Day Eighteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 18 Prompt:

Finally, here’s our prompt for the day (optional, as always). When I was growing up, there was a book of poems in my house (I believe it was The Best Loved Poems of the American People) that was heavy on long, maudlin, narrative poems with lots and lots of rhyme – the sort of verse that used to be parodied on Bulwinkle’s Corner. As the twentieth century rolled in, poems like this were relegated to the status of stuff-schoolkids-were-forced-to-memorize, and they plummeted even further into our cultural memory-hole as learning poems by heart fell out of educational currency. But while some work in this style is extremely cringeworthy (I’m looking at you, “Bingen on the Rhine”), they can also be very fun to read. Take, for example, Sadakichi Hartmann’s “The Pirate,”  or Alfred Noyes’s “The Highwayman.” The action is dramatic, there’s lots of emotions, and the imagery is striking.

Today, we don’t challenge you to write all of a long, dramatic, narrative poem, but we invite you to try your hand at writing a poem that could be a section or piece of one. Include rhyme, include unlikely and dramatic scenes (maybe a poem about a bank robbery! Or an avalanche! Or Roman gladiators! Or an enormous ball held by mermaids, where there is an undercurrent (hee) of palace intrigue!) Basically, a poem with the plot of an opera (evil twins! Egyptian tombs! Star-crossed lovers! Tigers for no apparent reason!)

Happy writing!

Of glasses, mermaids and tigers

 

A pair of glasses, once decided to play a trick or two

While on the page, aka screen, letters trembled askew

the one who wore said glasses thought she knew

how to poetry lines in a couplet, even three in a haiku

 

The pair went marching over the moon to a distant shore

where musceley mermaids, high on protein, pulled weights

under the watchful gaze of tigers who wore

sweat bands and addressed each other as mate

 

It was a land like no other,

this land the glasses discovered

far beyond the fogged-up smother

of the never-ending April—that covered

the one who wore them with a strange malaise

she sat like Tutankhamun, unmoved, except

in a mood, in a chair with that away-with-the-fairies gaze

till appeared on her screen---the Queen’s summons, then she leapt

 

to catch the drift, the muse, a thought too flimsy

to crack the day’s prompt—(optional, as always), am of eight

the ploy worked every time and tickled her whimsey

while she blanked and balked, her ego refused to let go of the bait

 

her glasses could bear no more her daily dose of Blah! Blah! Blah!

they hid under a mermaid’s tail but they’d like the world to know

if it were up to them, they’d be rather dancing the Mardi Gras

and whatever comes to the page today is all her, they accept no

blame.

Day Seventeen #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 17 Prompt

And now for our (optional) prompt! Sergio Raimondi’s poem, “Today Matsuo Basho Cooks,” plays on the following haiku by (you guessed it), Matsuo Basho:

Crimson pepper pod!
Add two pairs of wings, and look—
darting dragonfly.

For today’s challenge, write a poem in which you respond to a favorite poem by another poet.

I'm responding to Yosa Buson's haiku for this prompt. I can't say it's my favourite. I like reading Haiku and for the sake of this task I opened Haiku Inspiration at a random page and I knew this was meant to be :)

It pierces my heel

as I walk in the bedroom

my late wife’s comb

Buson from Haiku Inspirations

 

Today, Master Buson is in pain

Heel spurs, the friend said

Plantar Fasciitis, the doctor

 

I push down on golf balls to test my threshold

Sharper the pain, I’m convinced, quicker I’ll heal

 

Teeth have appeared every day in poetry this month

Clouds have teeth, thoughts have teeth, mornings are fanged

 

Even the master’s heel is pricked by teeth on a page I chance upon

The teeth pierce through him, pinning him to the shape of absence

 

Like we pin our flesh, our aching bodies to advice

As if to say, look, something hurts but I don’t know who to ask for help

Ten minutes max, the doctor said, then rest your feet

I sit, nursing my heel, like Buson must have done, making space for grief

 

Day Sixteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 16 Prompt: 

And last but not least, here’s today’s optional prompt. In “Ocean,” Robinson Jeffers delivers an almost oracular, scriptural description of the sea not just as a geographical phenomenon, but a sort of being – old, wise, profound, and able to teach those who want to learn. Today, try writing a poem in which you describe something that cannot speak, and what it has taught or told you.

Happy writing!

