Springtime Desolation

From our fancy cars to our cozy homes, filled to the brim with things of comfort 
and instantaneous joys, what hounds us - what emptiness hoovers our lives.

we boast of our wisdom and marvel at our heavy, expensive volumes
of Homer and Plato and Emily and Gandhi.
Decorated tombs of men and women of yore. 

we meet at poetry readings and laugh and drink and squeeze energy from
the newly supple spring air.
Breathe us the mirth.

this could be the New York School of Poetry of our times or the immigrant
generation of the Beats. Or a nothinger in a sea of other nothingnesses. 

nights are blue and virile, ripe with sparkling charms.
And stars are good at being the deadbeat masses of gas and dirt. 

but the emptiness still hounds us.  

*

Anant Dhavale

(This poem was recently published in the “This Broken Shore” magazine. )

A Ghazal

 A Ghazal

In heart's alleys, a singular halo of sadness remains

In a little nook of mind, a lingering darkness remains

Forgotten shores, lapping and frothing waves, warmer banks of sands
Memory's broken figment, a shadowy lightness remains

I’ve been what I’ve been, a stranger and a wanderer even
Not her though, like steadfast angelic light, her kindness remains

Under the canopy of countless stars and a brighter moon
A doubt lurks, a question hums and hums, a lonesomeness remains

How we have walked along these uncertain and weary roads
And though the perils are forgotten, the awareness remains

__

Anant Dhavale

(I wrote this Ghazal in simple syllabic verse to match the cadence the genre requires..)