Rain verses

It's monsoon here in India, and there's a whole variety of rain- drizzling, pattering, ramming, sprinkling, pouring, playing the fool, ... 

Here's some impromptu verse influenced by that glorious falling of water from the heavens: 

~

Curtains of rain
glide over
wandering thoughts
hemming them in
then cauterizing
~
The drip of rain
falling steadily
on my nerves
~
Blue sky peeping upon
A rainwashed verdant world
And the same old me.
~
When raindrops become spears
and slam into the ground
Is it old enmity
or several lifetimes of loving
Does even the rain know?
~
Frenzied torrents
bombard rock
and petal

~

Rain soaked Babhul 
sheds a million glittering diamonds
Naughty breeze
~

* Babhul is a tree with tiny tertiary leaves

The Poem

I crafted a poem

with the gleam of a pearl

the salty tang of a teardrop

its length the wisp of hair

tucked behind an earshell.

Some only said-

This is too short.

   ~

Freedom

To some
death is freedom.
To others
breath is.
   ~ 

flotilla

Image courtesy www.Magpietales.blogspot.com

crystal
notes
light
floats
catamarans
carry
melodies
~

(This time round I tried a quick exercise, putting down the first few words that came to mind on seeing the image.)

Monalisa speaking

It's just ... a smile
the kind i'd give you on the street
in passing
at peace with the world
absence-of-thoughts
ready to look upon you kindly
that sort of smile..

(this is a flash poem-in-5-minutes ... might expand, rework later)

Magpie Tales prompt

Sun

Setting Sun
Cable wire
Orange halved

conversations

Half finished conversations
lie smouldering
with might-have-beens

Autumn

I'm waiting..

for a whisper from the wind,

the trembling of earth beneath my hoofs,

the winegold leaf that comes a-twirling.

Then I shall break free

and bolt.

(c) Alaka

Image: courtesy Magpie tales

A lamp unlit

No hellfires blacken its soul
No moth approaches it
to enjoy exquisite agonies of surrender
No Pan to kindle its melodies
or just look at it in wonder.

Though filled to the brim with spirit,
the vital spark eludes it.

~Alaka Yeravadekar

Photo courtesy: Magpie Tales

'Alku's

Gleaming white
silk ribbon
cavorts in the air


(anyone who has seen the Paradise Flycatcher male would know this..)

~

People hanging on
to a door bus
bunch of grapes
(An overcrowded public transport bus in India with people clutching on to the door sides, hanging outside the moving bus!)

 ~

Arjun

For a while
it was just me and the glint
in the shikra’s eye.

© Alaka Yeravadekar

(ref. the story of Mahabharat where Arjun focused solely on the bird's eye as he aimed his arrow. Shikra is the raptor in the photo below.)

By the sea

Like beached whales we stretch
wiggling sand-warmed toes
the breeze slaps hair onto briny lips
a waft of drying silver fish

sometimes the fingers reach
a seashell here, and there
a shard of spilled laughter


© Alaka Yeravadekar