A morning overcast 

With black clouds 

No nimbus! No rains!

Overwhelming moisture though

Locked up with agony-

Undefined agony!

And gradually the sky

Gets light blue- its eyes open and close

Its black tresses are being caressed 

Thrown back carelessly 

From the face 

Rays timidly peep in 

And gradually 

Make room for a bright day!

While I am with the news 

Of this morning and Crystal

Peeps in too!

Fagunahat Haiku 

1. 

Days go by the trains 

Of thoughts riding the winds of 

Change, trees meet and part 

2.

Branches, leaves come close

Embrace, unfold - go apart

Emotion in motion 

3.

Sign of novelty

Spring sings with greenness and growth

Colours in chorus 

4.

We come, stay, pay and 

Be the wings of solitude

Now welcome the change

5.

Colours in the air

Intoxicating outright 

Hearts beat with drumbeats

 

(Fagunahat फगुनहट = The wind that blows during the months of February and March heralding the onset of Spring)

The river

That we swam across

And the river 

That is now 

We are crossing

Have different islands

Of passions, ironies,

Independence and impediments

Those were the days of spring 

And today leaves have started falling

The river that was carrying the green 

On its waves 

The river now is strewn with 

Yellow and dark red leaves

And the dried shanks of bones 

They look young too 

Because they are floating and wet

And sparkling in the water

Of the setting sun!

Even today the birds perched

(The same young birds of the spring)

Are singing on these islands

Even today when the time is on the run!

We

Argue

For

A cause

(Amid false applause)

To appease

(For centuries)

A monster

That loved

To drink

Blood

Only blood

And your blindness-

Self-imposed blindness

Is there to please

That monster

You are unilaterally 

In love with 

You are an epitome 

Of self-destruction

Your wrong education 

Has bestowed on you!

I can see

All this

But helplessly I

Stand alone!

The river

That we swam across

And the river 

That is now 

We are crossing

Have different islands

Of passions, ironies,

Independence and impediments

Those were the days of spring 

And today leaves have started falling

The river that was carrying the green 

On its waves 

The river now is strewn with 

Yellow and dark red leaves

And the dried shanks of bones 

They look young too 

Because they are floating and wet

And sparkling in the water

Of the setting sun!

Even today the birds perched

(The same young birds of the spring)

Are singing on these islands

Even today when the time is on the run!

@akp 2019

Bewilderment

 

Puzzled at the non-completion

Of my various assignments:

Personal, social and academic

I felt that l was imperfect...

Last night I ran into

Fernando Pessoa in my dream,

Puzzled at my bewilderment

He quietly said:

How can you be perfect

In an imperfect world?

And both of us walked away

In search of truth

And Aspirin.

My farewell letter to my colleagues, KSA, 2018

Dear colleagues,

At the very outset, I wish to thank you for your excellent team-work as a result of that I carried out my responsibilities as the in charge of the Department.  Kudos and respects to you all!

I cannot define my emotions at this moment by indulging in sadness, regret or self-pity as I have come to understand that circumstances bring about sudden irrevocable changes in some people’s lives.  I am one of them.

About more than a decade ago, Yemenia Airlines included one of my poems in its flight magazine in both Arabic and English, the following lines are from that poem and these lines, I think you would agree with me, underline my feelings stirred by the present situation without expressing regret or self-pity, but I cannot deny the feeling of sadness as a submerged undercurrent in it.

*Going is like a garden that looks up

To the sky after its full bloom,

An inevitable Everest of an end—

Buoyant, magnificent, rising,

Promising, now you

Carry the bounty with gloom,

In your bosom

Like pearls hidden in

The bottom of the sea,

Inside the shells, scintillating

Like thoughts

In your mind;

Like blood in

Your heart.

Parting and departing are the permanent laws of nature; as Rainer Maria Rilke has very rightly put,   “We live our lives, forever taking leave.”  What all we  “own” is “an Amethyst remembrance”; our cherished memories.

Today we move out more than before as this is an age of global migrations. We, the human beings,  are migratory mammals with memories and dreams, our memories make us live to tell the tale and our dreams make us move further.

And the other significant dimension of this geographical (outer) and personal (inner) stepping forward  is expressed beautifully by someone:

“Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, …one can expect a long wearing away of oneself and an eventual extinction.”  

Goodbye!

With my best regards,

Anil Kumar Prasad

*(Please visit the link for the complete poem: https://www.boloji.com/poem/13002/going-is-like-a-garden)