The Poetry Marathon

In Bihari marriages,

the ‘mandap‘ is graced with bamboo trees,

since bamboo is the fastest growing grass.

And isn’t the intent of marriage to sanctify the

process of proliferation through progeny?

It’s said, ‘in some native languages…’

‘I sleep when I breathe, is the same as

I breathe when I sleep.’

In this mad, mad, mad tea-party often

the Hatter has to induce a semi-coma, an invitation

to help one breathe.

Strange how, one has to now, sleep

to live.

To breathe.

TIMES you have spent with me

OF moments, sweet and of harmony,

WORST and so filled with agony,

THE partings and despondency.

WAS it worth the effort, the intimacy?

IT was, it was my dear honey.

A slain creature, a blade of mean

material driven through an unfeeling heart,

a monument to the macabre and the maleficent.

A dwelling of demonic incubus, that which

torments the fantasy of innocent youth,

and where ‘ ’tis forever brillig’.

An abode where another, a frumpy and ruinous

monster still resides.

The one that was ignored and a volucrine mate.

Venture with caution if you will,

it is nonsense only if one does not respect

the depths and depravity a mind can abjure to.

These journeys we take, together, apart,

voyages in time, in the spatio-temporal  vastness of possibilities,

The return is always sweet.

From the morning that broke, like the first morning,

you are still afar; and out of synchronicity.

And I still wheedle and wheel,

a droning beetle out of sight.

Moss gathers the stonewall of a cottage in its arms;

The strange heat in the lung of a firefly

sets the treeline aflame with actinic light,

There is the lethargy of a lotus-eaters vision that will zoom on

the mask the night covers the scene with.

A bottle rolls and clatters on the wooden floor as the bowl of porridge, untouched, untasted

grows colder…

Tiger! Tiger! Burning bright,

in the forest – poachers delight!

Such is the ferocious feline’s plight,

out-gunned, out-numbered, out of sight.

What immortal hand or eye,

could Orion’s intent defy!

Trapped in wire, a caged cry,

challenge my perceptions sensory.

In the quietude of night, still waters of the bight,
an unheard whisper, a sensible respite.

Three seasons of sound,
one raft, one roar and one reason abound

An unhurried awakening,
a wafting in of all that is salubrious and sylvan.

The defenestration of belched acrimony,
even as there is a whiff of osmotic wholesomeness near at hand.

A mindless meandering, a rambling ratiocination,
a souk soaked in succulent serendipity.

Cassiopeia on a lost, listless horizon and copper-coloured, cloudy, cocktail skies.

You…and the non-intrusive and natural night.

A panoply of twig, sprig and leaves,

a canopy of stars, a cavalcade to celebrate,

an arcade of variegated brollys,

a wooden heart to elate.

A soaring, a gliding, eliding an entry

and an exit to exhilarate…