A ghazal

Well who would you blame 

When rigged is this game 

All of us are brutes 

And no one to tame

You call them the thugs

In parts you’re the same

When questions get tough 

Say what’s in the name

The rest were all gone

I muted the flame

.

Anant Dhavale

Speak

We speak with each other like protagonists from

Existential novels, in 

Long winded laments of self exploratory 

Monologues 

Never letting our guards down

We speak out of some urgent newfound

Necessity 

This very recent happenstance of some

Spiritual upheaval that cannot be contained

We speak in a language of low-tide sandlings

Eager for some orgasmic apocalypse of the 

Illusive inner world.

We speak — fully knowing words are energy that

Cannot be redeemed

..

Anant Dhavale

Waking

woke up in a dream wondering if this is real or that which passed

..

Anant Dhavale

Autumn Buddha

Your radiance would have swayed me
Another day, another time

But today
I am content 
Watching leaves fall
From a distance

Orange, red, brown
Colors of an autumn Buddha.

—

Anant Dhavale

Haiku - recent / random

 I woulda bought your book

but it was a hot New York evening 

and all I needed was more beer

..

monday night 

in the tavern of loneliness 

revelers drink to sadness

..

coastal town

the sun, frozen 

in a haze of time

..

a bird, perched up high

in a tree — feels the truth

it cannot explain 

..

your evocative eyes

let me know when 

to stop talking 

..

cloudy morning 

something flaps in the wind

a subdued beginning 

..

this one goes up-town

with a hub-bub of people

and their belongings 

..

a primal train scream

shards strewn astray

summer, in its full glory 

..

patter of raindrops 

like a stranger’s knock 

click clickety click

..

rainy morning wraps

the metropolis in a mist

of being and nothingness 

..

spring falters 

on the banks of 

returning cold

..

blue blue blue

a certain cold hue

my eyes won’t discern 

..

beautiful girl 

in a sub-urban metro

a dance of light and shadows 

..

sub-urban night 

slow jazz of stars

sky, a purple unfazed 

..

soft sounds of rain

a quiet evening

sleep — a distant corridor 

..

driving in rain

on quiet long nights 

the blue hum of time

..

imagination is 

a boat — weather torn

forlorn

..

soon we will forget 

the blizzards, the frost

such flows time

..

and there I see her

like a ray of sunshine

a soothing breeze 

..

like a relic of the past

a thought remains frozen 

waiting for the thaw 

..

cold cold nights 

amber hazy skies

myths re-spoke 

..

Anant Dhavale

( These, like most poems here are raw and in the making. I edit and re-edit poems before they get published anywhere.)

Gipsy

 I was spiritually more aware as a 
 Young person than I am now
 What really happened to me —
 The world sucked me in? 
 Did I nurture too many aspirations? 
  
 I say ambition isn’t wrong
 But you should know if it’s for you 
 Sooner or later 
 A vagabond Gipsy inside of you
 Admonishes you for being 
 This involved.
  
 But here’s the thing 
 Nothing and no one can solve this puzzle
 Not a careless screw-up
 Not a person of the world
 Everybody is as fucked up as you are —
  
And that mere thought is oddly comforting. 

**

 

Anant Dhavale

Rhythm

 WIP - Part of a long poem

Rhythm: Tap, Cling, Tap, Tap, Lapse.

The empty vase lacked the glory of voluminous red roses – so they filled it up, with a dozen

of red. In Eastern cultures, similar large jars are used for pickled fruits. Bright and brown, almost olive, fruit preserved in natural oils. Time attached to things and Places. Food, flowers. Culture travels through your feet, the journey you make. Eliot’s magi Were pilgrims. Every breath is a pilgrimage, reverential, feared too. Pour some water into your vases so the flowers won’t wither away, use the flower food that came with the dozen. Dozen – one of those words with a feeling, a brazen sonorous hum. Nature to hand-made, akin to the flow of time. Sheepish wind can bring stranger aromas, relinquished languages, and grained stances, in a way meddling.  If those ignorant feet stepped into puddles – there would be splashes, sounds, and stains - by-products of journeys. Flowers become proclivities turned into meditations of loss and learning, some bespoke knowledge wide open for interpretations. Awareness a burden, for heaving chests.

Rhythm: Lapse, Tap, Cling, Tap, Tap.

An inconsequential post-rain night, the neighborhood gone quiet, no droning of fans, no music from televisions. Radios gone quiet for the night. Crickets – incessant sounds, swelling up to the blue, dark blue, bluer expanse. Almost eight and forty, but a memory like some vain lunacy refuses to die. Eight and forty, but the number is a made-up notion. The blind won’t go all the way down, an opportunistic light peers through frosty glass. Her ways are brisk, but strangely her smile idles on my mind in a luscious way, those hazel green eyes with all the power to fetch in arousal – not absolute but a distinct possibility. Bereft of senses, pushing aside the sane – the right thing to do. More far than close, as abstract as it could be. Who is to say -- that finding something at random is foretellable?

Rhythm: Lapse, Tap, Cling, Cling, Cling, Cling, Tap.

The sense of failing underwrites sermons of loss and findings. A fantastical tale of molecules, the energy an unwavering constant. 

Anant Dhavale