Saturday, October 11, 2025

imagine peace

what are you afraid of

i am not afraid that robots
will displace humans but that
humans will imitate machines
kill without remorse or guilt 
because killing is remote now
The term enemy does not 
distinguish between military
and civilians between adults
and children because children
will grow up to become enemies
so genocide is justified as futuristic
Killing the enemy young so that
there is no enemy in the future
why can't there be peace so that
there is no enemy only neighbours
of the same wretched species facing
the same life that disappears like a
dream so unfairly after all that turmoil
uncertainty despair and occasional 
flashes of fugacious joy clouded by fear
why can't peace be imagined, goodness
be imagined, evil forgiven and banished
from the heart that craves a little peace
and more peace and still more peace
so that children can laugh and play
without fear and eat when they are hungry
and sleep without waking to air-raid sirens

Thursday, October 2, 2025

two rainbows

can you go back to the dream 

that woke you up when it was 
meant to wake you up the sky 
is adust like someone woken up 
mid-sleep how would it be to be 
able to wipe it clean make it blue 
again what if there were two rainbows
forming like yesterday and vanishing 
before many could see it and wonder
the clouds are moving taking the rain
elsewhere giving the day back to the sun
in the dream you were running late and not
finding transport to your distant workplace
and when you managed to reach it there
was some blinking robot in your place.






Thursday, September 18, 2025

Hail Mary

Through the umbrella the rain

Drips on my head and does not
Mind falling on a balding pate
That does not look like growing
Back again for all the herbal oil
Smeared lovingly on it every day
I secretly wanted to get wet like
This, not enough to catch a cold
Yet enough to remember it by ----
I have run out of drops meant
To prevent dryness of the eyes
Brought on by endless gazing at
That take the mind away
From all that is falling off ----
I loftily look at all those taking
Shelter before wayside shops
The Mary shrine is all lit up for
Her weeklong festival close on
The heels of the Mari temple fete ---
I pray to both when I stir out
And when I come back unscathed
Not without wondering when it will be 
When I have to leave and never come back.









Saturday, September 13, 2025

Fresh from the past

On a cloudy day the dysania

Is a given though the seatherny
Seems to suggest some days
Can be forgiven for their slowness
The distance of the native city
Vanishes and the feet stand by
The lake as the sun slowly rises
Making the heart feel happily warm
The childhood friend soon joins me
With his fishing tackle to spend hours
Catching sunlight and singing songs
That probably kept the wary fish away
Stern faces pop up now and then with
Gratuitous advice not to while away time
We laugh at them and time laughs with us
The feet return juvenescent and I am ready to
Enter the world with eyes fresh from the past.



Monday, September 8, 2025

Shading long-distance

The moon is being eaten by the earth
Or so it seems when its shadow
Takes away all the satellite's glow
In another city we returned home
Through almost deserted streets
Had a meal against the neighbour's
Dire warnings and something else
Without any significant consequences
Tonight the slow-moving clouds cannot
Keep away and keep hiding the show
What shade is this, blood red or copper?
The flatness turns to spherical as my son
Keeps coming back to the balcony 
The full orb makes the spectacle more
Dramatic than it is but no less wondrous
Even when it is no more out of reach it is
As if we have now all made a landing there.


Wednesday, September 3, 2025

Tears are too human

The world keeps disappearing 

From me in little baby steps 
The child has grown up into
New times that I cannot enter
His room is full of music more
In step with the feet than the heart
The traffic races from stop to stop
In a pace faster than I would like
Destinations arrive too soon saving
Time I do not know what to do with
The distance grows and speeds increase
The slow feet cannot but be left behind
The garbage bins pile up with the useless
Machines are feted till they are outdated
Tears are frowned upon as too human
Night embraces all whose suns have set.

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Liminal

The evening light is blue and black

Between day and night lingers the dusk
In a liminal place of a thousand sighs
What has been lost is more than a day
A love is buried again and mourned again
What can't be tugs once more at the heart 
A desire comes begging and is sent away
Amid all the noise of the traffic a sense of 
Death and silence hangs in the dusty air
The signal is red and comes with a hearteen
This is a time of timeless longing and ache
But we can't stop for long and lament
While waiting for the light to turn green
This pang of grief must be primordial
What the caveman felt when the sun set ---
The city picks up and flees into the night.