisting a white flag after a long battle in purple skies,
It’s the black & white words on a love letter and the long sigh that escapes a pair of Fuchsia lips,
It’s children screaming and dancing wildly celebrating the end of school after a grueling semester,
It’s the distant view of the marines on the flickering TV screen aiming their guns ready for battle,
to the newspapers celebrating their safe return home.
It’s the loud argument two people have punctuated by their silent agreement to part,
It’s the orange ball of sun leaking its color on the Red Rock country in Sedona,
to half a dozen American Haiku’s penned in memory,
It’s the lessons learned from a thousand mistakes highlighted and circled in mind,
It’s the angle of the arc drawn by a pendulum as it ticks from left to right and the tiny world it orbits within that arc. ‘In Between’ is the space above an open palm that holds everything and nothing.

Inspired by Weekly Photo Challenge: Containers

Picture of woman holding the sun courtesy of