 

the impermanence of rain-pools

 

In unleavened corners

where roots of neem and peepul

have enticed the brickwork to rise

like bread,

raindrops assemble

like fans at a concert

noisy, rumbunctious—lit up from within

and pool

 

In March, the neem permitted

her flock of golden fleece

to puddle in the frolic

the leaves lay there like holidaymakers

in resorts in the Maldives

floating belly up

goldening

despite thunder,

despite war

 

It’s April, the pools are back

holding the moon, the sky

a lazy cat, black and white, who’s adopted the

roundest terracotta pot

(home of two basils - purple and sweet)

as her royal perch

does her usual catwalk

its active tail carelessly parts

the waters into two

shimmering truths—

one half peace

the other in flux

 

Like it started, it will end

water will vapour

and I will too

but in the interim, if I choose

I could copy the cat, the leaf, or be

more like the pool—

reflect without clinging

to an image, an idea or a single state of being

Thank you for visiting and for your lovely comments. 

Day Fifteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 15 Prompt

And now for our prompt (optional, as always).  K. Siva Reddy’s poem, “A Love Song Between Two Generations,” weaves together repetitions, questions, and unexpected similes with plain language. The overall effect is both intimate and emotional, producing a long-form meditation on what love is, what it means, and how it acts.  Today, we’d like you to write your own poem that muses on love, but isn’t a traditional love poem in the sense of expressing love between romantic partners.

Love in the times of uncertainty

 

I used to think I have a good core

till I discovered oil wells lying hidden in sandy depths

of all the times I must have birthed, rebirthed

human, cat, caterpillar, ant, lizard

amassing indifference like old wealth

indifferent to everything except accumulation

like rotting jungles, forests, trees

when they succumb

to pressure, and turn fossil

 

One wrong turn

a dig too deep and I tap into my potential

to erupt

erase the eastern sky,

with dark, dense energy

and set ablaze all the edges and all the pages

I have so carefully curated to

document my image—

how I’ve never savoured hot coals of hate on my tongue

never hated anyone—

even if they’ve done me wrong or

called me names because they’re racists are/or misogynists

No. Never. Hate is too heavy a word. Too abrasive.

The reason why we are where we are, I point out

like influencers on Insta, I'm convinced

I'm right.

 

I am all love,

Right?

 

But you’ve shown me my silence—

when I stone wall you

for days.

I can practice indifference like a fundamentalist practises her religion.

 

You, on the other hand, who never learnt how to thread

and alternate words, nods, pauses, concern

thread and alternate

kindness with understanding words

is always there

Always

when my silence is spent

and I return confused

if the lacunae before me

are my outpourings or past karma?

 

You are I are a Venn Diagram

so much of you I see but cannot reach

so much of me you see as a distant mystery

but there is an intersection where your inability to express

overlaps my practised self-preserving-indifference

our two in-actions, in-actives hold hands

in the middle—maybe this is love

 

Or could it be the line

that carves out two circles out of many universes

and places them next to each other

Perfectly

not smothering or othering

just the right amount of oblong

not big, not showy—

maybe, this is love

 

Thank you for stopping by and for your comments.

 

Day Fourteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 14 Prompt

And now for our (optional!) prompt. Poetry is an ancient art, and one that revisits themes that existed thousands of years ago – love, nature, jealousy. But that doesn’t mean that poets live in a sort of pre-history unaffected by technological advances. Emily Dickinson wrote about trains, and I’m rather charmed by this 1981 poem about the “incredible hair” of actors on television. In a more recent example, Becca Klaver’s “Manifesto of the Lyric Selfie” draws inspiration from the contemporary drive to document everything in digital photographs. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that similarly bridges (whether smoothly or not) the seeming divide between poetry and technological advances.

Happy writing!

An Ode to Unopened E-mails

Why do I keep thee?

Two Thousand and Two Hundred Fifty

unopened

emails -

unread, saved, some even spam.

 

I tend to thee like a temple dancer

tends to her tired feet.

She doesn’t stop.

How can she 

when her ankle bells continue

to chime with probabilities?

Born in the gap

between the end

of my fingertips

and the clack of laptop keys

lies a pond -

a pond of possibilities

 

Comfy in my shore-

this Ikea chair with lumbar support,

I watch

the ripples die and birth

beneath days, heavy 

and empty

of acceptance

while grace hovers

like a fidgety dragonfly

flit-flit-flitting fleetingly 

on the surface of an un-min(e)d  pond -

the pond of possibilities

possibilities are deep

deep like a maybe

maybe flirts with memories

memories are pages

pages turn

turn to death

death is wise

wise like a witch

witches pick plants, crack eggs

eggs make cakes

cakes taste nice

 

nice like an unopened mail

mail with a subject line

a line that says:

Congratulations!

