Here comes the Sun

Here comes the Sun,
slinking out the clouds
Godfather of this earth
light casting off its shroud,
Casting the shroud
off those whose moods
set with its setting and rise with its floods,
Or those whose first 'art'
was inspired
by the slumber and wake of this gentle giant of fire,
Whose fury, unforgiving,
can just as quickly destroy
as its benevolence creates
all life and joy.

Here comes the Rain,
dripping off unseen shores
Angel tears, heaven faucets—
countless metaphors,
A being of sound and smell
unlike Sun, its antithesis (?)
But like it can nurture or make all perish;
Such beauty, such poise, this lady's voice
Her mere presence plays with hearts
touching unseen strings in gentle harps,
Mother of poetry and storms
the ocean's first-born.

Here come the Stars,
oft overlooked for the moon
Long dead, still twinkling
in the sky's black cocoon
Dagger wounds in dark dresses
holding firmly in their embrace
you, and the secrets that dwell behind that face,
For the stars were how we first learned of poetry
Diamonds in the sky,
corpses burning for eternity. 

4th April/ (3/30)/ Childish rhyming verse

Featured image: CD painted by my sister

City sunsets

Sunsets in the city
aren't the most romantic affair— you see,
there's no sun-dipping-into-the-horizon
(because there is no horizon)
no distant crash of waves
or the chirping of unknown birds,
(Though you might just get a nice breeze if you're lucky)
there's no fire in the hearth slowly going out.

But leaning here against the balcony's railing
Gazing at the sky you just know
you just feel the sun setting
And a slight smile creeps up your lips
and you feel the railing's warmth
which has had time to heat up the entire day,
but also its strangely soothing metallic cool.

You just know you're watching a sunset
without watching the sun set—
In the gradient of the sky
blue, then a hint of thunderstorm grey,
soft lamplight orange, then lovely, lovely pink
before finally descending
into the grey-blue of the oncoming night.

The oncoming night,
which does not fall, but rises
Though not before that flock of birds
stops tracing figures-of-eight in the dusk
then zeroes, and gets thinner and thinner
as each bird alights on the 'chosen one' tree,
Not before that lone kite
stops floating in the swirls and eddies
of the streetlight wind,
Not before you finally notice
the mosquitoes in your feet
and wish those powerlines in front of your house
cutting through every view
would just disappear forever,
Not before you still heave a contented sigh
and go back inside,
missing it already.

26th April/ (14/30) / Free verse

Why nature poems

I'm not saying nature will heal you
The cure, after all, depends on the nature of the wound
But being near a tree can give you oxygen anew

Which really isn't much of a breakthrough
When inside your mind, you know you're doomed
So even if it could, nature won't heal you

But you're so exhausted there's nothing you can do
Cry and relate to the songs that melancholy singer crooned
But unlike a tree, it won't give you oxygen anew.

What's wrong with planning a little rendezvous
With the sunset flowers in the park that have bloomed
Don't expect healing— nature can't do that to you

But the colour of that butterfly can blot out your blue
Even if temporarily, it'll pull out the endless thread of gloom
And bonus: the trees will give you oxygen anew.

This dusky horizon that the sun dips into
Can't replace your shrink; without a ship, you're marooned
Stars, animals, nature— it's not their job to heal you
But that tree can surely give you oxygen anew. 

16th April/ (12/30) / Villanelle

La Luna

I am the moon’s reflection

In a murky night puddle

Do I not want to flit among the fireflies?

But I am not the moon

(Though I could be)

Only its flattened image;

Here comes a shoe

Sending ripples through my body.

Vectors

Cycling in the rain today

Instead of a thought experiment, I tried a Physics one.

For a change, it worked-

If I went a certain speed, the rain didn’t drench me.

 

They talk about the beauty of Physics

But you see, the rain is not beautiful

Because of physics-

Vector additions and relative velocities

Could never capture it,

A single arrow and a Greek letter

Just aren’t enough;

Because even though they’re three-dimensional,

The rain isn’t.

This Thunberg-bashing needs to stop

Every time I think a new threshold for stupidity has been set and people couldn’t possibly go beyond that, they do. Always. Without fail.

This time, it’s trolling a 16-year-old girl who’s campaigning against climate change and trying to save the planet.

I am, of course, talking about none other than the braided messiah of climate activists- Greta Thunberg.

So lately, I’ve read a couple of newspaper columns, exclusively by bitter old Indian men, whose sole aim is to bash Greta Thunberg. They say that she is just an immature schoolgirl who knows nothing of world politics whatsoever and her passionate UN speech was a typical juvenile outburst which was aimed at nothing but garnering attention. They say that being white and privileged, and from a first-world country whose per capita carbon emissions stand at a whopping 4.5 metric tons, she has no right to take away the opportunity to a better life for ‘our children’; namely, children in third world countries like India.

Close your eyes and write a poem

Close your eyes and write a poem,

Because sights are beautiful

But god,

Look at the sounds.

Drug

I take a drug
That could put
Methamphetamine to shame
That’s more addictive than morphine
That can get you higher than heroin

It doesn’t make your hair fall
Or your teeth decay
It doesn’t make your liver rot
Or your kidneys stop
But it simulates your brain.

It inspires poetry
Better than weed
Manufactured by nature itself
No chemical reactions- just elemental
Between rainwater and earth
Petrichor.

Kaleidoscopic (haiku)

Rustling leaves filter

Kaleidoscopic sunlight

Emerald gilded

The nameless yellow-flowered tree

When Summer combs her golden locks

And lets a strand fall,

It reaches the earth and seeds

The nameless yellow-flowered tree.