Or

You’ve won!

Or

Hot at Fifty!

Or

Or

Or

Like I said, unopened mail

is a pond

A

Pond

Of

Possibilities...

 

Thank you for stopping by.  

Day Thirteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 13 Prompt

To get started with today’s prompt, first read Walter de la Mare’s poem “A Song of Enchantment.” Then, John Berryman’s poem “Footing Our Cabin’s Lawn, Before the Wood.” Both poems work very differently, yet leave you with a sense of the near-fantastical possibilities of the landscapes they describe. Try your hand today at writing your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny strip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned.

Happy writing!

Some of the lines and images in today's poem are borrowed from a work-in-progress piece about my trek in the North Eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh in September 2025. 

spring arrives in the autumn of neem

 

Ajoh, my young Arunachali guide, proclaims,

“The forest will remember your footsteps,”

and places both her palms on dewy drops

cupped in moss

mossmossmosssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss, everywhere

you behold

wave upon verdant wave

like a song on loop

hugging limbs, groins, armpits

thick girths, swinging canopies

of the rainforest trees—

too tall, too ancient, too majestic

to hold

in a single shot,

in a single lifetime

 

“We call them ancestors

and stop in prayer, whenever, wherever,” she says.

 

I follow her lead and sink my palms in the green,

greengreengreengreengreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen moss

drunk on dew, the moss springs up its spongy arms

and I’m held first, then

slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwly I sink

in pre-historic mystery, maybe even God—

my feebles, foibles, falsehoods absorbed 

in between the in-between

 

Afterwards, Ajoh and I will hug

at the edge of the forest

knee deep in muck, mud

and rest our bamboo sticks

against the breasts of this slice of this Himalayan ridge

 

If this were my end

I’d end

in peace

 

Alas!

Pray, pay heed

 

Not long after,

a stupid war will flourish

across the middle of our geography—

to finetune

our sonic sensibilities

we will know how to tell them apart:

missile from thunder,

thunder from drone,

drone from hoover, and

hoover from arrested heartbeat

 

While the doves, the bulbuls, the sparrows and the mynahs

in the patch of green that covers

the continent between our front door and garden wall

will flock in shock, all at once at am of thirty past three

and our tree of neem will beseech

its fleece of golden leaves

to not let go

just yet,

to not tremble like bells

in temples, churches, schools

From my window I will watch

our neem raise her arms to the heavens

in prayer

 

What religion, pray tell, is neem?

Arunachal

Ajoh 

Day Twelve #Na/GloPoWriMo

 Day 12 Prompt: 

 Amarjit Chandan has a pretty wild biography, but his poetry is often focused on place and memory – with his hometown of Nakodar appearing repeatedly. His poem “Uncle Mohan Singh” recounts, with a sort of dreaminess, a memory of the titular uncle playing the accompaniment to a silent film. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.

Happy writing!

As soon as I saw the title of Amarjit Chandan's poem, I knew I could only write about my uncle, Chacha. This is a straightforward pouring. Thank you for reading.

  

Khem Chacha 

 

My first memory of Chacha is sweet and fluffy

like freshly bought pineapple pastry,

One for Seema.

One for me.

 

We were five and four and Chacha, twenty.

In his Chacha voice—as clear as a math subtraction

2 – 2 = 0

he said, I could afford only two.

Eat them in your room.

 

There was a power cut that night. No one in our joint-family

noticed our creamy moustaches

as we sat down for dinner,

on my grandmother’s kitchen floor.

 

Chacha loved us like his own.

Even after he graduated college,

got married and was blessed

with two daughters 

of his own.

 

Home, after our mother died

was Chacha’s corner shop.

Hardboiled candies and 2- minute Maggi

noodles--sustenance enough to manoeuvre

our step mother.

 

In November 2024,

Chacha said on a  Zoom call—

Now that I’ve seen you,

I’ll live a hundred years.

 

I woke up the next day,

with a strange taste of

my cousin’s WhatsApp words

that would reach me later.

 

I knew before

my phone pinged.

 

Soon after the zoom call, 

he asked the priest to place him on the floor.

My cousin’s words stayed sprinkled

like icing sugar

undisturbed

on a slice of cake, one saves for later,

for many days.

 

Notes:

When death is imminent, Hindus place the person on a clean mat on the floor as it is believed that it helps the spirit to reconnect with the earth's energy for a smooth transition to the next life.